Defination of CFS taken from HERE What is CFIDS? Chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) is a serious and complex illness that affects many different body systems. It is characterized by incapacitating fatigue (experienced as profound exhaustion and extremely poor stamina), neurological problems and numerous other symptoms. CFIDS can be severely debilitating and can last for many years. CFIDS is often misdiagnosed because it is frequently unrecognized and can resemble other disorders including mononucleosis, multiple sclerosis (M.S.), fibromyalgia (FM), Lyme disease, post-polio syndrome and autoimmune diseases such as lupus. CFIDS is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis (M.E.).
Allright, well despite the fact that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome roughly translates into "Always tired uncureable illness" it IS very painful & intense. I suffer from: ~Fatigue (duh! No matter how much I sleep I wake up unrefreshed) ~Depression (secondary depression, I DID NOT- repeat did not- get CFS cuz I'm depressed, but I'm very depressed because I have it. Such a horrible way to live.) ~Horrible headaches (trust me, you have NOT had a headache this bad) ~Joint pain/swelling/soreness (I feel like I have very mild arthrities all the time, but joints ache for no reason. And my back is VERY sore, and painful stiff necks are common) ~Insomnia (from the name of my disease it isn't hard to gather that I need sleep, yet when I have any REM- deep sleep, when you dream, most refreshing & most needed type- I wake up) ~Hormones (Missed periods aside I will get very hormonal, cry & cry one minute, then burst out laughing. SO infuriating!!!) ~Lack of cognative skills (ie, can't read, can't write, and some days TV is too much for me. Doesn't sound too bad, but after a while you miss reading & even having good conversations) ~White Outs (almost like blacking out, but you never loose concoiusness. I'll be walking around, minding my own business when suddenly I can't see anything & I'm very dizzy. And there's no warning, it can happen anytime, which is why it's so dangerous.) ~Bloated, irritated and gassy (Yea, I hate to bring it up, cuz I know it's not exactly pleasant, but neither is CFS, so deal with it) Those are just MY symptoms. I have all of these, but there are a few others I've neglected metioning that others have. Every CFS case is different. My brother and I both have CFS yet it's completely different. He'll react to one thing I won't feel and he'll complain of symptoms I've never even thought of. This is one of the many reasons CFS is so hard to cure. |