Why are you unwell?

If you’re here, it’s probably a CFS flare.

UPDATE: 2026 has been a tough year, with a 3-month flare earlier in the year and now another one at the end of August.

Genesis

This all started when I got pneumonia back in 2018, leading to a golf-ball-sized pulmonary abscess that saw me briefly admitted to hospital. For about 24 hours, they thought it was something much worse, and told me so- a story so crazy that I’ll save it for another time.

Thankfully, it was just an abscess, but that’s a serious thing in itself, and to be sure it wasn’t the other thing they first told me it was, put me on a 6-month outpatient program, with monthly X-rays and lung function check-ups until giving me the all clear.

Some time after getting over the pneumonia, I developed a range of strange fatigue-based symptoms that really impacted me and my everyday life. This was eventually diagnosed by three doctors as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

Do I actually have CFS? There are no definitive tests for it, so it’s hard to know, but it is diagnosed by excluding other illnesses. Eight years later, in 2026, I’m still dealing with it, so it’s a significant problem for me, and I truly believe that I have CFS based on all of my own research and how it affects me.

Symptoms

ME/CFS is a doozy, with a range of tedious, recurring symptoms. From Wikipedia:

The hallmark feature of ME/CFS is a worsening of symptoms after exertion. People wake up exhausted and stiff rather than restored after a night’s sleep.

Nobody knows what causes it, though it commonly appears after pneumonia, exactly as I had. There are conflicting opinions about whether CFS is a disease, a syndrome, or even whether sufferers in fact have one of several other diseases with similar symptoms. Whatever it is, though, as all sufferers know, it’s very real and incredibly frustrating to live with.

This raises another point about arthritis: I’ve got arthritis from age, genetics, and a life spent running. Those symptoms mix with those of ME/CFS.

Effects

I can feel good for months, and then just slightly overdo it and be wiped out by whole-body fatigue, aches and pains for months. A bit too much at the gym or in the garden, and that can trigger it. At their worst, flare-ups prevent me from doing anything much, which is truly miserable and incredibly frustrating for someone intrinsically active and highly motivated.

Vs Tiredness

You may wonder: “Mike, I get tired too; what’s the problem?” As a long-distance runner since single-digit age in Little Athletics until arthritis stopped me at about 50, a marathon and half-marathon runner, and a science teacher, I know something about effort and exhaustion. CFS symptoms are unlike any normal or even extreme ‘tiredness’ I’ve experienced.

Take your worst tiredness, add a hangover, sore hips and neck, headache, grogginess, multiply that a few times and then experience it for a month or more at a time, and then live with that for 8 years and counting.

Most try to fight CFS, at least initially, but one quickly learns that fighting CFS is futile and only makes a flare-up worse and last longer. I try to push through, but I’ve learned that when it really kicks in, to let my body try to recover. This year (2026) has been particularly challenging, with two flare-ups so far that have cost me many thousands in lost earnings. More than anything else, they are just incredibly frustrating.