Triggering ME/CFS / Fibromyalgia - What Triggers Relapses In You?

List The Top Five Things That Cause Flares or Relapses for You

  • Too much physical activity

    Votes: 58 95.1%
  • Too much mental activity

    Votes: 33 54.1%
  • Poor sleep

    Votes: 24 39.3%
  • Chemicals - exposures to airborne factors including mold and EMF's

    Votes: 6 9.8%
  • Foods

    Votes: 11 18.0%
  • Standing up - remaining standing for too long of a period

    Votes: 32 52.5%
  • Emotional stress

    Votes: 37 60.7%
  • Increased temperature

    Votes: 9 14.8%
  • Longer lasting social interactions

    Votes: 35 57.4%
  • Changes in weather

    Votes: 12 19.7%
  • Not pacing

    Votes: 24 39.3%
  • Exciting News (!)

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 3.3%

  • Total voters
    61

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
[fright]
danger-and-risk.jpg
[/fright]We all know that certain things can trigger relapses in ME/CFS and FM but for some reason nobody has done a detailed statistical analysis to determine what those things could be. A recent study did sophisticated statistic analyses on triggers using the diaries of migraine patients. It found that a wide array of possible triggers showed up - many of which are probably unknown to the migraineurs. It was able to identify a possible trigger in 87% of migraine patients.

A similar study would probably show much in ME/CFS and FM. Imagine if you could definitively determine your triggers and avoid them as much as possible?

What triggers increased symptoms or relapses for you? Do you feel that you know your triggers or are they a mystery to you?

(If the poll is missing a common trigger for you I can add a few more.)

"By analyzing cases on an individual basis, we are able to provide medicine that is tailored to the individual circumstances of each patient. The need for this approach, hitherto uncommon in medical studies, was recently emphasized in the leading journal Nature."

The Migraine Study

The study identified a possible trigger factor in 87% of the patients.

Triggers for migraine attacks determined for individual patients

(Vienna, 07 June 2016) Migraine is the third commonest disorder in the world and ranks sixth amongst more than 300 diseases when it comes to the burden it represents.

"Determining the factors that trigger migraine attacks is an important, albeit difficult, step in managing migraine," explains Christian Wöber, head of the section specializing in headaches at MedUni Vienna's Department of Neurology. Reliable indications cannot be obtained merely by asking sufferers but rather they need to keep detailed records in a diary and this data must then undergo complex statistical analysis in order to be able to treat migraine on an individual basis. This is precisely what a new study has shown.

The Headache Working Group at MedUni Vienna is one of the world leaders in researching migraine trigger factors and has aroused the interest of the US start-up "Curelator", which is helping to develop an app for identifying migraine triggers. The collaboration between MedUni Vienna and this company has given rise to a study recently published in the leading journal "Cephalalgia".

The study used data from MedUni Vienna to investigate a completely new approach for analyzing migraine trigger factors. For the first time, the trigger factors responsible for a migraine attack were not determined for a collective but rather separately for each individual patient.

Wöber: "By analyzing cases on an individual basis, we are able to provide medicine that is tailored to the individual circumstances of each patient. The need for this approach, hitherto uncommon in medical studies, was recently emphasized in the leading journal Nature."

Individual correlation between migraine triggers and attacks

The current study published in Cephalalgia therefore compared the individual case analyses with the overall analysis for the entire study population. The surprising, but at the same time practical, finding: from the population of 326 patients who kept a detailed diary for 90 days, it was possible to identify possible migraine triggers in 87% of sufferers by performing personalized analyses.

On average, there were four possible trigger factors for each participant. According to the MedUni Vienna experts, “What was unexpected was that the individual profile of possible trigger factors was extremely variable and was unique in 85% of patients. Each of the 33 migraine trigger factors investigated correlated with migraine attacks, in at least some of the patients". However, in the overall analysis of all 326 volunteers, this was only the case for eight of the factors.

That means: by far the largest proportion of patients were found to have individual triggers, which could not be identified in the overall analysis of all patients. Wöber explains: “For the very first time, this new analysis therefore provides information about the correlation between migraine attacks and a broad spectrum of possible trigger factors for each individual patient and is therefore a step towards personalized migraine management."

Service: Cephalalgia

“Towards improved migraine management: determining potential trigger factors in individual patients.” Peris F, Donoghue S, Torres F, Mian A, Wöber C. Cephalalgia 2016, May 14. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27179352.
 
Last edited:

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
[fright]View attachment 1667 [/fright]We all know that certain things can trigger migraines and relapses in ME/CFS and FM but for some reason nobody has done a detailed statistical analysis to determine what those things could be. A recent study did sophisticated statistic analyses on the diaries of migraine patients. It found that a wide array of possible triggers showed up - many which are probably unknown to the migraineurs.

A similar study would probably show much in ME/CFS and FM.

Absent that - what triggers increased symptoms or relapses for you? Do you feel that you know your triggers?

The Migraine Study

The study identified a possible trigger factor in 87% of the patients.
For me I suspect there are triggers I am now aware of. I have had, for instance, nights with poor sleep after which I did pretty good and nights with good sleep after which I didn't do so well...

Different triggers cause different things....

Food triggers cause things like bloating... Physical exercise causes hot burning muscles, irritability and fatigue and cognitive problems. Too much mental exercise causes flu-like symptoms...

One of my stranger ones is the coffee dust in Starbucks....I have trouble taking deep breathes or thinking well after awhile...

Then there's the weirdness of getting exciting news... and getting discombobulated...
 
Last edited:

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
The problem with listing mold is that practically nobody knows that they are being exposed unless they do a purposeful "sabbatical" away from their usual environment.
I agree!
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
So far physical stress is winning - that sure makes sense to me - with emotional stress next. Physical stress is the most obvious factor to me but I've come to realize that emotional stress is in there as well - it's just not as evident for me.
 

San Diego

Well-Known Member
Only 5? ;)

Basically, anything out of my strict, quiet, calm, restful routine will crash me unless I’ve prepared with lots of extra rest well in advance.

I fought it for years, but finally gave in to pacing. the boom-bust literally nearly killed me.
 

Beth from Oz

Active Member
I definitely get worse from physical, mental and emotional exertion of any kind. I can't play moving computer games anymore as it hurts my brain. I can still play solitaire and simple games on my iPad, as long as the brightness is on the lowest setting.

I put a tick in "other" because often what really sets me back is catching a virus of one kind or another. It's taken me a year to get back to my admittedly low "normal" functioning after catching last years flu.

I'm also affected by extreme weather such as very hot, very cold and especially humid weather. Not good since I live in one of the wettest parts of my country. In summer any days over 35c are killers for me, and over 30c makes me feel ill. I didn't add it as it would have been the sixth box ticked.

I am leery of mold. We do have a little on the outside of our house, but thankfully our landlords painted the inside with mold-resistant paint. It took forever for us to find an affordable place with no carpets and fresh pained walls. My sleep and asthma improved as soon as we moved. So avoiding mold is helpful, but doesn't cure.
 

Cort

Founder of Health Rising and Phoenix Rising
Staff member
Only 5? ;)

Basically, anything out of my strict, quiet, calm, restful routine will crash me unless I’ve prepared with lots of extra rest well in advance.

I fought it for years, but finally gave in to pacing. the boom-bust literally nearly killed me.
;););)

I'm finally giving into pacing more too...I wish I had done it 30 years ago.....it's so much better to Pace. I think my ME/CFS/FM was just not severe enough to force me to give it more attention....That was the bright side as well though...

Some of us are slow learners...:depressed:
 

San Diego

Well-Known Member
;););)

I'm finally giving into pacing more too...I wish I had done it 30 years ago.....it's so much better to Pace. I think my ME/CFS/FM was just not severe enough to force me to give it more attention....That was the bright side as well though...

Some of us are slow learners...:depressed:
As I’ve always said, pacing is totally against human nature and defies all previous knowledge and logic.

I wonder if there’s actually anyone who actively paced when they were mild. I didn’t. Moderate? Nope. Not till I was severe, and even then it took years of suffering to finally give in.

I also wonder if I would have paced had I been diagnosed while mild. I somehow don’t think so. I was smarter, faster, stronger than other people (ha!) and was going to figure this thing out and beat it.

The rest is history. It beat me.
 

Seeksassy

Active Member
Haha! Me too...when told this is chronic, that it would never go away, I thought ... you don't know me! How tough I am, how strong, etc. Took me 3 years to believe fm was "real" and that I had it and it wasn't going anywhere. Pacing is easily my most important treatment. A bad trigger for me that's not listed is cold temperatures. And I live in Edmonton Alberta, with long cold winters.
 

Ellen915

New Member
The problem with listing mold is that practically nobody knows that they are being exposed unless they do a purposeful "sabbatical" away from their usual environment.

I had a mold test done on my apartment. I used the kit from Mycometrics recommended by the shoemaker protocol. It cost about $300. Which was a lot but I feel like I can cross that off the list now. It was the same with getting the more expensive Igenex Lyme test. Now I can cross both of those off as causes.

As for triggers, emotional stress is my big one. Doing too much. Being around people who talk too much. Researching my illness too much. Going to expensive alternative practitioners and paying too much only to come away doubting their professionalism. Worrying about money. So really all of those are emotional stress. Lol. Sigh.
 
Last edited:

TigerLilea

Well-Known Member
Physical activity is definitely my trigger. Having said that, I don't pace at all. When I have energy I go for it, and when I crash, I rest for a few days and get back at it. However, resting for me doesn't mean being bed bound. I don't garden or hop of my treadmill. But I'm still up and moving around.
 
Only 5? ;)

Basically, anything out of my strict, quiet, calm, restful routine will crash me unless I’ve prepared with lots of extra rest well in advance.

I fought it for years, but finally gave in to pacing. the boom-bust literally nearly killed me.
I agree, only 5? also I suspect the triggers would be different for ME or FM, how about one to define
Only 5? ;)

Basically, anything out of my strict, quiet, calm, restful routine will crash me unless I’ve prepared with lots of extra rest well in advance.

I fought it for years, but finally gave in to pacing. the boom-bust literally nearly killed me.
 

Shanti

Member
Only 5? ;)

Basically, anything out of my strict, quiet, calm, restful routine will crash me unless I’ve prepared with lots of extra rest well in advance.

I fought it for years, but finally gave in to pacing. the boom-bust literally nearly killed me.
Agreed, I could have chosen more than 5 and still been accurate. Also sometimes, I have no idea what causes the relapse it just happens.......
 

Get Our Free ME/CFS and FM Blog!

New Threads

Forum Tips

Support Our Work

DO IT MONTHLY

HEALTH RISING IS NOT A 501 (c) 3 NON-PROFIT

Shopping on Amazon.com For HR

Latest Resources

Top