... CBT is rarely offered without GET and ME patients know only too well-and their views are supported by some 4,000 papers on scientific and clinical research-that GET makes their symptoms worse.CBT = Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Brainwashing)
GET = Graded Exercise Therapy (Torture)
Yes there might be 'well-meaning' people (including health 'professionals') who've been told that CBT will be helpful in teaching us how to live with this (or any other chronic condition), but they've been fooled (by those with an agenda). Even if that's true, requiring someone with an energy limiting chronic illness exacerbated by physical or mental effort to attend CBT sessions (whether in person or remote) and do the 'homework' necessary to work through it is never going to be within their capabilities, nor helpful and just does more harm.
We do not need such platitudes, we need real treatments and practical help.
Honestly, no-one would choose to exist (it's certainly not a life) with a chronic illness, if all their ills could be eliminated by these "simple" measures.
My GP and another doctor in the practice have both mentioned exercise to me a couple of times. Whilst I understand why, this makes me angry, because they don't really know me (not entirely their fault, given the limitations of the system), they obviously don't know what it feels like to have fibromyalgia / ME/CFS/PVFS (Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome) (and I certainly wouldn't wish it on them), but advocating exercise without asking what already do and feel about this, appears to me to be because doctors are expected to take for granted that we're all lazy, ignorant lardarses.
I'm not denying that there are a considerable number of lazy, ignorant lardarses, but it's definitely undue discrimination to tar us all with the same brush.
Honestly, no-one would choose to exist (it's certainly not a life) with a chronic illness, if all their ills could be eliminated by these "simple" measures.
My GP and another doctor in the practice have both mentioned exercise to me a couple of times. Whilst I understand why, this makes me angry, because they don't really know me (not entirely their fault, given the limitations of the system), they obviously don't know what it feels like to have fibromyalgia / ME/CFS/PVFS (Myalgic Encephalopathy/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome) (and I certainly wouldn't wish it on them), but advocating exercise without asking what already do and feel about this, appears to me to be because doctors are expected to take for granted that we're all lazy, ignorant lardarses.
I'm not denying that there are a considerable number of lazy, ignorant lardarses, but it's definitely undue discrimination to tar us all with the same brush.
And Jeez, I'd just walked an 'effin mile to be in their surgery, for feck's sake!
Back in the day, I used to regularly swim, run, weight-train, take jazz dance classes, disco dance, jig about on a stage, walk miles and miles ... Believe me, I was the first to promote the theory that I need enough exercise to prevent me from ceasing up, but not so much as to cause me unbearable pain and fatigue that prevents me from even getting out of bed. Common sense? You'd have thunk so, wouldn't you, but nobody's granted with having any of that now.
Of course, the doctors have also "bought" the guidelines wholesale (as I'm sure their careers depend on doing so) that were clearly written with little or no regard to science and patients' needs and everything to do with saving money on benefits and making even the limbless walk (and therefore work).
The fact of the matter is that in a suitable climate, I used to be able to get just enough of the right kind of exercise, frequently enough on MOST days. And I did so willingly, knowingly and proactively. The number of days when the weather wasn't good enough were sufficiently few enough not to impact.
On good days, I took longer walks, slowly and deliberately, trying to keep up some level of fitness, whilst not overstepping my limits. Shopping trips did still cause me a lot of pain and fatigue, but I coped with them, by not making too many of them, resting first and crashing afterwards. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it meant I could manage most of the things I needed to do, most of the time.
Stress, pollution, diet and more also contribute to a worsening of symptoms, but if the temperature in my surroundings dips below 20 degrees centigrade, then my muscles spasm and tighten making ANY movement excruciatingly painful. Imagine a feeling like they're tearing. Imagine trying to make a frozen chicken walk.
Back in the day, I used to regularly swim, run, weight-train, take jazz dance classes, disco dance, jig about on a stage, walk miles and miles ... Believe me, I was the first to promote the theory that I need enough exercise to prevent me from ceasing up, but not so much as to cause me unbearable pain and fatigue that prevents me from even getting out of bed. Common sense? You'd have thunk so, wouldn't you, but nobody's granted with having any of that now.
Of course, the doctors have also "bought" the guidelines wholesale (as I'm sure their careers depend on doing so) that were clearly written with little or no regard to science and patients' needs and everything to do with saving money on benefits and making even the limbless walk (and therefore work).
The fact of the matter is that in a suitable climate, I used to be able to get just enough of the right kind of exercise, frequently enough on MOST days. And I did so willingly, knowingly and proactively. The number of days when the weather wasn't good enough were sufficiently few enough not to impact.
On good days, I took longer walks, slowly and deliberately, trying to keep up some level of fitness, whilst not overstepping my limits. Shopping trips did still cause me a lot of pain and fatigue, but I coped with them, by not making too many of them, resting first and crashing afterwards. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it meant I could manage most of the things I needed to do, most of the time.
Stress, pollution, diet and more also contribute to a worsening of symptoms, but if the temperature in my surroundings dips below 20 degrees centigrade, then my muscles spasm and tighten making ANY movement excruciatingly painful. Imagine a feeling like they're tearing. Imagine trying to make a frozen chicken walk.
If the temperature outside is below 15 degrees centigrade and / or there is any amount of humidity (does not have to be actual precipitation), then even a short walk causes unbearable pain. The result, in the UK climate, is that for at least 10 months out of 12, it's too cold and / or too damp for me to go outside or get exercise at all without this causing pain that is totally disabling in nature. Then, even the short walk to the loo or the kitchen become monumental tasks from which I collapse, breathless, exhausted and in pain.
And I'm talking pain that is severe enough that:
Are you getting the idea? The only thing I can do at these times is to lie flat (even sitting up is too much) in a darkened room, hoping to fall asleep. Or die.
We're told to pace ourselves so as to avoid such "boom or bust", "all or nothing" events that cause such severe flare-ups, but without transport or real help, there is no way to avoid them. Shopping trips (I mean for essential items such as food and medication), trips to support groups (long since abandoned as harmful), even medical appointments create bloody hell. And during this past week alone, I've had over three days like that, because of 3 appointments.
The cost of memberships or classes at the sports and leisure facilities that the doctors promote are prohibitive to someone on the sort of meagre benefits we're required to subsist on; classes are often in the evenings when it is unsafe to go out even if we could do so, when there's no public transport running, even if it passed those places, which it doesn't. I can no longer drive. If I walked I'd be in the sort of excruciating pain I've described above and, from all that it should be obvious that I wouldn't be able to exercise on top of making the journey.
Swimming would be great, but when you've suffered with cystitis for 35 years, you know never to get into baths of water, especially not ones with bleach in them.
After at least a decade of reasonably successfully pacing and managing the symptoms that I've been suffering for a minimum of 15 years, I reckon I had a pretty good handle on what I can and can't do and, more specifically, what happens when I attempt to push myself a little further. It does not increase tolerance making it possible to do more, as it would in a normal, healthy person. What it does do is to make matters worse in the short and long-term (possibly even permanently), by making flare-ups occur more frequently and for less.
Apparently, several thousand scientific and clinical papers agree with me.
And I'm talking pain that is severe enough that:
- I feel (and on occasions have been) sick (beyond simply nauseous).
- Is so distracting that I cannot concentrate on anything; not even banal TV programs and my sight is blurred or eyes hurt too much to watch it anyway.
- If I was asked, I doubt I could have strung my first and last names together, let alone a complete and literate sentence.
- It feels like I've been beaten and bruised, have half my bones broken, joints dislocated, am burning up in fever and am near delirium.
- It hurts so much, I'm often in involuntary tears, but I dare not sob, because even that movement would be too painful.
Are you getting the idea? The only thing I can do at these times is to lie flat (even sitting up is too much) in a darkened room, hoping to fall asleep. Or die.
We're told to pace ourselves so as to avoid such "boom or bust", "all or nothing" events that cause such severe flare-ups, but without transport or real help, there is no way to avoid them. Shopping trips (I mean for essential items such as food and medication), trips to support groups (long since abandoned as harmful), even medical appointments create bloody hell. And during this past week alone, I've had over three days like that, because of 3 appointments.
The cost of memberships or classes at the sports and leisure facilities that the doctors promote are prohibitive to someone on the sort of meagre benefits we're required to subsist on; classes are often in the evenings when it is unsafe to go out even if we could do so, when there's no public transport running, even if it passed those places, which it doesn't. I can no longer drive. If I walked I'd be in the sort of excruciating pain I've described above and, from all that it should be obvious that I wouldn't be able to exercise on top of making the journey.
Swimming would be great, but when you've suffered with cystitis for 35 years, you know never to get into baths of water, especially not ones with bleach in them.
After at least a decade of reasonably successfully pacing and managing the symptoms that I've been suffering for a minimum of 15 years, I reckon I had a pretty good handle on what I can and can't do and, more specifically, what happens when I attempt to push myself a little further. It does not increase tolerance making it possible to do more, as it would in a normal, healthy person. What it does do is to make matters worse in the short and long-term (possibly even permanently), by making flare-ups occur more frequently and for less.
Apparently, several thousand scientific and clinical papers agree with me.
