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As many sufferers know, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a difficult maladay to treat. The symptoms between patients varies widely, and the research field has had little success determining the cause of the syndrome. There are a variety of drug treatment options available, but for many of us, one of the hallmarks of CFS is our hypersensitivity to drugs, which means that every medication we try comes with an even worse side effect.

The technical definitition of CFS is a severe mental and physical exhaustion which is unrelieved by rest and that the symptoms are present for at least six months. The reality is that most patients also experience other symptoms such as muscle and/or joint pain, immune disregulation, digestive disturbances, poor body temperature control, depression, cognitive difficulty and short-memory loss. But one of the worst parts of CFS is that it's a hidden disorder, one that the general populace still doesn't understand. "Oh you're tired," they say with that raised eyebrow, as if you are a slacker or a malingerer. How do you explain to your boss that if you came in to work today, you'd spend the next three days dizzy and throwing up, unable to drive because you couldn't focus on the road ahead of you? Or what do you tell your boyfriend, who already thinks you're unreliable, that you have to cancel, again, because your body aches so badly that you have to stay cocooned under an electric blanket?

After trying all of the conventional treatments, my primary care doctor shrugged her shoulders and told me she just didn't know what else to do for me. She sent me to a specialist, who reviewed my case, reviewed the current literature and sought out current drug trials and presribed this and that, all to no benefit. Trying the multitude of different drugs was an assault all of its own, as my body never knew if it would go through a mood swing or a dizzy spell or some new side effect that I hadn't yet had the misfortune to experience. And finally she too looked at me and shook her head, saying she was stumped, and there was nothing else she could do.

So I began to do my own research. I read all of the books and studies on CFS I could find. I downloaded all of the scientific papers I could off of PubMed, and found some interesting information. For years scientists have tried to discover what may be causing CFS, and have postulated ideas from viral or bacerial infections to allergies and toxins, but nothing has been consistent in their

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