Anyone know much about CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)?

I'm doing a project in health, and my topic is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. If anyone knows someone who has CFS, or knows a lot about the syndrome, that would be amazing!! Please & thank you! :)

Ignore 'pyewacket', what (s)he said it totally inaccurate, and I suffer from it so I should know!

This website... www.ayme.org.uk ... is amazing! If you click on the 'Medical' tab at the top, then on the left-hand side clicking on those will give you some good information on what this illness is, the symptoms, etc.

Basically this illness is incredibly debilitating - whilst you may think I'm simply sat here at a computer typing away, infact:
- I'm on my laptop (using a bed table)
- I'm lying in bed as sitting up is too tiring
- The lights are all off, as I suffer from light sensitivity
- My laptop brightness is dimmed right now, due to my light sensitivity. Yet, my whole room still feels bright to me.
- I have a hot water bottle, a hoodie on & have two blankets over me as I suffer from poor temperature control.
- My legs are aching severely
- I feel very nauseous
- I feel so tired; this is not a normal tiredness. If a normal person did not sleep for a couple days, that is not how I feel - I feel much, much worse! It's a totally delibitating tiredness, so bad that I generally am unable to get out of bed, and soemtimes I cannot even lift my arm.
- My head hurts & I feel dizzy, almost like I've been hit over the head!
- I cannot think straight, I keep on thinking of stuff to write down here, then forget it (and hence, this list will be very incomplete as to how I'm affected at this very moment in time!)

You should be aware that there are several different names for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS is the one mainly used in the USA, however, over here in the UK, M.E. is the main one. M.E. currently stands for Myalgic Encephalopathy (My-al-jik En-kefa-lop-athy) but it used to stand for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. However, "this is technically incorrect because the term 'myelitis' means inflammation of the brain and there is no inflammation found in the brain of ME patients. This was discussed by the doctors involved in the Chief Medical Officer's steering group and they agreed that 'pathy' was a more correct definition." [Quoted from the AYME website]

You'll find both terms used around various websites though, so don't get confused by them, I just thought you ought to be aware of it.

No two ME/CFS sufferers suffer the exact same symptoms, which makes it especially difficult to diagnose. There is an incredibly wide range in the ability of suffers. Those who are only mildly affected can go about doing their normal life pretty much - they'll have to rest once during the day, say, and if doing full time work, will be pretty tired by the evening, but still it's relatively normal.

Those mildly-moderately affected will be able to do full time school/work 4 out of the 5 days each week, with resting a lot at the weekends. When not at school, they feel really quite poorly.

Those moderately-severely affected will only be able to go into school for very short periods, if at all. Those short periods at school will be a massive struggle, and other than this will be unable to have any social life.

Those severely affected will be totally confined to the house, and if not then to their bed. See this article of a girl with the severest form of ME/CFS (She's not just severely affected, but very, very, very severely affected)...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl... [written in 2006]

And then this one... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-... [written at the beginning of december of this year]

And also this one http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl... [written again, at the beginning of december this year]

I hope this gives you a small insight into what ME/CFS sufferers have to deal with each and everyday, whether they are moderately affected, severely affected, or incredibly severely affected like the dear Lynn Gilderdale was.

RIP Lynn

Good luck with your project! If you want any specific questions answered, edit the details on your question & I'll answer them in a new answer. May not be able to do it for a while, I'm totally dead from writing this and it'll take me a while to recover haha - but it's worth it if it brings awareness to everybody who sees your project, hopefully a lot of people! I should mention that I'm moderately-severely affected.. and also that there's no cure for this illness. There's a very contraversal process called the Lighting Process, which although it has helped some people, many suffer terrible relapses from it as it's all about thinking that you CAN do something, so they push themselves too far. All you can really do it wait, when you become ill when you're young then there's a good chance of recovery despite the many years it may take (I'm 16 and have been ill for 2 years and despite slowly deteriotating so far, I'm hoping to recover one day!). Oh, they've no idea what causes this illness either. A lot of people I know through AYME who have it fell ill after having Glandular Fever (Mono) but that's not always the case at all.

I'm rambling on, when I know I need to rest damnnn me, I'm totally dead now (this is my activity of the day!)... my arms are killling from typing. Good luck again! Thanks for taking the time to look into this illness properly =) xx

Claire, May God Grant you and all of us cfs sufferers with complete health,Aameen.I also attended lightning process and it helped affectively with my super hearing sensitivity.As my other symptoms are concerned I am looking now other options.Here is a website and I would ask you to go through it.Perhaps you find it helpful.The only thing that I would like to say is that I know its a difficult test by our Lord which can allow us to learn good lessons of life which will be useful for our next life after death.But Donot stop looking for options.Do research yourself or perhaps by your loved ones.I had a head-blow (it was the angle that caused it otherwise I used to have it in my teenages too but they never troubled me) which within a year accompanied by gastro caused this difficult and surely unbearable illness (which becomes more difficult when people donot consider you suffering from it,and think of it some psycological patterns that we get used to,anyway!).But do go through the link and then click on the chronic fatigue syndrome page and read all of that.Keep belief that there will be an assigned time of great health for you too, Insha Allah.

http://www.erinelster.com/

Hi. This is a great website with lots of resources and information about CFS: http://www.prohealth.com/me-cfs/index.cf...

There is information about what CFS is, what symptoms to look for, different treatment options, etc. There's also a huge research library you can search through

You may also want to visit the message board there (or the chat room). If you have any specific questions that you want to ask people suffering from CFS, that would be a great place to start.

http://www.prohealth.com/me-cfs/blog/boa...

Best of luck on your project!

I am no expert but maybe a B vitamin deficiency could cause this.