Medical News Today: What to know about post-viral syndrome

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326619.php

This article seems very confused as to whether CFS, as it calls it, actually exists, or has a typical trigger.

 

What is post-viral syndrome? it all depends what you mean. By "is".

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1182372752516403200

 

another one not on WHO.
There is Post viral Fatigue syndrome as we know (includes benign M.E., and CFS)

There is Postviral Encephalitis, and Postviral Encephalomyelitis under Viral infections of the central nervous system.

the idea of 'Postviral or postinfection syndrome' is not new:
see paper posted by @Lucibee on another thread

Post-infectious disease syndrome. 1988
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2428896/

re-inventing the wheel, and going round and round on it.........

 

The medical reviewer for the article, Kevin Martinez MD, is not listed on the medical reviewer team webpage. So there is no description of who he is.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/reviewers

 

That is one mess of a confused article.

Editorial standards? Who needs that?

 

In the quotes the authors seem to be saying that if the condition develops out of a viral condition it is then post viral syndrome, if not it is then CFS. However it is also saying that post viral syndrome will spontaneously resolve.

Given a significant proportion, perhaps the largest subgroup, of people with an ME/CFS diagnosis had an origin in an acute infection, are they saying they all have post viral syndrome, or are they saying that the only way to distinguish between the two is if the person recovers relatively rapidly? Then does it make sense to say that one has an explanation but that the other arises for ‘no apparent reason’?

Some people with a ME/CFS following an acute infection do actually spontaneously recover, so are they saying that was a misdiagnosis, or are they willing to postulate a specific time period for recovery to distinguish between post viral syndrome and ME/CFS?

Am I wasting my time trying to make sense of any of this? Certainly I see little point in actually bothering to read the article.

 

Yes. The author is clearly very confused.

As usual the question is why the hell is clueless nonsense like this published in the first place? How is that there are seemingly no standards whatsoever in medical publishing?