Yy to all points made!! I had the same symptoms as my psa just without obvious swelling for years, those that correlate hugely with cfs. I remember lying in bed unable to get up when me and dh were first living together and thinking "this must be ME, it is not normal", but too used to being told i was a drama queen and hypochondriac by everyone to even go to the doctor. It was only after ds2 that it became obvious that it was in fact psa. Psa in the absence of obvious swelling causes the same sort of symptoms as a million other illnesses, as does my hms too! So were my earlier problems caused by the psa that just hadnt made itself obvious yet? And how about the hms? Thats been there forever, just not diagnosed until i was already seeing a rheumy for the psa. I've had pain in my one knee forever, now i know about hms i can see that it is because my knee bends backwards!
But (getting to my point!) if its taken me 28 years to get this far, as someone whos quite clued up on the medical side, to convince people that it wasnt made up. How can it be right to write off everyone with cfs as it being in their head, even if it turns out it is? If it one day turns out to be caused by a fault in the brain chem, locking up someone with it on a psych ward seems no different to me to locking up someone born with the wrong gender. Not sure if thats a good comparision, but hope it explains my point :)