Pregnancy, female hormones and long-term ME/CFS

Maggie and I made sure we included a very detailed section concerning pregnancy, hysterectomy, Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), birth control pills and ME/CFS. We found that women's experience ranged over the whole gamut of possibilities pretty evenly between categories.

So about an even number of women reported improving during pregnancy, getting worse or staying the same. (We did ask each person to answer the same questions for each different pregnancy. Not too many women had had multiple pregnancies and those who did, had the same experience each time with ME/CFS.)

Those that had a change in ME/CFS severity were pretty evenly divided among which trimester the change occurred.

No significant results were found in the effect on symptoms of the menstrual cycle, birth control pills, hormone replacement therapy or hysterectomy.