Only a couple dozen doctors specialize in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Now their knowledge could be crucial to treating millions more patients.

(Brian Vastag) What the researchers found as they took our blood, harvested our stem cells, ran tests to check our brain function, put us through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), strapped us to tilt tables, ran tests on our heart and lungs, and more could have helped prepare doctors everywhere for the avalanche of long COVID cases that’s come alongside the pandemic.

Instead, we are all still waiting for answers.

The emergence of long COVID was no surprise to researchers who study ME/CFS, because the same set of symptoms has arisen after many other viruses.

As experts probe the connection to an often-overlooked chronic illness called ME/CFS, patients new and old urge people to recognize how life-altering it can be.

Long COVID’s symptoms seem to match those of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a condition that millions have suffered from for decades.

Many long-haulers had only mild or moderate COVID to start, and were never sick enough to be hospitalized. But their bodies responded to the virus in a way that has left them with prolonged illness and even disability.

As more similarities emerge between long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome, researchers are taking notice. And as Su-Ling Goh reports, people with chronic fatigue (or ME) are grateful the new disorder is shedding light on their mysterious condition.

Episode description: More than 10 million people across the world are living with the long-term consequences of COVID-19. But the crushing fatigue experienced by so many with long COVID—the postexertion malaise—is not new. People have lived with postviral illness and postexertion malaise, and they’ve faced stigma and harm for decades. Sabrina Poirier and Dr Simon Décary are working tirelessly to ensure the mistakes and harms inflicted on so many people living with postviral illness are not repeated for people living with long COVID.

For more, please read the recent JOSPT editorial: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2021.0106

Sabrina Poirier and Dr. Simon Décary are members of our research network and the ICanCME Trainee Development & Medical Education Working Group and welcome your feedback.