Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews finally put a name to the condition that led him to miss the 2020 NHL season, and it’s a disease that isn’t commonly recognized or diagnosed.

Toews, in a recent video. said that he learned that he had Chronic Inflammatory Rresponse Syndrome (CIRS). In a video announcing his plans to return to the team that “a lot of things just piled up where my body just fell apart.” He said his immune system was reacting to everything and “any kind of stress,” and he was never able to fully recover from any of it.

Efforts to find an expert on CIRS at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health were unsuccessful.

Dr. Greg Sharon, who focuses on adult and pediatric allergies and immunology at Amita Health Alexian Brothers Medical Center, said a lot of people don’t understand CIRS very well, so there is little information on it.

“What probably happened to Jonathan was that he got triggered, and some of his immune system overreacted,” Sharon said. “He wore it out, and his body reacted.”

CIRS is triggered when a person’s immune system takes a hit, according to Dr. Jeff Pfeiffer of Vero Clinics, a Decatur-based private practice specializing in diagnosing and treating CIRS, other autoimmune diseases and more.

Pfeiffer said “any insult to the immune system” could trigger CIRS, and people with it could continue to feel sick and blame it on the trigger when in reality, CIRS is causing the carry-over of symptoms.

“It’s a multi-system, multi-symptom disorder, and it tends to be migratory,” Pfeiffer said. “It tends to go to brain, heart and joints, but it can migrate and that causes some of the misunderstanding because of how many symptoms can cascade.”

The integrative health community is one of the main areas where CIRS is being diagnosed and treated.

Pfeiffer said some of the more common symptoms are cognitive issues, such as brain fog and memory impairment, fatigue and joint pain. He said “any insult to the immune system” could trigger the condition.

More Top Picks Best Diabetic Socks For Neuropathy

It is not known where and how Toews was diagnosed. Toews also said, in a June interview in The Athletic that he was “probably a COVID long-hauler,” dating to February 2020.

“Too many of us continue to push through infections, so we go to work when we’re sick, we continue to clean up the house,” Sharon said. “We don’t get rest. We don’t really eat well, sleep well, rest and let our body heal. “There’s so much the body can do on its own, but we have to not interfere with it. Listen to your body and get rest, mentally and physically.”

[email protected]