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Conditions such as muscular encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and more recently COVIDis a cause of serious confusion and conflict among researchers, clinicians and patients. Persistent physical symptoms that cannot be attributed to a clear biological cause may be labeled “not medically explained.” But perhaps the language speaks more about the limitations of traditional biomedical models than it mentions these conditions.
As supported by pioneering research in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, methods of understanding health are emerging (just rolling down the tongue). According to this view, many of the chronic health conditions that are currently the main causes of diseases and disorders around the world may be best understood by studying the interconnections between different body systems.
These systems include the brain Nervous systemimmune system, intestine Microbiome and Endocrine (hormonal) systems, psychological and environmental factors.
From this “system” perspective on health, seeking a single biological cause of chronic disease is not much pointless. Based on this field of research, I introduced the idea that ME/CFS and Long Covid can serve as potentially reversible states. Imbalance across the organismgenerally continues Chronic stressin a previous post.
In this post, I’d like to go further and explore why your body can become in an imbalance and feel terribly stiff and manageable. If you live with me/CFS and a long covid, you might be asking: Why did my body go into shutdown mode?
Decline and fall
To answer this question, a helpful place to get started is to ask. How did you get here? According to the studythe three most common triggering factors for people who continue to develop ME/CFS are infection, stress or major life events, and exposure to toxins. I think each of these factors can be explained in the broadest sense of the word as a form of stress in various forms. In fact, Hans Cerry, the “father of stress theory,” described stress simply as a body’s response to the demands of change.
Many people seem to feel sick with persistent symptoms following a viral infection or another humiliation to the body, which often appears to act like straw that breaks the camel’s back. Very generally, people have already navigated a wider period of stress and tension, ranging from difficulties in relationships and caring responsibilities to unrecognized and unsupported difficulties in neurological or mental health.
Megan O’Rourke’s words New Yorker Essay Please explain this trajectory carefully:
I got sick in the way Hemingway says you broke: “Gradually, and suddenly.”
Some researchers The period of time that runs to those developing ME/CFS and Long Covid is described as the “precursor” stage. During this period, depending on the cumulative stressor, the body gradually moves from a relative balance or homeostatic state, moving towards a greater imbalance, or heterocytosis.
Over time, cumulative stress wear, or “allostatic load,” could be expressed in what psychologists Gordon Asmundson and Stephen Taylor call “body noise.” These are physical sensations that can start quietly, but they become much larger over time.
Dysregulation of the neuro and endocrine (hormonal) systems can cause a variety of sensations that are familiar to me/CFS and long-term covid patients, including fatigue, pain, headaches, heart movement pits, changes in breathing, increased sensitivity to temperature, instability of temperature, sweating, difficulty in sweating, difficulty sleeping, and more. anxiety, Brain mist and obstructive intolerance (if standing upright and worsen symptoms).
The dysregulated immune system can cause fatigue, mood, anxiety, and reductions, which can sometimes be called “disease responses.” appetiteincreased pain sensitivity, decreased interest in socialization, soft glands, sore throat.
Some people with me/CFS and long covid may find themselves looking back at the confused, so intense physical sensations before they get sick as their “early warning signs” It’s stressful Living environments were not sustainable. It’s as if these “whispers” from the body are being ignored and must be amplified into cries and cries of more impaired symptoms to be heard in the end.
Emergency
Whether in the form of a viral infection or something else, the final triggering event appears to be a catalyst for an existential crisis in the brain and body. After all, that’s the main job of the brain Maintain balance In our body by weighing its resources in relation to the threats and demands of the world around us. In the face of one stress, facing too much stress, the brain may conclude that the body cannot respond to the challenges it is basically facing.
Another way to say this in the words One research studythat means there is deterioration Allostatic Self-efficacy. I might translate this like my brain is losing Confidence Unique ability to maintain balance in your body.
The brain’s response to this crisis of confidence could be to return to a state of ultraprotectiveness. This is known as Central sensibility – A state of increased sensitivity of the central nervous system. Researcher Central sensitization suggests that there may be multiple fundamentally chronic health problems, including ME/CFS, long covid, and several forms of persistent pain. Fibromyalgia Irritable bowel syndrome. This is practically when certain signals of danger and threat are amplified in the brain.
In this emergency, alarms are sent from the brain to various parts of the body across various “homeostatic networks.” The brain is a two-way conversation with the immune system, and their shared response to perceived threats is the body’s “disease response” discussed previously.
Symptoms of the disease’s response – fatigue, pain, brain fog, dizziness, anxiety, low mood – are all useful in the short term by urging you to rest and recover from a viral infection or other body shaming. But what happens when your sensitive brain continues to sound the danger alarm even after the infection is defeated? The result is a deep, unpleasant condition of chronic fatigue and other symptoms experienced by people living with ME/CFS and long covid.
Future posts explore what is important to understand that this emergency condition in the brain and body could result in being locked into a malicious feedback loop. In other words, the brain is a predictor. The more you predict the risk, the more likely you will experience “protective” physical symptoms. The more you experience these unpleasant symptoms, the more this red flag will grow. This same understanding also opens up the possibility of reverse this cycle.
