Tag Archives: health

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!

15 Minute Daily Light Meditation

There are many benefits to meditating daily including quieting the mind, feeling more calm and reducing stress. Meditating slows down your breathing rate, which calms the adrenals and oxygenates your body. It is especially important for people with ME/CFS who may be stressed at being ill and whose adrenal glands are often in overdrive.

It can seems difficult to find time to meditate when you are busy, but I find that setting aside 15 minutes every morning is manageable and helps me to wake up in a gentle way. It may take time to get into the habit of meditating everyday but after you have done it sevens days in a row it becomes a habit that you do without thinking about just like brushing your teeth.

15 Minute Light Meditation

This is the meditation I do first thing every morning

  1. Stand on your bedroom floor with your feet hips width apart.
  2. Now imagine roots reaching down from the soles of your feet all the way into the core of mother earth. This will ground you.
  3. Next draw up white light from the earth and visualise it filling up every area of your body and cleansing and dissolving any black energies sitting in your body.
  4. You can repeat this exercise with any colour of light such as light pink light for unconditional love, purple light for protection from negative energies or sky blue light to cleanse your throat chakra for clear communication.
  5. Next open up your crown chakra and draw down white light from the universe. Imagine it moving down into your body filling up your head, arms, hands, torso, legs and feet.
  6. Again you can repeat this practice with any colour of light.
  7. Now imagine white light from above cleansing your aura and any negative entities moving out of your aura space. Purple light is very effective for repelling these negative energies.
  8. Ask Archangel Michael to cut your cords. You can see these black cords coming out of your body, usually in your back, and attaching you to other people who may be draining your energy. I ask the angels to pull out the remaining ends of the cords and visualise them surrounded in bright white light until they dissolve.
  9. Now push out a sphere of white light from your being to patch up any holes in your aura.
  10. Finally draw up your roots from the earth and close your crown chakra.
  11. Thank mother earth, the universe and the angels for the healing light meditation.

I always feel a lot better after doing this cleansing meditation. I feel centred and peaceful and it sets me up for a great day! I hope you find a way to fit meditation into your daily routine and start reaping the health benefits!

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.

Personality of People with ME/CFS

People who are ill with ME/CFS tend to be workaholics and overachievers. They think their self-worth is determined by how much they do and what they achieve. That mentality means you neglect your needs such as food, water, sleep and time to relax and leads to burn out and chronic fatigue. This is what happened with me.

ME/CFS sufferers are often keen to get back to work as soon as possible and are not keen to take the time needed to rest and heal. All their lives they have worked hard to prove to themselves that they are good enough. They were brainwashed at school that they are only as good as their grades. They often had workaholic parent or parents who criticised them a lot so they worked hard to get their approval by being overachievers. This behaviour continued into adulthood. They are perfectionists who never feel good enough, despite achieving more that most people.

I know that I am a workaholic who finds it hard to relax. I have to make time in my busy schedule for relaxation including meditation, yoga and walking in nature on a daily basis in order to stay healthy.

Ways to relax include:

  • Sleeping
  • Taking a nap
  • Meditation
  • Reading a book
  • Walking outside in nature
  • Sitting and watching the sky
  • Mindfulness
  • Epsom salt bath
  • Massage
  • Listening to relaxation music
  • Patting a pet
  • Aromatherapy
  • Sitting in the sunshine
  • Focusing on the breath

I only started to heal when I accepted I could no longer work and do as much as I used to do. When I let go of validating myself by societies high standards and just be myself. It is enough to just be.

The information in this post is my opinion and stems from my experiences with ME/CFS. I know many other people with ME/CFS who also had this tendency to push themselves too hard before they got ill.

Therapies to Heal ME – Part 3

Here is part 3 of Therapies to Heal ME which includes all the therapies that I tried out in 2013 to the present day in an effort to cure my ME, including dates, and my experiences with them:

2013

January

  • Yoga classes – I started attending a local yoga class on a weekly basis as I felt it was more in line with my spirituality than ballroom and latin dancing! It really helped me to relax, stretch out tension and strengthen my muscles. I took classes for a year, then stopped and now I do a short yoga routine every morning to stretch!

February

  • Emotional Scale – I discovered the emotional scale in the book ‘Ask and it is Given’ by Esther and Jerry Hicks. It explains that there is a scale of emotions at different vibrational frequencies. For instance the emotions of grief and anger are low vibrational and appreciation, love and joy are high vibrational. It taught me how to work out which emotional level I am currently feeling and step by step move up through the emotions to the highest level.

April

  • Earthing – Sit in the garden with your bare feet touching the P1000016earth and the connection will drain away the positive electrical charge that has build up in your body from being in close contact with computers, mobile phones, TVs etc. After 30 minutes of earthing I feel so much better and more calm.

July

  • Sprouting – my boyfriend at the time gave me some of his sprouting jars and taught me how to sprouts legumes such as chickpeas. You put the legumes in a sprouting jar and soak them in filtered water overnight to remove the phytates that are hard to digest. Change the water at least once. Then you drain the legumes and leave them to dry. Left on the window sill they will start to sprout and as they do release more nutrients.

September

  • Juicing – my boyfriend let me borrow his juicer and I learned how to juice vegetables. The juice is highly concentrated in nutrients and it gives you a burst of energy!

December

  • Ayurvedic Diet – in Ayurvedic medicine there are 3 doshas or body types called vata, pitta and kapha. I am a vata and have weak digestion so need easily digestible cooked and blended foods to nourish my body. Vatas do well on sweet and sour foods. Pittas have very strong digestion and do well on bitter foods. Kaphas gain weigh easily and do well on raw foods. Eating for your type will give you more energy.

2014

January

  • Inner child healing – involves reconnecting with the child inside of you who wants to play and be loved. When it is ignored and we don’t take time to play, we get depressed. So loving and respecting that little child, we will feel happier and feel more joy in our lives! When I see my inner child she is a baby inside my abdomen who is crying and reaches out to hold my finger for support.

March

  • Daily meditation – I started to meditate every morning for 15 minutes after being inspired by the Abraham Hicks meditation process. This transformed my life and kept me feeling balanced and calm all day. You can read about how to do my light meditation here.

May

  • Epsom Salt Baths – during a consultation at the student clinic, the student nutritionist advised that I take regular Epsom salt baths for relaxation as I was prone to anxiety. I used 1 tbsp of high grade Epsom salt in a bath tub of hot filtered water for 10 minutes twice a week. The magnesium in the salts absorbs through the skin and relaxes the muscles leaving you feeling completely relaxed. It is difficult to get out the bath afterwards!

July

  • Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) – also known as tapping, it is a process of gently tapping specific acupressure points on your face to clear your energy meridians. The process starts with you thinking of a traumatic memory and feeling the intense emotional pain. Then you say the affirmation “Even though I have this feeling, I deeply and completely accept myself” as you tap the specific pressure points. It is a very powerful process as it release blockages in your meridians and leaves you feeling calm and relieved. You can watch a video on The Tapping Solution to show you where the tapping points are located.

September

  • Butekyo Breathing Method – involves using your abdomen to take a small breath in, then a small breath out and holding your breath for a minimum of 5 seconds. This gives your red blood cells time to transport oxygen to all areas of your body. The theory behind this is that we over breath which expels too much carbon dioxide from our body which is the very things that is required to aid oxygen transport around the body. As we build up the amount time between breathes, we experience healing effects such as detoxification as our bodies finally get the oxygen they need to function optimally. I use this technique to calm down my breathing when I get stressed and start to hyperventilate. It is very effective.

October

  • Plastic purge – I came across an article online that said that storing food and drink in plastic containers is harmful as plastic contains endocrine distrupters that leach into the food and reek havoc with our hormones and cause higher levels of oestrogen in the body. Up until then I had been drinking water out of plastic bottles! I immediately threw away the plastic bottles and started drinking filtered water from the tap which is much safer. Cans are lined with plastic and so canned foods also contain the endocrine disrupters! So now I buy bags of dry beans and legumes, soak them, then boil them. Using glass and steel containers instead of plastic is better for the environment as plastic is made from petroleum oil which is meant to be used for lubricating the Earth’s tectonic plates.
  • Adrenal Fatigue Diet – avoiding high sugar foods such as sweet fruits, dates, raisins, bananas and sweeteners keeps you blood sugar level stable and prevents dips during the day which put stress on your adrenals. Other lifestyle factors for adrenal fatigue include reducing exposure to stressful situations, meditation, yoga and walking in nature.

I am still learning and trying new techniques to improve my health today! Currently I am fascinated by Buteyko breathing!

If you have ME/CFS, I hope that these therapy reviews give you some ideas of healing methods you can try out. Everybody is different and what works for one person may not work for someone else. Still in my opinion it is worth trying everything that you feel may help until you find the one that works for you.

Anniversary of My CFS

Today is the 2nd December 2014, exactly 6 years since I had my health collapse. I will never forget that day.

It was a cold winter’s morning and I walked for half an hour to my industrial placement through the snow. When I got to work I sat in the office like a zombie for about 2 hours unable to think or do anything. Eventually they realised I was not well and my work colleague drove me home to the shared house I was living in in High Wycombe. I scrambled out of the car, and when I got through the door I collapsed on the floor. I managed to drag my body up the stairs and my legs were weak and unable to move. I crawled onto my bed. I was so weak, tired and dizzy. The room was spinning and I couldn’t think straight. After a while I managed to stand up but kept bumping into the furniture and bruising myself as I had no coordination. Eventually I called my parents and asked for help. My Dad drove down to pick me up.

When I got home to their house I collapsed on the living room floor and lay there. Not knowing what was going on, why my body couldn’t move.

That was the day my body said enough and I stopped being able to function in everyday life.

It too me 6 months of being bedbound at home to accept that I was ill and was not going back to work. It wasn’t until a year later in December 2009 that I got a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and my healing journey began…

Chocolate Smoothie for Vitamin B2 Deficiency

This delicious chocolate smoothie is rich in vitamin B2 (riboflavin) which is used to treat angular cheilitis and seborrheic dermatitis! I developed this smoothie after discovering that I had angular cheilitis which is dry, cracked, crusting skin on the corner of the mouth.

Vitamin B2 deficiency is a major cause of angular cheilitis along with deficiency of vitamin B3, B5, B6, B12 and stress. I also have seborrheic dermatitis on my cheeks and nose which is why I knew it must be vitamin B2 deficiency, as the symptoms of seborrheic dermatitis and angular cheilitis are strong indicators of B2 deficiency.

So I looked in my my nutrition textbook for food sources of vitamin B2. According to Liska et al. (2004) the richest sources of vitamin B2 are animal products such as organ meats, fish and eggs. As I am vegan I looked down the list and saw that almonds are a rich source, as well as mushrooms. These are foods that I am not eating much of. I needed a way to get these foods into my everyday diet and had the idea to create a smoothie!

P1010023

Food Amount Vitamin B2 (mg)
Almonds 50g 0.46
Kale 100g 0.26
Cashews 50g 0.125
Sunflower seeds 50g 0.115
Prunes 50g 0.11
1.07

The UK reference nutrient intake (RNI) for women between the age of 15-50 years is 1.1mg. So I worked out how much of each ingredient I would need to get near to my RNI.

I am going to drink this smoothie everyday for a month and see if my angular cheilitis and seborrheic dermatits disappear! If there is no improvement it is either because it is caused by something else such as stress, or I am not absorbing nutrients well and need to work on my digestion!

I had some cacao powder to hand so added some into the smoothie mix to give a delicious, chocolatey flavour!

Chocolate Smoothie

Makes 1 litre

Ingredients

50g Almonds

100g Kale

50g Cashew nuts

50g Sunflower seeds

50g Prunes

3tbsp Cacao powder

200ml Almond milk

500ml Filtered water

Method

If you have time, soak the almonds and sunflower seeds in filtered water overnight. The next morning drain and leave to dry.

Add all the ingredients in the blender. Blend well for 1 minute.

Pour into a glass and enjoy your smoothie!

Store in the fridge. Avoid exposure to sunlight which destroys riboflavin.

References
Liska, D., Quinn, S., Lukaczer, D. et al. (2004). Clinical Nutrition A Functional Approach. 2nd edn. Washington: The Institute for Functional Medicine. p111

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.

Why I’m Vegan

There are many reasons why I’m vegan which are listed below. Some of these reasons may shock you. The methods used in the animal industries are disturbing and people should be make aware of how animals are treated.

Meat – meat is produced by murdering another living being. Animals have a right to live and enjoy the freedom of their lives.

Meat is difficult to digest and contains the vibration of fear, suffering and death. The animals queue up and watch their friends, brothers and sisters being slaughtered in front of their eyes! They hear the screams and wait in fear for their turn. Their bodies are flooded with the stress hormone cortisol. And upon slaughter these hormones are still present in the meat. So when you eat meat you are consuming cortisol, adding to the excess cortisol that floods most of our bodies due to the stressful lives we lead and puts a strain on the adrenal glands.

Seafood especially tuna contains mercury and if consumed regularly can cause mercury poisoning.

What is meat? – Meat includes beef, lamb, veal, pork, chicken, turkey, duck, liver, other organ meats, all fish (yes fish is meat so if you eat fish you are not a vegetarian, you are a pescetarian!) and all seafood such as prawns, muscles, crab etc.

This video broke my heart when I saw it. How can a dog be more compassionate that a human being? We will sit by a watch a fish suffocate while the dog tries to save its’ life. The dog understands how precious life is. And we are supposed to be more intelligent?

Eggs – eggs have the potential to form into a chick if they are fertilised with sperm from a rooster. However the egg industry is one of the most cruel industries and the males chicks are ground alive on a machine with metal blades. The hens are used to produce eggs for our consumption. Many are confined to cramped, unhygienic cages and not allowed to roam free outside in the sunlight. I had tears in my eyes when I saw a picture of a male chick about to be cut up on a blade.

Dairy – Cows are abused. They are pumped full of growth hormones to build them up for slaughter as well as antibiotics which remain in the milk we drink. Dairy is acidic and mucus forming. There are some farms that treat their animals well. If you are going to buy milk and cheese it is better to buy organic and buy goat’s or sheep’s dairy as they are less intensively farmed that cows.

Leather – leather is cow’s skin! Would you wear human skin?

Merino wool – I discovered the horrors on the merino wool industry in the following video. The sheep are transported across the ocean on board freight ships in cramped conditions. When they reach land, they queue up to be slaughtered alive. Their throats are cut and their legs cut off in front of the other sheep just for the sake of getting their wool. I will never buy merino wool. 50% of merino wool is from Australia and it is hard to tell the source and the treatment of the merino sheep.

This video presented by Pink is very distressing. I was very shocked and upset when I watched it. If you are sensitive to gore then please don’t watch it.

Honey – I have been informed that honey is used to feed the baby bees and when we take it for our consumption, they have nothing to eat. So I avoid eating honey.

High vibration – to eat a plant-based diet you are consuming nutrient dense foods with a higher life-force energy and it will nourish your body and give you more vitality.

Alkaline diet – A plant-based, vegan diet is alkaline, anti-inflammatory and full of antioxidants. Therefore it protects your body from damage and inflammation.

Thank you for reading my reasons for why I’m vegan. The methods used in some of these industries are shocking. I hope you understand more about the animal industries and the morals of eating animal produce.