In the last few weeks, Stanford published two articles on chronic fatigue syndrome, a.k.a. myalgic encephalomyelitis, and the outpouring of positive feedback from ME/CFS patients has been tremendous. In my long-form Stanford Medicine story and video, I describe a young woman's seven-year battle with the disease and the groundbreaking research being done by her physician, José Montoya, MD, and immunologist Mark Davis, PhD, to identify the biomarkers and root causes of ME/CFS. My colleague Bruce Goldman followed up with an elegantly written article describing the distinct differences between the brains of ME/CFS patients with those of healthy people, in a newly released study from this same research team.
While our primary job as medical science writers is to explain new research accurately, it's a bonus to know that we captured the patient experience in a compassionate way, and that we have in some way eased their suffering with hope.
Here is a sampling of a few of these letters from around the world:
From British Columbia, Canada:
Thank you for an article that is very well done. I will be printing it for my MD and forwarding it to family and a few close friends because it captures this devastating illness so well. I will keep a copy for myself to remind me (on those dark days) that Dr. Montoya is in my corner.
From Sweden:
I would like to thank you for your very informative and interesting article! This kind of information of what research is going on at Stanford, etc., is very important for us patients with ME all over the world! There is a lot of disinformation coming out about this disease and I therefore very much appreciate your article and especially Dr. Montoya's passionate engagement with this disease.
From Cali, Colombia:
Here in Cali, Colombia, the city of birth of Dr. Montoya, I feel very happy reading your excellent article, and learning the marvelous and difficult investigation performed by these brilliant scientists. I was moved to tears. Thank you.
From the San Francisco Bay Area:
I want to thank you very much for the powerful piece you wrote about ME/CFS. You tell the story in a very engaging way, which is so compelling. It's not the usual doom/gloom/dark room story which my daughter and I have encountered frequently in what people write about ME/CFS. Family and friends with whom I have shared the article are appreciative of your writing so descriptively and articulately about all aspects of ME/CFS: the science, the inequity of research funding, the personal experience of a patient, the work of Drs. Montoya/Mark Davis/Holden Maecker.
From India:
Today I have gone through your article about Erin's story. How she recovered from CFS had given me a ray of hope as I am also suffering from such an ailment for the last 6-8 years.
From Atlanta, Georgia:
I just read your beautifully written article on Immune System Disruption. First soccer caught my eye, then "swimming in the primordial soup of creative disruption" locked me in. I read every word ... and I am going to spend the rest of the night in Atlanta copying [my internal medicine doctor] on the article.
From Australia:
Just wanted to thank you for your excellent article. It could really make a difference in raising awareness and I appreciate the quality of your writing. I have suffered from CFS/ME for many years in Australia and find the research project and your understanding very encouraging.
From the blogosphere:
I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to write such an in-depth, accurate article on our oft-ignored illness. Dr. Montoya is a hero within the ME/CFS community, but I didn't know about the others at Stanford also working on ME/CFS -- that gives me some hope for a better future! I plan to share your article on my ME/CFS blog and in several Facebook groups for ME/CFS that I belong to.
Previously: Some headway on chronic fatigue syndrome: Brain abnormalities pinpointed, Unbroken: A chronic-fatigue patient's long road to recovery, Deciphering the puzzle of chronic-fatigue syndrome and Stanford Medicine magazine traverses the immune system
Image, showing white matter differences between a ME/CFS patient sample an a healthy control, by Michael Zeineh/Stanford
