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That's how I deal with doctors now. First we have to get over the belief that "the next doctor will do a different test that finds something". It took me quite a few doctors to accept that. There's a possibly fun poll: How many doctors did you try before accepting that there's no point in...

Sadly, most doctors won't be able to have useful conversations about ME; there's simply no real knowledge for them to be educated about. That's a goal I support. If a doctor prescribes some drug that they came across in a brief search for information about ME, I'd certainly check the latest...

I don't recall having that feeling from regular cold viruses, but I considered it a signature of flu infections. That's why I thought my first sign of this horrible ME disease was simply a flu, except that the symptoms disappeared too quickly for a flu. I also think of the symptom as "feeling...

That could be just a sensor glitch, or a localized phenomenon. Maybe your hand moved, friction-heating the ring for the millisecond that the device took its sample. It depends on how often it takes samples, how it averages them, etc.

Yes, but if they're doing really good studies, maybe even something that will win a Nobel prize, but it turns out that it has nothing to do with ME, then they won't be considered the best ME researcher. ME certainly seems to involve the immune system, but it's at least possible that all...

We won't know who are the best ME researchers until we know ME's mechanism. Then we can tell who was on the right path and who wasn't. I don't think that reading any research papers at this time is going to help any of us find an effective treatment. If a paper--maybe from an obscure...

I'm guessing that it doesn't even have a clear definition of the word "fatigue"; just some vague concept that people babble about and define however is convenient for them.

I've learned, from teeth and various other pains, that I am really terrible at correctly identifying where the pain is located. I was sure the pain was from one tooth, but it turned out the neighbour was cracked. My present foot pain feels like it's coming from the top of the foot, but it's...

Does it make a difference where their ex-vivio sample was taken? The intestinal tract varies a lot in function and production and absorption of butyrate and possible cofactors. Butyrate might have different effects on immune cells in different locations. I think this is one of those "opens up...

My immediate thought is that this theory fails to explain abrupt switching between ME and non-ME states, since marrow cell production doesn't, AFAIK, change rapidly enough. It's possible that the mechanism that does allow that switching is affected by differences in cell production, but the...

The questionnaire does have too many different factors mushed together to provide useful information. For the five items in the first table, I'd give different individual ratings, and I'd rate some of those symptoms as occurring without exertion being the cause. I still think it's the...

For every one discovery about a negative effect of something, how many health magazine articles focus on a single good effect and claim that we should boost whatever that is? We're too complex for simplistic "x is good for you!" claims. We need more researchers making the effort to find these...

I read the Consumer Report link. I had wondered whether the "lead scare" was based on unreasonable target levels. The link says the claim is based on a scientifically unsound definition of "safe level" (California regulation). After reading that, I'm not worried about lead in my non-name...

I'd be surprised if any government would allow (by turning a blind eye) adulteration. Banning those products, and then overly expensive inspections from anyone that does allow imports, would be very expensive in the long run. How much did China lose due to the melamine adulteration? Maybe...

I'm curious as to why they are contaminated. Are cinnamon trees particularly good at extracting lead from soil? Are the problem trees from regions still using leaded gas, or contaminated from prior leaded gas usage? Planted on lead mine tailings? Are these plantations in widely different...

If you look through enough numbers, you're almost sure to find some patterns, even if the numbers are randomly generated. I'm guessing that they'd have similar findings between 5 people who liked coffee and 5 who liked tea, or who liked soap operas vs reality shows.

That strikes a chord with me. It isn't a gradual increase or decrease in something; it's something changing states or switching modes. In a normal, healthy person, fatigue is a gradual accumulation or depletion of something. PEM seems more like a change of state on receiving some signal from...

I think that will be a common method for choosing answers for the questionnaire: wild guessing. Furthermore, which way each guess will deviate from "the correct answer" will vary with the individual. A filled-out questionnaire might as well be an inkblot from which one researcher will see a...

Such as rodents evolving one "bad food" response since they don't regurgitate, while mammals that did evolve a response involving regurgitation might have dramatically different pathways? Then throw in multiple side-mechanisms that evolved along with them.

From the survey questions Trish posted, I'd guess that the results will be quite misleading and open to misinterpretation. I expect that two people with exactly the same ME&PEM symptoms might fill out the questionnaire quite differently, based on different personalities. One will say they have...