thanks once more Chris. most of the information you cite was unknown to me,
but my friend is probably well aware of the facts, having dedicated much of
her adult life to investigating CFS. I'll pass your comments along
nonetheless, she (yes she's a she) appreciates all comments on the subject.

KS

On 30/01/07, Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> ks, the other interesting thing about CFS is the majority of sufferers
> are women (about 70 percent, if my memory can be trusted.) Aside from
> that it appears to be a complex interaction of the nervous system and
> immune system. Serotonin, a chemical usually connected to the human
> nervous system has been found to be transported on T cells which are
> part of the human immune system, but other then this medical science
> knows next to nothing about this interaction. Cytokines, chemicals the
> body releases in response to infections are the latest theory as to why
> CFS involves neurological pain. (See; What a pain! in The CFIDS
> Chronicle, spring 2005: available via google on internet.)
>
> There has been over the past six years a lot of research into CFS and
> most of the symptoms can be measured or observed with MRI scans and so
> forth so it is definitely an organic disease. It may be that the
> antigens or causes of this illness are multiple rather then a single
> cause and so as an illness it breaks with the old traditional
> categorical approach to medicine derived from Aristotle and as such
> demonstrates that such ways of thinking can no longer be viable. The
> claim made by the quoted authors (in my last post) that there is no
> medical scientific basis for the illness which thereby indicates that
> the illness must be a modern hysteria best treated by psychoanalysis is
> a fundamentally flawed and unsustainable argument which assumes that
> medical science already knows everything there is to know about the
> human body. This is far from the truth as any research biochemist
> working on human diseases would know and be able to tell them. Actually,
> I find it very surprising how bad the scholarship of these authors is.
> But perhaps what is more frightening is that this sort of stuff is used
> as the basis of clinical practice on real people who perhaps pay lots of
> money.
>
> Anyways, a google search of the internet should turn up some information
> useful to your friend. I had a real battle having the illness recognised
> which cost one doctor his job before I was given a disability support
> pension and given that the dementia was as severe as AIDS dementia this
> took some doing. The disease does need to be treated especially if it
> exceeds three years. I use amitripyline (tri-cyclic anti-depressant,
> endep)  at night for sleep and during the day dextropropopoxyphene and
> paracetamol (Di-Gesic) which helps with the dementia and the fatigue
> which is a type of chronic pain. For more severe pain I use codeine. But
> from what I read every sufferer responds differently to medications so
> it is a sort of trial and error affair to find what works.
>
> The thing is... I can still connect all of this to parturition envy as a
> complex psychoanalytic fiction.
>
>
>
> On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 13:55 +0200, kasper salonen wrote:
> > Chris, this is deeply intriguing information. I'll pass your message
> along
> > to my friend, partly in case she doesn't know of the UN/WHO news &
> partly
> > because the relation to psychology is so interesting.
> > thanks very much!
>