However, much of this focused on the idea that CFS was a psychosomatic illness caused by burnout or malingering. In 1990, CFS received a lot of attention in the mainstream media. This name was eventually chosen above more medical sounding names because it was claimed that there was not substantial and definitive proof of one specific cause of the illness. So in 1988, the term Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was adopted, and is, in the USA, still used by the majority of medical professionals.
However, none of these names were really adequate, most of them missing certain vital elements of the illness. Each of these names was chosen to forefront certain aspects of the illness considered important by those proposing it. For the next few years, across several different conferences about this illness, several different names were used: Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus (CEBV), Epidemic Neuromyasthenia, Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS). These tended to occur in so called ‘yuppies’ (‘young upwardly mobile professionals’), and the lovely, rather derogatory name ‘yuppie flu’ comes from these outbreaks. Yuppie Flu and Lake Tahoeįrom 1984 onwards, there were continual cases showing the same so-called ‘unexplained symptoms’ in large numbers of patients in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and in areas of New York. This name has continued to come in and out of use ever since, although its use is more widespread in Europe than in the other places.
It was at this point that one of the more detailed diagnostic criterion was created. The name ME was created here to explain the effects of the illness on the muscles, nerves and brain.
Cfs coffee lake nona free#
This outbreak caused around 300 members of the hospital staff at the Royal Free to become sick with, once more, similar, but unexplained symptoms. This came after a large outbreak in the UK, known as the Royal-Free outbreak. It wasn’t until 1955, that the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis was introduced. These outbreaks led to the creation of several different names for ME/CFS including Akureyri’s Disease, and Atypical Poliomyelitis. Both of these caused many people to become chronically ill, and this, at the time, was put down to the patients having post-polio sickness (poliomyelitis) but was later discovered to not quite match: whilst there was muscle weakness, it was not muscle wasting as it is in Polio. A couple of these were an outbreak at Los Angeles County General Hospital, USA, in 1934, and one in Akureyri, Iceland in 1948. Sound familiar? A handful of epidemicsīetween this time and 1955/1956, there were several epidemics that resulted in outbreaks, particularly in nurses and doctors, with symptoms of ME/CFS. However, this term fell out of use mainly due to a large divide within the medical community about whether this was actually a physical illness or not. It also seemed to be triggered by infections. This illness seemed to disproportionately target women, and it was characterised by much the same symptoms as ME/CFS: fatigue, exercise intolerance, headache, gastrointestinal issues etc. There is also a potential connection to ‘hysteria’, which, in the context of female pain makes an interesting study and is a post that I will write one day! But it was only in 1869 that it became a more well-known illness, under the name Neurasthenia, so-called by Psychiatrist George Beard. It has been suggested that Florence Nightingale actually suffered from this illness. ME/CFS has been traced back to as early as 1750 and a disease known as Febricula (or Little Fever) which was hard to diagnose and shared many symptoms with ME/CFS.
To demonstrate just a few of the different names, here is a brief history of some of the key outbreaks of ME/CFS. And what better time to talk about the history of ME/CFS and its name, than in ME awareness month! The different evolutions of ME/CFS But why does one illness have so many different names? And why does the name of the illness matter? Well, like almost every other aspect of ME/CFS, its history is filled with controversy – not least about which name to use. What do all of these have in common? In fact, they are all names for the same illness. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”Ĭhronic Epstein Barr Virus, Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
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