CFS Unravelled

Get Well By Treating The Cause Not Just The Symptoms Of CFS, Fibromyalgia, POTS And Related Syndromes

Dan Neuffer

• Publisher: Elednura Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780987509826
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

 

Part One:
Introduction

 

Chapter 1

Naming Convention

“What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

- William Shakespeare

Much contention surrounds the names given to this illness—not only about whether each is appropriate, but whether different names describe different illnesses altogether.

The names include Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Fibromyalgia or Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS), Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID), Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) and sometimes other names are used for early expressions of the illness, such as Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS).

Other conditions such as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) or Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSD) also likely fall into the same spectrum of illness, but include specific triggers and secondary dysfunctions that make them more uniquely identifiable (similarly to POTS and fibromyalgia where specific symptoms can be dominant).

I believe that none of these names are fitting, as most are based on symptoms and not on cause. I also believe that, despite their varied symptoms, these illnesses all share the same cause. Even if you disagree with me, I ask you to keep an open mind whilst you read this book and try to follow my reasoning.

For simplicity’s sake, this book will refer to this illness primarily as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Please forgive me if this is not the name you believe to be correct. Also, instead of ‘patient’ or ‘sufferer’, I will use the term ‘person experiencing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ (PEC), since thinking of yourself as a sufferer is ultimately not helpful

 

Chapter 2

Getting Started On The Right Foot

Why is it that, at a time when all the answers are supposedly at our fingertips, we often cannot get straightforward answers about our health?

Why is it that, when the medical industry and list of medical research organisations are bigger than ever, an illness like CFS is still ‘a mystery’?

I believe the answer involves three main factors:

1. The complexity of the illness.

2. The tendency for medical research to be highly specialised and focussed as opposed to looking at illness as a whole.

3. The years of unjust labels applied to people with CFS that have strained the relationship between patients and the medical community, making communication even more difficult.

Writing this book has been a challenge. Whilst health care professionals can benefit from it, my aim is to explain this illness to people experiencing CFS (PECs).

If you are a PEC, you may have very little medical knowledge, or you may have spent years reading and experimenting. The one thing you may have built up is scepticism. That’s why I have gone into some detail to show how the dots are connected in my hypothesis. If you can’t see how the illness works, you won’t act on the conclusions. And if you don’t act, you won’t benefit from the knowledge. I hope I have struck the right balance between detail and clarity.

Over the years, I have heard PECs criticise the conclusions and treatments of researchers and practitioners from around the world. The problem is that many valid and important ideas represent only part of the puzzle of CFS. To get well, you must have the full picture and understand all the steps required for recovery.

At this point, I’m going to ask you to clarify what you believe about CFS. Write down your answers to the questions below. If you don’t know the answer, write your best guess, or write, “I don’t know.”

1. What is the central cause of CFS?

2. What are the main things you need to do to recover from CFS?

3. Has doing these things led you to a full and permanent recovery?

Since you’re reading this book, I expect your answer to Question 3 to be “No.” This does not mean that your beliefs are all wrong, but they are probably incomplete. Your answers are the start of a framework that you can fill in as you read this book.

Treating problems in isolation doesn’t work. Neither does treating secondary problems alone. You must treat the root cause and address your own personal triggers of the cause.

You must also treat things in the right order. It’s a bit like cleaning the house for an important dinner guest: If you vacuum before you wipe the crumbs off the table, you won’t end up with a clean floor.

The mechanism of this illness is complex—complex because the human body is complex. Researchers, doctors, and PECs often get lost in the details and never see the big picture.

It is the big picture that CFS Unravelled is written to deliver - a big picture made of many individual puzzle pieces. I have sought to make the picture detailed enough for you to be confident that it is correct, so you can gain the confidence to start taking more focussed action to recover from this dreadful illness now.

Table of contents

• Detailed Table of Contents
• Disclaimer
• Acknowledgement
• Foreword by Prof. Thieme
• Preface to the Third Edition
• Note to Readers
• Part One: Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Naming Convention. 19
• Chapter 2 - Getting Started On The Right Foot 20
• Chapter 3 – My story. 22
• Chapter 4 – Solving the Mystery. 25
• Chapter 5 - You Are Not Alone! 30
• Chapter 6 – The Cause and Conundrum of CFS. 33
• Part Two: Unravelling CFS
• Chapter 7 – Starting with What We Know.. 36
• Chapter 8 – The First Clue: Deficiency and the Energy Crisis 37
• Chapter 9 – The Second Clue: Onset Trigger Events 43
• Chapter 10 – A Major Realisation: It’s Not Just One Problem.. 50
• Chapter 11 – A Plausible Hypothesis? 67
• Chapter 12 – The Critical Realisation: ANS Dysfunction. 71
• Chapter 13 – Putting It All Together 76
• Chapter 14 – Treatments ‘with’ or ‘to’ your body? 90
• Chapter 15 – The Master Plan
• Chapter 16 – ANS Normalisation
• Chapter 17 – A Diet to Thrive On
• Chapter 18 – Support with Supplements
• Chapter 19 - Exercise
• Chapter 20 - Lifestyle and Outlook are Everything
• Chapter 21 - More Than One Way
• Chapter 22 - Summing Up and a Final Message
• Chapter 23 - CFS Unravelled: Questions and Answers
• Action Checklist
• List of Acronyms
• About the ANS REWIRE Recovery Program
• About the Author
• Be the voice of change!