For the last couple of years I've been working on the assumption that I have chronic fatigue syndrome, and I thought my doctor was too. But this week I found out that my doctor has just been stringing me along, and she actually thinks my primary diagnosis is depression.
So, do I actually have chronic fatigue syndrome according to the official criteria? Well that question is made much more complex by the fact that there is no one agreed upon set of criteria, and in fact the major criteria in use are vastly different. The three major sets of criteria used currently are the Oxford criteria, the Fukuda (or CDC) definition and the Canadian guidelines.
