h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I tell you what, it's about bloody time somebody looked at mitochondrial action in relation to CFS.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4702515.stm

One thing bothers me: if they do develop a blood test for this illness (and I so hope they do), what about those sufferers whose tests come back as 'normal'? Will all those years of fighting to be believed be for nothing? Will they / we have our benefits stopped? Will we be told once again by doctors that our condition is imaginary?

to look.

It's about as imaginary as my salpingitis was, they only said "hmm" when i had a lump the size of a tennis ball, up till then i "was being hysterical" & Valium was the treatment of choice.

zdt

Can we put this on De Myelin nation as mant folks there have this.

zdt

I just looked up 'salpingitis'. Ouch! Jeez, doctors can be thick.

Of course you can.

sorry, not typing too well tonight, little finger is protesting aginst too much activity making boxes!

i meant "many"; link to De Myelin Nation is...grooh dunno, it's on my PS under the alien!

zdt

I didn't realise you hadn't already seen that. I should have emailed you instead of just blogging elsewhere. Thoughtless of me. Anyhow, it's a lot closer than they've been before (apart from that US group which found something about a decade ago but then went quiet) and is in line with the things I'd been telling them, though they are still missing a few bits.

CFS has always been an interesting grab bag of "funny disease, we don't know" so even if some people don't test for this particular instance of it, the syndrome will stil exist and be as provable as it was before.

It will really depend on how many people test positive out of the whole group, and whether testing positive actually does anything for anyone.

Sef, I had heard about it a week or two ago, but I've only just got round to mentioning it here. Yes, it's a lot like stuff you were saying to me last year.

It's great to see some people looking into something other than the relationship between CFS and depression. Power to their elbows.

Sea Change, the scientists (and so far, the media) are pointing out that the test might not work for every sufferer. What concerns me is oversimplification by government bodies funding treatment, and by GP's who don't have time to look into the thing properly. (Do you call 'em GP's in America?) But then, perhaps enough of us will shout about it for that not to happen.

I can see the reason for potential future concern... Once one expaination for something unusual comes up, doctors and the like can forget that it's not the only cause... and just as bad they can forget as a group, that there's more than one of tackling something...

How true. The problem is that having stuff like this is *bound* to make you depressed, i had one GP say to me "if you are *not* depressed, that means you are far from normal, which is even worse"

can't bloody win!!!

zdt

That depends on whether you regard their version of normal as a good thing. You shouldn't accept their judgement uncritically.

Yup. If you've a physical problem that you can learn to live with, it's got to be pretty difficult to remain depressed the *whole* time. Not to mention boring.

Welcome back, SEF! Yup, i find depression pretty depressing & can't keep it up for any length of time, i just revert back to being pi**ed off, which is totally different.

zdt*oh what the hell*

Mmm... being described as 'weird' is a wonderful compliment.