| I've been diagnosed by a GP, but I didn't find that diagnosis led to specific treatment. Most conventional doctors treat it as depression if other tests come back normal. I've tried heaps of other health practitioners over the past 15 years and its been hit and miss. I had a lot of family support from the start. B-Complex in the morning and Magnesium in the evening, along with Enzo Pine Bark for cognitive issues made a huge difference for me for the past 3-4 years. I've recently been focusing more on digestion, the gut, microbiome etc. Changing diet, dropping gluten and dairy made a huge difference. I had markers showing celiac disease. Most of the changes have been trial and error, noticing the patterns as I went. I've been seeing a psychologist since my last burnout too. I recognize I feel I have to overcompensate for the tiredness and looking weak from CFS by taking on risk and pushing myself into burnout. The stakes of trauma and conflict are higher for me. I always felt like I was alone with CFS, like no-one understands and that was incredibly isolating. And there is a feeling of being in a car crash in slow motion keeps me in a constant state of chronic stress. Some of my experiences could be seen as being locked in the "freeze" state, with efforts to move out of that state producing panic and anxiety. To me I believe this is all a minor (but still important) part of the complex picture though, and related to the consequences of my experiences both socially and personally with my condition. Life events have been super hard because I'm already primed with stress so sometimes the hits hit harder and recovery takes longer. A supportive partner and family definitely has helped. I tried exercise and yoga, I would get yoga lows and exercise did not make me feel better personally. For a long time, I wouldn't get burn when exercising, instead I would feel weaker like I was wasting away. And then one day I was trying some new changes and I felt I could handle going to the gym - I got positive gains out of it. I see my CFS as a complex array of vague dependencies, interrelations and consequences. An analogy is getting someone out of poverty, it may be a lot more complex than just giving someone money to give them a hand out, theres usually a lot of reasons (and assumptions on my part), and its usually easier to denigrate, not care and ignore them. Every way I look at it I see a different viewpoint. It has been a journey of poking in all directions trying to find a way in, and an emergence of a personal truth and understanding. I want to emphasize its not all straightforward - I've given up many times along the way. |