Excessive irritability

From MEpedia, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia of ME and CFS science and history

Presentation[edit | edit source]

Prevalence[edit | edit source]

  • Katrina Berne reports a prevalence of 70-90% for mood swings, excessive irritability, and overreaction in people with chronic fatigue syndrome.[1]

Symptom recognition[edit | edit source]

  • In the Holmes criteria, excessive irritability is an optional criteria for diagnosis, under the section Minor Symptom Criteria - Neuropsychologic Complaints.[2]

Notable studies[edit | edit source]

Possible causes[edit | edit source]

Potential treatments[edit | edit source]

Severe irritability is a common symptom in autism, and the main treatment for this is atypical anti-psychotic drugs such as amisulpride (Solian), risperidone (Risperdal) or aripiprazole (Abilify).[3] Very low dose amisulpride has also been shown to reduce the fatigue and bodily symptoms of ME/CFS[4]. N-acetyl-cysteine can help the irritability in autism, but the research showed this is not quite as effective as atypical anti-psychotics.[5]

Learn more[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. Berne, Katrina (December 1, 1995). Running on Empty: The Complete Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFIDS) (2nd ed.). Hunter House. p. 60. ISBN 978-0897931915.
  2. The 1988 Holmes Definition for CFS
  3. Posey, David J.; Stigler, Kimberly A.; Erickson, Craig A.; McDougle, Christopher J. (January 2, 2008). "Antipsychotics in the treatment of autism". The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 118 (1): 6–14. doi:10.1172/JCI32483. ISSN 0021-9738. PMC 2171144. PMID 18172517.
  4. Pardini, Matteo; Guida, Silvia; Primavera, Alberto; Krueger, Frank; Cocito, Leonardo; Gialloreti, Leonardo Emberti (March 2011). "Amisulpride vs. fluoxetine treatment of chronic fatigue syndrome: a pilot study". European Neuropsychopharmacology: The Journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. 21 (3): 282–286. doi:10.1016/j.euroneuro.2010.10.008. ISSN 1873-7862. PMID 21112746.
  5. Hardan, Antonio Y.; Fung, Lawrence K.; Libove, Robin A.; Obukhanych, Tetyana V.; Nair, Surekha; Herzenberg, Leonore A.; Frazier, Thomas W.; Tirouvanziam, Rabindra (June 2012). "A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial of Oral N-Acetylcysteine in Children with Autism". Biological Psychiatry. 71 (11): 956–961. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.01.014. ISSN 0006-3223. PMC 4914359. PMID 22342106.