Following on from the lovely ME story I just posted…….
I have been meaning to write this post ever since a friend asked me, a few weeks ago, whether I had any suggestions for her daughter who was really struggling with what appeared to be chronic fatigue and did not seem to be able to find anyone/thing that helped.
I did some pottering around our own site and then around the wider web, but in terms of practical, informed and authoritative help, I kept coming back to Dr Sarah Myhill’s very large and hugely helpful site.
For a long time Dr Myhill has been on the far left of the medical fraternity and a practitioner of ecological medicine; she is secretary and a long standing committee member of the British Society of Ecological Medicine. Although she spent many years within the NHS she is now in private practice – and not on the best of terms with the more conventional wing of doctoring in the guise of the GMC (General Medical Council) who have attempted, unsuccessfully, to get her ‘de-frocked’ on several occasions. As she says on her ‘about my practice’ page:
‘My practice of medicine has evolved from an entirely conventional training at the Middlesex Hospital, London qualifying in 1981 to something very different. Now my focus is on looking for causes of problems with respect to diet, micronutrient status, allergies and lifestyle. This approach is highly successful at tackling the majority of medical problems. Indeed, if this package was applied across the board, then the pattern of chronic disease, degeneration and cancer in Western nations would undergo a radical change.’
Chronic Fatigue and ME have been the focus of her work for some years now and she has, as she says, seen and treated thousands of patients with CFS. To do so she has devised a whole package of treatments which, for most patients, involve major nutritional and lifestyle changes which are not easy to undertake but, as she says:
‘I ask all my patients to tread this hard path because I know of no other way to get better. This requires a complete change in lifestyle and changes are hard to make, especially when the poor patient lacks the physical, mental and emotional energy to make any changes at all!
Each patient has to become his own doctor, detective and psychotherapist to work out the best strategies for recovery. I can point patients in the right direction, provide the tests, information and therapies to get sufferers better, but there is only one person who can actually walk that path.’
But she is successful and her patients do get better. So, if you suffer from, or know someone who suffers from Chronic Fatigue or ME, I can suggest no better source of information and inspiration. Just start with her ‘Summary of my approach for CFS/ME sufferers’ and continue on from there.