Common symptoms in ME/CFS

Common symptoms in ME/CFS include post-exertional malaise, multiple types of fatigue, and a range of neurological, cardiovascular, energy metabolism and endocrine symptoms.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is often referred to as ME/CFS as it is clear there are common onsets and symptoms shared by both the disease ME and the symptoms that define CFS.

Symptom recognition
The DePaul Symptom Questionnaire can be used to assess symptoms of both M.E. and CFS. The Canadian Consensus Criteria (Appendix 4) also contains an extensive list of possible symptoms. The severity of illness and overall health can be assessed using the SF-36 health survey.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Jason et al. found these symptoms were the most common among people who met the Fukuda criteria, which are the symptoms normally used to diagnose in the US and UK. [[:File:Common_ChronicFatigueSyndrome_Symptoms.png|

* Required symptom, can be mild ]]

* Required symptom, can be mild

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis diagnosis requires more symptoms than Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis.

People with M.E. typically meet the CFS criteria as well, and were found to have more severe symptoms and reduced functioning overall.



Castro-Marrero et al. 2017
Comorbidity in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study
 * 1757 Spanish subjects who met both the 1994 CDC/Fukuda definition and Canadian Consensus Criteria for CFS/ME. Table 2 gives prevelance of each ME/CFS symptom in the Canadian Consensus Criteria

Jason et al. 2016
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4125561/ Are Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome different illnesses? A preliminary analysis.]
 * Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (International Consensus Criteria) symptoms are compared with symptoms of patients meeting the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Fukuda criteria but not the M.E. criteria. Those meeting the M.E. criteria were also found to meet the CFS criteria, and to have more severe symptoms.

Jason et. al 2014
Examining case definition criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and myalgic encephalomyelitis
 * 236 patients completed the DePaul Symptom Questionnaire, rating the frequency and severity of 54 symptoms, compared to controls.

de Becker et al. 2010
A definition-based analysis of symptoms in a large cohort of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome 1578 CFS patients fulfilled the Fukuda criteria (called the "CFS group") and 951 (60.3% of the CFS group) fulfilled the Holmes criteria. The Holmes definition was found to be better than the Fukuda at differentiated CFS patients from the patients with Chronic Fatigue without CFS.
 * A study of 2073 patients complaining of chronic fatigue (CF) in Brussels. Table 1 and Table 2 show the how many patients had each symptom according to whether they met the Fukuda criteria, the Holmes criteria or had chronic fatigue without CFS.

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 * What is M.E? - Invest in M.E. Reseach