A detailed guide to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), including its symptoms, causes, and effective treatment strategies to improve energy and well-being.
There are times with Fibromyalgia that I exceed my walking limits. It is actually difficult sometimes because the limit changes. It can be a short distance one day and a decent distance the next. There was a time when I had to run all over campus to get professors to sign my thesis to get it processed. I ran around everywhere looking for everything. Too much. I was in immense pain. I would sit down…
If it means significant restrictions to your daily activities, then, according to medical and government guidelines, yes, you have a disability. This may challenge the ability stereotypes you might have absorbed from the media, where disability is usually linked to the need to use a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury or limb impairment. This might get you wondering about what exactly the definition of disability is, how do we usually understand it and…
I’m taking a disability studies class this term as part of my social work program. I study part-time, online. I thought I would post some of my reflections on reading articles for the class. People living with FM and CFS/ME don’t always think of themselves as ‘disabled’, but the way the world is organized and the way these conditions affect our bodies certainly mean we do live with a disability. Reflections on Eli Clare’s (2001) Stolen…
You’re sitting in the doctor’s office, being told you have an incurable illness. Maybe you have to leave your career, or pull back on your workload, with set accommodations. You can’t live up to being the involved wife, parent, sister, or daughter you planned on being. Travel becomes difficult, athletic ability falls off, and favorite hobbies or pastimes become more challenging. But mostly you just don’t feel like you. A period of grief ensues over…
The world lost a woman yesterday.A boy lost his grandmother, three people lost their mother and a man lost his wife.This woman was a pistol, tough and strong and a force to be reckoned with.I grew up with her tales of adventure, living overseas while young and newly married, her husband in the military.I learned of a day in 1929 when this girl took a shoebox of money she was saving to the bank, to…
There is a book whose title I will not tell, written by an author that will remain unnamed, that everyone in the whole wide world made such a gigantic fuss about. Hollywood even made it into a movie! And all I heard from everyone I knew was to read this book. It is great! Empowered womanhood! You will love it! They all assured me. So I broke down and bought the darn thing in paperback…
Causes of FM/CFS: Scientific Basis for the Gupta Program The premise of the Gupta program is that fibromyalgia (FM) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) are caused by abnormalities in the functioning of brain structures that process physical and emotional threats to the body. However, connections in the brain are not fixed and can be rewired. Neuroscientists call this process “neuroplasticity”. The program was created by Ashok Gupta, who suffered from ME/CFS himself, but has since…
Part I: From Onset to Diagnosis For Fibromyalgia Awareness Month, I wanted to share my illness journey here on the blog. My story starts eight years ago. It wasn’t a climactic beginning. It was just achy low back pain that got worse the longer I sat writing my M.A. thesis. It seemed like a common enough problem to have, except for the fact that I was 23. The nurse told me to take ibuprofen 24/7 and…
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear”, Mark Twain I have watched all episodes of the documentary Afflicted on Netflix. My mind is reeling and disturbed. I am hoping that by writing this blog I can begin to piece together my thoughts which to this point are rambling and disjointed. I have heard from one reader who has said there is a group who is writing to ask Netflix to…
“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense”, Gertrude Stein To write that I am frustrated, angry, and discouraged over the recent hoopla this week in the news from the U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is to be putting it mildly. As is usual with someone who has CFS and fibromyalgia (FM) I awoke several times last night. During those wakeful periods, I wanted…