Exclusion method

Dr. Buhwald admits that there are doctors who reluctantly recognize and diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome, although this is now much less common than some time ago. She also admits that it is difficult to diagnose. One of the reasons is that doctors very often hear from patients about extreme fatigue. But only a few fall under the criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, developed by more than a dozen experts in conjunction with specialists from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.
In accordance with the developed criteria, patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are people suffering from debilitating fatigue (or quickly tired) for at least six months, whose performance has decreased at least by half. This should be excluded (with the help of their doctors) any mental illness, such as depression, which has similar symptoms, various infectious diseases, hormonal disorders, for example, associated with dysfunction of the thyroid gland, drug abuse, exposure to toxic substances. They must have at least 8 of the following 11 symptoms persistently or again and again repeated for six months or longer.
Cold symptoms or a mild fever.
Sore throat.
Swollen or painful lymph glands.
Unclear general muscular weakness.
Soreness in the muscles.
Severe fatigue within 24 hours after doing physical work.
Headaches, different from those that you have experienced before.
Pain in the joints without swelling or redness.
Forgetfulness, excessive irritability, inability to concentrate or depression.
Sleep disorder
The onset of symptoms within hours or days.
A disease is diagnosed if six of these symptoms are present, plus sore throat, swollen or painful nodules in the neck or armpits.