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How Adversity Shapes Health & Why It's Not In Your Head

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IIB. ME/CFS Surveys (The Cell Danger Response and Hibernation Series)

Veronique Mead, MD, MA · February 15, 2019 · 2 Comments

ME/CFS SURVEY looks at onset triggers such as infections, mold, trauma; adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs) as risk factors for ME/CFS #chronicfatiguesyndrome #fms #POTS #lupus #autoimmune #asthma #diabetes Mead CITS
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This post contains a group of chronic fatigue syndrome questionnaires (ME/CFS surveys) and serves as a short companion to other, more detailed blog posts. Post I introduces Dr. Robert Naviaux’ research on the cell danger response (CDR) and how ME/CFS represents a metabolic state of freeze. Post IIA describes how the cell danger response gets stuck to cause disease. Post IIA contains 4 surveys on different types of adversity and exposures that cause the CDR to get stuck. This companion post contains the same 4 ME/CFS surveys, but with only brief descriptions of each one.

I’ve developed these surveys based on studies about risk factors for diseases other than ME/CFS.

Your responses will give you a context for making sense of your symptoms from Dr. Naviaux’ emerging new paradigm of disease. They will also help my own informal research.

When you fill out surveys on this page, your answers will automatically also be added to the same survey in the companions blog post IIA.

You will see graphs of all the responses, including your own, after you click the submit button.

ME/CFS Surveys 1: Adverse Pre-Onset Experiences (APOEs)

me/cfs chronic fatigue syndrome survey adverse pre-onset experiences (APOEs) that trigger onset of the disease #questionnaire #survey Mead CITS

Cell danger signaling research explains that chronic fatigue syndrome reflects a body caught in a metabolic state of survival. This very real, physiological state is similar to hibernation or freeze.

ME/CFS is affected by nervous system perceptions of threat following exposures to environmental stressors such as infections, chemicals, as well as physical and psychological trauma. It is not in your head.

This survey gives an idea of the kinds and number of adverse exposures that contributed to your onset of ME/CFS. It includes a score of up to 15 for how many different triggers you may have experienced in the year before onset.

ME/CFS Adverse Pre-Onset Experiences (APOEs)

ME/CFS Surveys 2: Adverse Babyhood Experiences (ABEs) 1.0

me/cfs chronic fatigue syndrome survey adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs) that accumulate to increase risk for onset of the disease #questionnaire #survey Mead CITS

The new understanding of disease explains that life experiences interact with genes to influence gene function.

This means that life experiences and other environmental exposures play an important and under-recognized role in risk for autoimmune and over 100 other diseases. They are believed to affect risk for ME/CFS.

These 30+ questions about adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs) are covered on three pages. They do not include all possible adverse experiences. 

ME/CFS & Adverse Babyhood Experiences (ABEs) 1.0

ME/CFS Surveys 3: Expanded Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs+) 1.0

me/cfs chronic fatigue syndrome survey expanded adverse childhood experiences (ACEs+) that accumulate to increase risk for onset of the disease #questionnaire #survey Mead CITS

I’ve created this expanded version of the original Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) survey to provide a better sense of the types of experiences that affect risk for chronic diseases. These are likely risk factors for ME/CFS just as they are for other diseases.

These 30+ ACEs+ questions are covered in three pages. You will see your score on the last page and a set of graphs after you click submit.

ME/CFS & Adverse Childhood Experiences Plus (ACEs+) 1.0

ME/CFS Surveys 4: When ME/CFS is Triggered by Infection 1.0

me/cfs chronic fatigue syndrome survey when infections trigger onset of the disease is past history of ABEs, ACEs, pregnancy and other infections different than for people with mecfs whose onset is triggered by mold, trauma or other events? #questionnaire #survey Mead CITS

I’ve created this survey to get a sense of whether there are differences in histories of people whose ME/CFS is triggered by infections and those whose disease is triggered by something else (or by unknown triggers).

* Please take the survey even if your ME/CFS was not triggered by an infection. This will help identify potential differences.

You will see graphs of all the responses after you click submit.

ME/CFS: Infection Onset Triggers Survey

Why Does it Matter?

Research in epigenetics, brain development, embryology, the cell danger response, brain plasticity and more support a new paradigm that suggests symptoms of chronic diseases, including ME/CFS, may be more reversible than we have realized. This does not mean that chronic fatigue syndrome or other diseases are psychological or all in our heads. It’s because life experiences become embedded in our bodies and affect how our genes function. This process, which occurs through epigenetics, can be reversible.

You’ll find a list of tools that support healing from this new perspective of disease, at the bottom of the companion post: Part IIA: ME/CFS and How the CDR Gets Stuck.

A future post, Part III, will provide more detail on approaches for working with symptoms.

Free Surveys Download

Want to take the surveys on your own time? Includes all 4 surveys.

The form will appear momentarily.

Read the Post in Free PDF or Kindle

You can download this post or part I below – the forms will appear momentarily.

Related Posts

I. ME/CFS and Freeze: A Metabolic State of Hibernation That is Not in Your Head

IIA. ME/CFS and The Cell Danger Response: How the CDR Gets Stuck in Freeze (Surveys)

The Cell Danger Response: The New Disease Paradigm (Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, ME/CFS and Beyond)

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Chronic Illnesses ABEs (Adverse Babyhood Experiences), ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), APOEs (Adverse Pre-Onset Experiences), infections, ME/CFS, Survey

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Comments

  1. Deborah Boyar says

    February 16, 2019 at 1:38 pm

    Heroic, brilliant, generous work compiling and simplifying all this data and making it so graphically clear and user-friendly. Thank you for your service to humanity.

    Reply
    • Veronique Mead, MD, MA says

      February 16, 2019 at 1:49 pm

      Thanks so much Deborah! Glad the graphics are helpful – I had fun finding the baby bear graphics and am really wanting to make this information as accessible as I can :-)

      Reply

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I love hearing from you. I read and review every comment before publishing it to make it visible to everyone. Your stories and insights make the writing and running of my blog so worthwhile. Although your email is required, it is not made public. You can use any name you wish. How do you work with your health? What has helped as you've become an expert in your own right? Does understanding the science of trauma make your journey any easier? Is there anything you need or wish I wrote about more?

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About Me

Hello! I'm Veronique Mead. On my blog I look at how chronic illness may be a natural response to one or more overwhelming experiences of threat. While this includes infections and toxins, I specialize in the role of psychological and physical trauma. Because the research - still overlooked and underestimated by medicine - has knocked my socks off.

 

Symptoms, it is turning out, may not be caused by mistakes our bodies are making but because our nervous systems have gotten stuck in states of fight, flight or freeze. Our bodies are our best friends and risk everything to help us survive. We are designed to recover or at least begin to heal from the effects of those survival strategies. I never knew any of this as a family physician or assistant professor. And it’s not in your head.

 

I've been testing these ideas with my own disabling disease for the past 20 years (I am much improved and get a little better every year). I share the research, challenges, why some things that seem so logical do not work for everyone (or make things worse), as well as my favorite 11 tools. This is so you can explore what might help you stabilize, improve or possibly even begin to reverse underlying drivers of your chronic illness too. For an overview with links to my most important posts, start here.

#WEGO Patient Leader 2019 Finalist

#WEGOHealthAwards 2019 Patient Leader Finalist for Best in Show Blog Chronic Illness Trauma Studies Veronique Mead MD, MA

I and we - it feels so much like a WE - were among 6000 nominees for 15 categories of patient leader awards and one of 5 finalists for Best in Show Blog at the #WEGOHealthAwards. Learn more here.

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