How it went
Did it last?
- 2 of 7 said the benefit wore off (including the 1 who relapsed).
- 1 of 7 needed to keep doing it to stay well.
Read from what people wrote. A story that ends without a follow-up counts as lasting, so treat these as minimums.
| Outcome described | Accounts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Full recovery | 0 | 0% |
| Near-full | 0 | 0% |
| Substantial | 4 | 57% |
| Partial | 2 | 29% |
| Relapsed | 1 | 14% |
| No benefit | 0 | 0% |
Only 7 accounts. Treat these percentages as anecdotes, not rates.
By how ill people were
| Severity at worst | How it went | n | Recovered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Severe | 1 | 0% | |
| Very severe | 1 | 0% |
5 accounts don’t say how ill the person was.
How often it comes up
Posts that mention HELP apheresis / plasmapheresis, per 1,000 posts each year. Hover a point for the count.
Show as a table
| Year | Posts mentioning it | All posts | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 0 | 184 | 0.0 |
| 2010 | 0 | 682 | 0.0 |
| 2011 | 1 | 704 | 1.4 |
| 2012 | 0 | 1,491 | 0.0 |
| 2013 | 0 | 1,995 | 0.0 |
| 2014 | 0 | 2,707 | 0.0 |
| 2015 | 0 | 2,566 | 0.0 |
| 2016 | 3 | 2,023 | 1.5 |
| 2017 | 1 | 3,381 | 0.3 |
| 2018 | 1 | 2,523 | 0.4 |
| 2019 | 1 | 1,637 | 0.6 |
| 2020 | 2 | 3,318 | 0.6 |
| 2021 | 2 | 2,469 | 0.8 |
| 2022 | 3 | 1,871 | 1.6 |
| 2023 | 3 | 2,362 | 1.3 |
| 2024 | 1 | 2,176 | 0.5 |
| 2025 | 4 | 1,349 | 3.0 |
| 2026 (so far) | 0 | 899 | 0.0 |
Posts in the forum threads and blog comments we archived, 34,337 in all, counted per year. A mention means the post names the treatment, not that the writer took it. These pages all contain a recovery story, so they show what those communities discussed, not everyone with ME/CFS or long COVID. All trends
All 7 accounts
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Sarah's Story
Sarah tried an extensive list of treatments without full success: many hyperbaric oxygen sessions (costing "thousands" and giving only temporary relief before triggering relapses), acupuncture, kinesiology, diet changes, breathing exercises with osteopaths,…
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List of Patients improving with HELP-Apheresis
Embarrassed Mess is compiled saying apheresis "helped me a lot," one of several positive but sparsely-detailed patient reports gathered in this list thread, which also documents apheresis patients who saw no benefit or got worse.
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List of Patients improving with HELP-Apheresis
just-a-simple-song is compiled reporting that both they and their spouse felt "much better" after apheresis treatment, without further detail on degree or durability.
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List of Patients improving with HELP-Apheresis
Outside-Clue is compiled reporting a 20% improvement from HELP-apheresis that "only lasted 3 months" before fading, an explicitly temporary gain.
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List of Patients improving with HELP-Apheresis
SWAlexander is compiled describing being "saved by people who didn't duck away," attributing meaningful benefit to immunoadsorption apheresis, though the thread gives no session count or numeric outcome for this entry.
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List of Patients improving with HELP-Apheresis
Katty2k is compiled in this patient-outcomes thread as feeling "amazing" after just one round combining HELP-apheresis, HBOT and IV vitamins - a multi-treatment combination that makes apheresis's specific contribution hard to isolate.
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Bad blood? The uncertainty around microclots and Long COVID
Underwent 15 sessions of HELP apheresis and six sessions of plasmapheresis for long-COVID-associated microclots, and remains on anticoagulants years later despite repeated attempts to stop them. He had been severely ill since a COVID-19 infection in late…