{"id":9414,"date":"2016-08-16T07:15:20","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T07:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=9414"},"modified":"2016-08-16T07:15:20","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T07:15:20","slug":"recovering-from-cfs-fm-the-lerner-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/recovering-from-cfs-fm-the-lerner-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Recovering from CFS & FM \u2013 The Lerner Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health rising<\/strong> blog post, by Cort Johnson, Aug 12, 2016: Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia \u2013 The Lerner Way<\/a><\/p>\n

Recovery<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Recoveries or near recoveries from chronic fatigue syndrome (ME\/CFS) and\/or fibromyalgia don\u2019t happen often but they do occur.\u00a0 For some, recovery stories bring hope and new ideas, but for others they bring up feelings of sadness or frustration.\u00a0 They remind some of an outcome they don\u2019t see as possible anymore, and are not an occasion for hope, but a reminder of all that has been lost.<\/p>\n

Some people are able to find the key to their ME\/CFS or FM. Dr. Lerner found it for some.
\nChronic fatigue syndrome (ME\u2019\/CFS) and fibromyalgia are frustrating in their variability and uncertainty. I see them as being \u201cbig-tent\u201d diseases that are so riddled with subsets as to make any discussion of personal recovery problematic. Until we know which subset we belong to, and the appropriate way to treat it, the recovery story situation and treatment in general is going to be confusing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible and, perhaps likely that the treatment approach that returns you or I to health has not have been created yet. Or \u2013 perhaps more agonizingly \u00a0given the plethora of choices and most people\u2019s limited resources \u2013 your treatment has been created and you just haven\u2019t tried it yet. Unfortunately, there\u2019s absolutely no way to determine which applies. Recovery is a puzzle we haven\u2019t begin to put the pieces together in a coherent way yet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to know in the meantime, though, that some people do recover and do recover fully \u2013 sometimes even after decades with these illnesses. If Dr. Lerner didn\u2019t produce recoveries in most of his patients, the evidence suggests that many of his patients did improve significantly, and some did recover.<\/p>\n

Dr. Martin Lerner<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dr. Martin Lerner was an infectious disease specialist who became disabled with ME\/CFS in the 1970s.\u00a0 Ten years later after he recovered, he devoted himself to ME\/CFS and engaged in research and developed treatment protocols.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I passed around a request to ME\/CFS doctors to have patients who had recovered send their recovery stories to me.\u00a0 Dr. Lerner was the only doctor who replied. Over the next month or so he provided my request to patients he was seeing. During that time\u00a0 I received thirteen recovery\/recovering stories from Dr. Lerner\u2019s patients.<\/p>\n

Antivirals have been an obvious treatment of interest given a viral trigger and findings of activated herpesviruses. It\u2019s not clear how many ME\/CFS\/FM doctors embrace antivirals but it\u2019s probably safe to say that few have done so with greater enthusiasm than the late Dr. Lerner.<\/p>\n

Lerner believed that a smoldering or reactivated herpesvirus or other infections including Lyme disease were present in many people with ME\/CFS. His aggressive, high dose antiviral protocols \u2013 sometimes lasting longer than a year \u2013 could be hard on the pocketbook but clearly could be very effective.<\/p>\n

Not all of his patients did so well \u2013 his own research bore that out \u2013 but many, many people benefited.\u00a0 In a\u00a02010 interview<\/a> he stated:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve got people who are up to 8 or 9 or 10% fully recovered, able to exercise and participate fully in life. I have all kinds of people who are not as well but are living normal lives now, marrying when they couldn\u2019t marry before, working when they couldn\u2019t work before. It\u2019s been extraordinarily satisfying.<\/p>\n

His antiviral protocols could be long and at $1,000 or more a month expensive. Lerner found that, in general, the longer one had been ill the higher their viral loads were. Given enough time, though, he felt that many long term patients could be treated successfully.<\/p>\n

If somebody had been ill for three years or less they generally\u00a0 responded to six months of starting antiviral therapy. Anyone with ME\/CFS\/FM, though, needed to be treated for at least a year before they could really assess how effective treatment is. A look at some of the Lerner recovery stories indicates that if Valtrex wasn\u2019t working Lerner would sometimes add Valcyte to the mix.<\/p>\n

Lerner also asserted that when his patients got well they generally stayed well. He\u00a0 noted that he, himself, was on Valtrex for about six years and when he went off it he maintained his health.\u00a0 He believed that about 30% of his patients got up to about 8\/9 on a ten point functional scale, and stayed there.<\/p>\n

Antivirals weren\u2019t the only treatment Dr. Lerner advocated. He used beta blockers, blood volume enhancers and others and made it very clear to his patients that stress \u2013 known to be a potent activator of herpesviruses \u2013 was to be avoided and proper pacing was critical to give the protocol a chance to work. Exercise had to be extremely limited in the beginning. The body, Lerner felt, needed to reserve all its resources to fight off the infection.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lerner\u2019s Protocol<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Some general aspects of his protocol are below. Check out\u00a0Dr. Lerner\u2019s Diagnostic <\/a>and Treatment Protocols<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Any new infection (such as the common cold or bronchitis, or sinusitis, or a urinary tract infection) will worsen the symptoms of CFS.\u00a0 These common infections must be treated vigorously.<\/li>\n
  2. Exercise must be avoided, but living within the parameters of doing what you can do without ensuing exhaustion is encouraged.\u00a0 In other words, activities that increase your heart rate must be avoided.<\/li>\n
  3. Alcohol may be a cardiac toxin.\u00a0 I ask that CFS patients not drink alcohol.<\/li>\n
  4. Other conditions also may be chronic and may worsen or accompany CFS, for instance, chronic Lyme disease.\u00a0 Other co-existing conditions must be found and treated (e.g. high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus).<\/li>\n
  5. Of course, we want CFS patients to be well; we want CFS patients to live normally.\u00a0 We want CFS patients to be able to exercise, but I ask our patients not to exercise until her\/his Energy Index Point Score\u00ae (EIPS\u00ae) <\/a>improves to 8.\u00a0 A CFS patient has an EIPS\u00ae of zero if bedridden.\u00a0 An EIPS\u00ae of 5 allows a CFS patient to keep a sedentary job, but do little else.\u00a0 A CFS patient with an EIPS\u00ae point score 7 does not need to nap during the day.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Doctor Lerner died last year and his practice is closed. The tenacity with which Dr. Lerner pursued pathogens \u2013 and the long antiviral treatment regimens he used \u2013 may have been unique. Did these long regimens improve success rate significantly? It would be good to hear how other patients did on his protocol.<\/p>\n

    Read the full article with the Martin Lerner Recovery Stories<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Health rising blog post, by Cort Johnson, Aug 12, 2016: Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia \u2013 The Lerner Way Recovery Recoveries or near recoveries from chronic fatigue syndrome (ME\/CFS) and\/or fibromyalgia don\u2019t happen often but they do occur.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1613,618,3023,1912,743],"class_list":["post-9414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-antiviral-therapy","tag-cort-johnson","tag-dr-martin-lerner","tag-health-rising","tag-recovery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-2rQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9415,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9414\/revisions\/9415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}