For the 3rd post in my short series talking about my 23 year battle with ME/CFS (see previous posts) I want to pick up where we left off and review the current science:
As I said in the first post we don’t yet know exactly what causes ME/CFS but the downstream results are circulatory issues, neuropathy, brain inflammation, and energy pathway disruption. There are measurable problems with every potential energy source including oxygen, sugar, fat, and protein. Energy (ATP) levels are relatively stable but at a much lower level than normal. Life is sustained but cellular repair, detoxification, bile acid, hormone, and neurotransmitter synthesis are all compromised. The resulting chronic systemic energy deficit leads to problems in the liver, heart, kidneys, intestines, skin, and brain.
The heart beats slower and less forcefully, the small blood vessels of the body are chronically constricted, the red blood cells themselves are too stiff and have difficulty squeezing through the capillaries, and finally overall blood volume is approximately 1 pint lower than normal. All of these factors combined create serious circulatory issues, especially to the brain.
As with all diseases where basic energy pathways are compromised the energy hungry nervous system suffers. For most people (myself included) the smallest nerves that form the end interface between the brain and the rest of the body are dead or dying. Additionally the brain faces a unique chronic inflammatory issue resulting in extensive white matter loss and intense subjective discomfort.
As much as these chronic hypo-metabolic issues place immense stress on the body it’s actually the acute hyper-metabolic phase of the illness that makes it so unpleasant. For a person with ME/CFS ANY amount of exercise leads to immediate kidney dysfunction, increased vasoconstriction, brain inflammation, and a multitude of other systemic exacerbations. This is opposite from the normal physiological response and it’s pattern is unusual even among rare metabolic diseases. So those are the current scientific findings, in the next post I’ll talk about what it’s like to actually live with the disease.
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See the original post and discussion here.
