Your friends are drifting away because you don't have the energy to go out to dinner. And the explanation that you're too tired has worn thin. You're taking loads of sick time, and your boss plainly thinks you're a flake. You've been to the doctor, but he thinks you have depression. You see another doctor, who orders test after test, but she can't find any specific disease that would account for the way you feel.
Nobody offers help.
Well, almost nobody. But there is no cure, no treatments that work consistently to alleviate symptoms, no easy lab tests to tell if you have it. Nonetheless, researchers are chipping away at the mystery at a slow but steady pace. About 400 of them met last month in Seattle at the American Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome's fifth international conference. No breakthroughs were announced, but there were tantalizing hints of progress.