Question

The MEA often refers to ME as being a chronic and complex multisystem disease that involves the brain, muscle and immune system. Can you explain what this means in simple language.

Answer

The simplest way to understand why we use this description, especially when talking to the media, is to break it down into the various components.

Chronic refers to the fact that for most people ME/CFS is a long-term illness with full and sustained recovery only occurring in around 5%.

Complex and multi-system because, unlike many other serious medical conditions, it involves interactions between various body organs and systems – in particular the way in which the body creates energy in cellular structures called the mitochondria, the immune system and various parts of the brain and nervous system. This multi-system component helps to explain why people with ME/CFS have a large number of symptoms affecting various body systems.

Most diseases only involve one system – which means that they normally come under a medical specialty such as cardiology, neurology or rheumatology. So one of the problems for people who have a multisystem disease like ME/CFS is that they don’t have a medical specialty that they are covered by – which can have very negative effects on obtaining good clinical care.

See Also: Is ME a post-acute infection syndrome (PAIS)?, Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or Encephalopathy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Long Covid, Nomenclature: ME/CFS

More Information:

• The ME Association has written an information booklet called ‘What you need to know about ME/CFS’, which includes explanations of what we know about the underlying disease process.