Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post, 20 August 2011
My illness gets overlooked
I have greatly enjoyed articles in the Health and Science section on efforts by frustrated patients and competent physicians who solve an array of mysterious illnesses. Except my illness: chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). I and many others suffer without much effective treatment or even understanding. There is little useful research and even less useful coverage in Health and Science.
The section’s Aug. 16 front page included an article on sports bras. I can’t tell you how important this subject is to me, a 42-year-old single man with ME/CFS. I’m so glad that better-fitting sports bras are on the way.
Those of us with ME/CFS are effectively prostrate by the side of the road, faint from low blood pressure, aching from an inflammatory immune response, exhausted yet unable to rest, injured in ways we don’t understand — and what do we have? A long string of doctors, counselors, well-meaning friends and uninformed relatives telling us to cheer up. What we lack lately are useful articles in Health and Science.
Please consider covering ME/CFS intelligently.
Joseph D. Landson, Burke
Nice one!