Hello Saveme,
Employment of the term "syndrome" denotes (in part ) that the cause of an ilness remains unknown. If we knew the cause of CFS we might be a long way towards finding a cure, but causation has remained a mystery for close to 25 years.
There are certain illnesses and circumstances that have been noted shortly prior to or contemporaneous with the onset of the illness that subsequently gives rise to the diagnosis CFS, but these are regarded as associations and not causations.
These associations are sometimes referred to as CFS illness triggers, but not all triggers result in acute or sudden illness onset, which makes their possible role as a trigger for the illness leading to a CFS diagnosis sometimes questionable (due to remoteness in time to illness onset) and certainly problematic in trying to find strong associations to research for the purposes of causation.
So perhaps a more accurate title for your poll would be "what do you believe triggered or contributed to your illness that led to your diagnosis of CFS?"
ISO