Fibro/CFS/ME Foothold
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 [...]
Useful “Needing” Words
The following phrases and questions may be of use when you are having trouble obtaining help from one of the disability services or care providers.
Why CFS Is Like Being Tied Up With Rubber Bands
Having CFS is like having every part of your body, and every sense and faculty – every single part of you – tied up with extra strong rubber bands. Nothing is quite like it used to be, and you can move a little but you never know when the rubber bands are going to PING right back and that hurts a lot.
CFS And Exercise
Exercise is a sore topic amongst many people with CFS – and understandably so, I’m sure that all of us have been told at least once that all we needed was to, “Get up out of bed and go for a good walk” and then we’d feel better! That exercise can be detrimental to people [...]
Couples: When One Partner Has CFS
This piece was written by Jenn Vesperman. Used with permission. A long-term, chronic illness changes your life. It also changes the lives of the people around you, and your relationship to them. A marriage where one partner has a chronic illness has a different dynamic from one of healthy partners, and that dynamic continues for [...]
Can’t Meditate? Alternatives to Meditation For The Chronically Ill
Meditation is generally considered to be A Good Thing, especially for those who have some sort of chronic illness, and there are now several studies that show assorted positive effects from regular meditation. But not everybody with a chronic illness can manage to meditate. Here are some other things to try if you have trouble with regular meditation.
The Warrior’s Guide To Chronic Illness
Adapted from Achterberg and Lawlis, `The Warrior’s Guide To Getting Well’, 1989. Try not to panic. You will become your own worst enemy if you do. Find a quiet place, a healing sacred place, and go there. This might take a week and it might take a year. Ask questions of the most spiritual part [...]
Helping: What To do When A Friend Has CFS
You want to make them better. You want to find a miracle cure – after all, when you have a flu you ‘soldier on with Codral’. And your sister’s asthma is much better since the doctor put her on the new inhaler. Surely your friend’s illness will get better too. Most people in this society have little experience with long-term illness. It’s frightening. It’s almost unreal. It challenges your faith in medicine – worse, it challenges your faith in your own body. It, too, might fail you like this.
The Role Of ATP In CFS
This piece was written by Jenn Vesperman. Used with permission. One of the symptoms of a significant proportion of CFS patients is a deficiency in the ability of the cell mitochrondria to make ATP from glucose. That’s the technical description. Here’s what it means: cells take sugar from the blood in the form of glucose. [...]
Simulating CFS
One of the big problems that people with CFS have is explaining to friends and family what it feels like. It’s a never-ending battle! Here’s an what happened when somebody tried to simulate a visible disability, and how I think that CFS might be simulated. To Walk, er, Wheel A Mile … One of Australia’s [...]
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