Re: Were our mothers weak as well?

May 14, 2012

I can understand why you surround yourself with cats (sorry you are

losing some) and love them (also a cat lover but only 12 at one time,

now 3 and enjoying less). My mother (still alive at age 83) was healthy

other than exzema from allergies. I was NOT breastfed (mom was told she

had inverted nipples). Pregnancy was normal (although it took mom two

years to get pregnant after my sister, as she had appendicitis as a teen

and had only one ovary left), mom not under a lot of stress, didn't have

awful life even though her mom was a bit strict and she was an only

child. Birth process normal as far as I know.

Now for me, I had allergies as a child (not diagnosed back then) and I

slept/napped a lot. My sister has few allergies although her two

children have had them since childhood. My sister says we were exposed

to a lot of chemicals growing up (cloradane and DDT regularly used at

home and in the orchards around where we lived and played). I have

always used sprays for fleas in the house and bugs in the garden. Did I

have a happy upbringing? Yes, although we moved a lot and there was

stress attached (Dad was a banker and we moved every 2-4 years, had to

make new friends and get used to new schools) but I thought I handled it

pretty well. Did I get sick? I was sick often as a child (tonsilitis

though still have tonsils, BAD viral illness in 1970 which I think was

mono and made me EBV positive), broke out my front teeth age 8 from

slipping on the sidewalk (trauma having my teeth pulled and wearing a

flipper all my life), had a concussion in high school when I hit the

pavement with my head and couldn't remember things for two months after,

have had numerous viral infections (herpes simples, HHP6, parvo) in

adulthood. I have had a lot of food allergies all my life (wheat, corn,

soy, rice, bananas, strawberries, grapes, cocoa, chicken + eggs, lemons,

etc.) I was always sleepy ALL my life, often a reaction from the foods

(I would sleep 2-1/2 hours after a reaction, be uncoordinated a lot, had

leg cramps which the docs called " growing pains, " have bad brain fog,

get cranky, etc.). My viral load is managed better with natural

supplements (lysine, oil of oregano, grapefruit seed extract) and

generic Valtrex as needed when bad (swollen throat glands and low

energy) but reactivates regularly if I get sick or overdo work.

I feel I used to be more CFS symptoms and now FMS symptoms ad I am less

sleepy but more in muscle/bone pain. We introduced wireless in our home

last Oct as my hubby wanted a WII and the computer internet is wireless.

Affect on me? Unknown but I ache more this year and have less energy and

more viral issues.

Anything else? Can't think of it right now.

in La Selva Beach CA

May 14, 2012

probably the cats are dying from FLV (feline leukemia virus) or some such

disease. its ironic because XMRV, which has now been proven to have been a lab

contaminant, is a similar virus.

May 14, 2012

Dear Mira,

You asked

My questions to all of you are these:

1) What was the physical health of your mothers when you were conceived?

Just fine

2) Were your mothers under a lot of stress when they were pregnant with you?

No, not really. it was a good time for her. She was under more stress when my

sister was born and my sister is fine

3) Did you mothers have hard lives before they married and had children? Did

they have awful childhoods as well?

Wonderful childhood. Her siblings all talk in the same way.

4) Was the pregnancy normal?

yes

5) Was the birth process normal or was it traumatic for either the mother or for

you as you were being born?

normal birth - no complications

6) Were you breastfed when you were a baby? Not being breastfed seems to be

connected to lower immunity.

breastfed just fine.

Mira, I sympatise about what your family has been through but I would ask for

sensitivity talking about this topic. We have plenty of psychobabble experts

already trying to force these theories on us. My own feeling is that this is

being used to stop us from getting proper medical treatment and proper research

into ME and CFS.

There is no evidence that civilian survivors of war (and I'm not talking GWS

obviously) have any increase in CFS and ME. If they did there would

be environmental factors to consider as well as emotional ones. Where is the

huge incidence of ME in Poland, France in WW2 survivors etc? Why an ME outbreak

in peaceful New Zealand?

Please reconsider if this is a topic that you should bring to on a group for

experimental treatments. I do sincerely feel that it could be divisive and cause

distress.

Kindest regards,

Annette

May 14, 2012

Dear Annette,

I do want to create any kind of division among list members or give anybody any

additional stress. There are people like you who have had perfectly good lives

from the beginning and get CFS anyway. Some people have a lot of money and have

CFS along with a good marriage, children etc. The whole thing is mystery that

scientists are trying to solve.

There are people who came into this world with problems that they themselves did

not create. Their mothers were under stress when they carried the pregnancy.

Then there are people who were abused as children and they have lowered immune

systems because of the abuse.

What I am trying to do here is get to the truth for that group of people. What

are our histories? Perhaps if some of us think about our pasts then we will get

more quickly to methods for dealing with the symptoms of the disease right now.

The brain after all controls our immune system so there may be some relief

somewhere that we have not looked at and that could help us at least live better

with this disease.

You asked about illnesses after WWII in Poland. There was a horrible year, 1951,

when a lot of young children born after the war, died of unexplained reasons.

One can walk in some Polish cemeteries and see, date of death 1951 and the age

of the child as being from a few months to a few years. There was no large scale

outbreak from any disease.

I hope that you understand what my reasons are for writing about my own life as

it is just to help other people.

Mira

May 15, 2012

Dear Sue,

I had some of the cats tested and they did not have feline leukemia virus. That

does not mean that some other virus is not at play here. Some of them are just

cats who were poor and abandoned kittens to begin with and because of their very

bad start in life they have health problems now. I have one cat whose mother

must have had a bad upper respiratory infection during the pregnancy, because my

cat was born with malformed eyes.The lenses and the green parts were grown

together and she was in danger of being blind for the rest of her life. I took

her to the best animal eye doctor in Warsaw and she is now able to see well

enough to catch flies. Her eyes are never going to seem normal to us because

they are misshapen, but if she can see enough to function like a cat that is all

that is needed for her to have a normal life.

Thank you for writing that Feline Leukemia Virus is similar to XMRV. Somehow