1. Sign our petition calling on Cochrane to withdraw their review of Exercise Therapy for CFS here.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. Guest, the 'News in Brief' for the week beginning 11th March 2024 is here.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. Welcome! To read the Core Purpose and Values of our forum, click here.
    Dismiss Notice

Five years before multiple sclerosis onset: Phenotyping the prodrome (2018) Wijnands et al

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Webdog, Jul 18, 2018.

  1. Webdog

    Webdog Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    2,265
    Location:
    Holodeck #2
    Study:
    Five years before multiple sclerosis onset: Phenotyping the prodrome
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1352458518783662

    Press Release:
    A constellation of symptoms presages first definitive signs of multiple sclerosis
    http://www.med.ubc.ca/a-constellati...first-definitive-signs-of-multiple-sclerosis/
    Does ME/CFS have a prodrome and will it ever be studied? Dr. David S. Bell writes that facial flushing can precede ME/CFS onset in adolescents. In the same article, Bell also writes about children having some symptoms, such as sleeping more and repeated viral infections, prior to developing the whole symptom pattern of ME/CFS.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2018
    Inara, merylg, Indigophoton and 13 others like this.
  2. ScottTriGuy

    ScottTriGuy Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    692
    So we have the MUS brigade making inroads toward denying patients with physical symptoms appropriate medical testing, while at the same time researchers essentially finding that some 'medically unexplained symptoms' are really 'multiple sclerosis symptoms'.

    How much do you want to bet the vast majority of 'medically unexplained symptoms' will eventually be found to be 'new disease symptoms'?

    How many people will suffer, how many will die, due to the long arm of MUS?
     
    Woolie, Inara, Chezboo and 17 others like this.
  3. Forbin

    Forbin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,581
    Location:
    USA
    As far as prodrome goes, probably the weirdest thing I had in the months before onset was an odd intolerance to cold. On several occasions, I would climb into a cold car around 10 PM to drive home and I would just be swept by waves of a kind of shivering that I had never experienced before. It passed in a couple of minutes and I felt fine, but I'd never had that reaction to being cold before - and it wasn't super cold. The shivering was was more similar to something you might get with an infection, but it clearly was brought on by the temperature.

    Whether it was connected to ME, I don't know.

    I never mentioned it to anyone because I knew their reaction would be, "It was cold and you were shivering. So what?"
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2018
    Woolie, Inara, TiredSam and 11 others like this.
  4. JaimeS

    JaimeS Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,248
    Location:
    Stanford, CA
    An interesting post to show up today.

    I just looked at all my 2011 bloodwork again for RBC- and blood volume-related stuff. At the time, I half-accepted my doctor's reassurances that the bloodwork wasn't much of anything to worry about. But I think if any other doctor had looked at that bloodwork they would've sent me off for IV antibiotics. It looks like active infection pattern (high monocytes) but there are also some signs of compromised immune function (low IgA and low numbers of some WBC types). Other unusual bloodwork included platelet and RBC irregularities (my RBCs were too small), and both iron and B12 were very low. (Yes, I ate meat.)

    If I saw this today -- presuming I could somehow have all the knowledge I have about other diseases without any knowledge of ME at all -- I'd wonder if I were looking at someone with malaria, maybe.

    Results of this are that I took Floridex (liquid B12 and iron supplement). :bored: That was the prescription I got: take iron pills.

    No one wondering how I got anemic all of a sudden, both pernicious and iron-based. No one even mentioned the IgA until years later, even though it was clinically low. Taking all that into account, I'd consider generalized gut barrier dysfunction to be something to check, esp with the sub-normal B12 on a normal diet. But no one said that either.

    All of this was about 3 years before my "point of no return" event.

    This is all my personal story, but I'm far from the only person here or on PR who's mentioned that iron, Vitamin D, and B12 all were low at the start of their illness. It would be super-useful to get data on this so we could have more than apocrypha.
     
    Woolie, Inara, andypants and 15 others like this.
  5. FreeSarah

    FreeSarah Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    154
    Location:
    UK -ish
    Damn, that feels like important research. I'm not competent to assess its quality, though. Is it well conducted?
     
    Inara, Skycloud and Amw66 like this.
  6. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,245
    My thoughts exactly. At least 3 coffees required
     
    Inara and FreeSarah like this.
  7. Forbin

    Forbin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,581
    Location:
    USA
    Following onset, I developed mild anemia with low RBC's, high MCH and normal hemoglobin. I think this is called "macrocytic anemia," but I could be wrong. The physician attributed it to loss of appetite, but I never told him I had lost my appetite... because, at that point, I hadn't. Actually, at the point where I had lost my appetite, the blood tests no longer showed anemia. :confused:
     
    Inara, JaimeS, Daisymay and 4 others like this.
  8. Mithriel

    Mithriel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    2,815
    "Dr. Tremlett and former postdoctoral fellow José Wijnands found that fibromyalgia, a condition involving widespread musculoskeletal pain, was more than three times as common in people who were later diagnosed with MS, and irritable bowel syndrome was almost twice as common.

    Two other conditions with markedly higher rates among people to be diagnosed with MS: migraine headaches and any mood or anxiety disorder, which includes depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder.

    The higher rates of those illnesses also corresponds with higher use of medications for musculoskeletal disorders, nervous system disorders, and disorders of the genito-urinary tract, along with antidepressants and antibiotics."

    OK, I may be too picky but I know a lot of people with MS some of them from before they were diagnosed. When they went with their first symptoms, they were fobbed off by being told they had anxiety, maybe put on antidepressants. Their MS symptoms - suddenly dropping things, feeling unsteady were ignored. Starting to feel ill with no idea why will make people anxious and no answer that fits will make them depressed. One friend was fired for taking too many days off work. If she had been diagnosed she would have been treated differently.

    Inability to empty the bladder properly leads to UTIs, MS symptoms but fobbed of as "women get that". Pain and fatigue, oh that must be fibromyalgia. Does MS cure fibro? I don't know anyone with MS who says they have fibro as well.

    I think what they are detecting in this paper is misdiagnoses. Rather than prodrome it is early symptoms of MS that are presenting but doctors are not asking the right questions. I suspect that the autoimmune process has started but the effects are not major enough to be detected easily, rather than different diseases being present. Unless that is what they mean by prodrome.
     
    Woolie, Inara, andypants and 19 others like this.
  9. JaimeS

    JaimeS Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,248
    Location:
    Stanford, CA
    yep, and mine was 'microcytic', which can happen if your iron drops very low. Not saying that was why I had microcytic anemia, only that this COULD have been why I had microcytic anemia.
     
    merylg, NelliePledge and Forbin like this.
  10. JaimeS

    JaimeS Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,248
    Location:
    Stanford, CA
    No, you're not being "too picky". I thought the exact same thing: of course they were dxed with some kind of mood disorder, first; that's doctor for "I don't know".
     
    Mithriel, Woolie, Inara and 9 others like this.
  11. Sasha

    Sasha Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,765
    Location:
    UK
    Seriously, I think it's worth writing into the journal to say that.
     
    Mithriel, Woolie, Inara and 5 others like this.
  12. Forbin

    Forbin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,581
    Location:
    USA
    I think you're right, and that "prodrome" does not mean that the disease process hasn't started, just that it doesn't meet the official diagnosis yet. If that's right, then, by most current definitions, the "prodrome" of ME/CFS technically lasts at least six months - since that's how long you have to be "fatigued" before being diagnosed.
     
    Mithriel, Woolie, Inara and 4 others like this.
  13. duncan

    duncan Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,572
    I believe there is an MS school of thought that holds infectious diseases may be at play - and in fact that school is growing - but perhaps not.
     
    Inara, JaimeS and merylg like this.
  14. duncan

    duncan Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,572
    Hmmm, me, too. Macrocytic anemia. Low platelets as well. Interesting that you also had vestibular issues.
     
    Inara, JaimeS and Forbin like this.
  15. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    12,255
    Location:
    Canada
    I have seen a few articles lately about replicated findings of high levels of prior anxiety diagnoses in many autoimmune diseases. It's looking more and more like a high proportion of anxiety diagnosis may simply be early symptoms before the disease can be detected.

    Occam's razor suggests the same as well. It seems likely that medicine will take a detour in looking at whether anxiety may cause autoimmune disease for a while then finally look at it from the right angle that it's the other way around, that early symptoms of disease are misdiagnosed are anxiety.

    It will likely cause a lot of conflicts with the current nonsense about MUS and trying to psychologize every disease. Hopefully this could lead to the fall of this nonsense faster than if it were just us fighting it.
     
    Mithriel, Woolie, Keebird and 10 others like this.
  16. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    6,245
    We don' t do the same bloodwork, but i managed to persuade GP to test Vit D, which was very low. Iron borderline too.I will have to check files for other values. We don' t test B12, and were supplementing by the time the suggestion had been accepted

    Are there any studies re vit D and epigenetics - if gene expression is a factor, ( as suggested by some studies) then low vit D may have a role to play? ( or have i got this wrong?)
     
    JaimeS and merylg like this.
  17. JaimeS

    JaimeS Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,248
    Location:
    Stanford, CA
    You're not wrong: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4010791/

    [Edit: Vitamin D has some immune effects, so it may also drop in acute infection? So maybe the 'prodrome' I'm looking at is a kind of immune depletion picture.]
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2018
    Inara and Amw66 like this.

Share This Page