Monday, November 27, 2006

Finally, something I can send to my mother

Nov. 24 (UPI)—U.S. health officials have initiated a campaign to erase the perception people with chronic fatigue syndrome are malingerers.  The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta opened its information campaign this month to help educate patients and doctors that chronic fatigue syndrome is a mysterious but serious disease sometimes triggered by a viral infection with other unknown factors.

Nancy Klimas, a University of Miami School of Medicine clinician-researcher visiting the CDC during its campaign kickoff, said chronic fatigue syndrome is poorly named, based on 20 years of research. “If it were called chronic neuroinflammatory disease, then people would get it,” Klimas said. “Up until now nobody’s been willing to change the name, but now there’s proof” that inflammation occurs in the brain.

The CDC estimates CFS affects at least 1 million people in the United States. Women are affected at about four times the rate as men, and non-white women are affected at a rate greater than white women. Symptoms include exhaustion, joint pain, sleep problems, impaired memory and inability to concentrate.

---------------------------------------------

In fairness to my mother, she’s never accused me of being lazy… I’m the one who feels I’m lazy, and I worry she might think it.  I sometimes wonder if things go unsaid.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/27 at 02:45 AM
FMS News, Hot Off the Press • (2) Comments • Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages