Chronic Fatigue Unmasked 2000
Introduction
AS my interest in and treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) reaches its forty-second year it seems that my reputation among my fellow practitioners is changing from that of quack and charlatan to that of pioneer. Of course when I mention this fact to a patient I always add, "You know how you tell a pioneer, don't you? He's the one with all the arrows in his back."
In a more serious vein, this present edition of Chronic Fatigue Unmasked 2000 is not just a reprint but a complete revision of the work. Many of the items and procedures discussed in the first two editions either are no longer available, or better methods have replaced them. During the interim between the second and this third edition we have kept our patients up-to-date by issuing monographs describing the latest tests and treatments that have become available for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The information in these monographs has been included in Appendix III of this new edition. You will also find here many new concepts about the condition as a whole. As the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome pandemic (yes, pandemic) spreads and intensifies, newer and more specific treatments are needed for its control, and we always do our best to keep on the cutting edge of all technologies related to this condition. Readers of this book who would like to keep up with our updates may do so in one of two ways: (1) Send us your name and address and we will put you on our list to send you new monographs as soon as they are issued or (2) contact our website, www.chronicfatigue.org, on a regular basis. All new monographs will be posted.
As I reread the Introduction to the 1993 edition of this work, I find that I still agree with the substance, but differ with some of the details. I don't know if it is practical to attempt to differentiate between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction. The mere fact that a virus is the stress factor that triggers the Chronic Fatigue reaction does not seem to me now to be such an important distinction. The patient still needs to be treated the same as the regular Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patient. As the physician is able to build the immune system, the virus is taken care of naturally. I personally am very suspicious of drug viral therapy. As they are now finding in the treatment of AIDS, antiviral drugs tend to cause a mutation of the virus into a drug resistant form that might end up causing far more trouble than if they had not attempted to "kill" the virus in the first place. I realize that these views are somewhat heretical (so what else is new?), but more and more respectable researchers are coming to the same conclusions. Just remember, you heard it here first.
The two main bones of contention between myself and those medical doctors who are becoming more knowledgeable about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome have to do with the nature of the patient and the underlying cause of the disease. The others usually contend that (a) the patients are the same as everyone else except they have a strange new disease and (b) that the cause of this disease is some single factor (perhaps a yet-to-be-discovered virus such as HIV) and once this is discovered and overcome the disease will be a thing of the past. Like the belief in Santa Claus, I would love both concepts to be true, but my old-fashioned German-Norwegian hardheaded logic just won't let me do so.Long experience with CFS has taught me that some persons are almost certain to develop this condition to some degree in their lives, while others will probably never fall victim to its ravages no matter what they do or how they live. The immune system in the first group is weak and susceptible, while in the second it is inherently strong and vital. Therefore, I cannot agree with the contention that anyone can develop CFS. Long experience with this condition has proven to me that only a certain type of constitution is likely to develop this condition as we know it today. However, as CFS becomes more and more prevalent, I will qualify my previous conclusions to this degree: As the stresses of the world increase and as more and more individuals whose immune systems were compromised as children are placed (or place themselves) in positions of unremitting stress, the number of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients will increase greatly. This prediction is already being fulfilled with each passing day.
I believe the number of susceptible Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients is increasing exponentially because their compromised childhood immune systems are reaching the end of their effective tether. When we are born into this world, we have certain very special immune units that can be used once and only once to fight off serious invaders. If these are wasted in adapting the immune system to the multiple disease organisms used in the rapid injection of manifold inoculations, the immune system will not have these units available in later life when they will be needed, and modern science has created an individual with a defective immune system who may become a prime candidate for later CFS.
As far as the virus theory of CFS is concerned, I feel the jury is still out. It really would be nice to find a quick, simple cure for this condition, but I still am not inclined to believe that such exists. A large percentage of my CFS patients have no history of such infections, but they do have a history of having pushed themselves beyond their strength time and time again until they could push no further. Therefore, I feel that even if such a virus were found, it would be helpful in only a small percentage of patients. My experience with CFS tells me that there are usually plenty of other reasons most patients develop this condition, and unless we reverse those reasons, that is, change the life-style that brought on the conditions in the first place, there is little hope of a real cure.
By the way, my good friend and mentor Dr. John Bastyr, mentioned in my 1993 Introduction, passed away a few years ago. He has not been forgotten, however. A college of Naturopathic healing (John Bastyr College of Naturopathy) has been established and named for him in Seattle, Washington.
Gerald E. Poesnecker, N.D., D.C.
December 1998.