This
newsletter page may keep current readers up-to-date and help introduce
the practice to new patients.
We hope you find this interesting and we are open to suggestion
for information we might include in our newsletter. The top part contains
news items followed by patient questions.
News
Immunoprop Pharma Inc have produced results from the use of
Immunoprop capsules (glutathione, cysteine, ascorbic acid,
trace selenium and Picamilion) in CFS. We have used it twice
daily with good result.
Their other product CATAPULT acts on brain fog we shall report
on it after we have more results
News Insomnia
Xyrem a sleep medicine used in narcolepsy is being studied
in fibromyalgia and CFS. Initial results are promising
Jazz Pharma has just bought out Orphan Pharma Inc.
Jazz has contacted Dr Enlander to perform a study of the use of Xyrem in CFs
Feb 04 Thank you to Jay S for his news suggestions
From: "Charles Shepherd" charlesbshepherd@lineone.net
ME/CFS plus unusual neurological symptoms and signs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is it always ME/CFS?
The 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Report into ME/CFS officially
recognised that a number of serious and unusual neurological symptoms
and signs do sometimes occur in more severely affected people with
ME/CFS.
These can include double vision, blackouts, atypical convulsions/fits,
loss of speech, and loss of swallowing(ref: www.doh.gov.uk/cmo/cfsmereport/
Section 4.2.1.2 ).
When these sort of neurological symptoms and/or signs occur,
it
is always important to exclude the possibility of the cause being
another neurological disorder. On such condition is Hashimoto's
encephalopathy - the diagnosis of one particular case I referred
to last year on the message boards. This very interesting case
involved a 14-year-old girl whose initial (mis)diagnosis had
been
severe CFS, along with neurological features (including hand
tremor, jerking leg movements and blurred vision) and a number
of thyroid function test anomalies consistent with an autoimmune
thyroiditis (as occur in Hashimoto's encephalopathy).
Dr Abhijit Chaudhuri and Professor Peter Behan (University of
Glasgow) have now published a definitive paper on this not uncommon
autoimmune central nervous system disorder affecting both children
and adults which always appears to
include a significant degree of central fatigue. The paper describes
the principle clinical features in 18 such patients:
- central fatigue
in 100%
- migraine-type
headaches in 90%
- seizures (focal/general/myoclonic)
in 67%
- stupor in the
acute presentation in 67%
- focal neurological
deficit in 67%
- psychosis,
delusions or hallucinations in 50%
- cognitive impairment
in 33%
- alternating
hemiparesis (ie loss of use on one side of the
body) in 16%
- cerebellar ataxia
(ie severe disturbance with
balance/co-ordination) in 15%
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