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The Times: One in 40 teenage girls has chronic fatigue

Keela Too

Sally Burch
Messages
900
Location
N.Ireland
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2016/january/chronic-fatigue-syndrome.html

Important Quote:
"The researchers point out that the diagnosis of CFS was not made by a doctor, but is based on responses to questionnaires sent to both the teenagers and their parents."

Yet at the start of their press release they say:
"In what is believed to be the biggest study of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) – also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) – in children to date........"

Sorry for quoting myself - but HOW can those two statements legitimately form part of the same report? The two sentences are totally at odds with each other.

Do they hope nobody will read as far as the clarification?
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Fatigue studies are meaningless for ME/CFS.
Agreed. With ME its even more useless than CFS though, as chronic fatigue is not a required criteria in some definitions, just optional, and many ME patients do not have chronic fatigue at all. So if anyone claims ME = CFS they are claiming that you can have CFS without CF.

Now there are often fatigue related symptoms. Weakness, symptom exacerbation, loss of energy production, and fatigueability .... but not always fatigue itself.

Furthermore many of us are aware that even if our fatigue goes we are still incapable of functioning. Indeed, I have been able to function much better on rare occasions because I had more energy, though the fatigue was unchanged. The crux of the matter has to do with energy systems, and their regulation and functioning, for which fatigue is a very poor and vague marker.
 

Cheshire

Senior Member
Messages
1,129
Part of the problem is also due to the fact that "fatigue" doesn't mean much in itself. It's a general and vague word, and can reflect very different realities. It can mean sleepiness, weariness, lack of energy, lethargy, weakness, loss of energy production, exhaustion, mental fatigue...
And the problem that are causing these several types of "fatigue" have certainly very distinct causes. Weariness and loss of energy after minimal exertion are likely to be of very different ethiologies.

A questionnaire asking whether someone has been experiencing fatigue is very unlikely to pick the differences between these different feelings, especially when there is no will to do so.
 
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John Mac

Senior Member
Messages
321
Location
Liverpool UK
I can see the limitations of this study, certainly, but my main interest here is whether there may be an increase in prevalence of ME/CFS in the Bristol area of the UK.

Any increase in "fatigue" in the Bristol area can be explained by the fact Esther Crawley works there.

If she moved to the south pole there would be an outbreak of "fatigue" among the penguin population.
 

Snowdrop

Rebel without a biscuit
Messages
2,933
I have severe cognitive issues and cognitive fatigue. I have recently come to realise that on the rare day that I get some level of functioning for a few hours I'm actually working off of mental clarity. That is to say that I control physical fatigue by not exerting myself much because if I slide into exertion fatigue life starts to look quite bleak for me and I can't do anything. The same goes for cognitively.

But when I experience this periodic 'brightening' I get up and start doing things off my 'to do someday' list and I go at it quite energetically. Often the things that need doing don't overtax me mentally but I find I'm overdoing it physically it short order.
So what I'm trying to say is that my mental state clears up enough to organise my mind with things that need doing but I mistake this mental clarity for physical energy. I'm not sure that I'm being clear about what I mean.

This highlights some more how 'experts' who are quite healthy really cannot fathom this illness yet make all kinds of proclamations as to what this illness looks and feels like.

They have no idea. And generally take their cue from the mildly ill or in EC's case from the persistently fatigued.
 

Chrisb

Senior Member
Messages
1,051
Part of the problem is also due to the fact that "fatigue" doesn't mean much in itself. It's a general and vague word, and can reflect very different realities

The problem extends beyond this. Does "chronic" in the term chronic fatigue have the same use as it does in the term chronic fatigue syndrome.

I suggest that in the former case it merely connotes that the fatigue has persisted for some time. There is no implication that it is abnormal given the circumstances, and there is no suggestion that the fatigue would continue if normal remedial action were taken.

When linked to a syndrome I suggest that the fatigue is not only long lasting but deep seated and persistent in the face of attempts to remedy it.