Rose pointed out a link between fibro, and chronic fatigue syndrome linked to vaccines. There is much info to be found on the subject.
http://barbfeick.com/cfs/cause/vaccines.htm
http://sacfs.asn.au/news/2007/12/12_22_polio_vaccine_cfs.htm
Thanks for sharing, SK! These are such interesting reads, to say the least, even alarming to an extent. There is a lot of vaccines going around that are confirmed by data, despite big pharma's denials, to cause side effects. It serves for people to be warned.
SK.....thanks for posting these links. God only knows what we have been exposed to in the past and are still being exposed to. Armando is right about big pharma.
Ally
I cannot find any peer-reviewed articles that support this theory. After the MMR scare, we need to be aware that just because a doctor says so, doesn't mean it's true.
Andrew Wakefield experimented on children with autism, including performing spinal taps (lumbar puncture), just for his research. Performing any painful procedure on a child simply to get a research sample is against the rules. When Dr Wakefield then said that MMR causes autism, he didn't reveal that he stood to make a lot of money from single vaccines and a "treatment" that supposedly "cleaned out" the MMR vaccine. I think it's safe to say he had vested intrests in people not having the MMR and wanting to "get rid" of the MMR vaccine they have. His behaviour was so bad, he was struck off the medical register in the UK.
I get very, very angry about the vaccine argument for two reasons. First of all, I have autism, in its milder form known as Asperger's Syndrome. I never had the MMR. My autism has only recently been recognised, it was always labeled as "emotional problems". Secondly, a large part of my current suffering may be because a vaccine was withdrawn over claims it caused brain-damage in rare cases. When I was a baby in 1977-78, the whooping-cough vaccine had just been withdrawn. At the age of five, I caught whooping-cough, a horrific disease that almost killed me several times. Possibly as a result of the stress it put my body through, I developed lymphodema, the first stage in the damage to my connective tissues that leaves me in constant pain today. I think my case shows that when there is a real possibility of a problem, "Big Pharma" does withdraw vaccines, even if it's just because they don't want to be sued.
I don't want to diminish the suffering of anyone on this site or who has suffered a very rare adverse reaction to a vaccine. I can't have the influenza vaccine again because I had such a bad reaction to one, it almost killed me. So I know that vaccines can, on rare occasions, cause very unpleasant reactions. It's just that we've forgotten how awful the alternative is.
On the subject of the polio vaccine, in the west we have forgotten how deadly polio - and diseases like it - are. My parents both remember school friends dying of it, when they were children. My dad (a doctor) had a patients who were left disabled. We've all seen the old pictures of rows of "iron lungs", the predecessor of the modern ventilator, keeping paralysed patients alive but trapped. In developing countries today, children still die of it.
In the UK, we just had Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. Some of the £75 million (over $113 million) raised will go towards providing vaccinations that will prevent children from dying from diseases that we in the West have forgotten. The short films shown over the course of the TV programme for Comic Relief featured African children who weren't vaccinated, dying from those diseases. One featured David Tennant, who you may know as the Doctor from Doctor Who (the one before the current one). As he was facing the camera to ask for donations, he was struggling not to break down and cry, as he watched children die in front of him.
I think if the parents of those dying children were asked which they would choose for their children - a life protected from killer disease but with a small possiblity of an adverse reaction or a high risk of dying or being disabled by those killer diseases - those parents wouldn't even have to think. They'd envy us our choice.
HI Starsmufr, Good to hear from you! You are absolutely correct about the importance of vaccines, and that we have forgotten how awful the alternative is. I am so glad that all of my grandchildren have been vaccinated and showed no adverse reactions.
I was born in 1955 and throughout my life have seen many afflicted with polio, especially as a kid!
I am on an immune suppressant drug, so I cannot take a live vaccine, should I ever need one, I'll have to go off the Enbrel, just like I would if I were having surgery. \\
Wishing you well,
SK
I am in no way abdicating anyone refusing vaccines to their children, merely showing what some considered to be a link, but then why do some respond poorly to them and others thrive. Just the difference in body chemistry, I suppose!
Hope you are well,
SK
Hi SK,
Thanks for the welcome, I always enjoy reading your posts. You're very obviously a kind, caring and informed person, something that is badly needed by people in groups like this.
My reply wasn't really aimed at you, it was more about the general controversy about vaccines at the moment and a concern that people might read the link you gave and stop vaccinating their children, as they did in the MMR scare. I personally think that the fibro (when anything other than mild) is worse than autism (as long as it is mild). I know that most people wouldn't stop vaccinating their child but there are always a few who don't remember what an awful disease polio or other preventable diseases actually are.
When I was a child, my dad told me a story about a patient with polio that filled me with horror. His patient was brought his breakfast in bed because he was ill but he hadn't yet been diagnosed with polio. As he was propped up in bed, he tried to lean forward to eat his breakfast and fell face-down into his porridge (I'm in Scotland!). This poor guy was literally drowning in porridge. Fortunately, he was found in time. He was left with a paralysed arm but even learned to play golf one-handed. As an eight year-old, I was stuck in bed with my erythromelalgia. I would always ask my mum not to give me porridge for my breakfast because I was scared of drowning in it!
My own hunch is that fibro will turn out to be a nerve signalling problem, with a genetic element to it. I also have erythromelalgia and I know that 15% of those with it also have fibro. As an inherited form of erythromelalgia has been found to be due to a problem with how signals are transmitted by the nerves, it could be that fibro is something similar. I'm hoping to test a new drug for pain that works in a way that makes erythromelalgia sufferers the perfect guinea-pigs/lab rats. If I get onto the trail, I'll let you know how it affects my fibro, as it could be good for it.
I hope your fibro isn't too bad at the moment. I saw a friend with fibro today and I recommended this group to her. Part of my recommendation was showing her my email inbox, with regular messages from you, so that she could see that it is a supportive and friendly community.
Oh man, this was fascinating reading, SK! The second article laid out the argument that the poliovirus vaccine wipes out the polio virus but that gives other viruses a chance to grow in our intestines, and they then attack areas of the brain that are known to cause chronic fatigue. Who would have guessed this unintended consequence of administering the polio vaccine? And basically the other viruses that came on board were really identical to the polio virus with one exception: they attacked the brain rather than the spinal cord. Absolutely fascinating! I would love to read more on the subject in terms of future developments.
Good find, SK. Thanks!
You said it very well.....here in Calif Whooping Cough has come back and almost reached epidemic levels because of people not vaccinating their kids so instead their children died.... unnecessarily from just not getting a vaccine. It is late here now...i should say i am 90% sure it is whooping cough...one of those that I, born in 50's never saw any other child with or heard about it really except through text books.
Where with polio, my mother's first husband died in 3 days from it, neighbor kid across the street had to wear braces on both his legs due to it. I can remember lining up to get surgical cube boosters at local bank in Downtown Napa. It is very serious disease. As my nephew says, we must be cautious about reading things online as non medical researchers. He gets upset that most news reports do not even get it right...as he puts it often it is just one small piece in huge puzzle they are trying to put together.
I am so glad you spoke up and did so much better than I ever could. thanks for speaking up in support of vaccines as you did, i am right behind you on all your points!
Yes Siskiya, It probably is whooping cough, there are TV adds letting the people know that children are dying from this again, because they are not being vaccinated.
The actress Carrie Russel even did some public awareness commercials in favor of vaccinations for your children.
Starsmurf, thank you for your kind words! It's always good to hear from you! Don't be a stranger, you are a very important part of our fibro family!
I hope that your friend joins us and benefits from the companionship and information that ben's friends provides.
If you would be so kind, would you be good enough to respond to ben's post, telling him what Ben's Friends means to you? He would be touched!
There's tons of info on the subject, just google possible diseases linked to polio vaccine. But you know, it's like me taking Enbrel and those possible side effects, the percentage of people adversely affected are very small, and getting smaller every year. The benefits surely outweigh the slight chance of harm.
As I go through the information shared by Dr Quintner, I have learned that something as mundane as temperature (I wasn't sure if they meant something like cold exposure or running a temperature, but both are all part of life) can trigger the body's stress response and set fibro in motion.
Not that I am an expert, but it seems to me, at this point, that in it's most basic form, Fibromyalgia is the disease of 'over doers'. We push ourselves to the point that our body stops allowing us to continue to 'over do'.
You're right, Starsmurf.
A balanced view would be to look at where "big pharma" has contributed to conquering diseases generally,and made efforts of withdrawing vaccines at the slightest alarm.
Meanwhile, it does still help for people to research on the vaccines they are having--especially for their children--as there are, indeed, some that are suspect. Maybe not for polio, but for other illnesses.
My Chiropractor has 2 children and he approved every vaccine but one for them, and he refused the chicken pox, and debated with their Doctor that he did not want them to end up with Shingles when they were in their 50's. So now what are they pushing for people 50 and up, more vaccinations for chicken pox! That makes me wonder!
My mother got polio when she was 5 years old. This disease left her crippled for the rest of her life. As you can probably guess she made sure that my 2 sisters and I were vacinated. In her late years (mom passed away in 2007) she developed what they are learning is post polio syndrome. What muscles she still had in her legs became worthless. She was in a wheel chair for several years. She was one of the blessed ones who lived through the attack of polio, but didn't want to see her children go through what she had gone through. Now, we as parents are doing the same, vacinnating our children in the hopes that they will not catch any of these dreaed diseases.
Sk, I think your on to something with Fibro being and over doer's disease. I was a very active person when I was younger and would go until I dropped most days. Didn't get the needed sleep, stay up late, get up early and go some more. So now I have no choice but to rest when needed. I have times that I need sleep worse than I need to eat. But, I sure don't go at the pace I used to. Have a blessed day people. Sue
I like this graph for showing that just because two things have a correlation, doesn't mean that one causes the other:
This shows that the real cause of increased autism prevalence is the fact that we got better at recognising it, as my own case shows (I'm 35 and it's only just been recognised I have it). The polio link could well be like this graph, so many people have the polio vaccine that it will always feature as a possible cause.
I suspect that fibro and ME are like autism, people have had them for decades (at least) but it has always been diagnosed as something else, such as arthritis, MS or deemed to be psychosomatic. I read an autobiography that mentioned briefly a man in a psychiatric hospital in the 1970's, who was there because he was having terrible headaches. Because the doctors couldn't find a physical cause for them, it was deemed to be a psychosomatic illness. He hadn't had any history of psychiatric illness and he had been leading a normal, happy life up until he started with the headaches. Unfortunately, because the author left the hospital within a few hours of arriving, what happened to that man is unknown. I'm sure that more than one fibro patient ended up in the psychiatric hospital system.
And for the record, I now eat organic food...
You know that makes me wonder. My mom was adopted, and her biological mom was in a mental hospital from 1936 to 1977. I never got to meet her and I don't know why she was there. I now wonder if she had fibro. I have a sister who is bipolar and one who has anixety attacks. I told them that I guess our grandmother must have had all this rolled up into one big mess. Who knows. Sue
Oh I know, I always try to buy everything organic, especially for the grand kids! My hubby is very handy with carpentry, he made us some nice raised beds, what a back saver they are! and we grow veggies all summer! Delicious, and organic, and the kids love to help plant, tend, pick and eat it! He also built a beautiful grape arbor for existing grapes and added two other kinds, and we have a little strawberry patch just for the kids!
That sounds nice, how high are the raised beds. We grow our own veggies, but I can't work in the garden, it I do I won't be able to walk for a few days. My husband and dad do all the work in the garden. We have blue berry bushes, and satsuma bushes. We enjoy this and have veggies all winter. I would like to have some grapes arbor. Be blessed Sue.
While I'm all for organic food, it does make me wonder that people (I don't mean LwFibro members) see a chart like the one above and don't become alarmed by it, yet when you replace "organic food" with "MMR vaccine rate", those same people suddenly panic. Not that I think organic food has anything to do with autism.
It's things like the graph above that make me take the polio vaccine theory with a dose of skepticism. How does any study have a similar group who have never received the vaccine? It would be hard to get a good enough mix of social, economic, lifestyle and health factors to be able to rule those factors out.
I'm rather jealous of your grandchildren though, I love strawberries. Sadly, I don't have any space in the shared garden and in any case, I tend to kill plants (accidentally).
Oh I'd guess at least 2 feet high, next time I'm out I'll see. It may be a while, the wind has been very strong and cold! Oh, I cannot bend either, don't feel alone!
Oh I know, not the most extensive testing, and statistics tend to always benefit the ones justifying the grant money, but it's a starting place!
I've grown strawberries in the redwood planters, basically just keep them watered! The fact that you love strawberries may be a good way to improve your gardening skills, you may be more inclined to keep them watered.
When I was younger the whole house would be full of plants, but I don't really want them in the house to deal with anymore, outside is enough!