Mono And Judo

If flu shots can cause problem for CFS patients while other vaccines don't, it's not difficult to imagine certain virus infection is more likely than others to trigger CFS. And it appears that more people end up with CFS after a bout with mono infection than other viral infections. The virus goes away in a month or so, but the debilitating fatigue, ache and weakness remains. Maybe it is the long lasting acute inflammation of mono that does it.

People with allergy suffer from long term inflammation too. And there have been enough studies that concluded allergies as a risk factor for CFS. But allergic inflammation is not as acute as viral infection so it is unlikely to result in CFS by itself. But it's possible that allergic people react with more inflammation to viral infection, so maybe they are more likely to develop CFS when subjected to CFS trigger.

Some people also develop CFS after overtraining. It is a well known fact that exercises cause acute inflammation. Extreme exercises in particular can spike the inflammatory IL-6 cytokine up to 100 times during the acute response phase. Then there is inflammation caused by muscle fiber damage resulting in delayed onset of muscular soreness that last 3 to 5 days. Repeated training without giving body time to recover from this inflammation can result in chronic high level inflammation. This prolonged inflammation could be the trigger for CFS in some people.  Dean Anderson, for instance, was a competitive cross country skier. And Anna Hemmings, an olympic rower, was once diagnosed for an overtraining syndrome. When she failed to recover after 6 months, the diagnosis became CFS. And that is how I ended up with CFS after training in judo 4 nights a week. There are plenty more cases of competitive athletes developing CFS.

So, this prolonged inflammation appears to be the common denomination for all CFS cases.