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Thank you for asking, and sorry to be so late replying on this one, and interrupting the flow of politics. No cure. Doctors and patients work on symptom management. Some patients spontaneously partially recover, after an average of 3 years. Since I'm 13 years into my really bad phase, and deteriorating, that's not likely to be me. Some patients wind up hospitalized with feeding tubes down their throats, unable to turn themselves or bear any light or sound in the room, or the weight of sheets over them. Latest figures give a 10% death rate from ME/CFS.

There are a suite of medical tests that can be done, positive results are common among ME/CFS patients. For instance they are very likely to have a flattened T-wave (the left ventricle of their heart is not working, their circulation is only maintained by their the right ventricle sucking blood) and lowered blood volume, some patients have 40% of their blood just "missing" for some reason. Patients are likely to have extremely constricted capillaries, and their bodies be working anaerobically, instead of aerobically, which hurts. The lack of oxygen makes it very hard to move, their mitochondria are not functioning properly to generate energy either, again making it extremely hard to move, and if they push things past the limits of their mitochondria they start sustaining large amounts of permanent chromosomal damage. One of the focuses of investigation is that most ME/CFS patients have extensive damage to the Brain Stem, discovered on autopsy, very similar to that shown in Post-Polio Syndrome. Since your Brain Stem runs all the automatic processes in the body, it's not surprising that pretty much all the organs and functions of the body are compromised to a greater or lesser extent in ME/CFS patients. Many ME/CFS specialists think that one virus or a suite of viruses are the ultimate cause of the illness.

Many contemporary specialists describe the illness to their patients as a contagious virus, that functions like Polio in damaging the brain stem, and that functions like chickenpox, in that you are only infectious for the first couple of weeks, but that after that the virus stays in your body, and can reactivate, causing the health problems that it does. I say this last on my own experience with 3 different specialists (I had to keep finding a new one, as my ability to travel outside the house contracted over time) and the experience of fellow patients that I know or have known. If you actually read the medical literature it's a little messier than that, as it hasn't been pinned down to one virus yet.