Golden hour (/month)

Are you perhaps just leveraging north values that may be meaningless to tissue?

I ask this question sincerely, as I have not explored it much. But I do not trust historical dogma as much as I once did.

Clearly you have done your homework. Impressive.

 

I didn't understand this comment the first time you made it, but I think I get it: the rooster raising the sun is Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc reasoning, right? What are we chicken-or-egging?

 

No, no; keep in mind that they were finding the same issues in places where there was a "rainy season" -- African countries and hot countries in the East. And for sure, if you're in the southern hemisphere all of this should apply to you in the spring, when it's beginning to grow cold -- at least that's how I'm understanding it.

One of the papers said that there was increased immune function in the autumn "regardless of hemisphere" but the very next line they contradicted themselves, so I figured they got confused on one or the other, and I wasn't going to draw any conclusions as a result.

 

One of the main reasons I don't post as often as once is I have issues with clarity. I apologize.

First, the rooster thing is a famous thing about not conflating an occurrence with a cause, ie the rooster does not cause the sun to rise even though there is a strong correlation with its ...yelling(?)..with dawn.

Second, no, Im sorry not NORTH, as in geographically, but north as in higher. So, you ingest Vit D supplements. Your Vit D values rise. But is this meaningful? Are your values rising simply because you infused a boatload of processed D that is not of much practical value? I do not know the answer to this.

I am drawn to this. Why would our immune function ratchet up - or down - by season?

Some infections' symptoms worsen by reproduction cycles, but this would be different maybe? Does it tie into the relapsing/remitting quality for some?

 

Gotcha!

It's meaningful to me, personally. I started off with my Vitamin D stores at 15 units (severe deficiency is at <30 units). For context, the MS doc who identified this told me it was possible that all my symptoms could have been due to chronically low Vitamin D if it was that bad.

Personally, I experienced a dramatic increase in energy and a slight bounce in mood from Vit D. Moreover, if I ran out, exhaustion increased again within about a week or two.

And actually I can find lots of studies that link Vitamin D supplementation to concrete outcomes beyond "increased Vitamin D in the blood" such as bone density and depression.

 

In a broader sense, we may be focused on growth and development in the spring and summer, and have more energetic reserves for protection and defense as it grows colder. Infection-fighting is a hot-burning process. T cells consume ridiculous amounts of energy, and replicate during infection like you would not believe. Harvesttime would have been a perfect opportunity to munge resources and 'clean house' as it were: taking the opportunity to 'sweep out' smouldering infections.

If so, that might be why I'm 'running hotter' and losing weight.

 

Awesome. Validating.

Not me, though. There is an argument, though, that I would be worse without the Vit D supplements. So, fair enough.

I think you are sooooo smart, and such an advocate, but I'm not buying this for a nano-second.

 

Is our brainstem hardwired into the seasons? If this is autoimmune?

Oh! You were suggesting that?!?

Very cool and my bad.

 

I'm going to say 'yes'. What we see in a yearly scale, in a month scale, and in a day is all linked to clock genes. I would not be surprised if the upticks in function had correlates in each timescale. Pure speculation, but it sure would be interesting.

Hehehhe! Do you prefer "pathogens like the summer"? Because this is quite true. The body saving energy might see the initial decreases in temperature as an opportunity to clear out invaders.

 

@JaimeS I have to take extra care in the winter months. Something I came to notice some years into my ME was that my ME would deteriorate when the temperature dropped to 13C/55F and below. I'd love to live somewhere where I never have experience anything under 13C again!

So, I let things go in winter and try to stay as warm as possible.

At the moment, last month of spring, I've been experiencing a lot of PEM because I am trying to catch up on jobs I had left during the winter months but I expect as summer comes on with more steadier a warmth I will improve a bit more. Our summer temperatures are not extremely hot as in other countries, very rare to go over 30C/86F where I am.

 

I've never personally noticed a seasonal change, but I wonder if the explanation for feeling better could be as simple as improved sleep. I definitely sleep better when it is cold. Perhaps somewhat better sleep can tip the balance for some, but then the additional activity eventually catches up with you.

 

I have been reflecting on this. I think that I may have experienced some seasonal effect during "middle period" ME. I remember that summer was probably worst, but put that down to longer days and higher expectations- hedges and grass to cut, garden to pretend to keep under control. Once the clocks change you don't feel as bad about going to bed at 6.30.

I recall one late Autumn, 12 years into the illness,s suddenly going off and climbing some hills. So there may have been an Autumn effect. One day I went with people in normal health, but not fell walkers. The second day I left them to their own devices and did almost a proper walk on my own, in early snow. It was glorious. I no doubt suffered later, but, what the hell.

I always felt that this experience of awakening must have been something like that described by Oliver Sachs in the encephalitis lethargica cases he described. Sometimes the body makes sufficient of something.

It is this experience which wholly refutes the BPS explanation of the illness. No rational person believing in these stories could think a psychological explanation, or deconditioning, relevant. I have never understood whether Wessely and Sharpe heard such stories, disbelieved them, ignored them, or discounted them. I have never seen any explanation by them. One would certainly expect Peter White, studying post glandular fever cases, to have been familiar with this aspect of the condition.

 

this article may be of interest:
Mark your calendar: All infectious diseases are seasonal
"In 2001, a researcher at the CDC hypothesized that seasonal changes in the hormone melatonin may play a role in modulating the immune system. In an ongoing study funded by a National Institutes of Health Director's Grant, Martinez is investigating this possibility by comparing levels of immune molecules in blood drawn from patients at different times of the year."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108142413.htm

 

I've always had seasonal variation. Viral infections from end of August causing relapse until about March. Then an improvement over the summer.

 

Yes, definitely true. At least one of the articles I stumbled across was talking about melatonin's effect.

In my experience, doctors disinclined to believe you will hold up their hand or talk over you when you start to explain something that counters their beliefs -- even if it isn't an argument directed to / about their beliefs but a fact that doesn't neatly mesh with the worldview.

One of my docs habitually interrupted me when I began to say something that didn't fit his view of the illness. If he didn't hear it, he could pretend it didn't exist.

 

Northern or southern hemisphere?

 

I definitely feel worse when it gets colder. Once, I had a tropical holiday Christmas time I instantly switched back to better for the duration. I'm very poorly in winter. At the moment I have a cold (maybe a flu) I feel rotten.

 

Northern. I do prefer cooler weather, so it's not temperature related.

 

Well, we've done the research and now it's time for experimentation.

While it would be ideal to do nothing but take measurements this year and attempt treatments next year, for ethical reasons I'm going to try and treat the patient right away.

I'll see if I can get a doc to do CBC every two weeks from now until the beginning of February. Let's see if, at least in my case, there's anything to this.

 

Hmmm, confusing. I do have an annual seasonal slump when I crash more easily and am overall more sluggish and malaise-ish but the timing is different from the others here. For me it's the winter to spring transition (starting late August/early September, Southern hemisphere).

In the past I interpreted this as a reaction to increasing UV light levels because I have a condition called polymorphic light eruption which involves an immune response (for most people just in the skin but a few, myself included, get a more systemic reaction with flu-like symptoms). Against this theory is the fact that I was always fully sun-protected when leaving the house, and these days I hardly ever leave the house, but still get the 'slump'.

Another suspect was vitamin D but this doesn't really fit either. In the past, whenever I went off supplements for a few months I would get deficient, unsurprising given my sun avoidance. This would indicate that the bulk of my vitamin D comes from supplements and levels should be relatively steady and, indeed, with constant supplementation my levels do test steady.

Now, after reading this thread I'm speculating about changes in melatonin levels as the culprit. I'm pretty certain light is a factor for me in some way. And of course light is a factor in melatonin production. And one of your papers @JaimeS, I forget which one, said melatonin was lowest during the time of my seasonal slump. Plus, on a day-to-day basis I feel mentally better on bright days, the sun lifts my mood, but physically I'm actually better on overcast days (effect is independent of temperature) with the weird result that in bright sunshine I feel lousy but uplifted.

I'll finish the post the way I started it: Hmmm, confusing.