Listening to your Body – A Cautionary Tale

Article.
"
It’s 2019 and still very little is known about Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis (or ME for short).

It’s a medical condition that results in long-term fatigue and other symptoms that prohibit someone’s ability to carry out ordinary daily activities, often leaving him or her bed-bound or hospitalised for lengthy periods (sometimes years).

With very few proven treatments, and no reliable information, sufferers can be forgiven for losing hope. Especially after wading through the swamp of Internet self-help manuals to little avail.

For anyone who still thinks this is ‘the lazy man’s disease’ or ‘all in the mind’, I’ve recently watched two friends fall ill to this condition, and it ain’t pretty.

One such woman, Sophie Warner, is perhaps one of the most energetic and active go-getters I’ve ever met."

"
Sophie’s Recovery
It’s been two years since Sophie was hit with CFS/ME, and we’re glad to report that she’s made huge strides. In her own words, she’s ’90 per cent there’."

full article:
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/lifestyle/listening-to-your-body-a-cautionary-tale/09/01/

Athletes Burnout?

 

The end of the article posts a link here.

She says she had glandular fever, it can take a few years to recover back to normal health from PVFS.

 

there's a link at the end of the article, for the Optimum Health Clinic website, which seem to focus on psychology (neurolinguistic programming, emotional freedom technique, CBT etc) and tailored nutrition.

their 2012 research (n=138) had a 48% dropout rate at the 3 month follow up.

"However, these results must be viewed with caution as the allocation to groups was not randomised, there was no control group and the study suffered from high drop-out rates."

- - -

from a personal perspective, i've had relapsing remitting ME for decades, and successfully recovered from all but the last episode. for me, adequate rest, over a long time (3-24 months), was more effective than 'positive psychology'.

 

For me this brings up an important point. One of the most important messages to get across to the general public IMO is just this: there is such a thing as post viral fatigue. It can last longer than six months. People can get this and recover naturally (with rest?). *Only when it continues to not resolve might one consider ME.

And ME itself can be of a remitting relapsing nature. If the pubic were aware of this fact these articles would be rendered less relevant.

* I know that criteria generally state 6 months of fatigue for ME but I think this needs to be refined. One could have ME soon after an illness trigger but how to separate this out from PVFS or something else. I think guidelines should admit for so far not being able to differentiate so that either can be considered in the early stages and as time goes on ME might be a more likely possibility.