Saturday, March 04, 2006

Woohoo for CFS sufferers!!

Some of you would probably know that when I was around 9 I got CFS - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I'm 95% recovered from it now (I still get the foggy brain type symptoms and tiredness effects me a fair bit, but I don't know if that's just me anyway :P) which I feel pretty lucky about because for a lot of people it can be much worse than how it was, and last a lot longer. But ANYWAY there's a good chance that you've known someone with CFS or heard about it in some form, and you may be familiar with the 'real, not real' sort of debate about it because scientists have found it hard to find physical 'proof' apart from lists of common symptoms or circumstances. BUT read this article, I was so excited when I read it. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but theres so much stigma about CFS, and a lot of sufferers find it so frustrating when they can't put a label on what they've got and think they're going crazy, or it's just all in the mind (Leigh Hatcher's book 'I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just a Little Unwell' explains his experiences of that particularly well and honestly) that reading something like this is a huge relief, and a big breakthrough.

" Brain injury linked to chronic fatigue

New research into chronic fatigue syndrome suggests that it may be caused by temporary brain injuries resulting from a bout of glandular fever.
Australian scientists have monitored the health of people infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever.
Professor Andrew Lloyd, from the University of New South Wales, says they have found that those who go on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome are likely to have suffered trauma to the brain during their illness.
"It's an injury in the sense that it wasn't there - people were perfectly well - something in the acute phase of the illness went wrong and then it slowly recovers like a broken arm or a broken leg," he said.
"It's just that in this case its taking weeks to months rather than days or quicker."
Professor Lloyd says the findings show that chronic fatigue syndrome is a real condition.
"I personally have never had a doubt that it's real because there are people who have got a set of symptoms that are unexplained," he said.
"The real versus not real thing is often caught up in the mistaken notion about malingering or it's all depression but really there's no evidence to support that.
"So in a nutshell yes, it clearly supports the argument that it's real." "

1 comment:

Lib said...

i saw that in the paper the other day, very cool and interesting. its always comforting (and confirming... even tho thats not the right word) to know that something isnt just in your mind.