Missing the fizz: my long battle to understand the mysteries of ME

Is chronic fatigue syndrome physiological or psychological? The medical world remains divided - leaving millions unsure about the efficacy of the treatment they receive

The point at which I realised just how confounding some illnesses - and the human beings that suffer them - are was when, three years into a mysterious illness, someone told me that I could beat it by eating a clove of garlic each morning.

This person - not a medical professional, it is perhaps unnecessary to point out - swore by its efficacy. By this stage, I had tried all sorts of things to get better - yoga, meditation, kinesiology, hypnotherapy - none of which had worked. So I took the garlic suggestion with the pinch of salt it deserved and resumed my search for a cure elsewhere. Correspondingly, I began to sympathise with poor doctors. No wonder they have such a hard time treating people like me.