What a 9 months I’ve had 😫😫

Hi James interested in your comments re age. I am 57 male with possible, probable CFS...5 months now of unexplained and worsening fatigue/symptoms.....although I did have a 3 week period in there were I did have signs of improvement. Are you saying there is less chance of my demographic improving? Just curious. Apparently in terms of this awful awful disease someone of my age and gender is thought to be unlikely to contract CFS?

Hi Charlie, I'm no expert really but I understand that statistically, a young person with a healthy lifestyle who recognizes the illness and responds accordingly is most likely to make a full recovery.

Of course statistics aren't everything - in my case it started at sixteen and I'm approaching 30 years of the illness now.

That might be partially explained by my unhealthy lifestyle and the fact that I didn't fully accept that I had a genuine serious illness. Basically, I tried too hard to push on through it and drank too much for my poor body to cope with. Add in poverty, stress, poor diet, inactivity, and you get depressed and you don't recover too well.

So maybe it's more to do with responding to the illness properly?

This is tough at any age I guess, but it must have been hard at 16. Interesting comments you make about people’s response in terms of recovery. In some ways I believe that I have been fighting it, although not in a crazy way. I have been unable to work for 4 months, so I have been more or less housebound with small walks either in the garden and verandah or a few weeks ago when I was feeling slightly better ten minute strolls around the neighbourhood. I am usually in bed from 10pm to 10am...although it is not solid sleep, rather broken. During the day I wander from room to room and the verandah. I was going to bed for 2 hours during the day but then gave it up when I had more energy. Now Iie down on the lounge for say an hour or so. Despite my recent big crash I have not gone back to my afternoon bed...maybe I should? I am stresses and anxious but how can you avoid those with this disease?

Your daily routine sounds a bit like mine! What can you do? Just wait it out I suppose. I hope things improve for you Charlie - I'm sure they will.

Are you on ant tablets at all, I have tried many ,lots of side effects, may try cbdoil of the internet

Hi Meg97,

Am I right in assuming you've been diagnosed with CFS for the last nine months? I've had it for the last 11 years and still have hope in making some kind of recovery. I think hoping to suddenly wake up and be fine is farfetched, but I do beleive the damage can be healed.

I would start by taking a look at your diet... look at what you eat now and what you've eaten in the last few months; or look at what you don't eat. For example, I almost never eat seeds or nuts, so hypothetically speaking, if seeds and nuts were the only sources of food that contained medium-high levels of a particular mineral that was essential to the body, I'd guess that I could be lacking that mineral/have been lacking it for some time. I have used this method on myself and beleive that (along with several other related issues) my gut is just appauling at absorbing nutrients from food. I have been taking an oral supplement of vitamin B12 for the last two months and have noticed a small improvement in my overall energy levels. I also made a basic spreadsheet to track my day to day energy levels and activities, which makes tracking any ups/downs and looking at historic data really easy (I don't know if it's against the terms and conditions to say I could send you a template of mine...?).

On a final note regarding the above, if like me, you've had CFS for a long time, it can be tempting to lose faith in new treatments (like my B12 supplement). If you've had a deficiency of mineral for a long time, it's going to take a long time for your body to regain a normal amount of it in your body and use that to start/continue the healing process, so it's important to be positive about it for at least 2-3 months.

Hope this helps.