There are 18 matching stories.
How I got ill
As with many people, it took me quite some time before I even realised I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I'd heard of ME, because a friend of my mum's had it for many years, but knew nothing about it. Although ignorance is not bliss, I don't know what I would have done if I'd known it would take 5 years to recover.
I returned home from travelling in India and almost immediately came down with a nasty virus. After a few weeks I went to the doctor, who said to come back if ...
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rated 8.7 out of 10
Hi All,
When I was at my worst with CFS, I used to search the internet for information and grow ever more despairing at the lack of people who seemed to be recovering. Now that I'm recovering I realise that the last thing on your mind when you are recovering is going back to those depressing forums - there's too much fun to catch up on!
So my first point is don't despair.
Secondly, I'd like to share the understanding of CFS/ME/etc that I came to through my extensive reading and also the ...
Viewed 4152 times,
rated 8.7 out of 10
Looking back I had an episode as far back as 10 years ago (off work for a couple of weeks), and then another about 7 years ago (off work for a month and took another 9 months to get back to about 80% of my normal self). I remember the doctor saying it wasn't ME but PVFS. But always felt from then on that something wasn't quite right with me but just couldn't understand what it was!
Then nearly 5 years ago I went down with it again really badly, told the doctor this time we were going to get ...
Viewed 2410 times,
rated 7.1 out of 10
I suffered from chronic cystitis for over ten years. I first started to get it severely from the age of nineteen. Almost every week I would have an attack, which would last for 4 hours, and then the rest of the day or night to recover. Sometimes an attack would last for three days.
My symptoms were shaking, sweating. The extreme discomfort in my bladder took over my whole body. It felt like I was passing shards of glass when I went for a wee. Sometimes there was blood.
Sex made my cystitis ...
Viewed 2380 times,
rated 9.2 out of 10
How did it start
I was walking around a car boot sale when I felt a throbbing pain in both my hips, by the time I got home the pain had increased. I didn’t think anything of it and spent the afternoon with my feet up. When I woke up the next day my muscles and joints felt so stiff that I could only walk around like I was 100 years old not 29. As the week went on the pain gradually crept up my back and I decided it was time to see my GP. I immediately had 5 blood tests for arthritis, rheumati ...
Viewed 1803 times,
rated 8.6 out of 10
Where it All Started
I first got sick towards the end of 1999 shortly after the birth of my first child. I had repeated flare ups of arthritis, kidney inflammation, pleuresy, skin rashes and extreme fatigue. I was a reserved, self sufficient person, and I thought that my will alone was enough to make it go away, and didn't really share what was going on with anyone. I was happy and enjoying my life with my new child and would not allow these recurring spells of illness to impose on that life ...
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rated 9.4 out of 10
I had troubled teenage yrs, mostly in hindsight due to lack of self esteem /confidence caused by wearing braces, having bad skin and being relativly flat chested (although at the time i did not realise this) ... I felt like an ugly ducking, I had always been an attractive child (so im told!!) and felt the transional yrs toward adulthood very diffficult... I did the classic drinking too much, smoking, sleeping with too many people, late nights... shocking my parents etc.... I ended up leaving hom ...
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rated 8 out of 10
For virtually my entire life I've always been really healthy, hardly ever taken any time off sick. In December 2005, age 22, I knew something was wrong with me, although I really couldn't put my finger on it. My energy levels seemed drained, for a few odd days in December I slept for virtually the entire day which was most unlike me. This continued for a month or two, until in January my health just fell off a cliff literally over night. It was pretty much exactly like I had flu, but instead of ...
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rated 9.6 out of 10
How I got ill
I had a severe bout of shingles on my face in January 1999 and never really recovered from it. I was back and forth to the GP for months and just told I had postviral fatigue. It was complicated by the fact that I have had an underactive thyroid for years and the symptoms are very similar. I was referred to a thyroid specialist and my medication altered but to no avail. Eventually the GP referred me to Seacroft hospital as I lived in Leeds and I was diagnosed as having ME.
...
Viewed 923 times,
rated 5.9 out of 10
I had a baby last year and since then have been prone to hemorrhoids from time to time. These have usually been manageable and have flared up, but then gone over time.
However, recently I had a very bad episode, which nearly resulted in disaster on my wedding day! I went on a big night out, and the next day woke up with a terrible, large external haemorrhoid which was extremely painful. I was so distraught, it was so painful, there was no getting away from the pain and so I went to the doctor ...
Viewed 674 times,
rated 9.3 out of 10
I suffered with regular tummy discomfort for several years. I had bloating, and an achey sensation that moved around my abdomen. It came and stayed for a few days, then went for a day or so.
I visited my doctor, who examined me, and told me I had IBS. I was prescribed several different drugs to limit the tension in my digestive system, but nothing seemed to help.
I tried acupuncture, and visited a homeopath. I also tried a course of therapeutic counselling, thinking that maybe I was stress ...
Viewed 645 times,
rated 8.9 out of 10
I've struggled with MVP Syndrome my whole life, really. As far back as I can remember I had symptoms such as chest pain, palpitations, lightheadedness, fatigue, irritable bowel, severe anxiety, and phobias. I was able to live with most of the symptoms without them interfering too much in my life. The weakness and fatigue and the pounding and racing heart were everyday occurrences to me. They never concerned or scared me, because I thought that they were normal feeling that everyone had. Irr ...
Viewed 583 times,
rated 8 out of 10
I was diagnosed with MVP in 1988. I was really happy to get a diagnosis, but I still didn't quite know everything that was involved with it. Frankly, I was just happy to get any diagnosis, because after years of running around to all different kinds of doctors, I was actually glad one had finally found something wrong with me. A few months after the diagnosis I learned about Lyn Frederickson's book, "Confronting Mitral Valve Prolapse Syndrome." I ordered it through the mail. The day it arriv ...
Viewed 553 times,
rated 10 out of 10
Hi!
I just wanted to share my story with everyone, with the hope that at least a couple of people will read it and hear hope as not so many moons i was the one trawling the internet looking for a cure for this awful illness.
I wont go into to much detail about how i got chronic fatigue, but 2.5 years ago I went from being someone who seriously burned the candles at both ends (competing in triatholons, working 70 hour weeks and generally having a fun life) to loosing my social life, not bei ...
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rated 4 out of 10
In 1974 I had 3 wisdom teeth pulled, urgently, in the dentist's lunchtime. He didn't remove the periodontic ligaments, for sure. These facts, I now realise, may be significant.
In 1976 I became ill with fatigue and neuropathy. I was told it wasn't MS and to go home and get on with it. More symptoms appeared over the years. I didn't work - I couldn't sustain any job for long. I have raised two children but that was all I could manage. My mother has hypothyroidism and I realised I had the ...
Viewed 423 times,
rated 7 out of 10
'An anxious child', is written in my school report. I can recall many situations when my anxiety kicked in, such as a 5 year old asking my mum to hurry up in case we missed the second part of our long haul flight in case we got stuck on a strange island in the middle of nowhere at night with nowhere to stay.
Having butterflies in the stomach was 'normal' for me. Regular migraines, constantly stressed was 'normal', so much so, that I didn't recognise it as stress. I was ambitious, on the pulse ...
Viewed 377 times,
rated 9.3 out of 10
My recovery from M.E/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
September 2009
Five years ago at the age of 24 I became increasingly anxious suffering with frequent panic attacks, depression, insomnia and M.E. symptoms. I believe that this was brought on by intense prolonged stress and childhood trauma. I gradually started to loose confidence to do simple things, even reading took too much energy and was so unwell I couldn’t even lift a shopping bag or stand up for longer than 10 minutes without feeling ...
Viewed 221 times,
rated 7.5 out of 10
I had cystitis on and off for 7 years, it was complicated by the fact that I worked on boats so access to antibiotics was at times limited and I had to keep my own records to show to different doctors as I was constantly travelling. Finally antibiotics stopped working for me. (TMP is the only one that sort of helped at the end.) It was so painful and intensely disruptive to my life.
I now have me/cfs which is even more disruptive than cystitis, and while the cause of me/cfs is unknown, I ...
Viewed 161 times,
rated 10 out of 10