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It sounds as if both indices are against inflammation. No more cells and less extracellular water? That seems to leave swollen, i.e. wet, axons, with more water able to diffuse axially. That would suggest a non-inflammatory toxic neuronal process I think. I guess it is conceivable that it...

And they have no ability to think for themselves.

I don't think we have any evidence for any of that much. ME/CFS can follow viral infection but it can occur without as far as we know. I am not sure what a 'shock' is. I prefer to talk of specific pathways. I don't think we have any evidence for it disrupting any systems except the central...

They are too 'negative'.

Yes, well that figures. You may not be familiar with the way medical politics works. No self respecting academic would be chairman of a discussion group full of rheumatologists! Chairmen of discussion groups are usually our biggest problem. I have more respect for those who plough their own...

Very likely, even if the other diseases are a bit esoteric. I have a feeling that if we can understand ME/CFS we may have a better understanding of all sort of diseases though.

Well my knees didn't get any better week in week out either - so I am not sure what this 'therrypootic' effect is supposed to be!! And I was exhausted because it hurt so much every. time. The benefit was not putting on half a stone but still being able to eat my wife's cooking. Purely...

Yes, you just try a range of drugs that overlap targets in different ways until you see whaat the precise target is.

I rather doubt it. I suspect that it is recommended simply because it sounds like a 'supplement' to alternative practitioners. And some people will always say they benefited from whatever.

Yes. And if the recent literature on CSF flux that I have been reading is anything to go by it is quite plausible that the whole idea of these fractions and compartments is bad physical chemistry. The data will mean something but maybe not what these names imply. Mathematical modellers, in my...

Probably not @Robert 1973. There are a whole range of possible ramifications f a positive result. But in very simple terms it might mean B cells and antibodies are involved (maybe in some way we are not familiar with yet) and it might alternatively mean that activation of a whole range of immune...

That is likely to mean that it is more expensive and no clear advantage in terms of efficacy.

There is lots of water in extracellular matrix that doesn't move much - bound to sulphate residues etc.. But if it exchanges with other compartments very quickly then the separate phase may not be apparent. I spent about ten years working on water compartments before MRI became available. The...

That would fit with more extracellular water )assuming everything is proportions) but agree it doesn't fit with more cells.

The real irony is that while AfME has been spectacularly successful in putting its weight behind DecodeME it is also joining forces with an organisation that deals in make-believe called the Overlapping Illness Alliance.

I don't know really. But one factor is that charities are there to do 'good works' and doing good works means being positive. What does doing good works mean? All together now. Being positive. Not questioning. Not rocking boats. And the ghost of Melvin Ramsay hangs in the air like Jacob...

I don't think so. The amount of water in neuron cell bodies is unlikely to change much I think. More restricted isotropic water, if intracellular, might logically indicate new cells coming in. Astrocytes might change in water content significantly because they deal with housekeeping and might...

No, I don't think so. These days you treat RA with drugs. I never told my patients to exercise. They already did as much as they could. The evidence for exercise in rheumatology has, as far as I am aware, always been poor quality and since the 1990s has become pretty much irrelevant. All the...

OK. And I would worry that simple assumptions about which is inside and which is outside cells could be badly wrong for white matter. I think we need someone who works with these things to explain what is really going on. SNTG may be able to but It sounds as if even he is a bit bothered by what...

Because 'multisystem disease' for ME/CFS is not only drivel but quite clearly, to physicians who have been around in training for ten years or in practice for another twenty, drivel driven by patient advocacy groups and a research twitterati who have picked up the mantra because it fits with...