Melissa Kaplan's Chronic Neuroimmune Diseases Information on CFS, FM, MCS, Lyme Disease, Thyroid, and more...
Last updated April 19, 2007
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome A polio by another name Jane Colby, What Doctors Don't Tell You, 6(9)
Research into Post-Polio syndrome and chronic fatigue has-made the astounding discovery that the virus that most often triggers CFS is closely related to the one that causes polio.
Just a few decades ago, hospital wards were full of children in iron lungs as a result of polio. No longer. The horrific spectacle appeared to abate with the advent of vaccination, but nothing is without its price.
The public breathed a sigh of relief and even the medical profession believed, and still seems to believe, that the dreaded scourge of polio was at last being vanquished. We read predictions that it will be wiped out by the year 2000.
But a body of evidence is growing linking Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), to this terrible disease, largely caused by attempts to eradicate polio. An alternative polio seems to be upon us.
The proceedings of the first intemational scientific conference on the Post-Polio Syndrome in the US have been collated in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science. It includes 50 papers written by 118 contributors from a wide range of specialties, including clinical neurology.
In particular, papers by Dr Richard Bruno, assistant professor at the New Jersey Medical School's department of physical medicine and rehabilitation and director of Post-Polio Rehabilitation and Research Service at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey, and four other specialists compare Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Post-Polio Syndrome (Dalakas, et al, ed. The Post Polio Syndrome: Advances in the Pathogenesis Treatment,Annals, NY Academy, Sciences, 1995: 273: 1-409). Post-Polio is developing in those who had polio 25-30 years previously. Clinically, it is indistinguishable from CFS.
Other researchers demonstrate that CFS is just another form of polio, which has increased with the advent of polio vaccination. As one type of gut virus has been eradicated, so other forms have had the space to proliferate. Up to one in every 500 Americans may have CFS, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
To understand the link one needs to understand the microbiological habits of both polio and other enterovirus disease-that is, gut bugs.
A historical accident has led to various names being given to viruses, all of which share physical , chemical and epidemiological characteristics of what we consider the classic polio virus, which science refers to as polio viruses 1, 2, and 3 (Dowsett: Journal of Hospital Infection, 1988:11:103-15). ln 1948, a polio-like illness in New York state prompted scientists to culture the virus. But what grew looked to them at that time like a new virus.
They called it "Coxsackie' after the small town up the Hudson River where it was found. And they called the disease "Atypical Polio" because its symptoms identified it as a kind of polio, despite the virus being apparently different.
This kind of polio, "Atypical Polio,' has since been renamed, 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,' or ME. But it remains a kind of poIio despite the change of name. and newer technology has shown up the generic similarities of the most frequent agent that causes it.
These techniques place Coxsackie, the virus most often implicated in CFS, in the polio family tree, along with so-called echo viruses. Coxsackie has been further divided into Coxsackie type A (with 24 viruses) and Coxsackie type B (six viruses ). There are 34 echo viruses. In total, there are at least 72 enteroviruses in all, with new ones still being discovered.
All this has been unnecessarily confusing and complicated, even for doctors. These days newly discovered enteroviruses are just given a new number, not a new name, since their inter-relationship is recognized.
Had the techniques been available that we now have at our disposal, all these viruses might simply have been called "Polio 1 through 72."
There are several angles from which to investigate the hypothesis that CFS is a type of polio. One is its clinical symptoms.
Dr. Elizabeth Dowsett, consultant microbiologist of the Southeast Essex NHS Trust who is in the forefront of British CFS research, explains that true CFS (as opposed to fatigue states with other etiologies) strikes one clinically as being polio-like, and it has often been diagnosed as a "non-paralytic polio." "These patients have weakness, pain down their spines and are systemically ill," she says.
She feels that it has been an unfortunate mistake to turn to the label "Chronic Fatigue" because true CFS is a neurological condition that usually originates with a gut virus infection like Coxsackie.
Apart from clinical examination, in some cases of CFS you can actually demonstrate the presence of gut virus infection in the patient.
The requirement to put off diagnosing CFS for six months after the patient falls ill has unwittingly militated against this. If tests are not done very rapidly after the onset of infection, it is too late to identify the virus.
A blood screening test called the IGM, which shows up recent infection, can be positive up to three months after infection in adults. As the enteroviruses are characterized by their relapsing nature (on average, three-week intervals), it could also be identified on relapse.
Apart from modern techniques, a research procedure called the acid elution test can identify your antibody from a circulating virus and can be applied to viruses multiplying in the bowel. Years ago it was difficult to diagnose polio, and it was this very test which was used.
A third way to compare CFS with polio is by looking at studies of actual outbreaks which identified the viruses causing it. Here the evidence is particularly striking.
A recent paper by Richard T. Johnson, at the Department of Neurology, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, published in the 1995 Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences mentioned above, sets out evidence that has been available since the 1950s.
"In the spring of 1957," he wrote, "we investigated an epidemic of poliomyelitis in Hawaii...of the 39 cases of nonparalytic poliomyelitis, only four were related to type I poliovirus. There were 16 cases of echovirus 9, seven cases of Coxsackie, and four to five other enteroviruses."
The very enteroviruses known to be implicated in CFS were here identified as causing "non-paralytic polio." CFS has often been diagnpsed as "non-paralytic polio." And even more interestingly, two of the 38 cases of paralytic disease were not caused by the polio virus at all, but by one of the Coxsackie viruses.
So we know that enteroviruses in general can cause varying forms of the disease we call polio.
Other parallels between CFS and polio concern neurological damage.
In the November 1991 edition of Orthopedics, Dr. Bruno says that "all the evidence available shows conclusively that every case of poliomyelitis, human or experimental, exhibits lesions of the brain. In the experimental animal this included non-paralytic and abortive cases as well as paralytic cases."
CFS has been diagnosed by both italicized names. In fact, brain abnormalities can now be demonstrated in the brains of people with CFS using SPECT and MRI scans.
One would expect there to be differences in the diseases caused by different viruses, but if these viruses are all of the same family and use the same receptor sites in the body, one would also expect there to be simularities. This is just what we find.
Dr. Bruno says: "Despite the differences between poliomyelitis and CFS, an association with the polio virus was suggested by the fact that, of the more than one dozen CFS outbreaks before the introduction of the Salk vaccine, nine occurred during or immediately after outbreaks of polio, and several involved hospital staff who cared for polio patients" (Annals, NY Academy of Sciences, 1995).
There is also the case of a woman who fell ill with classical CFS while nursing a lady friend with acute paralytic polio (Hyde et al: Epidemiological Aspects of ME/CFS, Nightingale Research Foundation, Ottowa, Canada, 1994).
But if CFS is a type of polio, why doesn't everyone exposed to the relevant viruses develop ME just as they did polio?
It has been forgotten that, as Dr. Thomas Stuttaford of The London Times explains, ". . only a small number of those infected with the polio virus became paralyzed; about 90 percent didn't even realize that they had annthing more threatening than a cold."
With polio and CFS, the state of your immune system governs whether you will be susceptible.
By altering the population's resistance to a particular organism, we alter the balance of infectious agents in the environment. The circulation of wild polio viruses 1-3 has declined through vaccination.
However, this has left us open to the other 69 polio-related viruses, which have thrived (see How viruses compete with each other).
It is therefore not surprising that since the late 1950s the incidence of CFS has risen, and experts predict that it will be the neurological disease of the 21st century. By suppressing the spread of three enteroviruses we have opened the door to the rest.
The argument about whether enterovirus infection persists over many years is still raging. In her 1995 review of the proceedings of the 1994 Post-Polio Conference, Dr. Dowsett draws attention to new evidence of persistent enterovirus infection in the central nervous system of Post-Polio patients.
She concluded: "Three separate groups of Virologists from the US, UK and France have found fragments of enteroviral RNA in the spinal cord, cerebrospinal fluid and bIood of some patients with Post-Polio syndrome. The fragments are identified as polio virus by some and as Coxsackie virus by others," she said.
It is thought that the emergence of late-onset Post-Polio fatigue may result from age-related changes in brain cells that survived the original polio infection (Bruno, Annals, NY Academy of Sciences, 1995).
But it can be observed through case histories that just as we see Post-Polio Syndrome 30 years after initial infection, so we are seeing "Post-CFS" as well. The Nightingale Research Foundation in Ottawa proposes that in fact they are one and the same condition-others believe they may be variations of each other.
What has arisen is "two new diseases with different names, with different degrees of acceptance and exactly the same set of symptoms at exactly the same time. It is unrealistic to believe that we are dealing with two different disease processes and two different causes," the researchers concluded.
A paper investigating the epidemiological aspects of CFS has revealed further convincing parallels between the behavior of this disease and polio.
It describes the onset of CFS as mainly being ushered in by a "minor illness" which has "recently been described as a flu-like illness. . .", The researchers continue: ". . in reality it is identical to and has all of the features and variability of the 'minor illness' of missed or abortive poliomyelitis."
In comparisons with epidemic polio going back to 1916, they note that "we see the same two typical features" in a typical year with an epidemic of CFS: "a decreasing incidence from January to reach a summer low; then ... the strong late summer increased incidence, peaking in the August to October period." (Hyde et al: Nightingale Research Foundation. Ottowa, 1994).
CFS, or Atypical Polio, is such a serious and devastatingly debilitating multisystem malfunction leading to such profound weakness in some children that they are unable to speak and have to be tube-fed. But they can breathe; enteroviruses have an affinity for certain tissues and many do not attack the respiratory center, causing paralysis, as in polio itself.
Children with polio were given intensive physiotherapy and exercised. Now. up to a half of survivors have gone on to develop Post-Polio. It has been predicted that this will eventually rise to 100 percent.
What are we doing to our teenage CFS sufferers when we force them back to school, deny home tutoring and tell them to exercise as a form of therapy?
The treatment of choice for those with Post-Polio is "adequate rest, energy conservation, the pacing of activities, and reducing physical and emotional stress" (Bruno: Annals NY Academy of Sciences, 1995).
What on earth will happen in 30 years' time to children now getting CFS in a climate where they are disbelieved and told to push themselves through the pain barrier?
The condition 'Post-CFS,' which we are already seeing in adults, may well await them with a vengeance.
We have to ask ourselves the disturbing question: if polio victims had been able to breathe, would we ever have taken that disease seriously?
Sidebars
This article was excerpted from Ms. Colby's book ME: The New Plague First and Best in Education Ltd. 24 Nene Valley Business Park, Oundle, Peterborough, PE 8 4HL, UK
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There also may be a link involving the tainted polio vaccines given to people in the 1960's.
I think it may be important because many of us have received tainted polio vaccines. This may be, yet, another co-factor in our quest for wellness.
I don't believe there is any studies about Lyme in relation to polio or the SV-40 which contaminated vaccines back in the 1960's. There are links to CFS & cancer, though.
The Atlanta Journal−Constitution June 20, 2004 Sunday Home Edition SECTION: Arts; Pg. 5L LENGTH: 930 words HEADLINE: BOOKS: Scientific saga tracks taint of polio vaccine BYLINE: MARK PENDERGRAST SOURCE: For the Journal−Constitution BODY: NONFICTION
The Virus and the Vaccine: The True Story of a Cancer−Causing Monkey Virus, Contaminated Polio Vaccine and the Millions of Americans Exposed. By Debbie Bookchin and Jim Schumacher. St. Martin's Press. $25.95. 380 pages.
The verdict: A cautionary tale that should find a wide readership. At first I thought "The Virus and the Vaccine" might be one of those over−the−top government−conspiracy books, something from the kind of anti−vaccinators who rely primarily on anecdote, hyperbole and paranoia. The sensational subtitle made me even warier. But the subtitle is accurate.
This well−researched, well−documented book unfurls a compelling scientific saga and leaves readers wondering exactly what was in the polio vaccine they got as children. Not only that, it's written with the zing of a medical thriller, featuring fully realized characters, dramatic conflicts, high−level politics and scientific egos big enough to levitate Stone Mountain.
The first 10 chapters cover the early years of polio, including material on Franklin Roosevelt, the March of Dimes and the miraculous Salk vaccine, which promised to end the paralytic scourge that terrified mothers every summer. On April 12, 1955, the 10th anniversary of Roosevelt's death, the Salk field trials were pronounced a success and the vaccine was rushed into the waiting arms and rear ends of the nation's children.
Within three weeks, however, it became clear that some shots contained live, not killed, virus and that they were causing, not preventing, polio. A nationwide panic ensued but was laid to rest by the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which determined that only two contaminated lots made by Cutter Laboratories were at fault.
The "Cutter incident," as it was called, traumatized the U.S. health establishment and made it particularly defensive about the polio vaccine. Enter Bernice Eddy, a virologist from West Virginia who, beginning in 1959, injected rhesus monkey kidney cell cultures into hamsters, 70 percent of whom developed cancerous tumors.
Joe Smadel, her boss at the Division of Biologic Standards within the National Institutes of Health, was infuriated because the polio vaccine was grown in a culture of rhesus kidney cells, and Eddy's experiment might once again raise a flag about the vaccine's safety.
Monkey kidneys are, as Bookchin and Schumacher write, full of "parasites, bacteria, unknown viruses." Scientists knew this and, in fact, were finding dozens of new viruses in the rhesus kidneys. The first, discovered in 1954, was named Simian Virus 1, or SV1. The 40th in the series, SV40, was the nasty little virus that probably caused hamster tumors.
Most health officials were not initially concerned, since they presumed that the formaldehyde that killed the polio virus in the "cooking" process for the vaccine also killed SV40. But it turns out that some SV40 survived the process.
Vaccines injected into millions of children may have contained the monkey virus until 1963, when it was finally produced on an SV40−free substrate, albeit still on monkey kidneys. By that time, nearly half the American population may have been exposed to virus−contaminated Salk vaccine.
With Chapter 11, the book jumps to 1986, when Italian virologist Michele Carbone arrived at the NIH in Bethesda, Md. Carbone, a black belt in karate who cooks gourmet dinners in his spare time, replicated and refined Eddy's SV40 experiments, discovering that the monkey virus, when injected into hamsters, appeared to cause malignant mesothelioma, a fatal cancer of the lungs previously associated only with asbestos inhalation in humans.
No room here for the details, but suffice it to say that Carbone −−− no longer at the NIH −−− and other scientists such as Janet Butel have since compiled disturbing evidence that SV40 is probably a human carcinogen. In 2003, Butel and others performed a meta−analysis of studies that, they asserted, demonstrate a significant statistical association between SV40 and many tumor types, including a higher association with mesothelioma than that linking smoking to cancer.
"As of 2003," write journalists Bookchin and Schumacher, "researchers have found SV40 in human tumors in China, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Spain . . ." and 14 other countries, including, of course, the United States. Alarming? Yes. And the authors present evidence that SV40 may have contaminated some polio virus vaccines even in the years following 1963.
Only in 2000 did American vaccines stop using monkey kidneys as vaccine substrates. Could SV40 explain some increased cancer prevalence in the past few decades?
That is very hard to say, as a 2002 review by the Institute of Medicine concluded. Epidemiological studies −−− examining exposed populations vs. non−exposed −−− are almost meaningless for SV40, since the virus appears to have spread widely among the population, perhaps from mother to child, regardless of vaccination dates.
Here is one crucial place where Bookchin and Schumacher have left an unsatisfactory hole in their narrative, which does not fully explore how SV40 spreads among humans other than a few brief hints. On the other hand, there just has not been much research on that issue. "The Virus and the Vaccine" raises important issues, not only about SV40, but about how science can be affected by politics and ego.
Mark Pendergrast is the author of "For God, Country & Coca−Cola," among other books. He is working on a history of the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
Posted by maureen2174 (Member # 11471) on :
Thank you for posting this.
Posted by sparkle7 (Member # 10397) on :
Soon after its discovery, SV40 was identified in the injected form of the polio vaccine produced between 1955 and 1961.
This is believed to be due to kidney cells from infected monkeys being used to amplify the vaccine virus during production.
Both the Sabin vaccine (oral, live virus) and the Salk vaccine (injectable, killed virus) were affected; the technique used to inactivate the polio virus in the Salk vaccine, by means of formaldehyde, did not reliably kill SV40.
It was difficult to detect small quantities of virus until the advent of PCR testing; since then, stored samples of vaccine made after 1962 have tested negative for SV40, but no samples prior to 1962 could be found.
Thus, although over 10 million people received the potentially contaminated batches of vaccine, there is no way to know whether they were exposed to the virus, and if so, whether it was in a quantity and by a route that would cause infection.
It is also unknown how widespread the virus was among humans before the 1950s, though one study found that 12% of a sample of German medical students in 1952 had SV40 antibodies.
Although horizontal transmission between people has been proposed, is not clear if this actually happens and if it does, how frequently it occurs.[13]
An analysis presented at the Vaccine Cell Substrate Conference in 2004[14] suggested that vaccines used in the former Soviet bloc countries, China, Japan, and Africa, could have been contaminated up to 1980, meaning that hundreds of millions more could have been exposed to the virus knowingly.
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I think this is pretty serious & should be considered in conjunction with Lyme & other "mystery illnesses" like CFS, Fibromyalgia, etc. The symptoms of these illnesses do have some overlap.
There isn't alot of studies about it specifically with Lyme but there is some info on Google if you do a search.
The next question is what can we do about it? I know there is some remediating that can be done with homeopathic medicine... does anyone have more info about this?
I'll continue to search this, also.
Posted by Dawnee (Member # 15089) on :
Interesting. My mom had polio as a child.
Posted by a2jc4life (Member # 44502) on :
I found this board while digging into the chronic fatigue stuff you also posted above. Lyme is not an unfamiliar issue for me, as my sister is dealing with it, as are a ridiculously large number of my husband's coworkers (and/or their family members).
But do keep in mind that Lyme is not a virus; it's bacterial. So it's highly unlikely there's the same kind of connection between polio and Lyme as polio and CFS. (Although I have wondered about the "gut health" issue, myself. I wonder if Lyme itself is newly-rampant, or if it's only *susceptibility* to Lyme that's newly-rampant, with the advent of GMO foods, toxins in our air & water, etc.)
Posted by Maia_Azure (Member # 44330) on :
Post Polio occurs in people who have previously contracted poliomyelitis...so I am not sure what it would have to do with lyme or chronic fatigue.
If the polio vaccine was a live virus, then they are proposing it is now in the population causing chronic fatigue?
My only issue with that is post polio causes progressive illness, and I don't know that that has been seen with CFS. If they think it is related, but not as progressive it is an interesting theory.
I'm still willing to bet any sort of link between vaccination of polio and chronic gfatige would not be taken too seriously by doctors. One they consider the yuppie flu, a bunch of middle aged woman whining about being tired. The other could cause paralysis.
The other idea is, chronic fatigue is completely unrelated to the polio vaccine, and is actually perhaps of viral origin, a wholly different or related Enterovirus?
Before Lyme, I was treated with chronic fatigue, something I loosely still think that I have. I often wondered about a viral origin on it that just hadn't been isolated. Unfortunately, the medical establishment is way behind on researching this condition since they didn't take it seriously. I was told by a doctor once he didn't believe it existed and told me I was a hypochondriac.
Posted by Brussels (Member # 13480) on :
It's amazing, isn't it? Thanks for posting Sparkle!!
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Some of the "links" I see have not so much to do with the science of the infections (not brainy or awake enough to tackle that) but with the manner in which those with chronic illness are treated by the traditional medical system.
Maia,
Aside from that, not speaking to the full "CFS" but just to the symptom umbrella of
"Chronic Fatigue" is not a diagnosis but a symptom -- lazy doctors have just taken to using it as diagnosis trashcan / umbrella when they don't want to get to the real reasons.
And, adding to the danger & damage, is when an Rx is prescribed to help supply energy. Or when a patient does whatever else they can do to "boost" energy. This can just kill someone with stealth infections, literally, or at least figuratively. Their bodies cannot tolerate a "boost" at all.
Many things can cause or contribute to fatigue, of course and it is to be assumed that the basics have been assessed. But with lyme, at least, thyroid stuff is not so easy to determine so it's best guided by a LLMD or LL ND. This is just one thing that most doctors who are not LL can mess up for someone who has lyme.
"Chronic fatigue" is a major symptom of many chronic stealth infections. It pretty much goes hand in hand for 99% of those with lyme.
"Chronic fatigue" falls away as a diagnosis when a causal diagnosis enters the picture. Still, it's a might symptom to manage - with many aspects to assess / address along the way.
Add other stealth infections, whether viral, bacterial or parasitic, and that just piles on more of the fatigue.
The term "chronic fatigue" though - even as that stands alone - has been one of the roughest to weather in dealing with
(and, yes, adrenal dysfunction is very much connected but even most regular doctors have no clue about that -- or that chronic infections and lyme, particularly, just clobbers the HPA-axis)
- well, before I knew I had lyme, NOT CFS -- beyond living with that ill placed term "chronic fatigue" as an entity, as a dx just by itself is so tremendously underestimated by those who don't have that constellation of particulars. There is NO word that come close to describe it.
I used "near paralytic exhaustion" - "pain, illness more than tiredness" but was made fun of by doctors as being too dramatic. Once I realized that it was lyme & other TBD, not really "fatigue" as a stand alone but as a part, it made so much more sense.
There was a reason for the fatigue as a symptom, and all that went with it.
As I read and hear, adrenal support is absolutely essential but may not help a great deal UNTIL the underlying stealth infection(s) subsides adequately enough - for a good solid remission.
Avoiding plastics and chemicals also important parts of adrenal support.
A gluten-free diet also helped me a great deal in lifting some level of fatigue & a lot of the pain.
Bottom line, though, whatever chronic stealth infections are part of the mix, we need doctors who really understand where some got on, how they inter-relate and how to approach them individually and together. -
[ 09-01-2014, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Maia,
You likely know (or do) most of this already, still, some detail here may be of additional help to you:
Topic: NATURAL SLEEP & ADRENAL SUPPORT -
Posted by Maia_Azure (Member # 44330) on :
I am getting to my stage in Chronic Lyme where I am not sleeping well. I used to blame it on "anxiety." I believe lyme has given me OCD behavior in some aspects, and I cannot shut the mind off at bed. At other times, things just hurt so much sleep escapes me.
Chronic fatigue always bothered me as a diagnosis, because it did not mean anything. Early on, I think doctors just thought my immunue system was taxed through repeated illness. The problem was, I was still suffereing FROM whatever infected me, so fatigue never fully went away.
This is my most recent relapse, lasting about a yea, and finally, I have babesia and suspected lyme. Two mycoplasmas.
I am concerned about mold too.
I've got a long way of treating each problem. Its overwhelming. Its somewhere I was before, and thought I was cured.
Posted by Carol in PA (Member # 5338) on :
quote:Originally posted by Maia_Azure:
I believe lyme has given me OCD behavior in some aspects, and I cannot shut the mind off at bed. At other times, things just hurt so much sleep escapes me.
. Low dose Phenytoin (Dilantin) can help shut the mind off at bedtime. It's helpful for migraine and for pain.
See "A Remarkable Medicine Has Been Overlooked" by Jack Dreyfus. You can read reviews at Amazon.com and get the gist of the book.
Phenytoin is a prescription med, but some overseas pharmacies carry it.
It helps so many Lyme symptoms, that I wonder why LLMD's don't prescribe it.
Posted by canadianmama (Member # 36298) on :
So interesting!
1 year in to my sons treatment he suddenly got worse again and his lyme protocol did not result in symptom relief.
Our EAV tester tested him up and it took extra time trying to find the problem and he finally hit on POLIO as the primary symptom cause. My son also had extra leg weakness and some paralysis episodes.
Treating for viruses (polio) aggressively got his healing back on track.
I looked for others who had a polio connection here on lyme net and didn't find any.
My son was not vaccinated, but his birth year was one of the last years in our area to have live polio vaccines, so perhaps vaccine shedding.
Thanks for posting!
Posted by D Bergy (Member # 9984) on :
I think the mistake often made with many diseases is looking for the one cause for an ill defined disease.
I have only worked with two diseases. Lyme and Crohns. Most treatments I have used are with a Rife frequency device.
The method allows me to test by treatment, for most any pathogen.
So far with Lyme I have found the following pathogens present.
Lyme of course. Babesia. Bartonella. Brucella. Another unknown pathogen. Possibly Strep.
Some of these pathogens are common, but there effect depends on the person and the amount.
The one that caused crushing fatigue for myself was Mycoplasma pneumonia. That does not mean all people with Crohn's, Lyme, CFS have this. Some do, some don't and any of them may have various amounts and some are not symptomatic, and some are symptomatic with various amounts.
Some have fatigue that is caused by another pathogen entirely or a combination of pathogens.
It's not easy finding what causes what. That is what I have learned. I also learned it's not the same for all people with any given disease. Mycoplasma alone can produce Crohns symptoms, but it is not Crohns by definition.