CFS/M.E. is an illness with a certain stigma attached to it.  Many non sufferers often have a negative attitude towards the illness, thinking that those who have the illness are simply ‘faking’ it and are just ‘lazy’.  However new research has shown that there is definite scientific proof that the illness is real.  And slowly but surely opinions are changing.

Unfortunately there is no clear cut medical test available to confirm a diagnosis of M.E. (CFS, PVFS).  Doctors are however, able to diagnose the illness by taking a careful medical history, followed by carrying out tests to rule out other possible conditions. 

Because M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Encephalopathy) is so difficult to diagnose it is more than likely that you will have to see your doctor several times before M.E. (CFS, PVFS) is confirmed.  Your doctor should be able to give you a provisional or working diagnosis quite early on and by six months this diagnosis should be confirmed or ruled out.  Quite often your GP is able to make the diagnosis but sometimes it may be necessary for them to refer you on to a specialist to assist in the diagnostic process.

There are however some new tests that give a clearer indication as to whether or not someone is suffering from CFS/M.E.  These tests involve measuring the rate of ATP conversion along with others.  They also give clues as to the cause or causes of the illness, and, incidentally to identify those patients who have jumped on the CFS/M.E. bandwagon.  There is more on this in Dr Matthew Jack’s article Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Encephalopathy)

The above is purely a list of possible symptoms and it does not follow that a person will suffer from all of them.

It is very important that a diagnosis is reached as soon as possible so that appropriate advice and treatment can be started early on.

For some individuals it can be frightening to receive a diagnosis of M.E. but it is a vital step in the recovery process, to come to terms with the diagnosis and gain control of the illness.  For others a diagnosis can come as a relief after a long period of worry and fear about what might be wrong.

The cause or causes of M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Encephalopathy) are not fully understood.  It is thought that it often develops after a virus, like flu or glandular fever, but it can also happen gradually for no obvious reason, hence why it is sometimes referred to as Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS).  People with M.E. have been found to have abnormalities in the nervous system, including part of the brain called the hypothalamus.  This section of the brain (hypothalamus) regulates sleep, temperature control and appetite.  Abnormalities have also been found in the immune system; however more research is needed to understand the exact role of disruptions in these and other systems. 

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Encephalopathy) is characterised, in its full-blown state, by a degree of physical and mental exhaustion more suggestive of the terminal stages of fatal disease.  It is becoming both more prevalent and more recognised and is almost certainly what, up to 50 years ago, GPs referred to as neurasthenia.  Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is not normally a fatal disease, and is usually compatible with a normal lifespan, although one often of extreme disability.  A conventional medical examination will not pick up any abnormality, hence the widespread refusal for decades by the medical establishment to acknowledge its causation as anything other than psychosomatic.

However, other schools of thought, having investigated the illness, have identified a wide range of biochemical abnormalities which become larger as the degree of clinical disability increases.  Furthermore, an actual site for the fundamental biochemical malfunction has been identified by Dr Sarah Myhill, who has helped some 3000 CFS/M.E. patients over 22 years in her Welsh border practice.  

Within every cell in the body are tiny bodies called Mitochondria which originally, many millions of years ago in our evolutionary past, were parasitic invaders but which are now incorporated within us as an indispensable cell component.  This is because they are now the source of all our energy needs.  The Mitochondria produce Adenosine Triphosphate from Adenosine Diphosphate; they are able to do this because their host cell supplies them with glucose, short chain fatty acids and oxygen.  ATP is the ultimate energy source whose breakdown back to ADP releases energy, this only occurs after delivery from the Mitochondrion into the cell.  This central process must be supported by several subsidiary processes such as transport of all necessary components through cell membranes and their delivery to the appropriate site.  All such processes require Enzymes, Antioxidants (notably Co-Enzyme Q 10), Transport Proteins (Acetyl L Carnitine) and minerals (notably magnesium).

The central and critical malfunction in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ M.E. sufferers is in the recycling of ATP.  In healthy people this occurs every 10 seconds.  It is the slowing down of this process which is responsible for the very poor stamina resulting in exhaustion within minutes of starting to exercise which is one of the two main clinical features of the illness.  The second feature results when ATP, ADP (and AMP – the final breakdown product of the cycle) are lost to the cell, which must then make new ATP - from D-ribose, a 5 carbon sugar which is deficient in a normal diet.

Making ATP from the glucose (via the Pentose Phosphate Shunt) is slow, so that a severe deficiency can only be refilled in days.  This results in the characteristic delayed fatigue feature, a phenomenon which is often confused as adrenal exhaustion, and which has focused the attention of some workers inappropriately on the adrenals as the site of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E. 

For many years this damage has been regarded as caused almost exclusively by a preceding viral infection (hence ‘Post Viral Fatigue’) but it is now apparent (particularly from Dr Myhill’s experience with farmers suffering from organophosphorus poisoning) that there is a range of causes – toxic, nutritional, genetic and stress-related.

Many CFS/M.E. sufferers learn to pace themselves in order to have any kind of normal life and indeed it is vital that they do so, but doing this involves them being in a behavioural pattern which often attracts the label of  manipulative hysteria from family, friends and medical attendants alike.  They often look perfectly healthy and can usually lift and carry a moderately heavy child for a short distance, but they can demand waiting on hand and foot, requiring others to run absurdly short errands and sparing themselves what seems to be the most trivial exertion.  If this behaviour is challenged, particularly by the doctor, they can become defensive and mistrustful and even paranoid, so that an apparently psychiatric state can supervene.

Nearly all illnesses have “knock-on” or secondary effects; no one organ or system of the body suffers in isolation from the rest, and the more chronic the illness the more there will be of these.  Some of these, however, are adaptive, so that the decline in the function of a cell or organ may be due, not to damage, but to defensive shut-down, a phenomenon very much like hibernation and of course reversible on general recovery.

In all disease processes, free radicals are produced.  These are groups of atoms with at least one unpaired electron; high-energy chemical substances looking for something to combine with.  Their destructiveness results from their disposition for random movement which results in perforation of cell membranes.  In health, they are in relatively small amounts and exist for fractions of a second before they are destroyed by the various free radical scavengers and antioxidants.  Amongst the latter made within the body are Superoxide Dismutase and Glutathione Peroxidase.  The dietary antioxidants include vitamin C, A and E.  Free radicals are the chief cause of ageing, drug-induced damage, degenerative arthritis, cancer and cardiovascular disease.  In CFS/M.E. patients they are produced in excess within the Mitochondria as their function slows down.  This has been likened to a blazing fire which dies down to a smoky smoulder: the excessive smoke is the free radicals, especially Nitric Oxide and Superoxides, which may combine to form the even more toxic Peroxynitrite. 

These treatments have been practised for many years and for many conditions.  Both Ozone and H.P. can be introduced into the body and there is much published research which demonstrates that treatment is followed by an increase in all immune parameters.  For example, Cytokines are released.  These are substances which activate T4 Lymphocytes to become killer cells and B Lymphocytes to produce specific antibodies. 

This work is documented: Bocci, V., Paulesu, L. “Studies on the biological effects of Ozone. 1. Induction of interferon on human leukocytes” Haematologica 75 (1990) 510-515
Bocci,V. “Immunologische Aspekte” Beck, E.G., Viebahn-Hansler, R., (Hrsg)
Ozon-Handbuch - Grundlagen – Praevention – Therapie,ecomed. Landsberg (1995) and elsewhere.

Much work has also been done in the USA, notably by the late Dr Charles Farr in the 1980s, but using Hydrogen Peroxide instead of Ozone, whose effect on immune function is virtually identical, since Ozone production in the body precedes hydrogen peroxide as a physiological process.  It is interesting that bacteria entrapped by leukocytes in the blood are finally killed by a squirt of hydrogen peroxide.  In fact Ozone and H.P. are the ultimate antibiotics, but their killing role is not limited: viruses, fungi and protozoa (malarial parasites for example) are equally vulnerable.  Antibiotic resistance in bacteria confers no protection whatsoever from Ozone or HP.

Hydrogen Peroxide by intravenous (IV) infusion is certainly in use in the USA for ailments such as pesticide poisoning and the reported results are excellent.  Furthermore there are two anecdotal reports of its use to mitigate the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy where an IV infusion the day before almost totally prevents the usual nausea and general weakness and malaise.  Better still; the intended effect of the chemotherapy is not neutralized.  Dr William Campbell-Douglass reports the astonishment of an oncologist at the total disappearance on X-ray of a pulmonary tumour where H.P. was given before each chemotherapy session.