Dr Alain Moreau video - developing new test to discriminate between ME & Fibro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJxypc8cNPY

 

Moreau mentions he's now used the arm cuff PEM inducing thingy on 250 people but didn't say how many of those were pwME, pwFM and pwLC. IIRC previous papers on ME had very small cohorts.

That's a pretty big claim in the video, apparently microRNA profiles can distinguish between ME, FM and ME+FM. Sounds like there's a paper coming (no estimated date given); I hope it has some good data from good-sized cohorts to back this up. May is fundraising month, might explain the hype, maybe.

Another big claim, though this time Moreau stresses himself that it's highly speculative, is that in a different study they have an early epigenetic signal that may predict who goes on to develop LC and ultimately ME.

 

Was there an explanation of why he thought developing this test was worth doing at this time? Not that I am saying that it isn't, but in the grand list of things I would want to see developed or researched for ME, a test to differentiate between ME and FM would be pretty low down. Given that, as I understand it, exercise is meant to be good for FM, to my mind the biggest plus point of such a test would be to find pwME who have been misdiagnosed with FM, and vice versa.

 

Every FM friend that I've met irl do not experience PEM, and have no clue what I'm talking about when I describe my experience with PEM.

 

Agree on questioning the need for such a test. Is this work funded by OMF?

 

If his claim (that they can distinguish people with ME, people with FM, people with ME & FM, and healthy controls) pans out this would be pretty significant. The test obviously isn't super practical for widespread use, but any kind of test is better than no test (and it's certainly much better than a CPET test). 250 is a pretty good sized cohort too!

Dr. Moreau does say that FM doesn't have PEM. He says they found FM patients had low levels of the circulating miRNAs they are measuring before the arm cuff test and I think he implies those don't change during the arm cuff test. I think he is saying people with ME show higher levels of the miRNAs before the arm cuff and then these are changed after (but this part isn't entirely clear to me). He also says that some of the patients who thought they had ME instead had FM according to this test, which seems a little odd (how does he know their diagnosis is wrong rather than his test being wrong?), but maybe these patients' symptoms support the FM rather than ME diagnosis.

 

Their study aims to investigate circulating microRNA expression in ME/CFS patients before and after a stress challenge that stimulates PEM. The findings highlight the differential expression of eleven microRNAs associated with a physiological response to PEM.

I've never experienced pain in 31 years of M.E. Pain is the primary symptom for pwFM.

Perhaps the tests will differentiate pts with pain syndromes?

 

I get muscle pain with ME when I am actually physically doing something (ie walking up stairs, shampooing my hair, brushing my teeth), however, the pain goes away as soon as I stop whatever it is that I am doing.

 

My head feels like it is in a vice when I have PEM. I have ME with FM, maybe that is why I suffer with lots of pain.

 

The myalgia in ME was because of the, at times, excruciating pain. It feels like acid burning in your blood. In the RF epidemic they noted that patients hit the roof when they were touched.

Before CFS I had not heard of patients without a lot of pain though they could have existed.