Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
A "Garbage Can" Diagnosis
Evidence of Our Disconnection from the Earth
Paul A. Goldberg, MPH,DC,DACBN
"Life is one process of getting tired" - Samuel
Butler, 1912]
We
all know what it is to feel fatigued occasionally. It is a normal
signal broadcast by the body to slow down and obtain sleep. For those
who are in a good state of health, a solid nights sleep will recharge
their batteries and return them to feeling top notch again. They awake
with a gleeful anticipation of the challenges of the day ahead and are
driven with an inner strength that seems to say "bring on the day!'"
The
above scenario, however, is not the case for everyone. For many, waking
in the morning brings on a sense of inadequacy and dread as they face
challenges they have no strength to mount the attack with. These
growing numbers of people in our population are in a chronic,
persistent, state of unrelenting fatigue. They find themselves
altering, on a daily basis, between tired, very tired and plain old
exhausted. Dragging themselves into the medical physician's office
these are the individuals who are being labeled with the medical
diagnosis of "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (C.F.S.).
Prior to "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"
At
least as far back as the eighteenth century, there are numerous
references to the etiology (cause) of fatigue and its role in disease,
George Miller Beard, an American Neurologist, popularized the idea that
nervous energy can become exhausted and in an 1869 article coined the
term "neurasthenia". The problem was characterized by digestive
problems, mental fatigue and mood changes. Beard hypothesized that the
problem was due to increasing technology which was taking its toll on
the individual's homeostasis. He mentioned inventions such as the steam
engine, telegraph, and others as putting strains on an individuals
total nervous energy pool'. The notion of lost nerve energy as playing
a vital role in disease was taken up with considerable enthusiasm by an
American founder of neurology, S. Weir Mitchell, who became a vocal
advocate of his "rest cure" required to restore the energy of the
nervous system and heal neurasthenia in these patients'. Numerous
explanations have arisen for chronic fatigue since then.
I Beard. G.M. Neurasthenia or Nervous
Exhaustion. Boston Med. SurgJ. 3:217 , 1869
2 Mitchel, S.W. Fat and Blood and How to Make
Them (2nd ed.) Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1882. Pg 27-32 |
