Individuals diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are considered challenging patients in many quarters, presenting with complaints of post-exertional malaise, constant flu-like symptoms, unrefreshing
sleep,
cognitive difficulties, and sometimes many other symptoms that don't seem to have any obvious pattern. Some patients appear ill; some patients do not appear ill. Diagnostic tests are usually unrevealing.
As would be expected, these seemingly non-specific complaints often result in a lack of a diagnosis, and, not infrequently an accusation of fakery. However, those in the trenches, both those treating CFS and those diagnosed with CFS, it is a very real thing. Many dislike the label “CFS,” and in other countries it is referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Actually, the 2003 Canadian Clinical Case Definition draws a distinction between CFS and ME: while both definitions require multiple symptoms in the setting of 6 months of unexplained fatigue to make the diagnosis, the ME criteria also consider the existence of post-exertional malaise.
Of interest, in the next couple of weeks the Institute of Medicine, working with the United States Department of
Health and Human Services, will issue recommendations for new clinical diagnostic criteria and consider a new name(s) for what we now refer to as CFS or CFS/ME....
