#immune dysfunction

[willowreader]

Long COVID Lung Damage and Immune Dysfunction Across the Lifespan: Jerry Krishnan, MD, PhD | AJMC

Jerry A. Krishnan, MD, PhD, discusses NIH RECOVER findings on long COVID, pulmonary complications, and immune dysfunction at ATS 2026.

Researchers have known what Covid is capable of for years. I think anyone who knows what Covid can do is very tired of trying to warn others.

[innerharmonywellnes]

Immune Dysfunction

[larryhbernsteinme]

Deep Learning for In-silico Drug Discovery and Drug Repurposing: Artificial Intelligence to search for molecules boosting response rates in Cancer Immunotherapy: Insilico Medicine @John Hopkins University

Deep Learning for In-silico Drug Discovery and Drug Repurposing: Artificial Intelligence to search for molecules boosting response rates in Cancer Immunotherapy: Insilico Medicine @John Hopkins University

Deep Learning for In-silico Drug Discovery and Drug Repurposing: Artificial Intelligence to search for molecules boosting response rates in Cancer Immunotherapy: Insilico Medicine @John Hopkins University

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

Insilico Medicine –>>> transcriptome-based pathway perturbation analysis

Insilico Medicine, Inc. is a bioinformatics company located at the Emerging Technology…

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[erichschmidt615]

Mycoplasma Unearthed

Here is the original article:

            June 21st, 1999

            For most of this decade, I suffered horribly from the profoundly devastating effects of Chronic Fatigue (Immune Dysfunction) Syndrome {CFS}.  It is a disease that, by the accounts of many sufferers I’ve known, pummels you into utter exhaustion, and keeps beating you from there. CFS gave me six plus years of hell and hopelessness that pains me to put into words.  My earliest knowledge of CFS involved a symptomatically diverse flu-like illness that is the direct result of a severely malfunctioning immune system.  Personally, I had low and unpredictable energy, heavy legs, a sore throat, muscle aches, anxiety, depression, and severe sleep difficulties.  I was “sick all over”; essentially, a vital young man shot down in his physical prime. 

            Apparently, I had an alien illness.  The many doctors, all with outmoded information, had no answers or insight.  So I had no hope.  Neither did millions of others like me, who sucked daily on a fragment of their lives.  Repeatedly I heard the cautions, that I may have to live “as is”; as damaged goods, in other words.  But not me; not this fighter.  I kept my eyes and ears open and continued doing research.  I wasn’t looking for the best coping method.  I demanded a cure.

            In 1995 I found a naturopath.  His recommendations gave me much of my health back, and gave me hope.  Since I began seeing him, I have been able to cope.  I discovered a world of natural medicine that alleviated many of my worst symptoms and helped control most of the others.  But I suffered still.  I was energy depleted, and therefore still not a full-functioning being.

            Until a few weeks ago, I woke up every day mindful of the (natural) medicine I couldn’t live without: first, the ever-requisite multi-vitamin.  Then the bovine tissue extract for my hypothyroidism.  Often, a probiotic formula to replenish the good bacteria in my gut.  Sometimes a citrus extract to flush out the candidiasis (yeast).  Different things for my adrenal gland problems.  There were others too.  At times, I’d add one thing, and subtract another, depending on my immediate needs.

            About six months ago, I began listening to a radio doctor named Gabe Mirkin.  His is a straightforward, unpolluted and holistic point of view that is squarely directed on getting results.  He talks a lot about an infection called mycoplasma, a tiny and menacing bacteria --a micro-organism-- that slowly invades tissue and penetrates deep inside white blood cells, eventually reaching all tissues and organs of the body, causing complex symptoms.  Mycoplasma has been implicated as a cofactor in many of today’s most threatening illnesses, including AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, respiratory infection, and CFS.

            Many of his callers describe problems that Dr. Mirkin reasons are associated with mycoplasma or a related infection, which Dr. Mirkin claims can only be cured with long-term antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin asks them about their symptoms.  For example: Do they have chronic joint pain, a sore throat, low energy?  Do they feel burning upon urination?  Do they have an uncontrollable need to urinate in the middle of the night?  Having listened long enough, and having noticed how often the callers’ symptoms paralleled mine, I did some research.  I saw that mycoplasma can break down a weak immune system, leading to chronic illness.  The data pointed overwhelmingly in favour of my having the infection.  So I implored my doctor to put me on antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin says, and my research affirms, that there is no reliable diagnostic test for mycoplasma.  Antibiotics are taken on speculation.  Heeding this, I didn’t bother to solicit a doctor’s opinion.  Though I’d long been suspicious of drugs, I’d heard enough to convince me it would be worth it.

            On May 10th, I began taking doxycycline, the recommended drug.  One week later, I felt pretty good, so I stopped taking melatonin --a natural hormone that I was depending on for sleep; and then I stopped my thyroid medicine.  Still okay.  I passed through the Herxheimer reaction, a temporary re-surfacing of symptoms, if you will.  It was mild for me.  My mental sharpness has returned.  My 7-year long sore throat is loosening steadily.  My legs feel lighter.  Best of all, I am sleeping like a baby, like I haven’t slept in years.  The recovery feels like one step back for every two steps forward.  I feel good most parts of most days, and I’m slowly getting better.  All this in only six weeks.  So a lot of hope has returned, and a full recovery seems imminent.  Meanwhile I cross my fingers and hope.

            The experts don’t yet know if mycoplasma alone is responsible for the onset of CFS, but they don’t think it’s that simple.  A recent study found that 52% of CFS patients have some kind of mycoplasma infection (as compared to 15% of healthy people).  Therefore, it is likely that mycoplasma will exacerbate an already weak immune system; so mycoplasma, when it exists in the CFS (or pre-CFS) patient, is very likely a co-factor in the onset of CFS.  My question is: can mycoplasma in a healthy person cause the immune system to weaken enough to make the onset of CFS innevitable?  More research is currently being done.

            Why is all of this so important?  Because, as Dr. Majid Ali states in The Canary and Chronic Fatigue --the book I long considered my CFS “bible”-- CFS will be the most predominant chronic health disorder of the 21st century.  In fact, it’s already ruined thousands of lives.  Should we worry?  Well, consider this: It’s been said that the level of functioning of the average CFS patient is roughly equivalent to that of an AIDS patient with 2 months left to live.  Except CFS doesn’t kill you; it leaves you to live in misery.  Given these parameters, it must be considered momentous to have discovered, finally, what reasons to be the essential root of CFS.  For me, it’s everything.

             July 13th, 1999

            Last week, I slept a lot.  I was exhausted.  It was a particular type of exhaustion; I’d experienced it before.  It was my body healing.  This time it was doxycycline evidently giving my system one final cleansing.  My wife Kim was worried.  She always worries when I need to sleep a lot.  I reassured her.  This time, I was sure; CFS had finally run its course in me.  I’d finally beat it.

            My energy the last couple of days has been quite good.  I’ve felt symptom free.  So I have asked myself, does this mean CFS is gone, once and for all?  I certainly hope so; but I’ve grown accustomed to viewing occasions like this with guarded optimism.  I fight the unbridled optimism daily.  A relapse hurts less that way.

            If my recovery is not yet complete, then I hope it will continue until it is.  I want badly to feel the infinite thrill of having unearthed a treasure that’s been searched for long and hard.  Yet I see all too clearly the reality of my situation.  The truth is that I’m just beginning a momentous struggle to discover things that once seemed forever lost; I’m just starting to make things happen, things that I yearn to have made happen a long time ago: the career, the home, the family … fulfillment.  It will be terribly difficult of course, but I’m ready.  And I’ll only get more ready.  I feel well equipped to do battle: I’m only 32; I have my writing skills, I have a wonderful wife, and I have peace of mind.  Now I must move forward ... one day at a time.

             January 11th, 2000

            In August I went off doxycycline.  My late summer allergies were acting up, and the medication was causing them to run amok.  I was taking my probiotics regularly (to replenish the good bacteria that the antibiotics had depleted).  A couple of weeks went by and I felt pretty good –though I didn’t yet know what pretty good really felt like– and I started thinking that maybe, somehow, I was cured, like by magic.  I thought there was a possibility that I wouldn’t need the doxycycline any more.

            In early October, the symptoms began to re-appear.  It wasn’t long before I was back on doxycycline.  This time I promised myself that I would stay on it until the mycoplasma was gone.  I wanted to squash it.

            Before Christmas I processed a short but nasty flu bug.  As it left me, I felt great, better than I had in years.  I felt so good that it was playing on my mind.  I needed to be certain that I was actually well, and not just between stages of recovery.  I began to test myself.  I worked out hard and took long walks.  And I got less sleep than I should have.  But I was still okay.  Sleep-deprived, but functioning well.  And I continued to be okay, right through the holidays and despite all the sugar I consumed.  I felt good up until I caught this current case of the flu.  But this flu is hitting millions, and I have only a slight case of it.

            Unless something extraterrestrial has happened to me, I am recovered.  Like never before, I am quick-witted, fast with my reflexes, long on concentration, full of vigor, and ready to handle buggers.  (Buggers are folks who dare to stand in the way of my success.)

            I don’t even question the possibility of my wellness any more.  I am well.  I might even get more well.  I am still on doxycycline, but only because I need to be sure.  Now I am moving on.  I’m not questioning the possibility of my success.  It’ll come.  All I ever needed was my health.  The rest I can handle.

[erichschmidt615]

Staving Off Stupor

Here is the text for a speech I delivered in 1998 about my case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  I’m recovered now but oh, how I still remember the bad bad days.       

There is no glory in convalescing all day long in a near-comatose stupor, for week upon week and month upon month.  And God-damn it, I want glory.

            It hit me when I was a teenager that I could do something very important with my life.  I  knew that I had a gift.  Of course, at the time, I was a gangly, awkward boy, and it was pretty obvious to me that no one would soon see my talents.  Even I couldn't see them.  I just knew that they were there.

            It wasn't until my final year of university that these talents began showing themselves.  That was five long years ago.  I was twenty-five years old, and I had begun scrawling nonsense about anything and everything.  I was immensely lonely, I had no clue as to what direction to take my life, and worst of all, I was sick far beyond my control, and even further beyond my comprehension.

            My illness began in September of 1992.  Suddenly and without provocation, I lost my energy.  I was dead tired during each day, yet I couldn't sleep at night.  My limbs and muscles were tired and achy, my throat was always sore, and I constantly felt anxious and irritable.  Within months, I went from chronic tiredness, to unhappy turmoil, to bitter hopelessness.  Then the illness began sealing my fate.  My physicality, my vitality, and my hope; all were ripped out from underneath me..  I felt that I was to drift nomadically and terminally through each day in a persistent state of abject near-comatose destitution.  In retrospect, I can see that there was no sign then of my talents coming to fruition.  In fact, there was no sign of anything but dearth.  Worst of all, I didn't have a name for this damn illness.  I didn't even know it was an illness.

            The shit hit the proverbial fan at Christmas of 1993, when I realized I'd have to give up everything --my entire Montreal life-- and move back home to Hamilton, where I once vowed never to return.  It seemed to me that moving back home, into my parents' basement, was the only hope I had.  It was there where I could rest when I needed, and spend the rest of the time trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.  I wouldn't be asked to do much, and unlike my university setting, I wouldn't feel driven to compete for anything.  So I figured.

            But I was competing, for my life.  And my opponent was a Goliath.  He had many weapons, mostly poisons, to work with.  Unknown to me, the poisons had long been inside me.  To most people, they would seem like ordinary poisons: the mercury amalgam fillings in my teeth, food from nutrient-depleted soil, pollution in the air, chemicals, toxins, latent viruses, and so on.  To me, they were guided missiles, and Goliath had the target-seeking remote pointed squarely in my direction.  He knew I was susceptible.  And he was merciless.

            So Goliath, or whatever you want to call him, had me by the balls.  And it's a real difficult situation when someone has you by the balls.  You are thunderstruck.  Dumbfounded.  Stunned.  I was all of these things.  Day in day out, for months on end.  And I didn't even know what had hit me.  I remember in my one Montreal apartment, lying in bed late at night, and car alarms were sounding outside my window.  I tried desperately to sleep, but every time I thought sleep was near, another alarm would sound, and I was back to wide awake.  So I lay awake for hours, overwrought with fatigue, staring longingly at the ceiling, and dreaming absentmindedly.  I was hopelessly unable to sleep.

            Days were awful.  I moved at about half-speed, with half energy, and one quarter stamina.  And I was one of the lucky ones.  Most are far worse off, and some of you realize all too well.  Now half of full-functioning is bad enough, if you can count on that half.  But with CFS, you can't count on anything.  You don't know when you'll be able to move, or for how long.  And you can never tell when you'll become very ill.

             There is a bazillion more things I could say to you about CFS and what it does to you.  But you can get this information anywhere.  What you can't get just anywhere is affirmation, reassurance, and hope.  And most importantly, a plan.  In my own bungled way, these are the things I hope to offer you.

            Firstly, if any of what I've said is really hitting home for you, you either have CFS or know someone who does.  If you have it, you will know you have it, and I don't care (don't give a shit) who told you otherwise.

            I am here to talk to you about recovery.  Not coping.  Those who choose to cope when they can do so much more are missing out on an incredible opportunity.  Either that, or they're just wasting time feeling sorry for themselves.  That's my guess.  I chose recovery over coping right from the outset, and I never relented in my pursuit for recovery.  Of course, it was a damn hard road.  But like everything else in my life, if I do something, I do it all the way.

            So then, you either are going through or will go through all the stages common to any illness: denial, withdrawal, gradual acceptance, coping, and eventually managing.  If you are not yet at the management stage, then you are going through unconscionable difficulties.  I've been there, and I sympathize.  Whatever consolation it is, I know some things that might ease your pain.  You must find comfort, peace and quiet, and any help available.  Then you must use this help.  You must do any number of other things, including sleeping when you have to and thinking positive whenever you can.  At times, you will find yourself frightened, depressed, anxious, and mostly tired.  In short, you will run through every negative emotion there is.  This is only natural.  What is of optimum importance is that you retain your basic sanity.  This is where coping comes in.  And it really doesn't matter what helps you cope.  Maybe it's t.v., a cuddle with your spouse, or a few minutes with your kids.  Every little bit helps.  If you can think positive long enough, you will get to the point where you may begin educating yourself.  Use what little energy you have to go the library and do research, and by all means, contact your local CFS/ME support group.  If you are doing these things, chances are, you are at the management stage.  And the most significant thing in dealing with CFS is what you do when you get to the management stage.  That's where crucial steps are taken toward a long-term permanent recovery.  If you've gotten to the management stage, chances are you're going to be okay.  If you're not there yet, you are hopefully trying to get there.

            Remember, there is hope.  If you believe it.  There is so much grey area in CFS that no one --not even the "experts"-- can tell absolutely what it is and how to deal with it.  The hope lies primarily with the folks who have recovered.  Like me.  We hopeful people have sought long and hard for a way to get past the management stage and onto recovery.  Recovery is coming full circle.  It is the best of all possible scenarios.  It is attainable, at least to a very large degree.  And it is up to you, as an individual, to decide how you wish to go about recovering.  If, for instance, a doctor tells you that you will never recover, it is up to you to decide to either accept or reject that doctor's prognosis.  Remember, they've been wrong before, and they'll be wrong again.

            Now then, I don't have any definitive answers.  What worked for me may not do it for the next guy.  But I did my research, I stayed away from even prescription drugs, I lived as healthy as I could, and I kept hoping.  Then, all my efforts started paying off.  Now, I'm here today at about 90% of my functioning.  So I am immensely confident in my views  And I will not apologize for sounding like I'm preaching.

            I will begin my "preaching" by declaring, emphatically, that drugs are not the answer.  I am damn sure that drugs offer temporary relief at best, and may even do further harm to your system.  If you are desperately ill and need them just to get by, then I have no problem with them.  Same goes for acute symptoms that require immediate aid.  But for a long-term, permanent solution, they will simply not do.  I need say no more about them than they have failed miserably in offering sustainable relief for most any chronic illness you can think of.  And these days, chronic illnesses are popping up in people faster than weeds in a bad garden.  Also, much of the time, taking drugs alleviates people of personal responsibility; a responsibility to themselves and their body.  Much too often, they are used as a quick fix.  Yet, they are gobbled up in record number, and drug companies rake in the dough.  I can't account for the ignorance that allows this to happen.

            I can say that if someone is going to get money for healing you, then why not give it to someone who has actually done the job.

            I've found that regular (allopathic) doctors are the wrong people to see about an illness that afflicts the immune system.  As far as I can tell, these doctors don't know a damn thing about the inner workings of the immune system.  In my many visits to one allopathic physician or another, I was offered no more than antibiotics, and no hope.  I got sympathy, but no answers.  On rare occasions, I got an outright dismissal of my illness.  I recently spoke to the doctor I have the most respect for, and asked him about his stance on natural medicine.  He said that if something works, then it's fine, but he said that I must understand that it's not the field he was trained in.

            Hence my explanation for my search for someone who is trained to deal with my problem.

            I say that if there is an alternative, then why settle for drugs.  And I'm here to tell you there is a viable alternative.  There is a way to ease your system toward wellness.  And it's no hocus pocus, fly-by-night thing.  I'm talking about natural medicine.  These days, they call it alternative medicine.  But that makes no sense to me.  Natural medicine has been around ever since there's been medicine.  In fact, it wasn't until very recently --about two hundred years ago, that is-- that drugs began prevailing over natural remedies.  Even then, drug therapy was largely a western phenomenon, and this remains true today.

            Natural medicine encompasses everything from eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and having great sex, to visiting whatever kind of practitioner you figure will help you, and doing or taking whatever they recommend.  It is a humane and sensible approach to taking care of yourself and your family.  The idea is to ease your body into a state of wellness where everything is permitted to work in harmony with nature.  Of course, it's not as easy as popping an antibiotic into your mouth three times a day.  It requires work.  That means dedication from you.  In the same way that your system did not break down overnight, it will not recover overnight.  If you are intent on recovering from CFS, or even just alleviating your worst symptoms, you have to make major lifestyle changes, and you have to stick to these changes.  So if you think you were feeling bad enough, already, I'm telling you there's even more crap for you to endure.  The up-side is that these changes you make –if they are the right ones- will actually help you.  They will start helping you right away.  They have done so for CFSer I know.  The changes include: eating a highly regimented diet with vitamins and supplements; exercising –if you can handle it-; sleeping whenever you require it, in a quiet, peaceful place; controlling your immediate environment so that it is warm, dry, and toxin-free; seeking refuge and comfort wherever you can find it, taking help from whoever will give it; and educating yourself.  I can't say this enough times.  Education will ignite your recovery.  CFS takes on a very different form in everyone who has it, and each person must find his own individual way out of it.  The only way to begin this process is through education.  And once you've found something that you believe will help you recover, no matter what it is, don't be afraid to stick with it, despite what anyone says.  I stuck with many things that most people around me had absolutely no in.  When they told me I should keep seeing my family doctor and I said that I wasn't going to because he wasn't helping me, they weren't satisfied.  When I tried to explain and they weren't very receptive, I said no more and I did it my way anyway.

            To date, I have done my fair share of reading on CFS, most of it to do with alternative therapies, some not.  I have heard the arguments on both sides.  The most convincing arguments routinely come from those who favour including natural medicine in an intensive recovery program.  Those who don't favour a rapid and intensive natural recovery plan are largely reticent when pressed for tangible answers.

            I went straight to those people who offered answers.  And they were exclusively those lovely folks who work with natural medicine.  First, I found Dr. Richard Smyth, a biologic (natural) dentist, who extracted my mercury fillings.  He introduced me to Dr. Mukesh Patel, a naturopath, who helped me clean all the toxins out of my system, then began taking me toward better functioning.  I still see him any time I feel sick.  I also regularly visit my chiropractor, Dr. Waxman.  I have experimented with herbalism, reflexology, yoga, and massage.  I still incorporate aspects of each of these disciplines into my regular routine.  I continue also to keep my mind open to wellness options.  For instance, if there's a new product that appeals to me, I'll give it a shot, if I can afford it.

I can't even begin to list for you the supplements I've taken.  I can say that whatever you take depends on your own specific symptoms, and like I said, they will be different for everyone.  For instance, I have a severely underactive thyroid, and must take medicine for it.  It is important that you find the supplements that work best for you, and get the ones that your system will actually absorb.  I found that I could do this most effectively by getting tested by my naturopath on his computerized allergy testing system.

             As I was going over some of my old CFS articles, I noticed that during the initial stages of my recovery, I gave a lot of credit here and there to friends and acquaintances for helping me through my illness.  Now I think that I was probably just emotional at the time, and thanked them for sentimental reasons.  They did what they could of course, but they didn't actually help me recover.  No one did that but me.  If I hadn't been such an obstinate, persistent bugger, I'd probably be here sitting in the front row with my mouth wide open in awe of what was being said.  I'd be a vegetable.  Now I'm a very high functioning vegetable, and my only remaining problem is that I'm allergic to Hamilton, and any city like it.  The moral here is simple:  I found my answer.  I never gave up hope, and I never stopped searching.  I recommend the same.

            Now I know it's a damn hard thing to be going through, this CFS.  Damn damn hard.  But you've got to do whatever you can, whenever you can.  You've got to find a way to fight for your life, even when you feel like you're dying.  Fight by refusing to be a vegetable.  Fight by finding deep within yourself that little bit of vitality: anger, humour, drive, passion, nerve...  Use that little bit to urge you on, keep you going, help you make it through the day.  Then use it again the next day.  And when it runs out, find another bit.  The only other option I know to to sit idly by and let CFS destroy you.  And it will.  It will get you good, forever.

            Talk to whoever will listen.  There are many people out there enduring chronic, life-altering illnesses.  Don't think it's only you.  It's true that it's only you that's in your house, in your bed, feeling your pain.  But it's a big, bad world, and there are many fighting pain just like yours.  Find them, and talk to them.  If those close to you don't understand what you're going through, ask them to please go to the library and look up CFS, and read.  Read if for no other reason than for you.  Then ask them to tell you what they read.  And after you've pleaded "Yes, that's me, exactly", explain to them that what they've read is the same thing that's in your body.  And you feel helpless because no one understands.  (At this point, they will have to leave, because you are pooped.)

            And remember that in most cases, this illness can't kill you.  It can only make you seem like you're living dead.  The way I figure it, as long as I've got a breath left and my heart is still beating, I've still got something to say how I will live my life.

             In conclusion, I want to tell you a little about what I've been up to lately.  The last couple of weeks have been hectic.  I've been in the middle of changing my entire life around.  Most notably, I've moved to Cambridge.  It's the move that I've been waiting for my whole life.  I finally get to live with the woman of my dreams.  Her name is Kim, and we're getting married in September.  She's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

            My life has had its difficulties, of course.  Primarily, I have never had a full- time income.  I went from university straight to full-time illness.  Only recently have I been able to convince myself that I'm ready to take that gargantuan leap into a productive life.  I still deal with those nagging thoughts of, What happens if I get sick tomorrow and can't bet out of bed?  But I am very hungry to live my life.  And I know that any income at all is better than living off the goodness of others.

            Sometimes, the prospect of going on with life seems overwhelming.  When you have been chronically ill for a long time, I think that's natural.  Soon, Kim and I want to start a family, and I will have to start earning much more money, especially since we have decided that we want her to be a stay-at-home mother.  That puts pressure on me.  I hope to thrive under this pressure, but sometimes it scares the hell out of me.  It would be nice if someone would offer me a million-dollar book deal.  Or maybe someone thinks I am doing a good enough job here today that it would be worth their while to sign me up to do some more of these gigs.  If luck struck and that actually happened, I would not be shy to get up in front of thousands of folks and blabber on about absolutely nothing. 

            The thing I want most is to be able to sit down for a couple of hours every day and write.  I want to write novels; big, thick, long ones.  I understand this is not a normal inclination, but since I have never been normal, it is okay in me.

            I also want to do some incredible physical things.  I want to run a marathon, bicycle from one U.S. coast to the other, hike through parts of Asia, and other insane things.  I have always been physically driven, but ever since I became sick, I dreamed of the things I would do if I ever got well.  Now I aim to follow through on these dreams.  I aim to follow through on many dreams.  I aim to do incredibly important things.

            More than anything, I aim to wake up every day and feel like it is okay to go on with my life.  Lately, this has been the case most days.  With any luck, it will continue to be.  God knows I have worked hard enough for it.  I have worked very hard to recover.  Now, it must be only a matter of time before I achieve glory.

[erichschmidt615]

Mycoplasma Unearthed

 Here's an article I wrote 10 years ago, about my health struggles.  I've never put it out there so maybe it's about time.

                      June 21st, 1999

            For most of this decade, I suffered horribly from the profoundly devastating effects of Chronic Fatigue (Immune Dysfunction) Syndrome {CFS}.  It is a disease that, by the accounts of many sufferers I’ve known, pummels you into utter exhaustion, and keeps beating you from there. CFS gave me six plus years of hell and hopelessness that pains me to put into words.  My earliest knowledge of CFS involved a symptomatically diverse flu-like illness that is the direct result of a severely dysfunctioning immune system.  Personally, I had low and unpredictable energy, heavy legs, a sore throat, muscle aches, anxiety, depression, and severe sleep difficulties.  I was “sick all over”; essentially, a vital young man shot down in his physical prime. 

            Apparently, I had an alien illness.  The many doctors, all with outmoded information, had no answers or insight.  So I had no hope.  Neither did millions of others like me, who sucked daily on a fragment of their lives.  Repeatedly I heard the cautions, that I may have to live “as is”; as damaged goods, in other words.  But not me; not this fighter.  I kept my eyes and ears open and continued doing research.  I wasn’t looking for the best coping method.  I demanded a cure.

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            In 1995 I found a naturopath.  His recommendations gave me much of my health back, and gave me hope.  Since I began seeing him, I have been able to cope.  I discovered a world of natural medicine that alleviated many of my worst symptoms and helped control most of the others.  But I suffered still.  I was energy depleted, and therefore still not a full-functioning being.

            Until a few weeks ago, I woke up every day mindful of the (natural) medicine I couldn’t live without: first, the ever-requisite multi-vitamin.  Then the bovine tissue extract for my hypothyroidism.  Often, a probiotic formula to replenish the good bacteria in my gut.  Sometimes a citrus extract to flush out the candidiasis (yeast).  Different things for my adrenal gland problems.  There were others too.  At times, I’d add one thing, and subtract another, depending on my immediate needs.

            About six months ago, I began listening to a radio doctor named Gabe Mirkin.  His is a straightforward, unpolluted and holistic point of view that is squarely directed on getting results.

He talks a lot about an infection called mycoplasma, a tiny and menacing bacteria --a micro-organism-- that slowly invades tissue and penetrates deep inside white blood cells, eventually reaching all tissues and organs of the body, causing complex symptoms.  Mycoplasma has been implicated as a cofactor in many of today’s most threatening illnesses, including AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, respiratory infection, and CFS.

            Many of his callers describe problems that Dr. Mirkin reasons are associated with mycoplasma or a related infection, which Dr. Mirkin claims can only be cured with long-term antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin asks them about their symptoms.  For example: Do they have chronic joint pain, a sore throat, low energy?  Do they feel burning upon urintation?  Do they have an uncontrollable need to urinate in the middle of the night?  Having listened long enough, and having noticed how often the callers’ symptoms paralleled mine, I did some research.  I saw that mycoplasma can break down a weak immune system, leading to chronic illness.  The data pointed overwhelmingly in favour of my having the infection.  So I implored my doctor to put me on antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin says, and my research affirms, that there is no reliable diagnostic test for mycoplasma.  Antibiotics are taken on speculation.  Heeding this, I didn’t bother to solicit a doctor’s opinion.  Though I’d long been suspicious of drugs, I’d heard enough to convince me it would be worth it.

            On May 10th, I began taking doxycycline, the recommended drug.  One week later, I felt pretty good, so I stopped taking melatonin --a natural hormone that I was depending on for sleep; and then I stopped my thyroid medicine.  Still okay.  I passed through the Herxheimer reaction, a temporary re-surfacing of symptoms, if you will.  It was mild for me.  My mental sharpness has returned.  My 7-year long sore throat is loosening steadily.  My legs feel lighter.  Best of all, I am sleeping like a baby, like I haven’t slept in years.  The recovery feels like one step back for every two steps forward.  I feel good most parts of most days, and I’m slowly getting better.  All this in only six weeks.  So a lot of hope has returned, and a full recovery seems imminent.  Meanwhile I cross my fingers and hope.

            The experts don’t yet know if mycoplasma alone is responsible for the onset of CFS, but they don’t think it’s that simple.  A recent study found that 52% of CFS patients have some kind of mycoplasma infection (as compared to 15% of healthy people).  Therefore, it is likely that mycoplasma will exacerbate an already weak immune system; so mycoplasma, when it exists in the CFS (or pre-CFS) patient, is very likely a co-factor in the onset of CFS.  My question is: can mycoplasma in a healthy person cause the immune system to weaken enough to make the onset of CFS innevitable?  More research is currently being done.

            Why is all of this so important?  Because, as Dr. Majid Ali states in The Canary and Chronic Fatigue --the book I long considered my CFS “bible”-- CFS will be the most predominant chronic health disorder of the 21st century.  In fact, it’s already ruined thousands of lives.  Should we worry?  Well, consider this: It’s been said that the level of functioning of the average CFS patient is roughly equivalent to that of an AIDS patient with 2 months left to live.  Except CFS doesn’t kill you; it leaves you to live in misery.  Given these parameters, it must be considered momentous to have discovered, finally, what reasons to be the essential root of CFS.  For me, it’s everything.

              July 13th, 1999

            Last week, I slept a lot.  I was exhausted.  It was a particular type of exhaustion; I’d experienced it before.  It was my body healing.  This time it was doxycycline evidently giving my system one final cleansing.  My wife Kim was worried.  She always worries when I need to sleep a lot.  I reassured her.  This time, I was sure; CFS had finally run its course in me.  I’d finally beat it.

            My energy the last couple of days has been quite good.  I’ve felt symptom free.  So I have asked myself, does this mean CFS is gone, once and for all?  I certainly hope so; but I’ve grown accustomed to viewing occasions like this with guarded optimism.  I fight the unbridled optimism daily.  A relapse hurts less that way.

            If my recovery is not yet complete, then I hope it will continue until it is.  I want badly to feel the infinite thrill of having unearthed a treasure that’s be searched for long and hard.  Yet I see all too clearly the reality of my situation.  The truth is that I’m just beginning a momentous struggle to discover things that once seemed forever lost; I’m just starting to make things happen, things that I yearn to have made happen a long time ago: the career, the home, the family, fulfillment.  It will be terribly difficult of course, but I’m ready.  And I’ll only get more ready.  I feel well equipped to do battle: I’m only 32; I have my writing skills, I have a wonderful wife, and I have peace of mind.  Now I must move forward ... one day at a time.

              January 11th, 2000

            In August I went off doxycycline.  My late summer allergies were acting up , and the medication was causing them to run amok.  I was taking my probiotics regularly (to replenish the good bacteria that the antibiotics had depleted).  A couple of weeks went by and I felt pretty good –though I didn’t yet know what pretty good really felt like– and I started thinking that maybe, somehow, I was cured, like by magic.  I thought there was a possibility that I wouldn’t need the doxycycline any more.

            In early October, the symptoms began to re-appear.  It wasn’t long before I was back on doxycycline.  This time I promised myself that I would stay on it until the mycoplasma was gone.  I wanted to squash it.

            Before Christmas I processed a short but nasty flu bug.  As it left me, I felt great, better than I had in years.  I felt so good that it was playing on my mind.  I needed to be certain that I was actually well, and not just between stages of recovery.  I began to test myself.  I worked out hard and took long walks.  And I got less sleep than I should have.  But I was still okay.  Sleep-deprived, but functioning well.  And I continued to be okay, right through the holidays and despite all the sugar I consumed.  I felt good up until I caught this current case of the flu.  But this flu is hitting millions, and I have only a slight case of it.

            Unless something extraterrestrial has happened to me, I am recovered.  Like never before, I am quick-witted, fast with my reflexes, long on concentration, full of vigor, and ready to handle buggers.  (Buggers are folks who dare to stand in the way of my success.)

            I don’t even question the possibility of my wellness any more.  I am well.  I might even get more well.  I am still on doxycycline, but only because I need to be sure.  Now I am moving on.  I’m not questioning the possibility of my success.  It’ll come.  All I ever needed was my health.  The rest I can handle.

              In 1995 I found a naturopath.  His recommendations gave me much of my health back, and gave me hope.  Since I began seeing him, I have been able to cope.  I discovered a world of natural medicine that alleviated many of my worst symptoms and helped control most of the others.  But I suffered still.  I was energy depleted, and therefore still not a full-functioning being.

            Until a few weeks ago, I woke up every day mindful of the (natural) medicine I couldn’t live without: first, the ever-requisite multi-vitamin.  Then the bovine tissue extract for my hypothyroidism.  Often, a probiotic formula to replenish the good bacteria in my gut.  Sometimes a citrus extract to flush out the candidiasis (yeast).  Different things for my adrenal gland problems.  There were others too.  At times, I’d add one thing, and subtract another, depending on my immediate needs.

            About six months ago, I began listening to a radio doctor named Gabe Mirkin.  His is a straightforward, unpolluted and holistic point of view that is squarely directed on getting results.

He talks a lot about an infection called mycoplasma, a tiny and menacing bacteria --a micro-organism-- that slowly invades tissue and penetrates deep inside white blood cells, eventually reaching all tissues and organs of the body, causing complex symptoms.  Mycoplasma has been implicated as a cofactor in many of today’s most threatening illnesses, including AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, respiratory infection, and CFS.

            Many of his callers describe problems that Dr. Mirkin reasons are associated with mycoplasma or a related infection, which Dr. Mirkin claims can only be cured with long-term antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin asks them about their symptoms.  For example: Do they have chronic joint pain, a sore throat, low energy?  Do they feel burning upon urintation?  Do they have an uncontrollable need to urinate in the middle of the night?  Having listened long enough, and having noticed how often the callers’ symptoms paralleled mine, I did some research.  I saw that mycoplasma can break down a weak immune system, leading to chronic illness.  The data pointed overwhelmingly in favour of my having the infection.  So I implored my doctor to put me on antibiotics.  Dr. Mirkin says, and my research affirms, that there is no reliable diagnostic test for mycoplasma.  Antibiotics are taken on speculation.  Heeding this, I didn’t bother to solicit a doctor’s opinion.  Though I’d long been suspicious of drugs, I’d heard enough to convince me it would be worth it.

            On May 10th, I began taking doxycycline, the recommended drug.  One week later, I felt pretty good, so I stopped taking melatonin --a natural hormone that I was depending on for sleep; and then I stopped my thyroid medicine.  Still okay.  I passed through the Herxheimer reaction, a temporary re-surfacing of symptoms, if you will.  It was mild for me.  My mental sharpness has returned.  My 7-year long sore throat is loosening steadily.  My legs feel lighter.  Best of all, I am sleeping like a baby, like I haven’t slept in years.  The recovery feels like one step back for every two steps forward.  I feel good most parts of most days, and I’m slowly getting better.  All this in only six weeks.  So a lot of hope has returned, and a full recovery seems imminent.  Meanwhile I cross my fingers and hope.

            The experts don’t yet know if mycoplasma alone is responsible for the onset of CFS, but they don’t think it’s that simple.  A recent study found that 52% of CFS patients have some kind of mycoplasma infection (as compared to 15% of healthy people).  Therefore, it is likely that mycoplasma will exacerbate an already weak immune system; so mycoplasma, when it exists in the CFS (or pre-CFS) patient, is very likely a co-factor in the onset of CFS.  My question is: can mycoplasma in a healthy person cause the immune system to weaken enough to make the onset of CFS innevitable?  More research is currently being done.

            Why is all of this so important?  Because, as Dr. Majid Ali states in The Canary and Chronic Fatigue --the book I long considered my CFS “bible”-- CFS will be the most predominant chronic health disorder of the 21st century.  In fact, it’s already ruined thousands of lives.  Should we worry?  Well, consider this: It’s been said that the level of functioning of the average CFS patient is roughly equivalent to that of an AIDS patient with 2 months left to live.  Except CFS doesn’t kill you; it leaves you to live in misery.  Given these parameters, it must be considered momentous to have discovered, finally, what reasons to be the essential root of CFS.  For me, it’s everything.

            July 13th, 1999

            Last week, I slept a lot.  I was exhausted.  It was a particular type of exhaustion; I’d experienced it before.  It was my body healing.  This time it was doxycycline evidently giving my system one final cleansing.  My wife Kim was worried.  She always worries when I need to sleep a lot.  I reassured her.  This time, I was sure; CFS had finally run its course in me.  I’d finally beat it.

            My energy the last couple of days has been quite good.  I’ve felt symptom free.  So I have asked myself, does this mean CFS is gone, once and for all?  I certainly hope so; but I’ve grown accustomed to viewing occasions like this with guarded optimism.  I fight the unbridled optimism daily.  A relapse hurts less that way.

            If my recovery is not yet complete, then I hope it will continue until it is.  I want badly to feel the infinite thrill of having unearthed a treasure that’s be searched for long and hard.  Yet I see all too clearly the reality of my situation.  The truth is that I’m just beginning a momentous struggle to discover things that once seemed forever lost; I’m just starting to make things happen, things that I yearn to have made happen a long time ago: the career, the home, the family, fulfillment.  It will be terribly difficult of course, but I’m ready.  And I’ll only get more ready.  I feel well equipped to do battle: I’m only 32; I have my writing skills, I have a wonderful wife, and I have peace of mind.  Now I must move forward ... one day at a time.

              January 11th, 2000

            In August I went off doxycycline.  My late summer allergies were acting up , and the medication was causing them to run amok.  I was taking my probiotics regularly (to replenish the good bacteria that the antibiotics had depleted).  A couple of weeks went by and I felt pretty good –though I didn’t yet know what pretty good really felt like– and I started thinking that maybe, somehow, I was cured, like by magic.  I thought there was a possibility that I wouldn’t need the doxycycline any more.

            In early October, the symptoms began to re-appear.  It wasn’t long before I was back on doxycycline.  This time I promised myself that I would stay on it until the mycoplasma was gone.  I wanted to squash it.

            Before Christmas I processed a short but nasty flu bug.  As it left me, I felt great, better than I had in years.  I felt so good that it was playing on my mind.  I needed to be certain that I was actually well, and not just between stages of recovery.  I began to test myself.  I worked out hard and took long walks.  And I got less sleep than I should have.  But I was still okay.  Sleep-deprived, but functioning well.  And I continued to be okay, right through the holidays and despite all the sugar I consumed.  I felt good up until I caught this current case of the flu.  But this flu is hitting millions, and I have only a slight case of it.

            Unless something extraterrestrial has happened to me, I am recovered.  Like never before, I am quick-witted, fast with my reflexes, long on concentration, full of vigor, and ready to handle buggers.  (Buggers are folks who dare to stand in the way of my success.)

            I don’t even question the possibility of my wellness any more.  I am well.  I might even get more well.  I am still on doxycycline, but only because I need to be sure.  Now I am moving on.  I’m not questioning the possibility of my success.  It’ll come.  All I ever needed was my health.  The rest I can handle.

[spotonfitness-blog-blog]

Great explanation of why certain people, including me, need to be gluten free