I find it amusing my disability may come from a 'retro' virus (and transgender)

Amusing because I always have loved old styles of sci-fi, art and fashion.

http://sacfs.asn.au/news/2009/10/10_11_xmrv_retrovirus.htm

Now of course its still early days. There's been other biological factors found for this illness still considered by many even in the medical profession as purely psychological.. yeah they can tell that to the blood tests where i was eating for three and my body still thought it was so starved that canabilising my muscles and bones seemed a good idea to it.

It's a big puzzle and with many complicated aspects, what is thought in one discovery to be causal may instead be consequential and vice versa. And it may well be the umbrella term covers more than one illness related causally or unrelated but for similarity of symptoms.

Seem familiar?

There are quite a few similarities between that and much in the Transgender world.

Of course even with the name conflicts between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Myalgic Encephalomyelitus and whether or not fibromyalgia is a seperate similar maybe related illness or merely just the side of CFS that gets more muscle and joint pain compared to the exhaustion and cognitiove imapirment on the other with a false-divide with lots of people having a chunk from each camp and being difficult to shove into either box there has still not been in my experience any of the vicious vitriol and ad hominems amongst sufferers in these debates.

Unlike the TS anti-TG extremists who in the comments at Bilerico recently went on and on in attacks, but again fell silent when those with an ounce of scientific literacy challenged them and called their pseudo-science and cherry-picked science bluffs. (when oh when will they respond to the discoveries of cross-sexed brain neurology of gays and lesbians and the inclusion of non-ops in some of those studies they tout as proving their claims?)

There's lots of pseudo-science around CFS too.. people get desperate so some of those without conscience will try and fleece sufferers. Other sufferers try all sorts of things and if they are lucky enough to go into remission will celebrate whatever they were taking or doing at the time.. alas all too often theres no evidence it actually will help anyone else. Heck years ago one teenage girl was so desperate she trepaned herself.. drilled a hole into her own skull with a powerdrill to expose her brain!

For those used mostly to my posts being directly related to transgender issues its worth looking at the experience of people with CFS. I'm lucky that I can string written sentences together with a reasonable enough degree of coherancy that the cognitive impairment problems don't so often show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMh_JpPmL-s

And with CFS ignorance and bias amongst the medical fraternity ignoring the evidence, ignoring the science also kills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y_T5ylWUv4

And of course there are lots of ways that society punishes the disabled.. centrelink is a minefield of ablist beaureucratic traps seemingly designed for no other purpose than to make disabled peoples lives more difficult or to find excuses to cut their pensions.

So there is good news.. but only another piece of the puzzle at the moment, no new treatments are available and there is only a chance this discovery will lead to some.

And its a good opportunity to think about the issue, and for those without disability to think about those around them whose quality of life and their very continued existence depends on society fulfilling the social contract and looking after them.. which all to often it's failing to do.