Sirotiak, Zoe · Work (Reading, Mass.) · 2023 · DOI
This article shares the personal story of a young woman who is also a physical therapist and developed ME/CFS after a COVID-19 infection. She describes how the condition dramatically changed her life and how healthcare providers, including rehabilitation specialists, often lack the knowledge needed to properly help ME/CFS patients. The author highlights that ME/CFS remains poorly understood and undertreated, with few proven treatments available.
This study is important because it bridges the perspective of both patient and clinician, illuminating critical gaps in healthcare provider knowledge about ME/CFS. With ME/CFS becoming more visible through long COVID awareness, training rehabilitation and medical professionals becomes urgent, and firsthand accounts like this can drive educational change and improve patient outcomes.
This personal narrative does not prove the prevalence of ME/CFS misdiagnosis, establish causal mechanisms of post-COVID ME/CFS, or demonstrate that rehabilitation training programs universally lack appropriate ME/CFS education. As a single case study, findings cannot be generalized to all ME/CFS patients or healthcare settings. The account reflects one person's experiences and may not represent broader patterns without supporting epidemiological data.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Sirotiak, Zoe (2023). My experience with ME/CFS and implications: A personal narrative.. Work (Reading, Mass.). https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-220487
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-sirotiak-2023-experience-cfs,
author = {Sirotiak, Zoe},
title = {My experience with ME/CFS and implications: A personal narrative.},
journal = {Work (Reading, Mass.)},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.3233/WOR-220487},
note = {PubMed: 36911961},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sirotiak-2023-experience-cfs},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/sirotiak-2023-experience-cfs
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