Chronic Fatigue No Longer Seen as ‘Yuppie Flu’

NY Times ^ | July 17, 2007 | DAVID TULLER

[Cogadh na Sith]

“I’m tired and stupid all the time.” Said a tired and stupid old liberal lady in Los Gatos, CA.

[Axenolith]

Those must have been the weak ones...

Seriously, people dealt with what they were handed then. There is though, a lot of ailments like asthma and chronic fatigue et. al. that I’m more inclined to believe are primarily caused by inactivity and isolation from the environment

[Patriotic1]

I think people are more vocal about things now because medicine has advanced to the point where much suffering can be alleviated. That, or it has to do with importing food from China.

[Fawnn]

Typical: The NYT gets it wrong.

The article is about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The headline refers to “chronic fatigue.” Two separate and distinct diagnoses.

[Ditter]

Didn’t you read this thread and all the people who were active and even athletic and still came down with chronic fatigue syndrome? Are they lying?

I had childhood asthma my brother age 60 still has it. I can assure you it is not caused by isolation from the environment or from living a sterile life.

[hinckley buzzard]

Six months after starting treatment, Ms. Flowers said, she was able to go snowboarding and take yoga and ballet classes. “Now I pace myself, but I’m probably 75 percent of normal,” she said.

We'll know she's "100% of normal" when she knocks off the yuppie crapola and goes back to work.

[eddiespaghetti]

IMHO, both CFS and fibromyalgia started to get widely noticed in the 1980’s, when doctors started to rely almost exclusively on one lab test to determine whether someone had hypothyroidism and/or whether the dosage of thyroid replacement was adequate.

Prior to that, doctors looked at and treated the symptoms: chronic fatigue, depression, rapid and intractable weight gain, “brain fog,” dysmenorrhea, frequent miscarriages, etc.

I heartily recommend the web site thyroid.about.com for anyone interested in (or afflicted with) any of this stuff.

es

[One-Four-Five]

What a bunch of extremely clever comedians on this thread. The general level of the responses of the naysayers is far lazier than people diagnosed correctly with CFS.

They should try it sometime.

[Scotswife]

“There is though, a lot of ailments like asthma and chronic fatigue et. al. that I’m more inclined to believe are primarily caused by inactivity and isolation from the environment”

I certainly was not in isolation and I’ve been athlete my whole life.

I hope it isn’t something you ever have to deal with.

[Axenolith]

I certainly was not in isolation and I’ve been athlete my whole life.

So? Then that probably makes you in the minority. Clearly things such as asthma have increased dramatically against the grain of what the media and certain factions would love to be the causes. They cite to the heavens that it's air pollution and second hand smoke, when the air quality has improved dramatically and in direct opposition to the rate of increase in sufferers.

Granted, there may be a component population of CFS that has a cause rooted in some pathogen, but I'm going to place it's "being genetic" WAY down the list of probable causes, if merely because the current social mindset is to try to forge some type of genetic link to everthing (alcoholism, homosexuality, etc...) so people can be victims and it can get government funding. From a natural selection standpoint, that just doesn't hold water.

I hope it isn’t something you ever have to deal with.

I hope so to, and additionally that by having it, you don't think it lends any more credence to your points in a discussion of the public policy ramifications of it, or that by not having it it detracts from mine...

[Scotswife]

“So? Then that probably makes you in the minority.”

“probably?”
And you know this how?

Do you have proof that people are living in isolation?

While diagnosis of asthma has increased - part of that is that the diagnosis itself has changed.
What used to be chalked up to bad allergies or chronic cough is often now given the diagnosis of asthma.

“Granted, there may be a component population of CFS that has a cause rooted in some pathogen, but I’m going to place it’s “being genetic” WAY down the list of probable causes, if merely because the current social mindset is to try to forge some type of genetic link to everthing (alcoholism, homosexuality, etc...) so people can be victims and it can get government funding. From a natural selection standpoint, that just doesn’t hold water”

Ok - I get it.
You don’t like the current theories because you think people have an agenda.
So, you automatically distrust them and form your own theories - based on what?
So - it seems you have an agenda yourself.

“I hope so to, and additionally that by having it, you don’t think it lends any more credence to your points in a discussion of the public policy ramifications of it, or that by not having it it detracts from mine...”

I think it is easy for those who haven’t dealt with the problem to dismiss it and those who suffer from it.
Look through this thread and you will learn that people suffering from CFS are lazy, unmotivated couch potatoes.

This is coming from folks, who I assume, never had to deal with it.

The truth is that you don’t know what causes it. I don’t know what causes it.
I DO know that my particular case was not caused by laziness - isolation- or lack of exercise.
It doesn’t appear it was caused by genetics.
I have no way of knowing if it was caused by a pathogen.

My neurologist shrugged his shoulders and said it may have been a strange virus.