Oka, Takakazu · BioPsychoSocial medicine · 2023 · DOI
This case report describes a nurse who developed ME/CFS symptoms after recovering from COVID-19, including severe fatigue, pain, brain fog, and heart palpitations that lasted over 6 months. She received treatment combining dietary advice, supplements, behavioral strategies, exercise conditioning, and two medications (amitriptyline and a Japanese herbal medicine called hochuekkito), and eventually recovered fully and returned to work. This is the first detailed report showing that someone with post-COVID ME/CFS can recover with comprehensive multimodal treatment.
This case demonstrates that ME/CFS developing after COVID-19 infection may be reversible with integrated treatment approaches combining behavioral, pharmacological, and lifestyle interventions. The successful recovery provides hope and a potential therapeutic framework for clinicians managing post-COVID ME/CFS patients, who currently have limited evidence-based treatment options.
This single case report cannot establish which specific treatment components were most effective, whether the same approach works for other patients, or whether recovery would have occurred without intervention. It does not demonstrate causation between COVID-19 and ME/CFS development, nor can findings be generalized beyond this individual patient.
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
Oka, Takakazu (2023). A patient who recovered from post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: a case report.. BioPsychoSocial medicine. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13030-022-00260-3
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-oka-2023-patient-who,
author = {Oka, Takakazu},
title = {A patient who recovered from post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome: a case report.},
journal = {BioPsychoSocial medicine},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.1186/s13030-022-00260-3},
note = {PubMed: 36855180},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/oka-2023-patient-who},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-28. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/oka-2023-patient-who
Contribute
Private, reviewed by a human. Not a public comment thread.