Mattress Study. Good sleep is critical to wellness, and a good mattress is critical to good sleep. A major US mattress maker wants to test which of several mattresses promotes the best sleep and relieves the symptoms of FM the best. Volunteers must have the diagnosis of FM and be willing to sleep on two test mattresses for several months each. After sleeping on each test mattress, volunteers will undergo sleep studies to see if their sleep has improved. At the end of the study, volunteers can keep one of the two mattresses they tested (a value of over $1,000). How to get involved
Cerebral Ventricular Lactate in CFS. Our collaborator Dr. Dikoma Shungu at the Cornell University Medical Center has discovered that some CFS patients have an abnormally increased amount of lactate in the fluid surrounding their brains. This could be an important marker of active brain dysfunction in CFS. The results were found using magnetic resonance imaging and therefore are not painful or invasive. Dr. Shungu has received funding from the CFIDS Assocation to support an extension of this potentially important study, and Dr. Natelson will be working with him on this project. How to get involved
Brain Fog and Cerebral Ventricular Lactate in Fibromyalgia. Drs. Natelson and Shungu will extend the work in CFS to see if this brain biomarker is also abnormal in FM. Interested patients will then do a 30 minute test that captures their degree of brain fog. Afterwards, patients will either receive a new FDA-approved drug for FM called Savella or a sugar pill to determine if the Savella improves brain fog and returns their ventricular lactate levels to the normal levels found in healthy people. How to get involved
Orthostatic Intolerance. A group of CFS patients say that they feel much worse when they are standing up for prolonged periods of time. Contributing to these symptoms is a discovery that Dr. Natelson made in collaboration with Dr. Julian Stewart, Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at the New York Medical College in Valhalla NY. Together, the researchers learned that about a quarter of CFS patients hyperventilate when they stand or when they are tilted up on a tilt table. This is not due to stress or anxiety. Dr. Stewart’s associate, Dr. Marvin Medow, has received funding from the CFIDS Association to determine the reason for this potentially important study, and Dr. Natelson will be working with him on this project. How to get involved
