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by lindsaywaterman 1019 days ago
I think the psychological/physiological duality is false. Think of blushing for instance: embarrassment causes vasodilation. I suspect CFS is at its core some type of autonomic dysfunction. This is why many medications do work: some of my patients have had great response to LDN and I'm glad it's been beneficial for you. As for the mindfulness and pacing...yes not everyone gets benefit. A lot of troubleshooting required - it's difficult to figure out for sure. Good for you for doing that though!
2 comments

> I think the psychological/physiological duality is false. Think of blushing for instance: embarrassment causes vasodilation.

Right, it's not a duality, the word for what you're describing is "psychosomatic".

My partner suffers from post-Covid issues: can you tell me what you mean by LDN?
Low dose naltrexone.
Thank you! Seems like there are both positive small studies and self-reported anecdata available

https://reddit.com/r/covidlonghaulers/s/2SzkM5ca5K

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9250701/

That "study" doesn't even have a control but, then again, I wouldn't expect much from research around long covid.
Really hard to get proper funding for LDN. It is an already incredibly cheap drug in a minute dose... this treatment is not exciting to anyone except patients and a few passionate researchers.

Lots of studies showing "interesting results, needs more investigation" but high quality studies are very slow to come...