In addition to physicians and other clinical researchers, patients, and advocacy organizations actively seek effective treatments for both conditions.

Clinicians and researchers point out that listening carefully to patients and distinct discerning symptoms are important to identify COVID patients who have developed ME/CFS. Those symptoms are similar but not identical to symptoms of Long COVID. In the 2015 report, the IOM proposed a shortlist of symptoms that indicate a diagnosis of ME/CFS (see sidebar). Patients and clinicians will benefit from an increased understanding of ME/CFS and Long COVID and the relationship between the two illnesses, which are considered in many cases to be post-viral conditions triggered by infection. The IOM undertook the report to reevaluate diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS and develop a process for updating those criteria based on new research. Perhaps as many as 2 million or more Americans have ME/CFS, although most of them have not been diagnosed, according to a report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2015. She also consults on several research projects at Stanford University, including some with Professor Ronald Davis, PhD, director of the Stanford Genome Technology Center and ME/CFS researcher, whose son, Whitney, is severely ill with ME/CFS. Seltzer, diagnosed with ME/CFS in 2015, is Director of Scientific and Medical Outreach at #MEAction, an international nonprofit focused on education, research, and advocacy for people with ME/CFS. In a plenary session at the 14 th annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference, Seltzer explored the similarities and differences between Long COVID, ME/CFS, and other conditions that a viral infection may trigger. To better understand ME/CFS and its connection to Long COVID, Susan Carr, Senior Writer for ImproveDx, recently talked with Jaime Seltzer.

Cfs diagnosis