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Looking for the magical cure for fibromyalgia continues and despite there being limited assistance in the form of drugs a sufferer can rely upon other forms of treatment should be explored.

Be aware that treatment for fibromyalgia can involve anything from medication to exercise and stretching. Chiropractic treatment is another which should be considered.

Chiropractors have become well accepted in modern day times as an alternative to more traditional health care. The benefits from chiropractic treatment include well being and establishing good posture. And it’s the posture issue which needs to be taken seriously by fibro sufferers.

Maintaining bad posture habits can lead to excess stress being placed on certain parts of the body and establishing a balanced load on these areas is imperitive. For a fibro patient, the issue of good posture is probably understated and needs to be considered strongly.

Fibromyalgia Treatment - The Benefits Of Good Posture

Bear in mind, maintaining good posture habits will not cure your fibro symptoms. Used in combination with various other treatment for fibromyalgia methods, the impact on subduing your symptoms can be very effective.

So what do we mean by practicing good posture management. Well, posture and ergonomics covers a range of daily activities. These include:

- the way you sit
- the way you stand
- how you behave physically at work and
- the way you sleep

As you can see, you basically need to look at how you treat and manoeuvre your body in simple daily activities.

Reasons For Good Posture.

All of the above needs to be looked at more closely by you and in conjunction with the advice of your chiropractic caregiver, should be corrected if you find there are areas of improvement you can make in your posture behavior.

The reason why you should be adopting good posture behavior as part of your treatment for fibromyalgia should be obvious. Your aim is to minimize any trauma to your muscles and if they respond to your posture management, then the obvious benefit is minimization of fibromyalgia symptoms relating to this area.

Posture in bed is vitally important. The fact you’re spending almost a third of your day sleeping means you need to be positioned correctly in your sleeping position. Many fibromyalgia sufferers report waking up extremely tired despite an eight hour sleep pattern which is not normal.

This sets the tone for the rest of day and in turn, affects life quality not only for yourself, but those around you as well.

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Along with the many symptoms caused by fibromyalgia syndrome, back pain is often a real complaint for the majority of FMS sufferers. Both upper and lower back pain can cause powerful discomfort, making it impossible to sit or stand for extended periods of time. The chronic back pain connected with fibromyalgia can also impact on the value of your sleep, making it difficult for you to build up your strength after a long day. But just because you have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia doesn’t mean you have to suffer with it.

If you are suffering from chronic back pain, then you may be wondering if you have somehow injured your spine or a disc in your spinal cord. However, the majority of fibromyalgia sufferers do not experience back pain due to injury.

So what exactly causes fibromyalgia back pain?

Your chronic back pain is probably due to a problem with your central nervous system called an overactive central nervous system or weakened muscles.

In order to keep your body properly supported and aligned, your spine is surrounded by a number of crisscrossing muscles. These muscles overlap with other muscles near your spine that have neurological connections to the pain processing centers in your brain. In fibromyalgia patients, though, these pain processors are overactive. This means that, as you move, your brain senses more pain than it generally should, resulting in chronic upper and lower back pain.

Weakened muscles also cause fibromyalgia back pain. These muscles are present throughout your back. Because fibromyalgia is such a debilitating disease, causing sleep loss and chronic fatigue, the muscles throughout the back often become weaker. This makes it even harder for your spine to stay properly aligned, thus contributing to constant back pain.

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New research suggests that the pain felt by fibromyalgia patients can be significantly reduced through the use of hypnosis and suggestion. In a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and University College London, in the UK, a team of researchers used fMRI scans to determine whether fibromyalgia patients could be taught to cope better with painful sensations through a combination of suggestion and hypnosis.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition in which patients experience physical pain throughout their body as well as other debilitating symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive difficulties. The pain is often severe and can affect the ligaments, tendons and muscles. There seems to be no physical reason for the pain of fibromyalgia and the cause of the condition remains unknown. It is thought however that the problem may lie with how the brain processes pain and other sensations. Patients often find that over the counter drugs do nothing to reduce the level of pain so ask their doctor for stronger medications. Some patients even end up on opioid drugs such as morphine, codeine, Vicodin, and Oxycontin which bring with them the potential for serious side-effects. Rather shockingly, even these powerful painkilling drugs are often ineffective against the pain of fibromyalgia.

A recent study shed some light on why this may be, finding that the receptors in the nervous system that usually bind molecules of these drugs do so to a lesser extent in people suffering from the disease. Exercise and rehibilitative therapies are often beneficial, particularly swimming pool based exercise according to studies, but patients are still left in a lot of pain much of the time. This latest study into suggestion and hypnosis may offer patients an effective tool to manage pain and put them in control thus also lowering anxiety and stress levels. During the study 46 fibromyalgia patients put under hypnosis and asked to imagine a dial indicating their pain levels. They were then asked to use the dial to turn down the level of pain they were experiencing. The researchers found that this technique was highly effective. The team also used fMRI scans with 12 of the patients to look at brain activity while they were under hypnosis and using the dial technique to alter their pain levels. Dr Stuart Derbyshire, who headed the team at the University of Birmingham, said: “Fibromyalgia is an unusual condition because pain is experienced without any obvious physical stimulus being involved. In the study we looked at the exact neural processes that affect sufferers and their ability to control their pain. “Our participants all showed classic brain activity that we would associate with severe pain. However, all were able control the intensity of that pain by turning the dial up or down. “Although they were all able to affect their pain using the dial, this effect was significantly more pronounced when subjects were under hypnosis. “This suggests that hypnosis could be a useful tool in helping patients manage chronic pain and is worthy of further research. “While patients altered their pain during fMRI the team observed commensurate changes in activity in regions of the brain known to respond to pain.” He added: “Understanding the complex neural networks involved in generating pain obviously has significant implications for our ability to treat pain in all its forms. “In this case the participants’ ability to turn down pain shows that the experience of pain goes beyond an immediate reaction to a pin prick or burn.
“Rather than a stimulus causing pain, these patients might experience pain because of pain signals diffusing from the brain.”

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The Womensday.com story - Living in pain - simply does not discuss the experience of Carolyn Bishop but reflects the suffering of entire humanity from fibromyalgia.

Carolyn says in her article, “When the nurse told me that I had fibromyalgia, I started crying. Finally someone was taking me seriously. Lyrica isn´t a miracle drug, but as soon as I started taking it, I began to feel better. When my daughter too was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, she started taking Lyrica as well as a number of other drugs and supplements. I do not worry about her being on some of these drugs at such a young age… Best of all, she won´t have to spend decades in pain wondering what´s wrong.”

The story inspired me to find out what actually fibromyalgia is? Why it takes decades to get diagnosed?

Fibromyalgia has been studied since the early 1800s and referred to by a variety of former names, including muscular rheumatism and fibrositis. The term fibromyalgia was coined in 1976 to describe the symptoms more accurately, from the Latin fibra (fiber) and the Greek words myo (muscle) and algos (pain).

Fibromyalgia is a human disorder classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain. Fibromyalgia means pain in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons – the soft fibrous tissues in the body. It can affect every aspect of a person’s life. While neither degenerative nor fatal, the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia is pervasive and persistent.

Symptoms of fibromyalgia are often aggravated by unrelated illness or changes in the weather. The primary symptoms of fibromyalgia include widespread musculoskeletal pain, severe fatigue, and disturbed sleep. It is often seen that those suffering from fibromyalgia will have other associated conditions and symptoms like a heightened and painful response to gentle touch (allodynia), needle-like tingling of the skin, weakness in the limbs, nerve pain, and functional bowel disturbances. Many patients also experience cognitive dysfunction. It is because of these overlapping symptoms that fibromyalgia diagnosis becomes difficult. The difficulty with diagnosing fibromyalgia is that, in most cases, laboratory testing appears normal and that many of the symptoms mimic those of other rheumatic conditions such as arthritis or osteoporosis.

In general, most doctors diagnose patients with a process called differential diagnosis, which means that doctors consider all of the possible things that might be wrong with you based on your symptoms, gender, age geographic location, medical history and other factors. They then narrow down the diagnosis down to the most likely one. The most widely accepted set of classification criteria for research purposes were elaborated in 1990 by the Multicenter Criteria Committee of the American College of Rheumatology.

According to these guidelines, to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia one must have experienced widespread aching pain for at least three months and have a minimum of 11 locations on the body that are abnormally tender under relatively mild, firm pressure. Not all doctors agree with these guidelines. Some believe that the criteria are too rigid and that one can have fibromyalgia even if you don’t meet the required number of tender points. Others question how reliable and valid tender points are as a diagnostic tool.

Fibromyalgia is seen in about 2% of the general population and affects more females than males, with a ratio of 9:1 as per American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria. It is most commonly diagnosed in individuals between the ages of 20 and 50, though onset can occur in childhood.

Still the validity of fibromyalgia as a unique clinical entity is a matter of some contention among researchers in the field. And the January 14, New York Times article – Drug Approved. Is Disease Real? put the stage on fire. The article cited Dr. Frederick Wolfe, the director of the National Databank for Rheumatic Diseases and the lead author of the 1990 paper that first defined the diagnostic guidelines for fibromyalgia. Dr. Wolfe remained skeptical of the condition and said that he now considers the condition a physical response to stress, depression, and economic and social anxiety.

It´s true that current diagnostic criteria are insufficient, but does not mean that the disease is not real.

Fibromyalgia was recognized by the American Medical Association as an illness and a cause of disability in 1987. In an article the same year, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a physician named Dr. Don Goldenberg also called the disorder fibromyalgia. The ACR published a criterion for fibromyalgia in 1990, and developed neurohormonal mechanisms with central sensitization in the 1990s.

Even the FDA, CDC, and Mayo Clinic believe the condition to be real. Low levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, and a certain growth hormone and high levels of substance P and nerve growth factor in fibromyalgia patients support the fact.

For scientific and clinical purposes, pain is defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” It is important to note that pain is subjective in nature and is defined by the person experiencing it. So, why could not fibromyalgia pain be called real, if the person says it is? Why a section of the medical community says that it´s all in their (patients´) head, it does not exist in reality? Why a drug or a company has to be blamed to treat a questionable disease?

We are in an era where we can define human disease more accurately and more uniquely and diseases are being classified by their anatomic or physiological features rather than by symptoms only.

Also, according to Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, a professor of the history of medicine at Queens University in Ontario, the shift from symptoms to anatomical measurements had big implications for patients. She says, “Up until the 18th century, you had to feel sick to be sick. But now people can be considered sick based on measurements like high blood pressure without feeling ill at all.” She adds, “People who feel sick nowadays don´t get to have a disease unless the doctor can find something and instead might be told that it´s all in their head.” Doctors argue, for instance, about whether fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, which has no obvious anatomical causes, is really a disease.

It indicates our insufficiency and the agony of fibromyalgia patients when Lynne Matallana, president of the National Fibromyalgia Association, says, “The new drugs would help people accept the existence of fibromyalgia. The day that the F.D.A. approved a drug and we had a public service announcement, my pain became real to people.”

It´s true that the fibromyalgia symptoms are very confusing, too unclear, and highly overlapping. Also, the degree of symptoms varies greatly from day to day with periods of flares or remission. But the actual problem is the lack of specific diagnostic criteria, due to which the disease is usually misunderstood and misdiagnosed (under diagnosed or over diagnosed).

It is anguish that the scientific community is talking about cloning a human but we do not have proper diagnostic criteria for a condition which is affecting a portion of the existing population.

Many patients are able to ease their symptoms with a combination of medication, exercise, physical therapy and relaxation, as well as other alternative therapies. So, it is the sole responsibility of medical community to develop a specific and accurate diagnostic criterion so that fibromyalgia sufferers would not have to suffer for their disease to be identified and avail proper treatment.

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So what causes fibromyalgia? The truth is, the real reason is still unknown. There are a number of possible theories that have been touted but fibromyalgia continues to confound medical experts and has virtually been named the mystery condition.

Just like chronic fatigue syndrome baffled medicos years ago, causes of fibromyalgia continues to mystify.

The fact is, there is no cure for fibromyalgia and in most instances, it’s hard to come up with a cure for any ailment when a concrete cause is yet to be determined. So does this mean if you have fibromyalgia it’s time to simply throw your hands in the air and give up?

Well, definitely no because there are some excellent treatment methodsa available to you. One of the baffling aspects of fibromyalgia is that a sufferer can be feeling on top of the world one day but down in the depths of despair the next.

Causes Of Fibromyalgia And It’s Symptoms

As we mentioned above, the causes put forward are numerous and with due respects, in most cases they have some validity. It’s almost like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. One thing we do know however is there are four major symptoms.

-Non-rested sleep. In other words, a sufferer will wake up feeling more tired and fatigued than they did before they went to sleep.

- Pain in the muscles or otherwise known as diffused musculoskeletal pain.

- Muscle stiffness and although this happens in short bursts it can affect a sufferer several times during the day.

- Fatigue is the fourth symptom and while pain isn’t usually associated with fatigue a sufferer will usually be affected via alteration in lifestyle.

While a definite causes of fibromyalgia is still a mystery, the criteria used for diagnosis is usually made after doctors have exhausted all other possibilities. When someone is complaining of the symptoms mentioned above fibromyalgia isn’t present as a reason until other conditions have been examined.

For example, just having sleep problems doesn’t mean fibromyalgia is the reason. On it’s own, sleep problems could be attributed to any number of conditions.

However, when it’s present along with each of the other major symptoms, then there is a strong chance fibro symptoms are present. If a patient suffers from widespread pain for at least three months or more, the diagnosis is then usually complete.

Some of the possible causes without any established evidence include sleep disturbances, some type of trauma or injury, infection, mental stress and lack of muscle metabolism.

Women in the forties are most likely to suffer from fibro symptoms although there are cases where teenagers and people over sixty have it.

But nailing down a causes of fibromyalgia is still where there is little doubt as to what triggered the condition is yet to be determined

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When you hear about neurotransmitters involved in fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS), serotonin usually gets all the attention. When you talk about stress response, the focus is generally on cortisol.

But norepinephrine, which is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone, is a key component of these conditions as well. It’s also called noradrenaline, and it’s what makes your heart rate and blood pressure soar during a “fight or flight” reaction. A sudden, rapid rise of norepinephrine causes panic attacks. A somewhat high level makes you happy, and a really high level makes you euphoric.

In FMS and ME/CFS, norepinephrine is low. Symptoms attributed to low norepinephrine include:

• Loss of alertness
• Memory problems
• Depression
• Lack of arousal and interest

So far, we don’t know why norepinephrine is low in FMS and ME/CFS. Some known causes of low levels are constant fear and anxiety.

Some medications that raise norepinephrine levels are serotonin norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitors (SNRIs), such as Cymbalta (duloxetine) and amphetamines, including Adderall (dextroamphetamine), which is often used to treat ADD.

Other things that raise norepinephrine include:

• Sleep
• Exercise
• Meeting goals (even small ones!)
• Love
• Aggression (this is NOT an excuse for bad behavior - maybe try aggressive video games?
• Alcohol (this is NOT an excuse for over indulging, which does very bad things to your brain chemistry!)

Like with serotonin, doctors don’t generally test norepinephrine levels, so they diagnose it based on symptoms. Talk to your doctor about whether you need treatment and what treatment is best for you.

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Fibromyalgia treatment will involve a variety of forms from exercise to medication.

The reality is, there is no cure yet for Fibromyalgia. Another aspect which is a little confusing is it isn’t usually diagnosed until most other avenues have been explored.

Conditions such as chronic fatigue and thyroid issues will be considered as possible reasons why a person is experiencing symptoms.

When the four major symptoms of fibromyalgia, that is:

- diffused musculoskeletal pain
- unrested sleep
- muscle stiffness and
- fatigue

have been present for some time or widespread pain which is present for at least three months, then fibromyalgia will be considered as a diagnosis.

The key to effective fibromyalgia treatment is using a combination of methods.

For example, exercise, medication, relaxation techniques and physical therapy could all form part of your treatment program.

How often would you need to maintain this? Well, the fact is, there is no cure for fibromylagia so you should be taking a long term treatment approach.

One of the confusing aspects with fibro symptoms is some days a sufferer can be feeling full of life and energy but the next they are debilitated by pain and fatigue.

On the other hand, there is a pattern which can emerge and there will be certain times of the day when you’re feeling better and this is when you need to take advantage of the situation by getting things done.

Low impact exercise is crucial. Things such as stretching, walking and swimming are three you can do. It may be difficult at first but the more you do it the easier it becomes and will help reduce the incidence of symptoms.

Fibromyalgia treatment can also include doctor prescribed sleep medication but resist this and simply try and get to sleep at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning. You definitely want to avoid coffee and alcohol as this can interrupt your sleep patterns.

Relaxation techniques combined with physical therapy can be extremely helpful.

The important thing to remember with fibromyalgia treatment is to be consistent with it. For example, exercise shouldn’t be done sporadically but at a set time each day.

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You wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but at any given moment Dana Poole hurts all over.

“It’s kind of like a burning, but an ache. It’s almost like you have the flu,” said Poole, 31, a receptionist from Canton, Georgia.

Poole is one of almost 6 million Americans who suffer from a chronic condition called fibromyalgia.

In addition to widespread pain, patients may complain about fatigue and sleep disturbances, depression, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome and heightened sensitivity.

“Dana is typical of a lot of fibromyalgia patients,” said Dr. Jefrey Lieberman, an Atlanta, Georgia-based rheumatologist. “She came into my office complaining of a lot of diffuse pain all over her body and fatigue. She really didn’t know why she was getting it.”

That’s part of the frustration of having fibromyalgia. Experts aren’t sure what causes it, but many believe many factors are involved.

Some think the condition, which is not progressive or life-threatening, may be triggered by an emotional or traumatic event.

Lieberman believed it is related to a disordered sleep pattern and poor exercise. “It appears to be more of a neuro-chemical process,” he said. “In other words, there really is no inflammation in patients with fibromyalgia.”

Getting a proper diagnosis can sometimes be just as frustrating as finding out what’s behind the disease.

“Fibromyalgia is to some extent a diagnosis of exclusion,” Lieberman said. “There are lot of things it can be confused with such as thyroid disorders, metabolic disorders and certain rheumatologic inflammatory conditions.”

For almost five years, Poole jumped from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was causing her symptoms. “They were constantly saying I’m a tall, thin female. ‘You’re getting older — your body is going to change,’ and it was frustrating.”

Lieberman understood Poole’s frustration. “Sometimes fibromyalgia is used as a wastebasket term if a patient has pain and they don’t know what it is from,” he said. “It is frequently misdiagnosed. In fact, it is overdiagnosed and it is underdiagnosed.”

Specialists such as Lieberman can make a proper diagnosis based on criteria set by the American College of Rheumatology.

“Those criteria are diffuse pain in three or more quadrants of the body and the presence of what are called tender points in the body,” Lieberman explained. “There are 18 total tender points, and by definition we like to see 11 of those tender points being present.”

It’s estimated that up to 90 percent of patients are women. Most of them start feeling symptoms in early and middle adulthood.

Poole remembered that the pain first started when she was 20. It wasn’t until she met Lieberman about five years ago that she got some relief.

She took part in a drug study for Cymbalta, one of two medications approved for the management of fibromyalgia. The other drug is called Lyrica.

“Both of them are geared toward the patient’s well-being as well as improving their pain,” Lieberman said.

He also encouraged Poole to control her condition through a healthy diet, stress reduction, getting enough sleep and regular low-impact exercise.

We think that aerobic exercise helps to stimulate endorphins and enkephlins from the body which are your own natural pain relievers,” Lieberman said.

The doctor is quick to point out that even with proper medication and adequate exercise, fibromyalgia has no cure.

Although Lieberman said some of his patients report the symptoms tapering off in their mid-50s and -60s, others are faced with years of managing the condition.

“For most of my patients, I tell them that I can get you 50 to 75 percent better and many of those patients will jump at that,” he said.

Poole is one of them, but knowing that she’ll need to follow a careful daily regimen can be daunting, she said. “It wears you out, mentally, physically and emotionally.”

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The news that the number of prescriptions for homeopathic medicines written by GPs in England has nearly halved in just two years coincides with the 20th anniversary of a seminal scientific paper on the subject.

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1988, the science world was rocked by one of the most controversial research papers ever published in the highly-respected journal Nature.

According to a charismatic French scientist named Jacques Benveniste, pure water could somehow remember what it had previously contained.

Benveniste had started with a substance that caused an allergic reaction, he diluted it over and over again until there was nothing left except water, and then he observed that the pure water still managed to trigger an allergic reaction when it was added to living cells.

If the experiment was correct then it would mean rewriting the laws of physics and chemistry.

Moreover, the research would have a major impact on the credibility of homeopathy, because it is a form of alternative medicine that relies on remedies made by diluting the key curative ingredient over and over again until that ingredient has disappeared.

Even Benveniste was shocked by the implications of his own work.

“It was like shaking your car keys in the Seine at Paris and then discovering that water taken from the mouth of the river would start your car!”

Supernatural powers

John Maddox, editor of Nature, realised that Benveniste’s research would be controversial, so it was accompanied by a disclaimer similar to one that had been run when he published research about Uri Geller’s supposed supernatural powers.

It said: “Editorial reservation: Readers of this article may share the incredulity of the many referees … Nature has therefore arranged for independent investigators to observe repetitions of the experiments.”

The investigation team was led by Maddox himself, and he was joined by chemist Walter Stewart and James Randi, a magician, who had a reputation for debunking extraordinary claims.

Unfortunately for Benveniste, the investigators soon discovered that the results in his laboratory were unreliable.

The three of them went on to publish a report explaining how Benveniste’s assistants were being subconsciously selective in the way that they interpreted their data.

They said: “We believe that experimental data have been uncritically assessed and their imperfections inadequately reported.”

Benvensiste gradually moved out of academia as a result of the Nature debacle, but right up to his death in 2004 he maintained that his research was valid and that he was being ignored by a blinkered scientific establishment.

Twenty years after his research was published, perhaps now is the ideal time to asses his long-term impact on the debate surrounding ultra-dilute solutions and homeopathy.

Was he an unrecognized genius who was ahead of his time or was he a deluded scientist who failed to see that his research deeply flawed?

First of all, it is worth noting that there have been many attempts to reproduce Benveniste’s experiments - occasionally there are positive results, but they are neither consistent nor convincing, and in any case these are countered by several negative results.

For example, the BBC science series Horizon attempted to test Benveniste’s claims in 2002, and the conclusion was announced by Professor Martin Bland, of St George’s Hospital Medical School.

He said: “There’s absolutely no evidence at all to say that there is any difference between the solution that started off as pure water and the solution that started off with the histamine [an allergen].”

Phenomenon

Similarly, Benveniste started a spin-off company called DigiBio, which claimed that water could not only have a memory, but that this memory could be digitized, transmitted via email and reintroduced into another sample of water, which in turn could have an impact on living cells.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) tested DigiBio’s claim and came to the following conclusion: “Our team found no replicable effects from digital signals.”

Nevertheless, Benveniste’s research continues to be very influential among many homeopaths, such as Alex Tournier, the founding director of the Homeopathy Research Institute.

He said: “Benveniste was a very inspiring and dedicated scientist, who at the very apogee of his career at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, was ready to put his reputation on the line to report a phenomenon he didn’t understand: homeopathic dilutions.

“Homeopathy is still not understood, however his efforts started a new era of rigorous scientific investigation of the field.”

Other homeopaths are convinced by Benveniste’s idea of digital homeopathy and are even willing to sell such remedies over the internet.

Some might argue that, as there are over 200 clinical trials, but still no convincing evidence that homeopathy is effective for treating any condition, the idea that digitized homeopathy can help patients is fanciful.

But for $1,000 you could go online and buy yourself a digital homeopathy software kit and start treating yourself and others today.

Serious question marks remain over the Benveniste paper, but what is not in doubt is that its influence is still powerful and profound 20 years on.

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When you tell someone you have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS), how often does he or she look blandly back at you and say, “Yeah, I get tired, too. A little (sleep/rest/exercise/coffee/other-unsolicited-bit-of-advice) will make you feel better!”

Doctors don’t get terribly excited about “fatigue” as a symptom, either - it’s the number one complaint they get, and it’s usually caused by overwork, stress, lack of sleep, or some passing illness such as a cold. Sometimes it surprises them by hanging around for longer than expected, and then they might start looking into other causes, like nutritional deficiencies or (the dreaded “d” word!) depression. Sometimes, that’s what it is, and its name is chronic fatigue. (Notice the lack of “syndrome.”)

Sometimes, though, it’s not that simple and you have muscle aches, flu-like symptoms and brain fog, and that’s when “syndrome” gets tacked onto the end. Grammatically, it might not seem like that big a distinction. However, when it comes to your treatments, not to mention your life, that third word is a doozie!

So what exactly is the difference between chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome? Here’s your answer:

What’s the Difference Between Chronic Fatigue & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

The terms “chronic fatigue” and “chronic fatigue syndrome” (CFS or ME/CFS) often are used interchangeably, but they’re actually 2 very different conditions that are diagnosed and treated differently.

Understanding Fatigue
Fatigue is one of the most common complaints doctors hear. Much of the time it’s caused by stress, lack of sleep, overexertion or minor illness such as a cold. Typically, fatigue goes away when you get rest or recover from being sick.

In both chronic fatigue and ME/CFS, fatigue is extreme and constant. It makes it difficult or impossible for you to function at even the most basic level. Think of the way you felt the last time you were seriously ill, severely sleep deprived, or coming out from under anesthesia — that’s the kind of fatigue we’re talking about.

What is Chronic Fatigue (Without the “Syndrome”)?
If you have simply chronic fatigue, it means that you have exhaustion or lack of energy for 6 months or longer. Chronic fatigue is generally a symptom of something else, such as:

• Infection
• Immune or autoimmune disorders (such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis)
• Muscle or nerve diseases (such as multiple sclerosis)
• Endocrine diseases (such as hypothyroidism)
• Depression
• Organ disease
• Fibromyalgia
• Sleep disorders or ongoing lack of sleep
• High stress levels
• Nutritional deficiency

Some causes of chronic fatigue (such as lack of sleep, nutritional deficiency or short-term infection) are somewhat easy to correct. When caused by a chronic illness, chronic fatigue can be treated but not cured.

In some cases, doctors can’t figure out the cause of chronic fatigue, but the person doesn’t meet the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS. Those cases are diagnosed as idopathic chronic fatigue. (Idiopathic means without known cause.)

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
To get a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, you need more than extreme, persistent fatigue that lasts longer than 6 months. You’ve also got to have at least four of the following, also for longer than 6 months but starting after the fatigue:

• Impaired memory or concentration
• Post-exertional malaise (extreme, prolonged exhaustion and sickness following physical or mental activity)
• Unrefreshing sleep
• Muscle pain
• Joint pain without swelling or redness
• Headaches of a new type or severity
• Sore throat that’s frequent or recurring
• Tender cervical or axillary lymph nodes

In addition to these diagnostic criteria, ME/CFS has about 50 recognized symptoms, including dizziness and balance problems, allergies and chemical sensitivities, anxiety, stiffness, numbness, and irregular heart beat.

So far, doctors don’t have a diagnostic test that can accurately detect ME/CFS. The condition is not curable, and so far no medications are FDA approved as treatments for it. Researchers are, however, getting closer to understanding the mechanisms behind ME/CFS and learning more about how to treat it.

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