Numata, Takehiro, Miura, Kazuki, Akaishi, Tetsuya et al. · Internal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2020 · DOI
A 14-year-old girl with ME/CFS who had experienced severe tiredness, low-grade fevers, and school absence for 20 months was treated with shosaikoto, a traditional Japanese herbal medicine. Within several weeks, her symptoms improved dramatically and she was able to return to school. This case suggests that shosaikoto may help some ME/CFS patients, particularly those with persistent low fevers.
Treatment options for ME/CFS remain limited, and this case raises the possibility that traditional herbal medicines warrant investigation in rigorously designed trials. The observation that a patient with a specific ME/CFS phenotype (chronic febricula) responded to this intervention could help guide future research into personalized treatment approaches based on symptom subtypes.
This single case cannot prove that shosaikoto is an effective ME/CFS treatment. It does not establish whether the improvement was due to the medication, placebo effect, natural disease fluctuation, or other concurrent factors. Large randomized controlled trials would be needed to determine efficacy and safety.
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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