Chronic Fatigue (CFS)
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) can be set off by trauma such as a car accident, viral illness, pregnancy or a death in the family. It leaves you feeling tired from the minute you open your eyes (even before that) and you tend to feel tired all day. Most often there are also gut health issues and problems. When there are prolonged gut issues the malabsorption of food and maldigestion issues it can add to the fatigue as the nutrients the body requires to maintain itself and to provide energy are not being made available. CFS has also been reported to relate to bacterial and viral illnesses. Because the root cause can be very different from person to person it is essential that each individual is treated in a bespoke way.
It is different to Adrenal Fatigue and it’s important to understand that.
When I was working as a therapist in Los Angeles and New York I found clients who had gone down the traditional medical route to treat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but hadn’t been able to improve their state so they came to me. I found they were responding well to my acupressure treatment and as such started attending Chronic Fatigue Support groups to immerse myself in learning more about what people experience with chronic fatigue and further developed my ways of treating people.
My approach
In my opinion, CFS is a result of several mental and physical cofactors that can come together. It can be considered as one diagnosis with multiple inputs. It can also be misunderstood by people because it has no clear single cause and some see it as being psychosomatic. To me, there are clearly physiological patterns that have become engrained in the body and which are no longer supporting it. Because of this, I believe individuals need to be treated with a multi-pronged approach and all aspects of their lives need to be considered, including, their history, habits, lifestyle and body state.
When my clients come to see me they often have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning. Some even get to a place where they need a wheelchair to move around. I also have clients who tell me they eat a lot of food but don’t ever feel like they’re getting energy from it or that they are sleeping but they never ever feel refreshed or energized.
Through a series of treatment sessions, I look for neuromuscular tension and work through the meridians of the body to identify blocks that are locked in a certain state unable to move into a state of rest and repair. According to traditional Chinese medicine, fatigue relates to the small intestine and over exhaustion and can also be in combination with Adrenal Fatigue which is seen as kidney depletion (stress and anxiety).
After some time working together clients tell me they feel empowered to start tackling some of the cofactors and patterns that are negatively impacting their condition and that need unravelling.
Chronic conditions so often, in my opinion, are a web of cofactors that need to be pulled apart and gradually worked on from a number of angles. There are many products that claim to be a one-stop cure which would be wonderful for a syndrome that can be so debilitating but I’ve yet to see that occur in 20 years of seeing clients with Chronic Fatigue. We all have a unique set of circumstances and it takes time for the body and the person to recover as the body needs to re-learn what balance is. Positive momentum must be established first then staying a course for a period which allows the body to shift back to a robust state of health.
Clients who have had a series of sessions with me report they:
- Feel normal again
- Feel like ‘me’
- Can socialize again and feel confident to accept social invitations
- Feel free – have energy and can ‘live again’
- Maintain relationships better
- Have learnt how to manage their lifestyles
- Have learnt what’s supportive for my health
- Have improved concentration and decision making