Ganesh, Ravindra, Munipalli, Bala · Frontiers in neurology · 2024 · DOI
This review highlights that people with long COVID and ME/CFS often have joint hypermobility (excessive flexibility) at rates much higher than the general population. Both conditions share similar symptoms like pain, heart rate problems, brain fog, and fatigue, and may involve similar inflammatory processes affecting connective tissues. The authors suggest that screening for joint hypermobility and related conditions is important for long COVID patients, and that treatment should focus on managing individual symptoms through medication, gentle exercise, massage, and relaxation techniques.
Understanding shared pathophysiology between long COVID, ME/CFS, and hypermobility disorders could improve clinical recognition and management of these often-misdiagnosed conditions. This framework suggests that screening protocols and treatment strategies may need to address connective tissue and immune dysfunction simultaneously, potentially improving outcomes for patients with overlapping symptom profiles.
This editorial does not establish causality between mast cell activation and hypermobility development, nor does it prove that hypermobility causes ME/CFS or long COVID symptoms. It cannot confirm the proposed mechanistic pathway through original experimental or clinical data, and it does not determine whether hypermobility is a predisposing factor, consequence, or independent comorbidity in these populations.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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