If you or someone you know is facing surgery, you need to know how anesthesia and CFS work best together. Please, read today’s post thoroughly and then share the info. This could be a life or death issue! Also, check out the Health Matters Show podcast below.

It’s true that in past years, the public thought they had the right information about anesthesia and CFS. Unfortunately, what they had was incorrect information from the IACFS’s original primer on this topic. And that wrong information could have cost some people their lives!

(Today’s podcast is 5 minutes 41 seconds.)

As of January 19, 2013, a new, specific primer on this topic has been revised and reissued -see below- by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and addresses the problems of the body’s sodium channel:

We are happy to report that Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: A primer for clinical practitioners by the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (IACFS/ME) has been posted by the National Guideline Clearing House, a service sponsored by the HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.” They then gave a link to access the primer.

All patients and physicians should understand that the primer that the NIH now has up is not the original primer that was offered to many by the IACFS since the original primer gave information about anesthesia that was not only completely hypothetical but entirely wrong. The IACFS has corrected their information after they were in touch with the National CFIDS Foundation.

Simply put, all patients with CFIDS/ME must be administered anesthesia that does not access the sodium channel. Most general anesthesia used today uses the sodium channel and that has caused damage to many patients. Although that specific information is not part of the IACFS primer that was accepted for publication by the NIH, the new primer carefully advises to discuss ‘sensitivity to anesthetic medications’.

Most anesthesiologists will not know of the fully replicated science that proves patients with CFS, CFIDS, or ME must never be given anesthesia that uses the sodium channel. If there is (are) any surgical procedures for patients with this illness, the original and fully replicated medical journal paper can also be found on our website at www.ncf-net.org. The IACFS primer is here.

Remember this information for yourself. Spread the news far and wide about the dangers of anesthesia and CFS. You can best do this by sharing the post on Facebook and Twitter. It is important and potentially life-saving info!

As referenced at the The National Forum by Gail Kansky, President…

Today, I still get calls from distraught patients or their caregivers and still have to add names to our Memorial List of those who died following complications following surgical procedures even though the first papers published on this work was early in 2003!

Thank you so much for joining this edition of the Health Matters Show today.

I’m Cinda Crawford, your host.