3 Crucial Components for Recovery from Fibromyalgia Syndrome, ME/CFS and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities

​Everyone fancies offering us their grand advice about exactly how we need to manage, or heal from Fibromyalgia, ME/CFS or MCS.  Yet even if we ignore the zillion and one miracle remedies that are supposed to effortlessly takes all our worries away, what I found much more frustrating during my many years of being unwell was the grand “sensible” advice. Advice like:

“Perk up, things can’t be all bad.”

“Just keep going until you get better – never ever give up!”

“Tomorrow is another day.”

Yes, tomorrow is another day of suffering! Okay, I admit that is very negative, but really, people who don’t truly understand what it’s like and who haven’t experienced the pervasive and never-ending nature of the illness are not really able to give advice, or are they?

“Never give up.”  Easy for other people to recommend, they haven’t attempted every treatment they could uncover for so many years.  The only thing more exhausting than Fibromyalgia or ME/CFS itself, is continually trying brand new remedies in the hope that they will cure you.

But naturally everyone means well, and I suppose their advice makes sense.  But why doesn’t it feel good at times?

Personally, I think that this constant badgering to have a positive mindset feels like we should be more than we feel we are able to be.  We should do more.  We haven’t tried strong enough to get our health back.  We should have a better attitude.

And it's comes from people who have actually never experienced anything like what we have.  Frankly, sometimes we don’t want to do more, try harder or ‘be better’.  We get exhausted of thinking our efforts have not been good enough or we should have tried more.

Around 4 years into my nightmare with ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia, I stopped trying to recover my health.  I had seen more doctors than I cared for and squandered more energy, cash and hope than I could afford.  And whilst it might make sense to wish for the Disney film ending, I was happier to just take the pressure off and not have to keep searching for assistance or cures, which honestly, I didn’t think I was ever going to discover anyhow.

It was just before my turning point, when I was so dejected and suffering so severely with the illness that getting out of bed was a real battle in itself.  But my wife took me to yet another expert physician.  Slumping in the seat, I could barely speak and was simply” along for the ride”.  At the end of the appointment, which frankly was a bit of a blur, the physician finally reassured me r that she could help me get my health back, I just cried.  That might not be cool for a man, but I couldn’t help it.

Of course, she couldn’t really help me recover, but I wasn’t even disappointed because I was beyond getting my hopes up.  And about 6 months later, things took a turn for worse.  And this time, I thought I reached breaking point.  It had been so bad, that just “living with it the best I could” became a real challenge.  Those were dark times.

This breaking point low, is one thing I frequently come across when I speak with other people that have actually got their health back after years of FMS/CFS/ME.   I asked myself WHY SHOULD THAT BE?

And much more importantly, just how can we make changes ourselves without this terrible low point?

Well, what has been interesting listening to people’s recovery stories (I continue to publish more and more of those on my website here), is the fact that not just have people gotten their health back with all types of various treatments and changes, but many people actually just got there through instinct!

But this emotional low in my opinion gave people these 2 key attributes:

1.   Determination

Whilst most of us are initially determined to recover from Fibromyalgia Syndrome or ME/CFS, I find that over the years our hope for recovery diminishes.  But not only do people appear to get back their determination for achieving a recovery, they appear to strike an unreasonable level of determination.  Their outlook changes from “I want to recover” to “I need to recover”.

2.   Capability to Change

There is often resistance to change, both from the inside and the outside.  So change in life sometimes takes some effort.  And there is much in our lives that may need changing to recover from this syndrome!

We may need to CHANGE our approach, our treatments, what we eat, what we do, what we think and even what we believe.  And this constant demand for change can simply feel like all too much, perhaps also offensive.

But being able to accept change is the key to recovery from ME/CFS or FMS.  If our present approach to anything in life isn’t working, then there comes a point where we nevertheless need to persist (stay determined), but we require to fine-tune our approach.  And so our ability to alter our believes and change what we do are key to achieving our ultimate dream for recovery.

Okay, that’s 2 crucial components, but what about the 3^rd?

In my opinion, the 3^rd crucial component is INSIGHT!

With insight, you can save yourself  years of wasted effort.  This was crucial to my own recovery, and was based on a deep comprehension of how the illness perpetuates.

Perhaps not all of us requires a medical understanding, but for me this had been essential because years of hope and disappointment had made me way too cynical to rely on faith in anything as enough for me to try things.  That is why I wrote CFS Unravelled and the website with the video explanation.

For me personally, the biggest thing had been getting answers to my WHY questions.  I required a reason for WHY I was experiencing all these symptoms rather than just treating them.

Now for some of you, faith alone is enough which is great.  Perhaps you just follow your instinct, or copy other individuals approach.

In my experience we all have a slightly approach to our recoveries, but ultimately, we all tailor our strategies and make key modifications to exactly how we relate to our symptoms whilst dealing with our other dysfunctions.

Publishing stories and interviews of individuals that have restored their health has been one of the most gratifying things I've done, because I never ever heard any of those when I was ill which was part of the reason why I thought that recovery wasn’t possible from FMS/CFS/ME.

My message today to everyone with Fibromyalgia Syndrome and ME/CFS is that there really isn’t some fast easy magic bullet cure.  But recovery is possible even for those experiencing terrible symptoms.   It is about relevant knowledge, deeper understanding and persistent action, and until you finally get there.  Along the way, we must stay positive and my advice to others is to never ever give yourself a hard time for not getting there immediately, but instead just keep going until you arrive!

Some social images for sharing: