ME, ENDOGENOUS CHEMOTHERAPY DISEASE

by Helen Borel,RN,MFA,PhD

The below are compressed ideas meant to convey, in brief, an overview of what I discovered
and am certain describes the condition, erroneously-named "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome".

ETIOLOGIC CULPRITS-> BACTERIAL, VIRAL,TOXIC<-either or some in-tandem
The presumed etiologies for CFS/ME patients’ immune-compromised states – called variously
Low Natural Killer Cell Disease (Japan), Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (UK) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (US)<-the worst, most minimizing name of all – have not changed since 15-, 20-,
30-, 40-years ago. And the research findings from all those eras are clear and have not changed!

Whatever the physiologic assault (bacterial, viral, toxic), immune elements meant to attack and
rid the body of these are now – in the CFS/ME state – on overdrive. This, despite the fact that
the offending virus, bacterium, toxin – whichever – are long gone from the patient.

CYTOKINE OVERKILL->LEADS TO ENCEPHALITIS AND MYELITIS
You are now dealing with an “activated immune system” (more easily grasped by lay persons as
“an OVERACTIVATED Immune system”). A system which is supposed to remain quiescent when
not threatened by bodily invaders.

There ensues Cytokine Overkill where, now, the victim’s immune system is attacking the
individual him/herself, who no longer harbors an infection or an exposure to a poison. Now the
brain and spinal cord fall victim to the autoimmune assault. Theoretically, when a vicious chemical (i.e., a cytokine) attacks an organ, inflammation will ensue creating these classic medical pathologic signs and symptoms rubor, calor, dolor. These three are characteristic of ME relapses->
rubor = inflammation, dolor = pain, calor = fever.  However, the "febrile state" is in the brain 
and spinal cord, accounting for the myriad sufferings of ME patients. Accounting, also, for the inability to note a "fever" on a normal oral or rectal thermometer. (In all my years in Nursing, we
never were taught how to take the temperature of the encephalon or of the myelin sheath.)

MDs WHO PRESCRIBE "EXERCISE" or "PSYCHOTHERAPY" DON'T KNOW CFS/ME
Therefore, it's imperative that physicians, faced with a patient suffering ME, assume that during relapses (attacks of cytokine overkill) there is inflammation and fever of the Central Nervous 
System (brain and spinal cord) which requires extra fluids and cooling treatments. Now the nausea,
headache and collapse of the ME patient is explicable. The brain is on fire!!! Now we know why prescriptions to "exercise" are downright stupid, illogical. Do we healthcare professionals prescribe
exercise for any other febrile patients?  Likewise, psychotherapy (and, I love psychotherapy...it's my other profession). Do we prescribe psychotherapy for any other febrile patient?  

Fever isn't a hallmark of depression. Neither is headache or nausea or sudden physical collapse
indicative of a mental disorder.

ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS (E.I.)...EXTREME IMMUNE SYSTEM TOXICITY
An even more dramatic example of this “overkilling” immune activation is the disease known as
E.I.– ENVIRONMENTAL ILLNESS. These patients immune systems are so overwrought that
their housing, clothes, possessions, human contacts are severely curtailed...while society and the media often ridicule them. It’s a shame because these [and CFS/ME pts] are the “canaries in the
coal mine” whose immune fragilities are warning us all about the marauders of our own immune systems.

ME PATIENTS LANGUISH WHILE THE FEBRILE BRAIN GOES UNTREATED
Because of the multiplicity of immune system-activating culprits – and while well-meaning
scientists search for etiologic specifics (hoping to develop diagnostic tests and targeted
treatments) – CFS/ME patients shouldn’t be languishing for years and decades – as most
now do (still suffering after all these years...I wrote all about this illness in my 1992 book) –
with nonsense advice, misdiagnoses of neuroses, depressions, a psychiatric wastebasket, but
strangely lacking simple self-care instructions about symptomatic self-care treatments.

When MDs took The Hippocratic Oath, they promised to Primum Non Nocere. In the case
of CFS/ME, doctors have done and continue to do harm by labeling complete prostration
as "fatigue," by dismissing exhaustion, headache, nausea as "depression," by prescribing
exercise for this disease, known to be due to an activated immune system, unable to shut
itself off, then attacking the encephalon (brain) and myelin sheath (spinal cord).

I say, “Stop prescribing Exercise for ENDOGENOUSLY CHEMOTHERAPIZED PATIENTS. Stop it!”

Did they ever hear of Empiricism?  Trial and Error?  Well, I did it.  And it worked after 20 years
of downward spiraling of my own health due to debilitation from CFS/ME, what I have renamed DEBILITATING IMMUNOPATHIC RELAPSING ENCEPHALOMYELITIS, acronym DIRE.  It is a dire disease, especially when left untreated.

Since these patients have Haywire Immune Systems, they require Simple Physical Measures to treat this Hypercytokinization of the Central Nervous System.
~ Do MDs prescribe psychotherapy for cancer patients on Chemo? For tangential issues maybe, but not for the chemo-induced sufferings. And, mind you, those are short-lived EXOGENOUS CHEMOTHERAPIES.

~ CFS:DIRE, ME is Years- and Decades-Long ENDOGENOUS CHEMOTHERAPY!!!

Simple Symptomatic Treatments will gradually quiet the Activated Immune System
until fewer and less distressing relapses finally simmer down to zero relapses altogether.

Then, the CFS/ME-afflicted one can get back to being human again.

(c) Copyright 1992 to 2018 by Dr. Helen Borel. All rights reserved.