for August 2007: Is there a test to diagnose EMS?
People ask this question frequently who have used L-tryptophan in the past and have had symptoms of EMS for many years. Many of these patients have diagnoses of Fibromyalgia and sometimes other related diagnoses as well. Sometimes people write to me who have only used L-tryptophan (or 5-HTP or some other supplement) for a few years or a few weeks or months, have some symptoms, and want to know if there is a test. In the beginning when EMS was a brand-new disease, the CDC set forth some criteria for recognizing the disease and those became used for diagnosis – which is probably unfortunate because, undoubtedly, many people with EMS were unintentionally and unfairly excluded. But it’s hard now to go back and re-write history. It was a confusing time when EMS came on the scene, doctors were scrambling to diagnose people and save lives, often before there was even a name for the disease or any known cause or relationship to anything (like the association with L-tryptophan usage).
People ask this question frequently who have used L-tryptophan in the past and have had symptoms of EMS for many years. Many of these patients have diagnoses of Fibromyalgia and sometimes other related diagnoses as well. Sometimes people write to me who have only used L-tryptophan (or 5-HTP or some other supplement) for a few years or a few weeks or months, have some symptoms, and want to know if there is a test. In the beginning when EMS was a brand-new disease, the CDC set forth some criteria for recognizing the disease and those became used for diagnosis – which is probably unfortunate because, undoubtedly, many people with EMS were unintentionally and unfairly excluded. But it’s hard now to go back and re-write history. It was a confusing time when EMS came on the scene, doctors were scrambling to diagnose people and save lives, often before there was even a name for the disease or any known cause or relationship to anything (like the association with L-tryptophan usage).
