ME ... Myalgic Encephalomyelitis ... CFS ... Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ... CFIDS ... Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome ... CEBV ... Chronic Epstein-Barr Virus ... Myalgic Encephalopathy ... PVS ... Post-Viral Syndrome ... Persistant Viral Disease ... PVD ... no wonder one of the papers written about this thing is called "The Disease Of A Thousand Names"!
It's sure got a lot of names ... but whatever it is - or whatever they are - that's what this site is about.
Introduction
I suggest you read the introduction to this site before you start - especially if you don't know what ME/CFS is. These pages are designed for people who suffer from the illness so they skim over a lot of the basic details.
People who've been here before may want to check the What's New listing of the most recently updated pages on the site.
Featured Article: Doing Small Tasks More Efficiently
This article is not about saving energy with household chores, cooking, or shopping ... it's aimed at those small tasks that those with severe ME/CFS are still sometimes able to do. Things like banking, paying bills, buying supplements, shopping online, and so forth - they're hard to delegate and for many people they're impossibly difficult to do yourself without adaptions.
Note: Includes special tips for Australians doing these tasks!
Open Letter to Those Without Fibro/CFS
Certainly the most important part (and most read!) part here is An Open Letter to those without Fibro/CFS ... things I'd like you to understand about me before you judge me.
It is a great "first document" to give to friends, relatives or school-mates who know nothing about CFS and need reminding that yes, you're still a human being too.
NEW Prints of the Open Letter To Those Without Chronic Illness are now available from NoPity Shirts. You can order your print of the Open Letter here. NEW
Resources At This Site
Note: Most of these links point to pages which themselves contain many pages of information. There's a lot of stuff here ... be prepared to come back and read more later, to read it all you'll have to spend a lot of hours exploring!
UPDATED Information About ME/CFS - These articles contain information that will teach you some of the advanced information about ME/CFS that's out there.
Helping Us Cope - Articles about coping and lending yourself, or your child/sibling/friend/relattive with ME/CFS, a helping hand.
Personal Experiences - Writing from and about people's ME/CFS experiences. Showing it like it is.
Entertainment - Everybody needs to be kept ententained, unless you're too sick to care, and here are some things you can access via the net that are not to challenging for a brain-fogged mind.
Fibro/CFS Humour - it's often said that 'laughter is the best medicine,' so go get your dose here! Check out the new snowman with CFS!
ME/CFS/Pain Scales - different ways of measuring how severe our suffering is.
Cognitive Impairments or "brainfog" can be a big part of ME/CFS for many people. This section details how I use my computer to help me compensate for and deal with my cognitive impairments in life, and how I set up my computer to make it as easy as possible to use the computer and the internet despite my cognitive impairments.
Typical ME/CFS Days details some specific days during the last 11 years of my ME/CFS's progression, showing how the disability has got worse in quite stark relief. (I'd advise you not to read these if you are newly diagnosed, this type of progression is highly non-typical for 8 years of Fibro/CFS and it could be pretty scary to read)
The Foothold Bookshelf - Books by and for people with Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS. All cataloged, described and complete with 1-click links to buy them from Amazon.com!
A list of all of the mailing lists (also called email lists) which are hosted at tertius.net.au and relevant to people with Fibro/CFS.
Disability Activism, my personal involvement in 'The Cause' of ME/CFS and disability in general.
UPDATED Very Severe ME/CFS - Almost a seperate disease in itself, people who are bedbound for decades on end, their lives almost unimaginably limited compared to those without this dread disease.
Commented Quotes - some quotes from books about ME/CFS, and my (sometimes rather extensive) musings about them.
Be Gentle To Yourself - A place to nurture your inner spirit and soul.
Articles For Victoria, Australia - Some of the articles that I write especially for my local CFS/ME Newsletter - Emerge - and which are only relevant locally. Please feel free to read them anyway, though, if you're interested!
Other Stuff Here
UPDATED NoPity Shirts - T-shirts and other apparel with disability-related and/or motivational slogans, including some specifically related to ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia.
Links - Links to homepages and sites by others who have ME/CFS and/or Fibromyalgia. I only link to high-quality sites with tons of information in them.
Name FAQ - Are you Ricky Buchanan or Bek Oberin or ...?
UPDATED Not Done Living! - My homepage.
The Glossary - explanations for some of the words and acronyms used in this site.
Buy From Thexton.com.au
If you're in Australia or New Zealand, this online health shop is one of the best value that I have found - it's where I do much of my own online health shopping, and I can't give it a better endorsement than that! If you're in Victoria, they even offer free shipping to RACV members!
Write For This Site!
Contributions from anybody about ME/CFS or related conditions are very welcome! You don't have to be sick/disabled yourself - you can write about what it's feel like to wonder if you do, or what it feels like when a friend or somebody you love or somebody in your family has an illness/disease. Or you can write about what getting over your own/somebody else's disease was like. Or about anything else that tickles your fancy and is vaguely relevant, really!
Articles must follow the bounds of good taste more or less, but there are very few rules.
Please email me if you have an article, or an idea for one and want to discuss it. I don't bite, so don't be afraid!
Supporting This Site
This site is maintained and paid for on an entirely volunteer basis and it takes many hours each month of work and money to keep it afloat. Ways to help to support the ME/CFS Foothold can be found here. Please, if the site has helped you, consider supporting us to keep the service alive. There are many ways you can do this and most of them involve little or no effort on your part.
Please also read the disclaimer and copyright notice for this site!
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