BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine Glandular Fever / M.E. discussion

InitialConditions

InitialConditions

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008ps8

From today's show.

At 1:10:00 onwards there is a discussion on glandular fever that soon touches on M.E. The discussion is actually quite good - the expert (Dr Sarah Jarvis) describes the risk of glandular fever developing into M.E. and describes M.E. as a profound exhaustion that doesn't get better with rest but can get worse with doing too much.
 
Listened to this. did a 'quick' transcript
JV: If you get to your mid 20s and you haven’t had it , the good news is you had the virus and not the symptoms and you probably won’t need to worry.

SJ: Exactly

JV: We call it the kissing disease simply because it’s teenage and it’s as you say, you’ve got to get up close and personal to catch it. But its quite a contagious virus isn’t it?

SJ: it is, a contagious virus and there are other conditions which it causes, but in the UK it is mostly glandular fever that we worry about.

JV: I had an American girlfriend once, she said ‘I had mono’

SJ: er yes mono; infectious mononucleosis

JV: correct that’s their word for it

SJ: ah.

JV: I believe that is glandular fever

SJ: It is.

JV: so mono, the kissing disease, glandular fever, what do we know about it? The answer is the main thing is, if you get it badly it knocks you out for a year.

SJ: er yes, certainly for months. It’s a horrible horrible thing.

JV: and it seems to then, this is the real worry for people, it goes into ME and chronic fatigue and you may never recover.

SJ: well its difficult because there are probably many causes of chronic fatigue or ME, which is myalgic encephalomyelitis, and we think that there is almost always a trigger of a virus of some sort, but it is unlikely usually to be the Epstein Barr Virus because most people who have glandular fever do recover fully. And many many people will develop ME later in life.

(re glandular fever)

JV: If somebody gets it Sara, do they fight it? Or do they surrender for a year?

SJ: I think that’s a really challenging one. Sometimes it is absolutely impossible to fight it, and one of the problems as with ME, ME is so different to just being tired, it is a completely profound exhaustion that takes over your whole body, you are , you know it can affect your brain,it can affect your immune function, it can affect all sorts of things. And one of the issues, one of the two main differences is firstly it’s not made better by rest, and secondly if you do too much it can be much, much worse, symptoms can get much, much worse if you over do it.

JV: It’s not alleviated by rest? That’s ME or glandular fever?

SJ: that’s ME.

JV: OK

SJ: So I think we get similar symptoms with glandular fever so people are, the answer is they will cope better with glandular fever if they rest.

But it does not necessarily make the symptoms better.

JV: Right, cos battling on is something one would assume that you would just do in the 50’s and the 60’s and the 70’s. Now we understand battling on may mean you relapse and you get worse.

SJ: exactly

JV: OK
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quite a difference to the usual message....... push through...GET
 
Wits_End said:
Although of course it's the fatigue which isn't substantially alleviated by rest, rather than the ME itself, which is rather what their phrasing suggests ...
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I've taken to calling it exhaustion. I'm exhausted all the time. It never changes. But depending on any number of things I may be more or less tired as well.

And of course you're right. The ME is the ME. It doesn't respond to anything except perhaps briefly and then back to usual.
 
I was pleased to hear this discussion.
However I was concerned that the issue of EBV being a latent virus seemed to be avoided. That some of her oversimplifications might not have been that helpful?
 
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