Thread by @itmePZ

By 1990 in Australia, the 'CFS' title had taken hold, but it was being studied as a disease of the immune system.

GOODBYE YUPPIE FLU: CFS 'NOT IN THE MIND'

Andrew West
Sydney Morning Herald 13 September 1990

#MECFS
#MyalgicEncephalomyelitis
#pwME

Thankyou @ABrokenBattery

New research into the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has exploded the long-held misconception that it is a psychiatric condition.

There is now evidence showing CFS is a true physical ailment, affecting people genetically predisposed to certain environmental conditions.

The thesis by Sydney doctor Andrew Lloyd, of Prince Henry Hospital was supervised by three leading immunologists professors John Dwyer (the AIDS expert), Denis Wakefield and Clem Boughton of NSW University.

The MECFS Society of NSW raised more than $100,000 to help fund the investigation.

CFS or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) is a disease with no visible but deeply felt symptoms. It renders the sufferer completely exhausted and even bed-ridden, can cause vivid dreams and

physical sensations, such as "pins and needles" and can last for months at a time. It is often accompanied by severe muscle pain.

It was first diagnosed in London in the mid-1950s, after an outbreak at the Royal Free Hospital and later became

dismissively known as the "yuppie flu".

According to Professor Dwyer, Dr Lloyd (who worked with 700 sufferers) proves conclusively that CFS "has nothing to do with yuppies".

"This is not something you can say affects system. only those highly stressed professionals who want to drop out of society, although that has been the cliche," he said.

"CFS affects people from all backgrounds between the ages of six and 60."

The NSW chapter of the society has more than 1,500 members, 700 of them in the Sydney metropolitan area, and 400 in the northern suburbs. However, memberships represent less than half the known number - and a fraction of the estimated number of sufferers,

which the society puts at more than 900 in northern Sydney.

While a pattern of CFS may develop in families, usually between parent and child, the disease is not hereditary. Rather, it is stimulated when people with a genetic predisposition are exposed to certain infections.

Dr Lloyd has found that no single virus triggers CFS as American scientists had been trying to prove but that numerous - organisms were to blame.

Similarly, he could find no damage to, or abnormality in, the muscles, and both he and Professor Dwyer now believe that CFS

is closely linked to aberrations of the immune system.

For example, the fatigue, fever and headaches that sufferers encounter are not due to physical injury or illness, but to the overreaction of the immune system. Even though a virus has been beaten,

as Mrs Rothery puts it, "our systems cannot find the off switch", and continue to produce unnecessarily high excretions.

Dr Lloyd also states that the depression found in CFS sufferers is not typical of that common in people with neurotic and psychiatric conditions.

(The original London diagnosis of CFS was of an hysterical disease, although this was untested and based only on patients' records.)

Rather, the depression is the same as that felt by people with any chronic or traumatic ailment, such as cancer, or victims of stroke.

The poor concentration, short-term memory loss and mood swings also suggest an involvement of the central nervous system. Dr Lloyd is now doing further research into CFS and immunology at the National Institute of Health in Washington.

END OF ARTICLE

Not necessarily a great description of the symptoms, but good news for yuppies 😏