Three years ago, after a heterosexual sexual encounter, I became seriously ill with what looks like the natural disease progression of AIDS. After an “acute infection” and a “period of asymptomatic health”, I have fallen extremely ill to an unrelenting, progressively-worsening AIDS-like demise. I can pinpoint exactly when I was infected with my “chronic viral syndrome of unknown etiology” and because the “acute infection” stage was so distinguishable, I can also pinpoint exactly when my undiagnosed pathogen left my body and infected yet another host.
Whatever I am currently dealing with, it strongly resembles classic textbook HIV/AIDS disease. But, to add to my inquiry, I also clinically satisfy the CDC’s criteria for the diagnosis of "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."
Increasingly, I have become concerned that my systemic diagnosis is caught up in the treacherous politics of CFS/ME and AIDS. Most people with CFS/ME do not like to talk about the many symptoms and immune abnormalities that they share with AIDS patients. I also suspect that most ailing patients would rather be told that they have the very mysterious CFS than to be told that they have AIDS.
I have a Master’s degree. I am a director at my firm. I used to be a triathlete. I have never used IV drugs. I have never traveled abroad. I can count my sexual partners on two hands. Statistically speaking, I know that my undiagnosed infectious and communicable disease is not rare…so, you tell me, if they are not in the miscellaneous CFS/ME category, where are all these other immunosuppressed people?
Anyone with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, who does not consider the possibility that CFS/ME will eventually progress to a NON-HIV AIDS diagnosis, is very well trumping their own ability to diagnosis the root cause of their illness.
Why isn’t CFS/ME a reportable disease overseen by our public health department? Why are ME and CFS (i.e., the same exact disorder) suspiciously categorized as two separate illnesses on a worldwide level (i.e., by ICD codes)? Doesn’t anyone else but me, very clearly see, the catastrophic cover-up going on here?
Why are we not reading about Non-HIV AIDS cases (and/or the AIDS-like nature of CFS) on the front pages of every newspaper in the world? And if CFS/ME is Non-HIV AIDS, then, depending on who you believe, there are anywhere between 500,000 – 14,000,000 Americans out there with a transmissible illness. If that is what it truly is, our new form of AIDS dwarfs the ‘original’ AIDS epidemic — TENFOLD!
I am not afraid to say that I have AIDS without HIV — my second official clinical diagnosis. I am equally as unafraid of saying the most obvious thing about CFS/ME: it sure does look like AIDS to me.
If it takes courage to think and to say the things that I do, I hope that there will be a miraculous outbreak of bravery from coast-to-coast, and across-the-pond.
I stopped fighting for myself a long, long time ago. I fight for humanity.
I demand a CFS/HIV revolution. Vive La Revolución!
To learn more about non-HIV AIDS, and to see the *new* face of AIDS, please visit: www.cfsstraighttalk.blogspot.com
Could I be you?
(Published @ UK PROGRESSSIVE: http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/the-aids-like-disease-seldom-mentioned/article20891.html)