Kurotori, Isaku, Sasao, Wataru, Abe, Masahiko · PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2025 · DOI
This case report describes a 65-year-old woman who developed ME/CFS symptoms after receiving her third COVID-19 vaccine, including severe tiredness, worsening after activity, and dizziness. After 30 months of symptoms, she recovered using a combination approach that included careful activity management, medications, and mental health support. This is the first documented case showing full recovery from vaccine-associated ME/CFS.
ME/CFS remains underrecognized as a potential vaccine adverse effect, and clinicians often lack diagnostic clarity. This case documenting full recovery offers hope to patients while highlighting that comprehensive, individualized treatment combining physical, pharmaceutical, and psychiatric approaches may be effective—important insights for treatment optimization.
This single case report cannot establish causation between vaccination and ME/CFS development, nor can it prove that the described treatment regimen caused recovery. The findings cannot be generalized to other patients, and the coincidental timing of vaccination and ME/CFS onset does not exclude other triggering factors. Selection bias and lack of blinding are inherent limitations of case report methodology.
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 →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Kurotori, Isaku, Sasao, Wataru, & Abe, Masahiko (2025). Recovery from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue syndrome developed after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccination: A case report.. PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences. https://doi.org/10.1002/pcn5.70111
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-kurotori-2025-recovery-myalgic,
author = {Kurotori, Isaku and Sasao, Wataru and Abe, Masahiko},
title = {Recovery from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue syndrome developed after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 vaccination: A case report.},
journal = {PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.1002/pcn5.70111},
note = {PubMed: 40291166},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kurotori-2025-recovery-myalgic},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/kurotori-2025-recovery-myalgic
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