The Gulf War Illness Breakthrough and why it Matters to ME/CFS/FM and long COVID
For decades years it was a medical mystery. For many years it wasn't even believed to exist. Thirty-two years after hundreds of thousands of vets came down with Gulf War Illness (GWI), though, we now know what caused it. Militarily, the First Gulf War was pretty much...
Long-COVID Exercise Study Points to Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Twitchy Muscles
Long-COVID exercise study brings it closer to ME/CFS - and suggests a wholesale shift in muscle production may have occurred. People with long COVID will appreciate this study's attempt to get at perhaps the core problem in the condition - energy production....
Healing Chronic Pain? An Update on the NIH’s $2 Billion HEAL Project to End Chronic Pain
"If you think research is expensive, try disease."—Mary Lasker (NIGMS, 2011) If any medical field needs help, it's chronic pain. It's remarkable, indeed, that the treatment options for a field that affects so many and has such huge economic and human costs still...
Exploring New Worlds: MEAction’s “Chronic Illness Survey Adventure” Casts a Wide Net
Last week Health Rising highlighted one role that #MEAction, in its capacities as a superb communication resource, provides: outreach to the scientific community. Today we focus on a surprising side of MEAction: as a generator of scientific data. MEAction doesn't have...
Seeing ME/CFS: Creating the First Mouse Models for the Disease
The thousands of mouse models that have been produced have played a critical role in understanding and developing drugs for diseases. Guess which disease, though, does not have one? That's right it's ME/CFS. For 40 years it's been missing a critical component of any...
Success! Nath Reports the Big ME/CFS Intramural Study Points to Possible Treatment Options
Avindra Nath reports the intensive NIH intramural ME/CFS study achieved its goal: finding consistent biological abnormalities that point to possible treatment options. You might be forgiven for thinking that #MEAction is "just" an advocacy organization. If you're on...
A Herpesvirus for Fibromyalgia? Active Herpes Simplex Virus Found in FM Patients’ Guts
A surprising herpesvirus virus shows up in fibromyalgia patients' guts However similar the symptom presentations of fibromyalgia (FM) and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) are, their research pathways have been fairly distinct, with FM researchers focusing more on the...
Immune Cells May Be Killing the Small Nerve Fibers in Fibromyalgia
Study suggests natural killer cells are whacking the small nerve fibers in fibromyalgia After decades of surveying chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) literature, the study, "Unbiased immune profiling reveals a natural killer cell-peripheral nerve...
Natural Ways to Get Better Sleep, Heal the Gut, Reduce Pain on Tap in the Fibromyalgia Summit
If you're into alternative ways of treating fibromyalgia, Dr. Roger Murphree's second Fibromyalgia Summit from May 16th-22nd might be the ticket. Murphree is a longtime fibromyalgia (FM) doctor and author of the well-reviewed Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and...
