As with the disease itself, controversy surrounds the TREATMENT of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Most practitioners recommend rest. Psychiatry - believe that a graded exercise programme is much better TREATMENT. Confusion arises perhaps because recovery from CFS is a two-stage operation.
If you are suffering from this condition, you should rest. To return to the bank account analogy, rest is necessary in the first phase of your recovery until the deposit account starts to be replenished. You may have become ill in the first place because you failed to recognize the body’s signals that reserve energy supplies were being depleted. So, you will have to learn what you are capable of in order to determine a level of activity - either in terms of the amount of time that you can sustain an action or the distance you can cover, if you are walking for example. This will enable you to pay back the deposit account and start to recover. At the beginning of your recovery, you should only use 50 per cent of the energy you are capable of expending before you become tired. It may be necessary to take to your bed for a few days or even a week or two. If you can walk 200 metres before getting tired, for example, and then you feel tired or even ill for a couple of days, the next time you should attempt only 100 metres. If this is still too tiring, walk 50 metres the next time. You are thus leaving some energy in reserve with which to repay the deposit account. Once you are confident this is happening you can increase the proportion of possible energy you can use before tiring to 75 per cent. You should stay at this level until you reach the second phase of your recovery.
You will eventually get to the point when the deposit account can support the current account again. What this means in practical terms is that if you overdo things, you will not experience such great tiredness or for as long as you would have done before.
You should now consider an exercise programme that gently and gradually increases your level of activity. It is important to avoid the harmful effects of inactivity on muscles and the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Also, you should not seek to avoid situations or activities that were the apparent cause of your illness. Walking is good exercise to start with. You should be able to walk about seven or eight kilometers without suffering any ill effects before you can progress to a good form of all-round exercise such as swimming or cycling. You have now reached stage two of your recovery from CFS and the deposit account has at least 60 per cent of its funds restored. You should be thinking more clearly and be able to read or even study for much longer periods than at the outset of your recovery. You should be able to tackle situations in which you would have previously become ill. Do not be concerned about ordinary tiredness. This may well be a sign that your muscles are not doing as much work as they are capable of rather than the fact that they have done too much. If, however, you develop some of the symptoms associated with your illness, such as a fever or swollen glands, then these are signs that you have done too much and that you need to slow down. But even then, you will not sink as low as you would have done before and your recovery will be quicker. It is always important to remember that most people recover from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, regardless of how debilitating it was in the beginning. Recovery can be a lengthy process, however, and you will need enormous amounts of energy, determination, patience and time. Consulting a practitioner who specialises in treating CFS can be of particular value. Recovery can be a very frustrating experience. There is an extremely fine line between overdoing it and therefore experiencing a return of the symptoms of your illness and not doing enough so that you become discouraged by a lack of progress.
Decisions about work will be among the most difficult issues you have to tackle. If you have suffered a moderate to severe attack of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome you may only be able to work for half a day at most while you are recovering. Many patients find that going to work in the morning, coming home and resting after lunch, and then doing a little more work from home later in the day means that they avoid having to drive themselves on through a whole day. This sort of struggle when their bodies were telling them to slow down was possibly the reason for their illness in the first place.
Top-class athletes sometimes find that the constant stress of having to maintain fitness levels that enable them to compete eventually causes their immune systems to break down. Alternatively, common viruses may “wear down” the immune system so that another factor, such as environmental pollution, is the final straw in inducing chronic illness. The removal of both mental and physical stress is therefore very important before recovery from CFS can begin. This may necessitate the resolution of longstanding conflicts in your life.
EFFECTS OF CFS ON PREGNANCY: Obvious worry for a pregnant woman could be that she will be unable to cope with pregnancy and the effects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS will adversely affect her baby. There is no evidence to suggest that CFS is inherited, although it is possible that some of the factors believed to be instrumental in causing the disease, such as poor diet, allergies, toxic overload, Candida infection and stress, may be passed on. If pregnant women follow the guidelines for recovery, however, this is less likely. Pregnancy does not appear to make the condition worse. In fact, in some instances symptoms seem to improve. It is, however, very important to make plans for after the baby is born so that rest periods can be maintained, especially if there are other children to be looked after.