A newer member of staff commented on it, saying that I look like a completely different person, it was around 6 months previously that my problems really started.

I was constantly tired and feeling sick, ill, lethargic (and working about 10 - 12 hr days often 6 - 7 days a week). GP said I had a virus. I'd go back a month later and was told I must have caught another virus.

Then they discovered I had some weird stomach bug called "Helicobacter pylori" and put me on a mega strong dosage of two antibiotics, and my tiredness then got a lot worse.

And of course when you’re tired, you’re snappy (not talking about what I've described earlier about me loosing it)

And I was having more and more days off sick, and also finding myself unable to take my bosses silly arguments without snapping back at him.

In the end, when totally exhausted, I wrote his boss an email saying what I thought of my boss, and of course was forced to resign.

I took a few months break then got another job, in my first year I had 33 days off sick. After two years, (again permanently exhausted beyond belief, going home and collapsing until bed time) I resigned and walked out when completely exhausted.

Went back to my GP, was told I was depressed, I said that I was p***ed off with constantly being tired and ill, not depressed.

I was already on Seroxat due to me getting migraines, had them for years where half my face would go numb and they would last days, was under a neurologist, they tried everything and the only thing that worked was antidepressants, that made them last about 3 hrs rather than 3 days.

GP upped dosage as I was depressed ,and also gave me some other strong things that spaced me out.

I kept gong back, I kept getting told I had another virus.

Bills went being paid.

My wife said she thought I had yuppy flu (as it was called at the time) and she said I obviously cant work at the moment, so we made the joint decision to move 200 miles away from friends and family to an area of the country where the cost of living was much cheaper, hence we could buy a house on just my wife’s salary.

We moved, new GP, told me my problem was I was lazy????.

I complained to the medical whoever, they said they like to get things sorted between patient and GP, but GP didn’t want me anymore. So they found me a new GP.

New GP referred me to hospital where I was diagnosed with CFS/ME. I saw a specialist once, all the rest of the time was a yearly review with an occupational therapist (and even that stopped for a few years)

I wrote letter after letter to the health minister, my NHS trust etc saying I felt the CFS/ME tag is a copout. I'm not saying it doesn’t exit, it's just that I know three other people who have it, and all four of our symptoms are completely different except for the tiredness.

I woke up, puffy faced, would go down stairs, sit in the chair then my wife would wake me up when she got home, months would go by when I couldn’t leave the house, and at the end of a year, there might have been 2 weeks where I felt totally fit and well, the other 50- weeks I just existed. I couldn’t read 1/2 a page of a book and take it in, my short term memory was almost non existent etc.

Whereas one person I know gets bruises and looks like she's been beaten black and blue.

I said that if I look at my tiredness, there's thousands of illnesses/things that list that as a side effect and I kind of felt they do a few basic tests and if they can’t work out what’s wrong, throw us all under the same CFS/ME umbrella and forget about us.

Fell on deaf ears.

Due to my inactivity, while my knees hurt like hell, I didn't bother going to the GP about them.

Hiatus Hernia was getting worse, I was sleeping propped up and waking up unable to breath, felt like fluid in my lungs, would have an hour long coughing fit, would be no white left in my eyes, would be purple instead. And I would loose my voice for an hour or so.

GP refused to refer me, said it had already been diagnosed so there's no point wasting their budget.