MD with ME

I recently received a question from someone reading this blog asking me why his/her intracellular calcium would be elevated. Intracellular Calcium is not something that is typically measured, but I would suspect that it is elevated in most ME patients. Why? Because it takes energy (ATP) to pump Calcium out of cells. Energy (ATP) is not something we have a whole lot of, or at least are able to utilize normally. On most cells there are a couple different ways to keep Calcium ions on the outside of the cell so that a gradient is present and the Ca++ ions can rush back into the cell to cause some sort of event - this is important for cell signaling, nerve action potentials, muscle contraction, and a host of other physiologic events. Check out these graphics that show what happens to nerve cells in the brain during/after a stroke. I believe this is very much analogous to what is happening all the time to all cells in ME patients, just not to the same extreme, or lethal, degree. ME patie