You don't look sick, and a battery of medical tests can't find an apparent cause of your illness. Yet your symptoms, which began suddenly more than six months ago, are very real. You are profoundly tired almost all the time, even after waking up from a good night's sleep. Your aerobics class, which used to invigorate you, now leaves you feeling drained until the next day. You have trouble concentrating and remembering things. Your lymph nodes are tender, your throat is sore, your muscles ache and there is pain, but no redness or swelling in your joints. Not surprisingly, you also feel depressed.
What is chronic fatigue syndrome?
You may be suffering from a complex, poorly understood, debilitating disorder, called chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS. CFS is also known as chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, or CFIDS; the two terms are used interchangeably.
How many does it affect?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CFS afflicts up to 500,000 Americans, substantially interfering with their day-to-day activities.
While research into CFS is active and recent findings appear promising, there is no known medical cure or prevention, and no clear cause or risk factors associated with chronic fatigue syndrome.
The controversy
What does exist is controversy. There is a considerable debate and speculation about CFS. Experts disagree, for example, on the syndrome's possible link to immune functioning, low blood pressure, infections and mood disorders. There is further disagreement as to whether CFS represents a single illness or a mixture of maladies.
Recovery
While patients and doctors alike can grow frustrated by all the unknowns, it helps to know that many, if not most, CFS patients eventually have a full or partial recovery. In the meantime, several symptomatic treatments, self-care techniques and coping strategies can help those with CFS weather the storm.
This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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