Articles

Originally published in: U.S. News

Christine Jamieson was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late June after rushing to California from Washington, D.C., to visit her sick father.

Her initial symptoms were mild, like she had a cold. But Jamieson, 36, says on her 13th day of sickness, the fatigue hit.

"The word 'fatigue' can be very misleading. I think that most people think that fatigue feels like sleep deprivation or exhaustion after exercise," she says. For Jamieson, fatigue meant she could barely move, lacking the energy to even shift from sitting up to lying down. Six months later, among the complex and myriad health concerns Jamieson has experienced since her initial bout with COVID-19, she was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS.

Now, she looks back on her positive COVID-19 test as "the day my life completely changed."

ME/CFS – a condition characterized by profound and disabling fatigue, with symptoms that also can include dizziness and problems concentrating – has found its way into the discourse surrounding long COVID, which is marked by symptoms of illness that persist or occur long after an initial case of COVID-19. Between 836,000 and 2.5 million people in the U.S are estimated to have ME/CFS, and research has shown the condition is more likely to occur in women.

Notably, top medical experts have pointed out similarities between ME/CFS and some symptoms reported by long COVID sufferers. And ME/CFS patients and advocates have seized the moment, offering their support and organizing power to long COVID patients, while also hoping research into long COVID will yield answers for them, too.

"My hope would be that as we study long COVID, and look at those comparisons with chronic fatigue syndrome, we'll learn a lot about both of them," National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins recently told members of Congress.

Collins added that the hope would be to find treatments for both, "because there's lots and lots of people with chronic fatigue syndrome who are still waiting for something that's going to help them."