WASHINGTON — Doctors are getting a new way to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome — and influential government advisers say it’s time to replace that hated name, too, to show it’s a real and debilitating disease.
The Institute of Medicine on Tuesday called on doctors to do a better job diagnosing an illness that may affect up to 2.5 million Americans, and it set five main symptoms as the criteria. And the IOM’s choice of a new name — systemic exertion intolerance disease, or SEID — reflects a core symptom.
“This is not a figment of their imagination,” said Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, who chaired the IOM panel. “These patients have real symptoms. They deserve real care.”
Between 836,000 and 2.5 million Americans suffer from the disorder, and most have no formal diagnosis, the report estimated. Diagnosis requires three core symptoms: fatigue and reduction in pre-illness levels of activity that last for more than six months; the post-exertion worsening; and sleep that is unrefreshing despite exhaustion.
