Letter: Mind, body and chronic fatigue

Mind, body and chronic fatigue

Sir: Well said, Yvette Cooper ("Tired of all this miserable ME stuff", 4 October).We too have had some "help" for our mild but relapsed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that has demoralised rather than encouraged us. We have also faced the problem that laymen think the term "chronic fatigue" means that you should be bedridden through exhaustion. They then conclude that if you're not, it's all in your mind.

There seems little doubt that CFS is an illness that affects and is affected by both physiological and psychological processes. It causes widely differing symptoms. Some people, particularly adolescents, are sorely debilitated. Others, like us, cope for years with milder symptoms that ebb and flow.

The problems for the medical profession of diagnosis and treatment are particularly acute. But explaining the condition and getting supportive action from officialdom, employers and even well-intentioned friends is doubly difficult.

Until the causes and cures of CFS are understood, we have to take care to present what we do know as lucidly as possible, both to sustain the sufferers and to educate those who are in a position to help or hinder.

MARY PIMM

NIK WOOD

London E9