by Robert Palmer

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is also called chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is known for its symptoms associated with extreme fatigue that cause a substantial reduction in activity level. Triggered by viral illnesses or stressful events, CFS has symptoms including general pain, mental fogginess, flu-like symptoms, gastrointestinal problems, headache, muscle and joint aches, allergies to food and medications, anxiety and depression, and a decreased sex drive. CFS patients also are victim to frequent infections, which suppress the hypothalamus and lead to a decrease in the functioning of all glands and their hormones, triggering sleep dysfunction because the body confuses day and night cycles. Therefore, people with CFS have trouble staying in a deep, restorative sleep. 800,000 people nationwide of all ages, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups have CFS at any given time. Although the severity of these symptoms may differ among people, they will hang on or reoccur frequently for more than six months and most commonly continue for three to five years.

Another cause to chronic fatigue symptom is fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). FMS, which is found in about 80% of CFS patients, is a painful shortening of muscles throughout the body, causing many tender knots in the muscles, and leading to a sleep disorder. The tender knots, which are also called trigger points, are the source of the aches and pains that people with fibromyalgia and CFS feel.

Although treating chronic fatigue syndrome is a significant challenge, an integrated treatment approached, individualized to each patient, can improve patients dramatically. The first line of treatment is medications that provide symptom relief, including medications for pain, sleep disturbances, digestive problems, depression and anxiety and flu-like symptoms. However, these medications only put a bandage on symptoms instead of addressing the root problems. As a result, medications need to be supplemented by other supportive treatments such as counseling for emotional and mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep management therapy, and massage.

There are also several vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that can have powerful positive effects on a person with CFS. Each of these minerals in a chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia formula should work together to improve energy levels and overall health. Some key nutrients to look for in an energy formula include: Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Magnesium, Inositol, Malic Acid, Betaine, Amino Acids, Zinc, Selenium, and Fructooligosaccharides. Each of these is important to ensure recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome and can be found in a powdered drink mix. In addition to the powdered energy drink mix, it is important to also take a vitamin B-complex supplement that is specifically formulated for people with CFS/FMS, which should include niacinamide, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, pantothenic acid, and choline. This B-complex supplement can help fight against the symptoms of fatigue and mental “fogginess.” Along with a B-complex supplement, people with CFS/FMS should also take an adrenal extract. Because many CFS/FMS patients are suffering from adrenal burnout, which occurs when adrenal glands constantly produce cortisol in response to chronic stress resulting in an exhausted adrenal reserve, it is important to use a glandular therapy regimen to ensure healthy cortisol levels and adrenal function. Be sure to buy an adrenal extract supplement that contains both whole adrenal and adrenal cortex extracts as well as vitamin C, vitamin B6, L-tyrosine, betaine, pantothenic acid and licorice.

Because of continued sleep interruption is the main cause of the symptoms of CFS/FMS, the most effective way to eliminate pain is to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night. However, this can be very difficult; the muscle knots of FMS make it uncomfortable to lie in one position for an extended time, which keeps the patient from getting the adequate amount of deep sleep needed to recharge their “batteries.” Herbal products can be used to help promote good quality sleep. A combination of wild lettuce, hops, Jamaica dogwood, L-Theanine, valerian, and passionflower is specially formulated for those people with CFS/FMS because each herb addresses a different aspect of sleeplessness and muscle tension. Together, these four interventions against CFS/FMS: sleep formula, morning energy drink, energy B-complex, and an adrenal complex can make a noticeable difference in CFS/FMS patients.

Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue can affect ones life for a long time, stop into your local health food store or visit one online for all the above mentioned items to help ease your pain and suffering.

Visit VitaNet Health Foods at http://vitanetonline.com/ VitaNet sells high quality supplements like Fibro Response for a healthy body. Please link to this site when using this article.

Article Source: U Publish Articles

Tweet This Post

If you thought the best way to lose and maintain weight was the slow and steady approach, think again. A new study by Lisa Nackers and colleagues, from the University of Florida in the US, suggests that the key to long-term weight loss and maintenance is to lose weight quickly, not gradually, in the initial stages of obesity treatment. Their findings(1) are published online in Springer’s International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Successful weight loss in obese individuals is defined as a reduction of 10 percent or more of initial body weight maintained for at least a year. The jury is still out, however, as to whether fast or slow initial weight loss is the best approach for long-term weight control in obese patients. On the one hand, there is evidence that losing weight slowly initially results in continued weight loss, reduced risk of weight regain, and successful long-term weight loss maintenance. On the other hand, it has also been shown that the greater the initial weight loss in obese patients, the larger the total weight loss observed longer term.

Nackers and team’s study examines the association between rate of initial weight loss and long-term maintenance of lost weight, by looking specifically at whether losing weight at a slow initial rate results in larger long-term weight reduction and less weight regain than losing weight at a fast initial rate.

The authors analyzed data for 262 middle-aged obese women who took part in the Treatment of Obesity in Underserved Rural Settings (TOURS) trial. These women followed a six-month lifestyle program encouraging them to reduce their calorie intake and increase their moderate intensity physical activity to achieve an average weight loss of 0.45kg per week. They were then supported for a further year with an extended care program involving contact twice a month in the form of group sessions, telephone contact or newsletters.

Nackers and team split the women into three groups according to how much weight they lost in the first month of the intervention. Women in the FAST group lost over 0.68kg per week; those in the MODERATE group lost between 0.23 and 0.68kg per week; women in the SLOW group lost less than 0.23kg per week in that first month. The authors then looked at the womens’ weight loss at 6 and 18 months, as well as any weight regain.

They found that there were long-term advantages to fast initial weight loss. Fast weight losers lost more weight overall, maintained their weight loss for longer and were not more likely to put weight back on than the more gradual weight losers. In particular, women in the FAST group were five times more likely to achieve the clinically significant 10 percent weight loss at 18 months than those in the SLOW group and those in the MODERATE group were nearly three times more likely to achieve this milestone than women in the SLOW group.

The authors conclude: “Our study provides further evidence that, within the context of lifestyle treatment, losing weight at a fast initial rate leads to greater short-term weight reductions, does not result in increased susceptibility to weight regain, and is associated with larger weight losses and overall long-term success in weight management. We suggest that, within lifestyle weight control programs, substantial efforts should be focused on promoting large rather than small behavioral changes during the initial weeks of treatment.”

Reference:
1. Nackers LM et al (2010). The association between rate of initial weight loss and long-term success in obesity treatment: does slow and steady win the race? International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, DOI 10.1007/s12529-010-9092-y

Tweet This Post

Yoga, tai chi, qigong and other exercises appear to help people suffering from cancer, arthritis, fybromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and other problems.
July 05, 2010|By Jeannine Stein, Los Angeles Times
Beatrice de Gea / Los Angeles Times

For more than a decade, Cheryl Clark has lived with the chronic pain that accompanies fibromyalgia. After years of suffering with severe flu-like aches and pains, she finally found some relief — but it didn’t come from a pill or a shot. It came from exercise.

Several times a week, Clark heads to the warm-water pool and the gym at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation in Pomona. Her pain, she says, has gone from a six or seven on a 10-point scale scale down to a one or two.
“It would kill me to walk from the car to the doctor’s office. I was using a cane. I didn’t have the mind-set that moving is the key … I really got my life back.”

Movement-based therapies such as yoga, tai chi, qigong and more mainstream forms of exercise are gaining acceptance in the world of chronic pain management. Many pain clinics and integrative medicine centers now offer movement-based therapy for pain caused by cancer and cancer treatments, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases and conditions. And Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles offers a three-year yoga therapy course as part of the school’s yoga studies program.

Several small studies in peer-reviewed journals attest to the effectiveness of these therapies.

In one, 30 men and women with chronic low back pain took hatha yoga classes for 12 weeks or were part of a control group that had standard care. Those in the yoga group had substantial decreases in pain compared with the control group, which had almost no change. At the end of the study, published in 2009 in the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, the yoga group was also using fewer analgesics and opiates for pain, and reported greater overall improvement in quality of life.

Another study, published this year in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, found tai chi beneficial for 15 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. After practicing tai chi twice a week for 12 weeks, participants reported less pain and stress, plus more body awareness and confidence in moving.

And a 2003 study in the Journal of Rheumatology found that 43 people with osteoarthritis who completed a 12-week tai chi program had considerably less pain and stiffness in their joints and more abdominal strength and better balance compared with those in a control group that did not do the exercises.

As for why movement can help tamp down pain, some health professionals believe it has to do with the overall benefits of helping people become active again.

“When pain gets chronic, people do less,” says Kathleen Sluka, professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation science at the University of Iowa. “Their muscles get weaker and their bodies get tighter, and they think about pain a lot more. Movement techniques help them relax, make them stronger and reduce stress levels, so maybe they can think about something other than pain for a bit.”

Further, common elements of yoga and tai chi include slow, rhythmic movement and diaphragm-focused breathing. Those elements alone may trigger a relaxation response.

“There is some evidence that as you do regular breathing and slow the heart rate, you can calm or quiet the autonomic nervous system,” says Dr. Vernon Williams, director of sports neurology and pain management at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in L.A.

When that happens, Williams adds, there may be reduced levels of cortisol and epinephrine, or adrenaline, in the body. Those hormones are released when the body is under stress. Small amounts can improve memory and energy levels, but too much over long periods of time can increase inflammation, as well as joint and muscle pain.

That inflammation, says Dr. Michael Irwin, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, could lead to increased pain sensitivity.

Slow, rhythmic breathing and movement “target the pathways by shutting off or diminishing the inflammatory response,” he says.

More strenuous activity, for those who are able to do it, may also ease pain.

Cardiovascular exercise that elevates the heart rate for sustained periods helps the body release endorphins, neurotransmitters that attach to opiate receptors in the brain. That process can reduce the perception of pain.

It takes time

But exercise isn’t a magic pill, and it may take weeks or months of dedicated work to see significant results.

“With any exercise program, you may get an initial increase in pain when you start, and you may feel it where the original pain is,” says Sluka. “That’s normal, but if people stick with it, that won’t happen anymore.”

The evidence on the benefits of exercise is good enough to convince many physicians to recommend movement therapy for some patients with chronic pain, but others think more research is needed.

“What we really want to know is long-term data,” says Dr. Roger Chou, associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. “Presumably, if these therapies are having an impact on the cellular level, they won’t be a temporary placebo — they’re going to last longer.”

Knowing more about how movement affects pain can help tailor therapies to patients.

“If you can understand the underlying individual characteristics of an intervention, then it matters,” says Jeffrey Gold, director of the Pediatric Pain Management Clinic at Chlidrens Hospital Los Angeles. “That way you’re not wasting the person’s time trying something. At the end of the day, when you have somebody with a debilitating condition, they can take part in a specific therapy, and it helps.”

As for Clark, after completing Casa Colina’s eight-week program, she continues to use the center’s pool and gym several times a week. Exercising regularly has allowed her to stay in her 40-hour-a week job instead of going on disability.

“As you gain more endurance you can do more,” she says. “And you feel better overall.”

Tweet This Post

Tender-point exams are no longer the only way to diagnose fibromyalgia — the American College of Rheumatology has provisionally accepted alternate criteria for diagnosing the condition and gauging the severity of symptoms.

The diagnostic criteria doctors have been using were established in 1990. Once other possible causes of symptoms were eliminated, diagnosis was based purely upon pain. It had to be on both sides of the body, both above and below the waist, along the axial skeleton (head, throat, chest, spine), and also in at least 11 of 18 specific spots on the body that are called tender points. Symptoms have to have been present for at least 3 months.

The tender-point exam has always been controversial for several reasons. First, it was originally intended as a qualifier for clinical studies, not as a diagnostic tool. Second, it’s subjective because it relies on a patient’s self-reported pain. Third, because symptoms fluctuate so much, the number of tender points may vary greatly from one exam to another.

Until we have a diagnostic test that’s based on blood markers or imaging, we probably won’t have a perfect diagnostic test. (This is true of many diseases, especially neurological ones.) Still, researchers believe they’ve come up with something that works better — they say when the looked at a group of previously diagnosed fibromyalgia patients, the tender-point exam was about 75% accurate, while their criteria caught it 88% of the time.

New Diagnostic Criteria

The new criteria keep the requirements that other causes be ruled out and that symptoms have to have persisted for at least 3 months. They also includes 2 new methods of assessment, the widespread pain index (WPI) and the symptom severity (SS) scale score.

The WPI lists 19 areas of the body and you say where you’ve had pain in the last week. You get 1 point for each area, so the score is 0-19.

For the SS scale score, the patient ranks specific symptoms on a scale of 0-3. These symptoms include:

•Fatigue
•Waking unrefreshed
•Cognitive symptoms
•Somatic (physical) symptoms in general (such as headache, weakness, bowel problems, nausea, dizziness, numbness/tingling, hair loss)
The numbers assigned to each are added up, for a total of 0-12.

This next part is really interesting to me. Instead of looking for a hard score on each, there’s some flexibility built in, which recognizes the fact that fibromyalgia impacts us all differently, and that symptoms can fluctuate.

For a diagnosis you need EITHER:

1.WPI of at least 7 and SS scale score of at least 5, OR
2.WPI of 3-6 and SS scale score of at least 9.
What this does is allow for people with fewer painful areas but more severe symptoms to be diagnosed.

Something else I really like about this is that it finally includes cognitive symptoms! For many of us, “fibro fog” is as debilitating or even more debilitating than pain, yet the old criteria didn’t even mention it. It also recognizes the difference between “fatigue” and “waking unrefreshed,” which I believe is an under-recognized distinction in the medical community.

A quick note about “somatic symptoms”: strictly speaking, somatic means physical. The term has gotten a bad rap in the fibromyalgia community because it’s been used to suggest our symptoms are the result of somatization, which means “physical manifestations of a psychological illness.” On its own, however, the word somatic does not imply a psychological basis.

The full article on the new criteria isn’t yet available for free online, but a PDF of an appendix including these criteria is. It has the list of painful areas for the WPI and a long list of somatic symptoms that could be considered. It’s here:

•Appendix A: Fibromyalgia Diagnostic Criteria
If you’re undiagnosed or tentatively diagnosed, you may want to take that to your doctor. Be sure to let him/her know that it’s from the American College of Rheumatology and was published in Arthritis Care & Research.

What do you think of the new criteria? Will they help clear up controversy and confusion? Do you like the built-in flexibility? Leave your comments below!

Learn more or join the conversation!

Tweet This Post

Lynn Gilderdale, ME sufferer

Lynn Gilderdale contracted ME when she was 14. Her mother helped her to die when she was 31. Photograph: David Cairns/Rex Features

Kay Gilderdale helped her 31-year-old daughter to kill herself over the course of one long December night, crushing up sleeping pills and antidepressants when the morphine overdose she gave her to inject did not immediately work. It’s almost incredible to think that a mother and daughter could be driven to such hellish extremes by a disease that is not fatal. Lynn Gilderdale had ME.

But Lynn’s extraordinary and distressing story takes few people acquainted with ME (myalgic encephalopathy), also known as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), by surprise. If nothing else, it illustrates the despair that ME/CFS engenders. An estimated 250,000 people have the condition in this country, of whom 25,000 are children (Lynn became ill at 14). Most struggle to get a diagnosis, many are unhappy with the limited treatments available and all want to know what has caused them to be afflicted with this most miserable of illnesses, which saps their energy, wrecks their lives and leaves some like Lynn bedridden and tube-fed.

Last autumn, it suddenly looked as though they were going to get an answer. A paper was published in the highly regarded journal Science by the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI) in Reno, Nevada, a research establishment set up by Annette Whittemore, the wife of a millionaire who had made money in property. Their daughter, Andrea, developed ME/CFS when she was 11. Whittemore, searching for help for her daughter, met Daniel Peterson, a general practitioner who brought to light one of the earliest ME clusters more than 30 years ago, in Incline Village on the north shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, where he practised medicine. The two of them launched the WPI as a research centre dedicated to finding answers, and treatments for ME/CFS.

Peterson is one of many who believe the disease probably has a viral trigger. There is evidence that it can follow a viral infection, such as glandular fever. He put Andrea Whittemore on an experimental antiviral drug, which her mother has said has led to improvement.

Some cancers – cervical cancer is the best example – can also be triggered by a virus. In Incline Village, Peterson reported he had found a surprising number of rare cancers called mantle cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, among his ME/CFS patients. That attracted the attention of a cancer researcher, Dr Judy Mikovits. She joined WPI and went to work to look for a viral trigger for the cancer cluster.

Mikovits was soon reporting that she had found high levels of viruses in the ME/CFS patients by comparison. And then, in the Science paper in October, came the revelation that rocked the ME/CFS community as well as scientists around the world. Mikovits, with Vincent Lombardi and other colleagues from the WPI, reported that they had found a recently discovered retrovirus called XMRV in the blood cells of 68 out of 101 ME/CFS patients they had tested.

The implications were huge. If the virus were proven to be the cause of ME/CFS, then treatment could not be far away. It would also, in the eyes of many of the angriest campaigners, put paid to arguments that ME/CFS is predominanantly a psychosocial disorder – a theory they abhor and which has led to extraordinary invective, denunciations and bitterness, especially on the internet.

Annette Whittemore was certainly convinced her institute had found the biological key to the disease that cut down her “beautiful daughter who has been ill for 20 years in spite of our best efforts”. Speaking to the CFS advisory committee of the US government’s Department for Health and Human Sciences in late October, she said: “It ends the debate. CFS is not and never was a psychological disorder. Those who are ill have always known this. The physicians who take care of them have always known this and finally those who have attempted to keep patients from receiving medical care for this disease know this.”

She and Mikovits were delighted that suddenly scientists from all over the world were homing in on their research. Certainly they had aroused great excitement and curiosity. But there was also a major public health issue here. HIV is a retrovirus. A retrovirus can be passed from one person to another in blood and semen. If XMRV, first associated with prostate cancer, is truly linked to ME/CFS, then we need to know about it fast, to prevent it spreading.

Retrovirologists were instantly on the case, attempting to replicate the WPI’s findings. Three teams, two in the UK and one in the Netherlands, have already reported their results. All of them have drawn a blank.

Many people within the ME/CFS community refuse to believe it. They say the scientists have not properly replicated the WPI work. It’s the line the WPI takes too, adamant that it has made a breakthrough. Richard Simpson of Invest in ME, which runs a major annual conference at which Whittemore will be a speaker this year, says the negative studies were too rushed.

He points out that Science took six months to review the WPI paper before publishing and that the research had support from the National Cancer Institute and the Cleveland Clinic, one of America’s top hospitals.

“These other studies are not replications. They haven’t used the same methodological approach. In any area of medicine you have to go back to the original tests and do it in the same way.”

Simpson says he does not assume XMRV is the cause of the illness, but he and many others are deeply suspicious of what they believe are the attempts of scientists to dismiss once more the claims of ME/CFS to be considered a biomedical condition. They point out that it was classified as a neurological disease rather than a psychological illness by the World Health Organisation in 1969.

Listen to some – or read the internet – and you would think there is a massive organised conspiracy going on, led by the psychiatric community, but in conjunction with insurance companies and even government, to prove ME has no physical cause. (There are genuinely distressing stories about the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions to recognise that people with ME/CFS can be incapable of work, depriving them of sickness benefit.)

Nice, the National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence, has come under fire too for recognising only psychosocial treatments, in the shape of cognitive behaviour therapy and graded exercise programmes. They were taken to judicial review in 2009 by a group of people who claimed the experts who drew up their guidance were biased or had conflicts of interest. But Mr Justice Simon dismissed the case and took the unusual step of making a direct attack on those who brought it. “Unfounded as they were, the allegations were damaging to those against whom they were made and were such as may cause health professionals to hesitate before they involve themselves in this area of medicine,” he said in an afterword to his judgment.

Most of the internet vitriol is directed at psychiatrist Professor Simon Wessely from King’s College London, who believes there may be viral triggers for the disease but who pioneered the psychosocial therapies, ran the studies on which Nice’s guidance is based and started the first NHS treatment unit. One of the reasons why the first UK study to fail to find XMRV in patients was denounced by ME/CFS activists is that it was co-authored by Wessely.

The other UK study is authored by a collection of top scientists who have either never been involved with the ME/CFS community before or who have in the past enjoyed its approval. Among them is Jonathan Kerr from St George’s, University of London, who has been looking for genetic clues to the disease and is actually collaborating on a different project with the WPI.

Their study was published in a deliberately low-key way in Retrovirology. The researchers studied 170 blood samples from two separate groups of patients. Kate Bishop, a leading retrovirologist from the National Institute for Medical Research, said they tried hard to find XMRV but failed.

“I feel very sorry in a way,” she says. “We were hoping it was true. One of the things patients don’t seem to realise is that it is not in our interests to find a negative result either, but I do understand their frustration.”

She thinks there are few differences between the US and European patients, except possibly that the WPI cases all came from geographical clusters.

What the European labs do not want to do is to take samples from the WPI to test. One possibility they cannot discount is that the WPI samples are contaminated with the virus, although the institute insists this is not so. Nonetheless, the European labs would not want to risk contamination.

On the day of the publication of the Science paper, the WPI declared it had now found XMRV in 95% of blood samples from ME/CFS patients it had tested – an extraordinarily high result. “This finding clearly points to the retrovirus as a significant contributing factor in this illness,” said Mikovits in a statement on 8 October. But now the first euphoric blaze of publicity is over, the WPI appears to have put up the barricades. Its press officer said Mikovits was not giving interviews and asked for a list of questions. The questions went unanswered.

Meanwhile, the WPI has licensed the test it used to detect XMRV to a lab in Reno called Viral Immune Pathology Diagnostics (VIP Dx), charging $450 a time. Dr Vincent Lombardi, first author of the Science paper, was made director of operations for the licensing and development of the test. WPI points out that profits it makes are ploughed back into research, critics question the promotion of a test when scientists have not conclusively been able to show XMRV is a cause of ME/CFS and there is no treatment even if it is.

But patients are queuing up. Forty or 50 have been tested from the UK so far, and a substantial number have received a positive result. On an internet chat site, the comments are positive. “It must be a relief to finally know what has caused all this misery and stolen precious years,” says one contributor.

Many doctors and scientists who work in the ME/CFS area are not willing to talk about it. However, one clinician who treats patients – and who was part of the Nice guideline group – put his head above the parapet after Kay Gilderdale was acquitted at Lewes crown court of attempted murder. Alastair Santhouse, consultant in psychological medicine at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, was deeply concerned by much of the press coverage, which depicted ME/CFS as a terminal illness and wrote to say so in the British Medical Journal.

“It was being talked about in terms of the euthanasia/assisted suicide debate,” he said. “It is an awful illness – chronic, unpleasant and very isolating – but it is not a terminal illness. There are treatments available and they are not perfect but we as a profession should not be giving up on people.

“The patients I see in the clinic, generally speaking, are extremely relieved and pleased to find someone who is taking an interest in their case. They tend not to have any particular ideological position on the illness, but they just want to get better.”

Santhouse is offering cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy, in line with the Nice guidance. “They don’t work for everyone. Doctors have enough humility to realise they are not the complete answer.” He doesn’t pretend to know the cause but, he says, citing the historic treatments of foxglove for dropsy and quinine for malaria, “you don’t always need to know the cause of something to be able to treat it”.

Interestingly, in this deeply traumatised and divided field, there is some consensus. Everybody agrees ME/CFS is a terrible illness that seriously damages the lives of entire families. Nobody claims to know the definitive cause. Everybody agrees more research is needed – although conspiracy theorists say biomedical research proposals are blocked by the Medical Research Council, while others say those put forward are just not of sufficiently high quality. And the patient groups agree that the inflammatory invective on the internet gets nobody anywhere. “From our point of view it is not productive,” says Simpson of Invest in ME. “You get extreme elements. But this is an illness. We just want to cure it.”

Charles Shepherd, medical adviser to the ME Association, says the real vitriol comes from a small number of people, but “it stifles debate in that people are not happy to express views if they think they are going to get shouted down or get abusive emails. It does scare decent people off from getting involved.”

Plenty of people have had – or are still having – very bad experiences with the medical profession, he says. Many GPs have no idea what to do. There are harrowing stories from people who are refused the employment and support allowance that has replaced incapacity benefit. Such things have radicalised people.

Sir Peter Spencer, former second Sea Lord and chief of defence procurement who has been chief executive of Action for ME for the last three years, agrees there is “far too much mud-slinging”, but adds that “the significant majority feel so washed-out that they don’t have the energy for invective . . . the thing that has struck me most is how I admire their resilience under really difficult circumstances.”

Spencer, who still has all the drive of a senior naval officer, talks of the need for more specialist centres, especially for children, one of the issues taken up by the all-party parliamentary group on ME, which published its report into services in March. ME/CFS is the biggest single cause of long-term absenteeism among schoolchildren. Faster diagnosis and help for them is badly needed.

Whatever the final conclusion about XMRV, everybody hopes that the episode will generate more scientific research. But Simpson talks for the frustrated majority when he describes the case of one child on tube-feeding, whose consultant said she must have CBT and should be back in school within a week, and asks: “Why isn’t science playing a part in trying to resolve this?”

He himself has two daughters with ME/CFS. It is not hard to imagine how tough that must be. “At the end of the day, it is about people’s health,” he says. “My daughters are ill because of this. I can’t see anyone in this country who is tackling the problem.”

Tweet This Post

by Hugh J. Lara

When you decide to go on cholesterol medication you will be aware that there are possible cholesterol medication side effects. Even on the best cholesterol drug for you there are still cholesterol medication side effects that may occur. When deciding to go on medication it is important that you weigh the benefits against the disadvantages of taking these medications.

In most cases it may be better to stick to taking your medication so as to keep your cholesterol levels lowered. There are ways to deal with the cholesterol medication side effects, depending on the side effects you will hear different things. Some side effects are more serious than others, some side effects are easily dealt with while others may be life threatening.

Side Effects of Popular Drugs

There are a few drugs that are popularly prescribed to lower cholesterol. One of these drugs is Zocor, the generic name for Zocor is Simvastatin. Zocor is very effective in lowering bad cholesterol levels in the body. One of the cholesterol medication side effects that is associated with this drug is increased light sensitivity.

This is an unusual side effect but it means that you need to take certain precautions when you go outside. Wearing sunscreen when you go outdoors is a definite must. You should also wear clothing that protects you from the sun when you go outdoors. If increased light sensitivity is not something you want to deal with for the rest of your life then you might need to change your medication.

One of the common cholesterol medication side effects that people often experience when taking statins are muscle pains. Muscle pain may not seem like a serious side effect but it is something that you should report to your doctor immediately. This is because muscle soreness could be a symptom of a very serious condition that can affect your kidneys.

Other cholesterol medication side effects that you need to look out for are fever, vomiting, tiredness, and dark urine. If you experience these side effects after taking statins to treat your high cholesterol then it could also point to a problem with your kidneys. Do not hesitate to ask your doctor about changing your medication.

If you talk to your doctor as soon as you develop cholesterol medication side effects you can stop the side effects and find a new medication that will work better for you. It is possible that further tweaks to your diet and exercise and taking another cholesterol lowering drug will help you get the results you need.

If you love this article, you will also love another article written by this article’s author on used medical equipment for sale and massage table portable.

Article Source: Knowing Several Cholesterol Medication Side Effects

Tweet This Post

by Hugh J. Lara

Unfortunately, there are many millions of people that have to endure arthritis related ailments including arthritis back pain and though there are numerous different kinds of arthritis types to worry about, there are three very common types of arthritis that commonly affect most people: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and gout. The most common method of getting arthritis back pain relief is through use of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) of which Vioxx as well as Bextra and Celebrex are prime examples.

Unwanted Side Effects

Though these medications can be used for arthritis back pain relief they do at the same time have the potential to cause unwanted and unpleasant side effects. Vioxx in particular has even been recalled because it led to making users becoming more prone to suffering from strokes as well as heart attacks, especially when Vioxx was used over a long period of time.

For many people medications meant to provide arthritis back pain relief can seem to be a miracle as many medications are able to provide suitable relief from a debilitating instance of arthritis back pain. However, these drugs that can, on the surface of it, work their magic but beneath the surface will also be doing much harm that manifests it in the form of side effects.

Typically, when using medications for arthritis back pain relief you will be prescribed non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, narcotic pain medications and even steroids. At present, one of these options, NSAIDs certainly will end up causing many harmful side effects. More needs to be known about the ill effects of using other medications.

Even arthritis back pain relief medications such as codeine or Vicodin (narcotic pain relief medications) have numerous problems associated with their use including the dangerous habit of becoming addicted to the medication and the body too will build up tolerance after some time and this in turn forces the patient to increase the dosage in order to get relief.

It is much safer and also better to choose natural arthritis back pain relief options and so it pays to check out glucosamine and chondroitin and turmeric as too SAMe and MSM as too fish oil that can each helps in providing effective and natural arthritis back pain relief.

In particular and for more effective arthritis back pain relief the supplement known as Arthrit-Eze has been found to be very useful and its ingredients consisting of glucosamine and Chondroitin and MSM are very good for reducing inflammation and swelling and provide long lasting arthritis back pain relief.

As for obtaining back and neck pain relief several options are available including use of orthopedic back braces and shouldersback posture support. In addition, you can also use ironman inversion table and elasto-gel cervical collars.

If you love this article, you will also love another article written by this article’s author on used medical equipment for sale and massage table warmer.

Article Source: A Look At The Bad Effects Of Utilizing Medications For Arthritis Back Pain Relief

Tweet This Post

Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin because when sunlight hits skin, the body produces this vitamin, essential for strong, healthy bones. (That’s the reason your mother told you to slurp down your vitamin D-fortified milk.)

However, a mountain of new evidence suggests that the vitamin may have a more versatile role than previously thought, particularly when it comes to maintaining a healthy immune system and boosting mood.

Low levels have been associated with more severe asthma, colds, seasonal affective disorder, depression, and even chronic pain or fibromyalgia.

So does that mean that taking more vitamin D (or spending a bit more time in the sun) can combat fibromyalgia? Not just yet.

Studies have found that pain patients, including those with fibromyalgia, are more likely to be vitamin D deficient than their pain-free peers. However, it’s not clear which came first; people in pain may get less sun (presumably because they may be more likely to stay inside, due to pain), which could lead to a vitamin D deficiency, rather than vice versa—a vitamin D deficiency leading to pain.

And it’s also not clear if making sure you have adequate levels of the vitamin will help relieve pain or other fibromyalgia symptoms, such as lack of energy or difficulty sleeping.

What’s known about vitamin D
Our bodies make vitamin D naturally when exposed to sunlight. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes a day outside (without sunscreen) to make an adequate amount, but according to studies, about half of adults and 70% of children don’t get enough. In a 2003 study, 93% of pain patients had low levels of vitamin D. The current dietary reference intake for people up to age 50 is 200 international units (IU) per day of vitamin D. Adults ages 51 to 70 need 400 IU/day, and those older than 70 need 600 IU/day, with an upper limit of 2,000 IU/day deemed safe.

But some experts suggest raising that upper limit. Toxicity levels, they say, are closer to 10,000 IU/day, and 2,000 may be closer to the baseline of what healthy bodies need. Current recommendations were established by the Institute of Medicine in 1997 to promote optimal bone health and are under review to possibly be revised in the summer of 2010.

Screening for vitamin D deficiency is as easy as a blood test, and deficiency can be righted with a few minutes of sunscreen-free time in the sun, supplemental pills, or by incorporating foods like eggs, mushrooms, and salmon—all natural carriers of vitamin D—into a healthy diet.

Getting vitamin D from natural sources can stop you from getting too much of the vitamin, since the body makes only what it needs.

Although it’s hard to overdose on vitamin D, it is possible if you take megadoses of the vitamin, which can cause hypercalcemia, an above-average concentration of calcium in the blood that can lead to kidney failure and nervous system problems, and hyperphosphatemia, an increase in levels of phosphates in the blood, which can affect bone density and increase the risk of osteoporosis.

Many who lack vitamin D—especially during the dark and dreary winter months when sunlight isn’t abundant—do turn to supplements. In 2008, Americans spent $235 million on vitamin D supplements, up from $40 million in 2001.
Can vitamin D help fibro symptoms?
While more research is needed, experts believe supplementing with vitamin D may lessen pain, says Gregory A. Plotnikoff, MD, the medical director at the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, in Minneapolis. “Many Americans are reporting that replenishing their vitamin D results in significantly reduced pain, increased energy, and better sense of well-being,” says Dr. Plotnikoff, who published a 2003 study of the link.

However, W. Michael Hooten, MD, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and the medical director at the Mayo Clinic Pain Rehabilitation Center, in Rochester, Minn., notes that patients in pain may be more inactive and spend less time in the sun than people who are pain free.

“They may stay indoors more, their diet may become altered, which may predispose them to develop a vitamin D deficiency,” he says.

In a study published last year and co-authored by Dr. Hooten, pain patients with a vitamin D deficiency took almost double the amount of pain medication to control their symptoms as pain patients with adequate levels of the vitamin.

In the study of 267 chronic pain patients, 66 had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Over half of the participants had such intense pain that they were using opioid painkillers daily.

“If you’re choking down 150 milligrams of morphine per day, you don’t have energy, you feel lousy, you’re staying at home all the time,” he says. “Clinicians should be suspect of chronic pain patients. What we measured justifies screening for [vitamin D deficiency].”

For now, more research is needed to determine whether exposure to more vitamin D will truly help cut fibromyalgia pain.

It is known that vitamin D can help lessen pain caused by osteomalacia, a softening or weakening of the bones caused by a severe, long-term lack of vitamin D. Researchers aren’t sure how many people suffer from osteomalacia, says Dr. Hooten, but it can be misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia or other conditions.

But even if an adequate intake of vitamin D doesn’t alleviate pain, it may boost mood and could potentially prevent 150,000 cases of cancer annually.

According to a 2009 study, supplementing vitamin D may also protect you from the common cold. In a study of nearly 19,000 people 12 and older, colds and other respiratory tract infections were found more frequently in people with lower levels of vitamin D. People with asthma and low vitamin D are six times more likely to get a cold, and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, were at two to three times the risk.

“Simply replenishing vitamin D,” says Dr. Plotnikoff, “can have profoundly positive effects.”

Tweet This Post