What conditions are and are not included under IACC umbrella term ?

Hi,

I didn't find a thread on that topic, but in case this subject was already discussed, do not hesitate to tell me !

I'm trying to better understand what people using the IACC (Infection Associated Chronic Conditions) umbrella terms exactly means. Which conditions are included or not.

A definition of IACC could be chronic conditions that

• occur after bacterial, viral, or even parasitic infections
• share common characteristics regardless of trigger
• are poorly understood by the medical community

MECFS, Long covid, IO/POTS/Dysautonomia, MCAS, Post-Treatment Lyme Disease (PTLD) are usually included in IACC.

Some disease like Multiple Sclerosis or Alzheimer’s disease that are associated to infections but more understood are not included in IACC.

Sometimes fibromyalgia is listed in IACC, that seems surprising to me but I don't know much about FM. Same for Hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD) and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS)

Please, don't hesitate to share your knowledge and understanding of the IACCs with me, I'm lost.

 

Does the first C stand for “chronic” or “complex”?

My view is that the conditions don’t have to be triggered by an infection. But have to have a documented linked onset to infections in a non-negligeable chunk of the population affected.

Because otherwise I don’t see how you could say ME/CFS is IACC because some people seem to have non-infectious triggers.

 

For what it's worth I'm rather sceptical that the concept of IACCs is at all a useful one - I previously explained why I think that in this post:

https://s4me.info/threads/thereforme-campaign-building-an-nhs-that’s-there-for-long-covid-and-me.39467/page-14#post-581342

 

My bad, it's for chronic. IACC stands for Infection Associated Chronic Conditions.

 

Presumably, that would also include HPV-associated cancers. And that might highlight how broad the category is, and therefore how meaningless it probably is for saying anything about what it’s about.

 

Thanks for the link !
I'm not a fan of IACC term, but it's more and more used in scientific papers and for advocacy purpose (SOLVE ME, crunch ME, etc...). In France, MECFS is not recognized at all by health authorities, while Long Covid is (a little bit) more recognized. So ME associations try to "make light" on MECFS using Long Covid and IACCs...

 

It isn't a useful or sensible term. It is one of those twitter buzzwords we are now drowned by.
MCAS, EDS, POTs, have nothing to do with infection as far as we know - and probably pretty little to do with ME/CFS. ME/CFS includes OI, but that is just a symptom, not a disease, and probably mostly not related to POTS. This whole area is a can of worms, best just ignored. When people use terms like these they are mostly not worth reading much.

 

It might be helpful to have insight from an infectious disease expert.

 

I'd never heard of it, to be honest.

I wouldn't use it, as it's unhelpful to group conditions together. If we want treatments we need to do the opposite—drilling down into how to describe symptoms and challenging our own use of words.

As far as I can see, suggesting they're all in the same category just offers encouragement to the psychosomatic lobby and "wellness" grifters.

 

I think there are genuine uses cases to group these illness together more in the sense of post covid post lyme and Post infectious me/CFS including other "syndromes" commonly triggered by infection.

But why a new name, when "post-infectious syndromes" already exists

(I think the buzzword going around now has added acute to the name so we're all hearing the word "PAIS")