Strategies with blood purification therapy for chronic fatigue

Chronic fatigue is not just tiredness, it is a serious, long-term illness that affects many systems of the body.

It is a feeling of extreme tiredness that does not improve with rest and can often make normal life activities difficult. Sometimes patients are unable to get out of bed.

The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome are unknown. And the intuition is that there is no single cause and that it is possible that two or more triggers work together to cause the disease.

Although anyone can have chronic fatigue syndrome, it is more common among people between 40 and 60 years of age. Adult women have it more often than men. White people are more likely to suffer from this syndrome. It is estimated that many people with chronic fatigue syndrome have never been diagnosed.

Symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome can include severe fatigue that does not improve with rest, trouble sleeping, post-exertional malaise or fatigue (symptoms are worse after any physical or mental activity), concentration problems, pain and dizziness. Chronic fatigue syndrome can be unpredictable. Your symptoms may come and go, they may change over time. Sometimes they get better, sometimes they get worse.

Advanced Plasma Renewal therapy, also known as Therapeutic Apheresis, is an innovative procedure recently added to the SHA Wellness Clinic portfolio that modulates the inflammatory response and has a potential rejuvenating effect.

It is a therapy carried out with a medical procedure known as apheresis that allows, using specialised equipment, a person’s blood to be extracted in order to separate out its undesirable components.

“This therapy has many benefits, including reducing or eliminating harmful or excessive substances from the blood, such as toxins, antibodies or abnormal proteins. In addition, blood viscosity and microcirculation are immediately improved, cytokines are reduced and the inflammatory response is modulated. These benefits give this therapy a potential rejuvenating effect”, explains Dr Rosario García, specialist in Revitalising Medicine at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Blood purification therapy is useful for treating various chronic pathologies such as autoimmune disorders and inflammatory diseases. When used preventively, it helps to counteract the onset of chronic degenerative processes and to prevent cardiovascular events in high-risk patients.

Dr García explains that it is “an extracorporeal procedure that can remove molecules and immunocomplexes involved in more than 80 different diseases. It is therefore particularly recommended for patients with neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and Myasthenia gravis. And it is thought to help with the more uncomfortable symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome.

The main objective of therapeutic apheresis is to purify the blood to eliminate or reduce harmful or excessive substances that are capable of causing a disease or are involved in its progression. Among them, Dr García mentions toxic substances, inflammatory proteins and immunocomplexes.

Advanced Plasma Renewal therapy improves blood flow properties by removing high molecular weight proteins, which reduces blood viscosity and improves microcirculation, tissue oxygenation and metabolic exchange processes.

Most people could benefit from this treatment, but Dr Garcia recommends that the patient be assessed on an individual basis. “There are certain medical conditions in which this therapy should not be recommended, for example, active infections, severe renal failure, severe anaemia or compromised haemodynamic situations,” she says.