Fibromyalgia and Me

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ME sufferer David Christie (15) has to spend 19 hours a day in bed. His mum, Antoinette, talks to Gráinne McCarry.

“As a young boy, David was involved in everything. He was a scout and he loved trampolining and horse riding. He would have played any sport and he was an Irish national champion in ju-jitzu in 2002. He was no different from any other wee boy. He was always outdoors and he never gave me any trouble. He got involved in everything that was going. He was such a thoughtful child — a wee gentleman.

His sickness began when he developed a rash in February 2003 at the age of 10. The dermatologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Belfast had never seen it before. He took photographs and a biopsy and diagnosed David with the skin condition pleva, which is caused by a viral infection. He was given cream for it and still attends the dermatologist to this day about it.

The following year, David began St Mary’s Grammar School. He was so alive and full of energy and he used to walk six miles every day to school and back. Then, all of a sudden he started to lose his energy and we had to give him a lift to the school gate because he wasn’t fit to walk it.

When his condition deteriorated, he didn’t have the energy to walk from the gates up the steep hill into school. We got a special pass from the principal to drive to the school gates. Then, it got to the stage where he couldn’t manage school at all.

After six and a half months of his first year there we had to take him out of school. He wasn’t fit to attend.

He was complaining of chest pains, nausea, fatigue and a general feeling of unwellness. For a long time, we didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was diagnosed with ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) in October 2005.”

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Cognitive behaviour therapy is effective in treating the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a recent systematic review carried out by Cochrane Researchers.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a potentially long-lasting illness that can cause considerable distress and disability. Some estimates suggest it may affect as many as 1 in 100 of the population globally. There is no widely accepted explanation for the disease and patients are currently offered a variety of different treatments.

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Reflexology is a form of alternative medicine that is very similar to acupressure therapy as it coordinates major organs of the body with specific pressure points on an individual’s feet as well as hands. This is a form of ancient medicine that got its start in Greek culture. The Greeks referred to the reflexology at that time as “pressure treatment.” Soon after the Greeks began practicing it, the ancient Indians caught onto the trend and began practicing it as well. In its early years, reflexology was also referred to as zone theory or zone therapy. Reflexology in the US first showed itself in the year 1913 when William H. Fitzgerald took the human body and proceeded to divide it into ten vertical zones. He noted that all of the organs of the body correspond to pressure points on the hands as well as the feet. Applying pressure to these points was supposed to bring relief to areas of the body that were in need of healing.

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An overview of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and how clinical nutrition can be used to address the problem. symptoms: difficulty with sleeping, muscle and/or joint pain at multiple sites without evidence of inflammation, headaches, painful lymph nodes

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How many of you with ME/CFS find that you have a lot of vision problems?  I tend to have many episodes where my vision is very blurry.  I also find that my eyes water really bad.  My eyes will burn, itch and water profusely as if I am crying hard.

Last year I went for an eye exam but the eye doctor could not give me glasses because my vision was literally changing from second to second.  She said that I had an astigmatism and that with my vision changing so quickly glasses wouldn’t do any good.

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When Shawn Burnette says, “Though chronic fatigue syndrome is not fatal …” (”Finding a way through the pain,” July 26), she alerts us to how crucial it is for us to distinguish between those who have been diagnosed with M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis), in which there is thought to be abnormal neurological pathology and inflammation of the spinal cord, and those who have been diagnosed with any one of a number of illnesses that have chronic fatigue as a principal symptom and fall under the umbrella term, chronic fatigue syndrome.

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate between 1 million and 4 million Americans have chronic fatigue syndrome. It is a condition marked by extreme fatigue that cannot be remedied with rest. At least 25 percent percent of those are unemployed as a result of the disease. Less than 20 percent of people with chronic fatigue syndrome in the U.S. have been diagnosed, according to the CDC. As with other autoimmune disorders, the cause is unknown. This is the story of one woman’s struggle with the condition.

When Virginia Mold of Pawling could not seem to get enough sleep, her husband thought that maybe caring for their three young children was just wearing her down.

But a doctor’s visit and a subsequent blood test revealed the real culprit behind her lethargy and weight loss: chronic fatigue syndrome and mononucleosis.

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It’s not easy navigating through the minefields of employment law. Just ask Honda Canada. Better yet just ask former Honda employee, Kevin Keays.

Kevin was 35 years old. He had worked for Honda for about 14 years, first on the assembly line and then doing data entry work in the Quality Engineering Office. It was a good job and Kevin earned a decent salary for someone with a high school education and one year of community college.

Unfortunately, Kevin missed a lot of work. He was eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. CFS is difficult to diagnose. There is no test for it.

Doctors come to this diagnosis by elimination and have to rely on what their patients tell them as opposed to what their tests disclose.

Ultimately, Kevin’s absences were such that he applied for disability insurance coverage.

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Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a disabling disorder, characterized by persistent or relapsing fatigue. Recent studies have detected a decrease in cortical grey matter volume in patients with CFS, but it is unclear whether this cerebral atrophy constitutes a cause or a consequence of the disease. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective behavioural intervention for CFS, which combines a rehabilitative approach of a graded increase in physical activity with a psychological approach that addresses thoughts and beliefs about CFS which may impair recovery. Here, we test the hypothesis that cerebral atrophy may be a reversible state that can ameliorate with successful CBT.

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