A Vexing Enigma

New insights confront chronic fatigue syndrome

Laurel Wright was 52 years old when her well-being plummeted. That May, she began to feel inexplicably tired, day after day. “By September,” she says, “I crashed and burned.” She developed debilitating exhaustion, severe insomnia, muscle aches, and what she calls “brain fog.” Whenever she overexerted herself, aches and pains would spread throughout her body, sending her to the bed or the couch for several days at a stretch.