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MicroRNAs as biomarkers of pain intensity in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Al-Rawaf (2019)

Discussion in 'ME/CFS research' started by John Mac, Jul 9, 2019.

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  1. John Mac

    John Mac Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31282597

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/papr.12817?af=R&
     
    John Mac, Jul 9, 2019
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  2. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    Andy, Jul 9, 2019
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  3. MeSci

    MeSci Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    An awful lot of erroneous repetition of 'CSF' instead of CFS too.
     
    MeSci, Jul 9, 2019
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  4. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    I'm having some trouble understanding bits of this. (no surprise there)

    I get that they found that the adolescents with CFS had higher pain intensity, lower microRNA and higher inflammatory markers than the healthy controls, and that this same pattern of highs and lows is found in adults with other pain conditions. Have I got that right?

    But what does this bit of the abstract mean?

    To my lay person's mind, that says CFS patients can take more pain stimulus before they feel the pain, and enjoy life more despite their pain. Surely that can't be right.

    Here's the relevant bit from the results section:
    So if we pick apart that part of the abstract, we have:
    That should read: Adolescents with CFS showed significantly higher pain severity than comparable non-fatigued HC's

    The comparison is not with healthy controls as the abstract seems to imply, but with the effect of pain on other aspects of daily life in CFS patients.
    So perhaps it should read:
    Also, all aspects of life domains are worse in CFS patients than HC's but the ability to enjoy life and relations with others are the least affected life domains.
     
    Trish, Jul 9, 2019
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  5. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Nevermind the "non-fatigued" part that makes the whole thing dubious, is this phrased correctly, meaning CFS patients have more pain tolerance? It's a bit ambiguous as it could apply both ways.

    I'm not really sure how this could be interpreted in an objective way, though. Being in pain all the time means a significant skewing of the pain scale. What is a 5 to a healthy person may be a 3 for us since much greater pain levels than normal are basically typical. But likely only on pain that is part of the disease and familiar. And just with the example of spicy food preferences, the possible range of pain sensitivity is huge.

    Basically all this can report is relative pain, not absolute. Without a way to standardize it becomes impossible to interpret anything of significance. It's like comparing whether someone in London thinks X amount of rain is a lot and comparing that to someone who lives in the Arizona desert. The same question would have different answers and would follow if the two people moved, their own scale would adapt.

    Without an objective way to measure pain, this is the fatal flaw in any evaluation of pain. Questionnaire-based research is too weak to be of use.
     
    rvallee, Jul 9, 2019
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  6. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Also: ugghhhhnnnnn but research from Saudi Arabia comparing pain between males and females is conflicted at best.
     
    rvallee, Jul 9, 2019
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  7. adambeyoncelowe

    adambeyoncelowe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    It's garbled but if it means what I think it means, that's interesting. If patients have a higher pain tolerance, it suggests they're not hypersensitive to pain.
     
    adambeyoncelowe, Jul 9, 2019
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  8. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I wouldn't bother with this.
     
    Jonathan Edwards, Jul 9, 2019
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  9. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I would agree
    I would agree re pain tolerance.
    My daughter finds it difficult to compare pain / " meh face" scores on a diary app she has as her pain tolerance has changed over time, probably as the nature and degree of pain has changed. People become accustomed to a background pain level.

    The sheer resilience of those with ME is amazing.
     
    Amw66, Jul 9, 2019
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  10. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    But I couldn't see anywhere any mention that they tested pain threshold or pain tolerance. All they did was get them to fill in questionnaires on pain intensity.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/pain-threshold
     
    Trish, Jul 9, 2019
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  11. adambeyoncelowe

    adambeyoncelowe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    adambeyoncelowe, Jul 10, 2019
    #11
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  12. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    We have picked up problems with the write up. Are there problems with the biochemical stuff too? Is it meaningless?
     
    Trish, Jul 10, 2019
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