Pattern of Recovery from CFS/ME
[DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS PAGE - FEBRUARY 2024]
General Principles
The general principles are:
- Recovery is like building a house – start with the foundations (The Paleo Ketogenic Diet - this is a diet which we all should follow and Nutritional Supplements - what everybody should be taking all the time even if nothing is wrong) and keep building. Craig has written a webpage which models why the foundations are so important – Chaos Theory and CFS/ME recovery paths. In architecture, we understand the importance of solid foundations, so much so that important buildings often have a ‘Foundation(al) stone’ laid by an important dignitary – see Footnote.
- Do not give up on an earlier step because you have not seen a clinical benefit.
- As you get older you will have to work harder at it.
- Expect a bumpy ride - "DDD" reactions – see Diet, Detox and Die-off Reactions Expect to get worse
- Whilst you are improving and continuing to improve – carry on.
- At the point at which you plateau or get stuck – introduce a new intervention. Re-read Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalitis and Long-Covid (3rd Edition)!
- Always start new interventions with low doses and build up slowly. The sicker you are the more important this is.
- Do not rely on others, least of all doctors. The majority are obstructive and prescribe drugs which may buy you a window of time of relief, but drugs slow eventual recovery.
Use your Brain – think ahead
- The most powerful triggers to a relapse are infection and vaccines.
- Make sure your first aid box is stocked with the necessary tools so you can immediately act at first hint of any infection. See Groundhog ACUTE - put in place at the first sign of any infection
- Do not vaccinate.
- Choose holidays wisely.
- Much more detail in My book Ecological Medicine - The Antidote to Big Pharma and Fast Foods and My book The Infection Game - life is an arms race for those who need convincing.
Nonlinear recovery with catastrophic events
The pattern of recovery will not be linear, and it will not be monotonic – see the graph below which models how recovery happens. Monotonic is a word much used in mathematics – in essence it describes a pattern of behaviour that always ‘moves in the same direction’.
We start life in the top left-hand corner of the graph below (point X). Unhealthy lifestyles erode well-being, and we gradually slide down the slippery slope. Then there may be a catastrophic trigger, at point A: viral infection, poisoning, bereavement, trauma, financial crisis or whatever. We drop off the edge of the curve, landing at point A’, and eventually, we may slide to the bottom right-hand corner (point Y).
The journey back to top left corner health is much more difficult. It is a hard slog up the slippery slope. But suddenly you get to that critical point, B, all is in place, the brain and body can safely come out of Naviaux’s defensive hibernation mode (see Metabolic features of chronic fatigue syndrome and Metabolic features of the cell danger response) and energy is available with which to have a life, and you flip up the curve to B’.
Welcome back to the world!
I have witnessed some remarkable recovery stories in my four decades of medical practice. Think of Craig not being able to count from one to ten and then recovering well enough to be able to help with my books and website and achieving an ambition by writing Rockets and Raindrops.
Recently, one of my secretaries received an email, asking that it be passed onto me.
It read thus:
C……. could you mention this to Sarah when you communicate next? I would just like her to know that after reading her book (advertised within a website article) my life turned around. Having ME since childhood I was diagnosed in 1984 as having ME. Since then, all the help and remedies, even from the ME support magazines, dealt only with the symptoms. Seemingly in their research, the 'experts' were acting on individual symptoms as causes. On reading your ME book I found you listed 100% of my symptoms and gave me the root cause of the ME and guidance to managing and healing from ME - which WORKED! I am functioning near 'normally' now and always recommend your work widely to other ME sufferers. THANK YOU so much for the work you do.
This person had run 50 miles in just over 9 hours, up and down the Shropshire Hills, and had come 3rd out of a large field of very fit competitors. So, dear reader……now comes some very important advice…..
Never Ever Give Up
This poster used to be pinned outside my consulting room and its words have become the Group Motto of the Facebook Group – ‘Support for Followers of Dr Myhill’s Protocol’ , as run by Katie Twinn and Craig Robinson – Facebook Group - ‘Support for Followers of Dr Myhill’s Protocol’
The words of Sir Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) echo in my ears:
“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
The enemy here is CFS, ME or LC.
Whoever you take your inspiration from, never ever give in. That point ‘B’ could be just round the corner, and as Craig has said – there are good times ahead of you, waiting for you to be there.
Footnote
These are stones laid with some public ceremony to denote the completion of a large, important building. And the phrase ‘foundation stone’ has come to mean a basic principle upon which all else relies. Here are two examples of foundation stones –
- King’s College Chapel, Cambridge – In 1446, during the Feast of St. James, and shortly before the Wars of the Roses, King Henry VI laid the foundation stone of this chapel, a chapel that was intended to be a small part of a greater court. Though the court was never completed, the chapel still stands, complete with foundation stone.
- The mysterious ‘London Stone’ – time has all but erased the history of the London Stone, although it is believed to be of Roman origin, and its name can be traced back to the 1100s. This chunk of limestone is a small portion of the original piece once secured into the ground. It was moved in 1742 and was built into the south wall of the Church of St. Swithun London Stone in 1798. Though the church was demolished in the 1960s, the stone remains.
Related Articles
- Chaos Theory and CFS/ME recovery paths
- Diet, Detox and Die-off Reactions Expect to get worse
- Groundhog ACUTE - put in place at the first sign of any infection
- My book Ecological Medicine - The Antidote to Big Pharma and Fast Foods
- My book The Infection Game - life is an arms race
- The Paleo Ketogenic Diet - this is a diet which we all should follow
- Nutritional Supplements - what everybody should be taking all the time even if nothing is wrong
- Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalitis and Long-Covid (3rd Edition)
External Links
- Rockets and Raindrops by Craig Robinson
- Facebook Group - ‘Support for Followers of Dr Myhill’s Protocol’
- Metabolic features of chronic fatigue syndrome
- Metabolic features of the cell danger response
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