In article <1i9cxj2.1mgscbh1m8o4jfN%mbottorff@lshelby.com>,
Michelle Bottorff <mbottorff@lshelby.com> wrote:
>When you have almost no energy you really notice how much energy
>everything you do actually takes.

Lots of us don't have CFS, but most of us have had a really bad
cold or flu. Think about how your body sort of shuts down during
that, so that you're really weak and the least little thing tires
you out. I read an article suggesting that CFS is that mechanism
stuck in "on".

--
David Goldfarb |"Neckties are Satanic symbols. They represent
goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu |Judas's noose. Those who wear neckties signify
goldfarb@csua.berkeley.edu |their identification with the man who betrayed
|Our Lord." -- IHCOYC XPICTOC on alt.gothic

In article <fkc621$2tvu$1@agate.berkeley.edu>,
David Goldfarb <goldfarb@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <1i9cxj2.1mgscbh1m8o4jfN%mbottorff@lshelby.com>,
>Michelle Bottorff <mbottorff@lshelby.com> wrote:
>>When you have almost no energy you really notice how much energy
>>everything you do actually takes.
>
>Lots of us don't have CFS, but most of us have had a really bad
>cold or flu. Think about how your body sort of shuts down during
>that, so that you're really weak and the least little thing tires
>you out. I read an article suggesting that CFS is that mechanism
>stuck in "on".

Good point. It does really feel either (depending on the day)
just starting a case of the flu, or being in the last stages of
one. Geneticists have now identified the root cause of CFS as
being on any one of several genes, such that if the person is
subjected to too much stress, s/he can't recover afterwards.

But there appear to be two flavors of CFS (as I observed back
when I was reading alt.med.cfs, before I got tired of the endless
whining interspersed with somebody proposing the latest nutty
treatment), and they both seem to affect the immune system. Some
find that since coming down with CFS they catch everything else
that comes their way: every flu, every cold, every wandering germ
finds a home somewhere in their interstices. These are the
people who want to call it CFIDS: Chronic Fatigue Immune
Deficiency Syndrome.

And then there's the other kind, which I seem to have: our
resistance is way way up all the time, and there's the *feeling*
of having a low-grade fever (that subtle shivering that you feel
if you're lying very still) without ever running a temperature,
and we catch practically nothing else. I catch, on average, one
cold or flu per year, and during the winter I occasionally get
the sore-throat feeling that presages a cold -- and then it goes
away again.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <ddfr-7555DF.21244019122007@sfo.news.speakeasy.net>,
David Friedman <ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <JtBJDy.C8s@kithrup.com>,
> djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> And then there's the other kind, which I seem to have: our
>> resistance is way way up all the time, and there's the *feeling*
>> of having a low-grade fever (that subtle shivering that you feel
>> if you're lying very still) without ever running a temperature,
>> and we catch practically nothing else. I catch, on average, one
>> cold or flu per year, and during the winter I occasionally get
>> the sore-throat feeling that presages a cold -- and then it goes
>> away again.
>>
>
>Fascinating. That suggests that perhaps what's happening is some
>defensive mechanism ramped way up.

That's what I think. But notice the other kind, for whom the
defensive mechanism has been powered down. It MIGHT be two
entirely different ailments that share a large number of
symptoms. Someday they'll figure it out.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <MPG.21d4c6ea2ba5dddb98be44@news1.eircom.net>,
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@indigo.ie> wrote:
>In article <ddfr-7555DF.21244019122007@sfo.news.speakeasy.net>,
>ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
>> In article <JtBJDy.C8s@kithrup.com>,
>> djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>
>> > And then there's the other kind, which I seem to have: our
>> > resistance is way way up all the time, and there's the *feeling*
>> > of having a low-grade fever (that subtle shivering that you feel
>> > if you're lying very still) without ever running a temperature,
>> > and we catch practically nothing else. I catch, on average, one
>> > cold or flu per year, and during the winter I occasionally get
>> > the sore-throat feeling that presages a cold -- and then it goes
>> > away again.
>> >
>> Fascinating. That suggests that perhaps what's happening is some
>> defensive mechanism ramped way up.
>
>It does make sense to me too, although I'm not convinced about the
>fever thing. I assume that the cold or hot feelings you get with fever
>come about when your internal thermostat switches to some state at
>which you're not. So if you are at 99 and your thermostat goes to 101,
>you feel cold and shivery until you get up to 101. At which point it
>goes down to 99 again and you get covered in sweat and toss off the
>bedclothes you had wrapped around you...
>
>But it could be some other defence mechanism that is usually associated
>with fever.
>
>My (possibly completely off the wall) analysis of mononucleosis is that
>we have evolved a system that says, basically, if you can't kill a
>virus after three weeks or so fighting it, try switching off the
>defences for a while and if you're lucky it's a benign virus that
>wasn't going to kill you, or something that lives in the immune system
>and gets worse when you attack it.
>
>So maybe some people have a fault with that switch, and can be sent
>into permanent immune reaction by some persistent viral infection (or
>maybe the fault is with the system that recognises when a virus has
>been eradicated).

Well ... a genetic basis for CFS has been found. Any one of
several genes are deficient in such a way that when the patient
is subjected to sufficient stress, he doesn't bounce back
afterward. I know that I came down with mine after several
months with a genuine pointy-haired boss from hell, only he was
wavy-haired actually. If part of the intermediate process
between gene deficiency and chronically fatigued patient is a
permamently on immune system, that would work. But it doesn't
appear to be viral, at this stage of investigation.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <tdZWCdZ31taHFwCz@branta.demon.co.uk>,
Del Cotter <del@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, in rec.arts.sf.composition,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> said:
>
>>And then there's the other kind, which I seem to have: our
>>resistance is way way up all the time, and there's the *feeling*
>>of having a low-grade fever (that subtle shivering that you feel
>>if you're lying very still) without ever running a temperature,
>>and we catch practically nothing else. I catch, on average, one
>>cold or flu per year, and during the winter I occasionally get
>>the sore-throat feeling that presages a cold -- and then it goes
>>away again.
>
>For those keeping score at home, my kind is Dorothy's and not
>Michelle's. It's been bad enough this winter that I recently described
>to someone on the phone my feeling of almost "humming" or gently
>vibrating with fatigue as I tried to get to sleep.

That's the one. It feels as if I were shivering, trying to get
my temperature up just a little bit. Heck, maybe I am, and my
temp's low because I'm inactive.

>I've been getting irritated with the well-meaning people suggesting that
>anyone who can write in Usenet threads and blog comments can surely
>spend the same effort writing a novel. It really doesn't work that way;
>Usenet posts really are different.

Say it again!

(Similarly, I've gone from reading
>~100 novels a year to ~2. Again, my ability to read blogs has in no way
>diminished)

I don't read blogs at all. I don't read *new* books very much: I
reread old ones.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <5PYzWJeyUuaHFwRo@branta.demon.co.uk>,
Del Cotter <del@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, in rec.arts.sf.composition,
>Del Cotter <del@branta.demon.co.uk> said:
>>tell people with anxiety disorders that they've got nothing to be
>>afraid of, and suicidal clinical depressives that a smile is just a
>>frown turned upside down :-(
>
>To unpack that: my consultant drew a triangle to indicate that he and
>some colleagues at least consider fatigue disorders, anxiety disorders,
>and mood disorders such as depression to be related.
>
>For all that we try to emphasise the fact that CFS is genuinely
>physical, in reaction to people who tell us it's all in our heads, it's
>important to realise that fatigue disorders are also *mental* disorders,
>and as such intractable to pep talks. It does no good to hear about your
>uncle who's in constant pain from having his leg bit off by a shark, but
>who nevertheless is able to get a lot of work done-- we aren't people
>with our legs bitten off by sharks. We don't find it hard to work
>because it hurts all the time: it hurts all the time and we find it hard
>to work.

Somewhere once, chasing a link off the CDC web page, I found the
following two interesting remarks about the difference between
clinical depression and CFS.

1. The person with clinical depression is tired because he's
depressed; the person with CFS is depressed because he's tired.

2. If you ask the person with CFS, "If you suddenly got well,
what would you do first?" he will answer e.g. "I'd get the house
cleaned up first, and get all the weeds cleaned out of the
garden; and then I'd go back to school and finish my degree and
get a job in [name of chosen field]." If you ask the person with
clinical depression the same question, he can't think of a thing.

I get really really annoyed at people who tell me all I need is
Prozac or serotonin or something.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

In article <025bc5bc-5d28-4d31-9ecb-d34c20f82bca@q77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
Nicky <nicky.matthews@btinternet.com> wrote:
>On Dec 20, 9:24 pm, Del Cotter <d...@branta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, in rec.arts.sf.composition,
>> Dorothy J Heydt <djhe...@kithrup.com> said:
>>
>> >
>> And even Usenet posts aren't necessarily as easy to dash off as they
>> used to be, or I'd have delivered the rant that's refusing to come
>> together in my head, besides the sarcastic last line where I ask rasfc
>> posters to do something useful with their time and go tell people with
>> anxiety disorders that they've got nothing to be afraid of, and suicidal
>> clinical depressives that a smile is just a frown turned upside down :-(
>>
>I think that's a tad unfair as Dorothy did say the not writing
>business was not just about CFS.

Not entirely, but it sure doesn't help any.

>I think people are trying to make suggestions that might help rather
>than denying that there is a physical problem exacerbating any thing
>else that might be going on. The issue of whether to settle for
>writing without payment for example is an issue that probably affects
>all of us.
>
>I hadn't realised that you were ill too. I'm sorry to hear that.
>
>
>Nicky

In article <pan.2007.12.21.03.38.24.950694@jfeldredge.com>,
John F. Eldredge <john@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>
>I have experienced the "brain fog" phenomenon, but from a different cause.
>I have sleep apnea, and, until it was diagnosed and I was put on daily use
>of a CPAP machine, I would reach the fatigue state on most afternoons
>where I couldn't concentrate on anything.

Heh. I wake up tired and stay that way throughout the day. I am
most awake, at least brain-wise, around midnight when I'm trying
to get to sleep.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:56:01 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote in <news:JtDJxD.Cq3@kithrup.com>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:

[...]

> I don't read *new* books very much: I reread old ones.

A serious bout of re-reading old favorites is a sure sign
that I'm more depressed than usual.

Brian

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> I get really really annoyed at people who tell me all I need is
> Prozac or serotonin or something.

From my own experiences of the past year, I can't help wondering if you
might want a CPAP, but I suppose you've been tested....

--
John W. Kennedy
"The grand art mastered the thudding hammer of Thor
And the heart of our lord Taliessin determined the war."
-- Charles Williams. "Mount Badon"