I actually think you’re wrong, the point is always still worth it to scrutinize recovery stories. Did the people involved have ME. Did they improve on any objective measures (sustained activity being one)... etc etc
How is returning to full-time school or employment not an objective metric -- and probably among the most meaningful metrics at that? Even if the person is still having to rest the minute he/she gets home, to go from bed-bound to full-time employment is a remarkable improvement.
In the nearly twenty years since I was diagnosed, I've seen any number of recovery stories after all sorts of treatments, including GET and LP. Indeed just after I was diagnosed, the community was all abuzz with talk of surgery for Chiari malformation as a cure for ME/CFS (the more things change, the more they stay the same). And after each of the recovery stories, the first thing many in the community do is immediately claim that the person did not have "real" ME, regardless of how real his or her ME sounded. And what is "real ME?" I suppose we would probably say something along the lines of it involves post-exertional malaise -- a worsening of a variety of symptoms that may people will describe as flu-like or a heavy, leaden feeling -- that often occurs 24-48 hours after exertion. Except until we know the pathophysiology of the disease, it's impossible to say what "real ME" is. I mean, if you go exclusively by symptoms, what is "real" MS? We can say what symptoms are generally not associated with ME. But if the patient claimed to have PEM along with the rest of the symptoms we associate with this Damn Disease, it's hard to say he or she didn't have real ME, though he or she may have symptoms of other diseases in addition to ME. If we believe patients when they say they are sick, we must also believe them when they say they are well unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.
You will note the preposition I used was the agnostic "after" treatment, rather than the explanatory "because." I cannot say what made them well. All I can do is speculate as
there is no medical explanation possible at this time.
@JenB 's comments above about the problems with recovery stories are important, and I appreciated them very much. And she appears to have ample evidence that she is recovered -- not that she owes us this evidence. But she has not provided a medical explanation about
how she recovered that makes physiological sense. Instead, she and
@Jeff_w have given us speculation, which is all they can offer given that no medical explanation is possible at this time. That is the crucial distinction about which we all keep talking past each other in this thread.
Again, there is something primally painful for humans when it comes to saying "I don't know." We despise lacunae and desperately want explanation -- especially when without one we remain sick, in pain, and shut out of life. But as painful as it is, when it comes to science, as Jen herself said in her TED Talk, "'I don't know' is a beautiful thing."