Dixit, Ronak, Popescu, Alexandra, Bagić, Anto et al. · Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · 2013 · DOI
This study looked at 280 patients seen at a hospital epilepsy unit to understand what health conditions are more common in people with psychogenic nonepileptic spells (PNES)—seizure-like episodes that aren't caused by epilepsy—compared to those with actual epilepsy. They found that patients with PNES were more likely to be female, have a history of trauma, and experience conditions like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, and irritable bowel syndrome. The researchers suggest these patterns might help doctors identify PNES earlier and order the right tests sooner.
This research is relevant to ME/CFS patients because chronic fatigue syndrome was explicitly identified as a comorbidity more common in PNES patients, suggesting potential overlap or misdiagnosis in clinical populations. Understanding how functional somatic syndromes cluster together may help clarify diagnostic distinctions and improve recognition that some patients with overlapping symptoms may benefit from different clinical approaches. The findings underscore the importance of comprehensive medical history—including trauma screening—in understanding post-exertional malaise and symptom patterns in ME/CFS.
This study does not prove that chronic fatigue syndrome causes PNES or vice versa; it only documents an association in a selected hospital population. The cross-sectional design means causation cannot be inferred, and patients evaluated at an EMU may not represent the broader ME/CFS or PNES populations. The findings do not establish that comorbidity screening alone can reliably diagnose either condition without definitive testing like video-EEG.
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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