Ada,

I'm sorry to hear about your husbands passing. You have my condolences.

(((((Ada)))))))


Honestly - most doctors have no idea how to tell the difference.

Wendy - the only bloodwork that I know of for CFS is to see if the patient has active mono. If a patient has chronic fatigue without active mono and without sleep apnea or other direct causes, then usually the diagnosis of CFS is made.

There are a few blood tests that are not for CFS but can help diagnose CFS -- for example, patients with CFS often have a low ESR, but patients with fibromyalgia can often have a high ESR, so if a patient has CFS and FMS their ESR can be normal which utterly confuses the doctors!

A few doctors have tried to make conclusions between some virus and CFS and doing a blood test for that virus (I forget the name of the virus) but (as far as I know) they have not made a positive conclusion yet.



Here are some websites about FMS and CFS together and how to try to tell the difference -

http://www.arthritis.org/resources/n..._fibro_cfs.asp

http://www.fmnetnews.com/pages/criteria.html

For me, I put my foot down and told the doctor that I didn't care what the cause of my fatigue is, I just wanted to stop being tired all the time!! The doctor then started me on Provigil, and I feel soooo much better.

I hope that helps Ada,
Liz