Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome - Daily Mail Aus

"By Charlie Moore For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 06:46, 30 April 2018 | Updated: 08:23, 30 April 2018

Burning skin, forgetting how to speak and chronic exhaustion: Push for national inquiry into mystery disease - that could be hiding in your home

A leading doctor is calling for a national inquiry into a strange disease caused by mold in the home.

Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome could be affecting thousands of unaware Australians, warned Central Coast doctor Christabelle Yeoh.

The illness, which causes fatigue, confusion and mental lapses, is brought on by exposure to bacteria and fungi.

A leading doctor is calling for a national inquiry into a little-known disease caused by mold in the home."

full article here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...onal-inquiry-mystery-disease-hiding-home.html

 

The article lists "Post-exertional malaise" as a symptom of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.

 

Is it possible to distinguish between Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome caused by mould, ME caused/triggered by mould and ME exacerbated by a hypersensitivity response to mould?

Certainly there are a number of people with an ME diagnosis that believe their ME was caused by mould, so is this a distinct condition with similar symptoms to ME that can be misdiagnosed as ME or is it a subgroup of ME? If avoiding mould results in complete remission does this mean it is a distinct condition?

It may be that we can't answer these question until there are established biomarkers.

 

CIRS symptoms look a lot like SEID (fatigue, functional impairment, PEM, brain fog, orthostatic intolerance), just no mention of unrefreshing sleep.

 

That's a question I would like to know more about.

One of the tests Dr Shoemaker introduced for CIRS is the visual contrast sensitivity test (VCS). The VCS utilizes your eye's ability to detect shades of contrast as a means to gauge exposure to mold toxins (the retina consists of neurons, and so can be considered an accessible part of the nervous system). A positive result on the VCS test suggests biotoxin exposure and CIRS. Though I understand that a positive VCS test result may also occur in Lyme disease, Babesia, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. So this test is more for guidance rather than an infallible method of diagnosing CIRS.

A free online version of the VCS test can be found here. I come out negative when I take this test (ie, my visual contrast sensitivity is found to be pretty good).