Tag Archives: Chronic fatigue

10 Things to Know After Diagnosis of ME/CFS

Recently I received a comment from someone who has just been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. They asked me “Is there anything that you would recommend for someone in the early stages of ME? Is there anything you wish you had known in the beginning that would have helped in the long run?” Thank you for your questions Venture Beneath The Skies. Here are my top 10 things to know in the early stages of ME/CFS:

  1. Give yourself time – ME/CFS takes time to heal. It does not just appear out of nowhere. Ill health has built up gradually over time due to poor diet, unresolved emotional traumas and many other lifestyle factors. It requires time to peel away the layers of the past that brought you to this dis-ease and regain your health.
  2. Get support – it is a good idea to get some support from your family who can care for you while you are ill and give you emotional and financial support. You may have to move back home to live with your parents. You could apply for disability living allowance.
  3. Don’t rely on doctors – doctors do not understand the holistic nature of ME/CFS which is an illness of body/mind/emotions/soul. They will give you drugs which will suppress the symptoms but will not treat the root cause of the illness. You need to spend time doing the inner healing work.
  4. Visit a nutritionist – there are often gut problems such as Candida overgrowth in ME/CFS which can cause the brain fog. Nutritionists can do food intolerance tests and will give you a diet plan to support your health as well as a supplement plan to get rid of the infection.
  5. Glandular fever – most ME/CFS begins by catching glandular fever/Epstein-Barr/mononucleosis virus. It is likely that your immune system was already weak due to stress and unresolved past emotional traumas, then you caught the virus and your body is finding it hard to fight it off. This is often the cause of the fatigue. You can look to an immune-boosting diet or supplements such as grape seed extract to remove the virus.
  6. Triggers – it is important to find out what your stress triggers are and avoid them as much as possible. It may be loud noise, light, travel, conflict, gluten etc. Take good care of yourself and create a peaceful environment in which to heal yourself.
  7. ME/CFS is curable! – don’t believe any person or website who tells you otherwise. I have recovered and I know many other people who have and are living normal lives. Your life will be completely different to the life you had before you got ill. Health will be your number 1 priority, you will stick to boundaries, respect yourself, speak up for yourself and live a life following your passions.
  8. Take control of your health – spend time reading about healing methods that you are drawn to and try them out. You have the power to heal yourself.
  9. Reconnect with nature – when I was first ill I used to sit in the conservatory and watch the birds in the garden. It was so relaxing and helped me to connect to the present moment. If you can get outside in the garden and enjoy the beauty of nature. It has many health benefits such as reducing stress and will uplift your mood. Bare foot grounding is amazing for healing the body.
  10. Be kind to yourself – healing take time so don’t beat yourself up for being ill. Thank yourself for the gradual progress you are making. Take good care of yourself and get lots of rest.

I hope these tips have helped you as you begin your journey back to health! Best wishes for your recovery!

Triggers to CFS

There are many triggers to CFS, not just one cause. Recently I have been studying disease triggers on my nutrition course and thought back to when I first got ill in 2008 as to what triggered my CFS. Below is the list of my triggers as well as the factors that were driving my symptoms.

My Triggers to CFS

Triggers

Drivers

Symptoms

Abuse

Suppressed memories

PTSD

Antibiotics

High sugar diet

Candida/Thrush

Gluten

High wheat diet

Fatigue/Bloating

Glandular Fever

Cytomegalovirus

Low immune system

Fatigue

Mercury exposure

Working with chemicals

High tuna diet

Fatigue/Toxic

Pesticides/

Food Additives/Aspartame

Non-organic,

processed foods

Fatigue/Toxic

WiFi/TV/Computer/

Geopathic stress

Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR)

Insomnia

Moving home/New job/Working full time and studying/Stress

Lack of emotional support/

Poor diet/Poor sleep

Exhaustion/Adrenal fatigue

 

I would love to hear what were the triggers to your CFS. It is something that is worth thinking about so that you can avoid the triggers and symptoms in future and live a more peaceful, happy and healthy life.

What is ME/CFS?

ME/CFS (Myalgia Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) is a chronic debilitating illness characterised by fatigue that does not go away with rest. The newest name for the illness is SEID (Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease).

There are many symptoms including:

  • Fatigue not eased on resting
  • Flu-like symptoms
  • Brain fog
  • Poor concentration
  • Dizziness
  • Low blood pressure
  • Palpitations
  • Sensitivity to light and sound
  • Headaches
  • Fatigue on exertion
  • Muscle weakness
  • Muscle spasms and twitches
  • Abdominal pain
  • Bloating
  • Constipation
  • Food intolerances
  • Insomnia
  • Adrenal fatigue
  • Anxiety
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

With Fibromyalgia there are additional symptoms of:

  • Systemic pain

CFS is diagnosed by elimination after various NHS tests such as blood tests, endoscopy, ECG, postural tests, MRI scan etc. If all their test results come back negative then they may diagnose you with CFS.

Often people with ME/CFS are housebound or even bedbound. The illness can last for a few months to several years. I had CFS for 3 years and after making diet and lifestyle changes was able to function in society again.

I hope this information has helped you to better understand ME/CFS/SEID.

The Most Important Areas to Address in Healing ME/CFS

This post just flowed out of me from nowhere today. Hope it helps you in some way. These lifestyle changes made a huge difference in my life. I now have so much energy and get tired normally at the end of the day. I cured my ME/CFS with these methods among others.

  • Environment – what you surround yourself with in your home is a reflection of what is going on inside your mind and body. If you surround yourself with items from the past which serve no present purpose, you are living in the past. If your house is messy and cluttered, it reflects a cluttered and confused mind. Clear out your clutter and you will find clarity in your life.
  • Diet – the food you eat and its quality are transformed into the cells in your body. If you eat lifeless, processed food devoid of nutrients, your body will become lifeless. If you eat genetically modified food, you will produce modified DNA. If you eat meat filled with the energy of fear and suffering at slaughter, them you will create fear and suffering in your mind. People need to understand that everything has a vibration, some things have high vibrational energies of love, joy, appreciation, freedom and other things contain low vibrational energies of violence, fear, death, suffering and pain. And what we come in contact with has a direct effect on our vibration. And low vibration creates chronic illness.
  • Relationships – are you living in an environment with people who criticise you and put you down? Do people in your life take advantage of you and drain your energy? If so you need to address your relationships with the people in your life, be it family, friends or coworkers. If you are in a negative environment at work where you are bullied leave the job. People do not change however much you try to help them. You can be tolerant, loving and accepting of that person, but if they continue to harm you and affect your health, leave the situation. And when you do work on yourself and learn the lesson so that you do not attract people like that into your life again. Learn assertiveness skills and boundaries.
  • Creativity – finding a creative outlet is vital in any chronic illness as a way to deal with the traumatic emotions you are going through. You may want to write your feelings down, start a blog to express yourself and connect with others in a similar situation to yourself. Create jewellery – you could even start an Etsy shop online to earn a bit of money while you are ill! Draw pictures, paint, sing, play an instrument, anything that lights up your heart. You will feel so much better.
  • Get out in nature – reconnecting to nature is so important as being among trees and plants calms us down and the energies heal and nurture you. Humans have lived with nature for thousands of year until recently we have separated ourselves, living isolated lives indoors in the house or working in an office. We are part of nature and we need nature to survive! The summer is a good time to sit in the garden in the sunlight getting some much needed vitamin D to boost the immune system. If you can, go for a short walk. Seeing the beauty of the flowers, trees and the blue sky will fill you with a sense of appreciation to be alive.
  • The Mind – the mind is a powerful tool that we can use to manifest our dreams or we can create our worries depending on what we focus upon. If you find that your mind is racing with negative thoughts, try focusing on your breath. Count the number of breaths as you inhale and exhale. By concentrating on counting, your mind will stop chattering. This is a form of meditation and the break in your thoughts or lack of resistance to your good will allow good things to flow into your life.         Mindfulness is another way to silence the mind. By watching your mind, also known as your EGO, you are aware that you are separate from your mind and it cannot control you. This is explained in the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.         Alternatively you can try positive affirmations to replace the negative thoughts. If you keep repeating a positive statement out loud or in your mind, eventually it becomes a belief. You can say ‘I have perfect health’ ‘I am abundant’ ‘My cells are vibrating in perfect synchronisation’ ‘I can heal myself’.

These lifestyle changes can help to make a positive difference in the quality of your life. They take time to learn and put into practice like any new skill, but once mastered they can be useful tools for life.

10 Steps to Recovery from ME/CFS

10 Steps to Recovery from ME/CFS

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Here is a list of steps I have created in a moment of inspiration that you can follow when working towards your recovery from an illness. I followed these steps when recovering from my ME/CFS. My 10 steps to recovery from ME/CFS:

  1. Accept – stop and accept where you are. You may have to leave your job and be cared for by family. Accept and make peace with your current limitations.
  2. Look externally – get help and support from the outside world. See a doctor or a therapist.
  3. Healthy diet – visit a nutritionist and take supplements if necessary to ensure you are getting adequate nutrition to support your body during the illness. Alter your diet to include more fruit and vegetables.
  4. Look within – look inside of yourself to find out why you are ill and what lesson it has to teach you. Spend quite time alone meditating to connect with yourself.
  5. Look to the past – what traumas happened in the past that perhaps you have not dealt with? What behaviour patterns did you learn from your parents that perhaps are not serving you well in your life?
  6. Grieve – spend time grieving the past, then release it and let go. The past is over and you are free now.
  7. Get back into society – get out and meet people again. Do some volunteering. And if you are ready, look for a job.
  8. New behaviours – practice new behaviours to replace the old ones that may have made you ill. Think positively to attract good circumstances and people into your life. Practice being grateful for what you have. Think of 3 things to be grateful for every night before you go to bed. It can be as simple as ‘I am grateful to have a comfortable bed to sleep on.’ or ‘I am grateful for the caring and supportive friends and family that I have.’
  9. Look to the future – where do you want to be in 10 years time? Set goals for yourself. What would you really love to do with your life? Find your passion and take small action steps towards making it a reality. Create a vision board.
  10. Keep learning – the journey to great health is an ongoing one. Read about health and keep making small changes in your life such as starting to do 15 minutes exercise everyday even if it is just going on a short walk.

I wish you the best in your journey to recovery!

 

Featured in the September 2014 issue of WDDTY magazine in the article ‘Why ME?’ about my recovery from ME/CFS using diet.

Copyright: lzflzf / 123RF Stock Photo

My Story: How I Became Ill With ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Recently I’ve been studying Infectious Diseases for my Nutrition course exam. Reading about viruses and bacteria, I had a revelation about what caused my ME.

Basically I caught Glandular Fever/Epstein Barr virus at university, also known as the kissing virus. Virus inject their DNA into your cells which replicate their DNA for them and create more viruses! Eventually the viruses burst the cell and are released. They go undetected by your immune system and they hide in your cells and alter your genes for immune defence.

So this caused me to feel fatigued, dizzy, weak, with brain fog, difficulty concentrating.

Also I had a typical student diet consisting of chocolate, crisps, microwave ready meals, pasta and alcohol. So my diet was atrocious! I was malnourished and the high sugar diet gave me spots.

I went to the doctor and told him my symptoms. He gave me tetracycline antibiotics to take for the acne and told me to keep a food diary for a few months and then get back to him. I felt really alone and unsupported and didn’t know what was happening to me.

Back then I had very low self-esteem and pushed myself to please others, doing what was expected of me without questioning what I wanted to do. So I carried on working hard studying for my chemistry degree and working full-time on my industrial placement year at the same time, even though I could barely concentrate. I started collapsing suddenly as I was so weak.

Anyway the antibiotics took their effect and killed off the bad infection. However they also wiped out my good bacteria so the opportunistic yeast fungus that lives in everyone’s gut called Candida Albicans overran my gut. They have hyphae projections that plant like roots in the gut wall and cause little holes to form that allow food particles to leak through the gut into the bloodstream causing leaky gut syndrome.

Eventually I became so ill in December 2008 that I was unable to function in society so my parents brought me back home and my Mum had to care for me for 6 months as I was too weak to stand up and walk to the kitchen to get a drink or make food. I was confined to either my bed or sitting on the sofa in front of the TV.

After a year of diagnostic tests from the doctors, they all came back negative and a neurologist in London diagnosed me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (a syndrome is a group of symptoms) in December 2009. The only treatment they could offer me was antidepressants and that said it would take time to improve.

At this point I took charge of my own health, and with the little energy I did have I began researching on ME I signed up to an ME monthly newsletter and in one issue it mentioned that acupuncture can help. So my Mum booked an appointment for me to see a local acupuncturist.

Although the acupuncture only provided temporary relief, and not helpful in the long time, she detected that I had severe digestive issues and recommended that I go and see a Nutritionist.

This was the key to my recovery as she used a bio-resonance machine to detect that my body was overrun with multiple viruses, Candida and I can several food intolerances including wheat, yeast, sugar and beef. I immediately cut out the offending foods and wondered what on Earth I could eat as everything seemed to have sugar and wheat in it.

I remember when I cut out processed sugar I had the shakes for a day like I was coming off a drug. I ate fruit as a replacement.

This is when my passion for cooking began as I began experimenting with wheat-free alternatives and baking my own bread with gluten-free flour.

After about 6 weeks of changing my diet and taking supplements including Oregano to kill the Candida and natural antiviral herb supplements, I returned to see the Nutritionist and she noted a marked improvement in my health. I felt better and had so much more energy. The brain fog had cleared.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I believe it is my life purpose to share it and to spend the rest of my life helping other people with their health, using the knowledge I have learned on my own health journey. I feel blessed to have had this first hand experience of illness so I can really relate to my future clients and help them on a deeper level.