The Doctor's Guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Understanding, Treating, and Living with Cfids

Baptized by the press in 1985 as the ``Yuppie Flu,'' Chronic Fatigue/Immune Dysfunction Syndrome, otherwise known as CFIDS, is a bewilderingly little understood disease which combines severe fatigue with the presence of immune system markers. Bell, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, seeks to ``provide an overview of the current knowledge of CFIDS, including history, signs and symptoms, clinical course, laboratory findings and recent advances.'' The book is organized into five parts: an overview, a description of the disease, diagnostic tests, treatment options and the search for a cause. The author estimates that millions of Americans suffer from CFIDS, 30% of them children. The disease is still considered one of exclusion--a diagnosis of CFIDS is only considered when all other diseases which may cause the same groups of symptoms are ruled out. And diagnosis is difficult; the symptoms are misleading and may range from fatigue or exhaustion, headaches and muscle pain to depression, short-term memory loss and difficulty concentrating. Bell describes the hardships patients encounter when they seek medical help due to the lack of information currently available about CFIDS. He also recognizes the frustration of physicians and researchers who want to alleviate the suffering but have not yet found a way. (Feb.)