CFS/FMS and the Pandemic: Good News and Bad News

For people with CFS and fibromyalgia, most of the COVID-19 news is actually very good. We aren't seeing the illness be more harmful to our CFS/FMS population than others. And in the rare cases where CFS/FMS flareups occur after having the virus, people respond very nicely to simply tuning up with the S.H.I.N.E.® Protocol.

In fact, there's a good reason that people with CFS /FMS could actually say “Thank You" to the virus!

NIH research funding for fibromyalgia is going to be increased from its current paltry $12 million a year (it should be at least 30 times this much given how many people have the disease and its severity). Congress is appropriating $1.15 billion to study persistent post COVID-19 symptoms. This is study of the so-called "COVID-19 Long Hauler" syndrome, which is largely CFS and fibromyalgia. So, thanks to coronavirus, research funding for CFS/FMS is going to increase by as much as a hundredfold!

But this is an indication of bad news too, as the funding increase is happening because so many more people are expected to come down with CFS/FMS. In fact, current estimates in an article by Komaroff and Bateman estimate that 10% of people who get COVID-19 will develop CFS/ME. (This is pretty close to my estimate that 15% of those who get symptomatic COVID-19 will get post-viral CFS/FMS.)

Some More Good News to Report

Two studies  we recently completed on a new nutrient showed that 60% of study participants with post-viral problems experienced a 69% improvement in energy and overall well-being with a new supplement called Recovery Factors® (download a pdf of the first study), which has been accepted for publication. We launched a follow up study of yet another very helpful herbal, HRG80 Red Ginseng, just last week.

There is great reason for optimism!