So what causes M.E.? personally I think the person who comes up with the answer to that one is going to find themselves very famous overnight. Theres lots of theories about what causes M.E. but I don't think anybody really knows. Some ideas of thought are that it is a virus already present in peoples bodies just waiting for something to trigger it off, could this be why M.E. seems to start after some sort of illness ? It seems logical and makes a bit of sense but it is still just a theory.

Another thought that seems to come up more and more often is that it is caused by the "Coxsackie virus", now I'm no Dr so I'm afraid I can give you no more information other than that, you can though click on the word Coxsackie and this will take you to an on-line medical dictionary and that will tell you more about this virus. It's not a lot of information, there are books for that sort of thing. But the Coxsackie virus does appear to show up in a lot of M.E. patients and that possibly takes us back to the first theory, so you can see a pattern emerging there.

One of the annoying (speaking for myself) theories is that it is a psychological illness, but as far as I can make out it is usually only psychologist (people who listen too much without really listening) who have that line of thought. They may think they are right but I don't think anyone who has M.E. will ever entertain that thought. Not because they don't want to be tagged with the label, but purely because all the symptoms are physical. Yes you may need psychological help at some time when you have M.E. but this is not the cause of the illness, it is more likely to be the result of the illness, it's very hard to cope with being fit and healthy one day, then the next day your whole world collapses. Not knowing what the hell is wrong with you, not seeming to be getting any answers, feeling that nobody is listening, the worry, the anxiety, have I got some terminal illness ? how will I cope with no work ? how will I cope with no money ? you get depressed some even feel suicidal. So yes it may appear to be psychological, but it's only after you have endured it for a while, and it all gets on top of you. It is not the cause.

So is it a "modern" illness ? Well not going by a couple of the books I have read, they at times talk about localised epidemics around the middle of the last century. I don't know if I can agree, at least on these parts with those books, but hopefully their authors did do proper research before putting pen to paper. My cynicism comes from the fact that M.E. is not like a cold or stomach bug that you can pass on to other people, so how could you get a localised epidemic?. Maybe these people did have some sort of illness that M.E. emulates but I don't think it was M.E. and if it was, why are we not more aware of it, after all an epidemic is not something that is usually forgotten about. Or was it just a case of "we cant find anything that's written in our medical books, so there must be nothing wrong with you" syndrome. This line of thought unfortunately still seems to apply in modern times, in some places. Gulf War Syndrome springs instantly to mind here, the startling thing is when one hears somebody telling their symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, it sounds like they are describing the exact same symptoms that many M.E. sufferers have. Are the powers that be aware of this ? probably not. Not because they haven't been told, but because it's much easier for them to stick their head's in the sand and hope it goes away.

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