The Syndrome of chronic fatigue (SFC) also called in the past encefalomielitis miálgica, and for that now there is recommended the combined name EM/SFC (Encefalopatía Miálgica/Síndrome of Chronic Fatigue) it is a rare illness. His principal characteristic is to feel a big fatigue and symptoms related to this one. And it provokes an extreme weariness and pain with the physical effort.

Diagnosis

The standards for the diagnosis of the syndrome of chronic fatigue have been defined by the Center for the Control of Illnesses (CDC) and in the called “documents of consensus of Canada of the year 2006 ″, where a protocol is defined in the rules for the detection, diagnosis and pursuit of the SFC. This syndrome was identified in the Anglo-Saxon countries in the middle of the 80s. The World Organization of the Health considers it to be a serious neurological illness and appears in the American list of new infectious illnesses, appellants and resistant to the medicines.

The above mentioned standards include:

• Asthenia (weariness) intense and easy tendency to tire easily, which it does not reduce with the night, enclosed rest without having realized physical effort
• Generally sudden beginning, sometimes after a picture similar to a flu. Also it can appear after a glandular fever or other viral illnesses
• Also it studies with disorientation, losses of short-term memory, confusion and irritability (affectation neuro-cognictiva)
• Disorders of the sleep: I dream not repairer and hipersomnia.
• Muscular pain.
• Pharyngitis mialgica (sore throat).
• Pain with the palpación of lymphatic ganglions of neck or armpits.
• Light fever (38,3rd or less).
• Headaches.
• Photophobia (hypersensitivity to the light).
• Duration of at least six months, being able to persist years.

Symptomatology

The symptomatology is variable as for his grade of severity and temporary presentation. There are cases in which the symptoms disappear during some time. It is known that the syndrome of chronic fatigue is not infectious, and the laboratory tests are of scarce utility, although poisonous components have been detected in some patients. The predominance and the intolerance to big variety of chemical substances of many patients is named “a multiple chemical sensibility (SQM)”.

So called fibromialgia is usually much tied to another rheumatic illness and/or to the Multiple Chemical Syndrome.

Predominance

At present more than 5 % of the world population endures these illnesses, being the proportion from 1 to 10 of the SFC on the fibromialgia.

On June 20, 2006, in Great Britain, one declared a decease to caused by this illness. The victim was a 32-year-old woman, Sophia Mirza, who for 6 years endured the illness and fought so that they were recognizing it as a physical and not mental illness. One declared like cause of death a renal mistake caused by dehydration; although also inflammation was observed in the spinal cord and changes in his back ganglion.