If You Have CFS/Fibromyalgia – This Book is For YOU

I literally stumbled on this book while browsing on Amazon, and of course, in light of the research I posted about recently HERE and HERE I was really interested.

I read all the Amazon reviews, which convinced me it was worth a read, and then I went and looked on ebay and found it a whole £4 cheaper 🙂  But anyway – wherever you can locate it, you really, REALLY need to buy it and read it two or three times.

I say 2 or 3 times because some parts of it are quite……scientific…..and with the old familiar brain fog, chances are it won’t all go in at once.

I have known of Dr Myhill for several years, since I first got Fibro, and although there was some controversy about her, it was more a case of the NHS being ridiculous, trust me on this. Dr Myhill now has a private practice that people all over the country would love to be able to attend, because she makes a LOT of sense.

The book explains the mitochondria failure, and uses the analogy of the human body as a car, which helps to make the info easier to relate to.

I found it very interesting that she has actually published scientific research and evidence of the mitochondrial basis of CFS (and fibromyalgia as the two are so very closely linked as to be almost indistinguishable at times) a whole 5 years before the Spanish team I posted about on the links above.

She has treated 5000 CFS patients, and she describes the tried and tested protocol for recovery in this book.

For those of you who who have started taking Co-enzyme Q10 after reading the mitochondrial research – WE ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK!!!  But there is SO much more to it than just Co-Q10, and that’s why you need to buy this book and read it.

Dr Myhill states that there is basically no point to treating CFS until the basics are in place – tightly. The most basic of all being sleep, as our bodies recover and most importantly, they repair during sleep. But sleeping in fits and starts like I have been for most of the last 18 months, just does not cut it. This particular snippet of info harkens right back to the info my mum was given when she was first diagnosed with FM 26 years ago. That fibro sufferers do not reach the deepest levels of sleep which enable our muscles to repair, hence the relentless pain and fatigue.

I am seriously considering buying a copy of this book for my GP, in view of the battles I have had getting the right dose of zopiclone to help me sleep, and more than a weeks supply maybe twice a year.

Dr Myhill describes how combinations of herbal sleeping aids should be experimented with to find the right combination for each individual. She will also prescribe zopiclone on top of the herbal remedies because CFS sufferers need that much help to sleep properly. 

When she was describing the classic sleep pattern of her patients – she was describing me!!

So, 2 nights ago, I took 2 herbal Nytol tablets (which are the lowest dose of the 3 types of pills I have) and then 20-30 mins later I took a normal Nytol tablet.

Within half an hour I was asleep!!!

Seriously. I was asleep before 1 am. And what is more remarkable – I slept for 8 hours. Yep – 8 whole, entire hours!!! I was stiff and sore coz I hadn’t moved all night LOL but I felt so much more……human…..normal…….better for it.

Last night I was a bit naughty. I was using my phone and so didn’t take my pills as early, and so I didn’t get to sleep as fast, but I slept 7 hours solid. For me, this is a bloody miracle!!

I am going to continue, and from now on take the advice she gives on what is essentially what they call ‘sleep hygiene’ (what a bloody awful name for it tho….urgh!!) but a bit more strict, and for me, it means breaking what I hadn’t realised has become a habit until I thought about it – using my phone before I try to sleep, and when I can’t get to sleep. That has to stop completely.

I have done things like have a light filter on my lappy and on my phone, and instead of using the lamp with my daylight bulb beside my bed, I am using my normal yellow toned bulb more. It’s much dimmer and means I can’t do any crafts – but that’s kinda the point. And the light filters on my electronic stuff is simply not enough.

The hardest part is going to be transitioning diet wise due to my multiple food allergies, but one step at a time.

I have definitely felt a benefit from the Co-Q10. Powdered D-ribose needs to replace the sugar I put in my drinks because the ‘wafer’ form of it I bought are just enormous!! And putting it into my coffee and tea (all 2 cups a day lol) will reduce my refined sugar intake a bit.

She says that CFS is a symptom, not an illness in itself, and the mitochondrial evidence explains SO much, as well as how hard it is to treat with what the doctors have been using to date.

I am not expecting miraculous results, indeed Dr Myhill talks in terms of  even years depending on how long you have had CFS and how bad it is to begin with. But when faced with an entire lifetime of CFS/FM………………I know what I would rather have. But it seems that most people have one thing that makes all the difference – it just varies from person to person, as you would expect.

She also stresses that relapses occur, and we’ll never be the people we were before we got ill, but dammit – don’t we all want an improvement in our daily struggles and misery?

I do!! Which is why I am going to begin this. It basically provides a much clearer strategy of what I have already been doing. It gives me a reference to go back to, knowing it has helped a lot of people already. I owe it to myself and to my family who have taken as much of the slack as they can. But the girls won’t be with me forever, and I am not going to keep them here with me because they feel they need to care for me. Even if I only get back to where I was 2 years ago, I will be happy.

I haven’t looked yet to see how much the lab tests are, simply because I am afraid to. However, I bet a way can be found – there is always a way. And I would prefer it if my GP was on board, so I need to go and discuss it with her.

This last 18 months has been my worst, without a shadow of a doubt. And I am sick to the back teeth of being glued to my bed most of the time. I want my life back. I want to be able to go to the shops for a couple of hours without it knocking me on my back for the next 3 – 4 days. There is even an explanation in the book of why this happens, and it is all within those tiny structures within our cells. I want to be able to sit and do stuff without paying for it in pain for the rest of the week. To be able to do more than have a shower in a day. I’d even relish housework – let me at the hoover godammit!!! LOL

If anybody does buy this and wants to give it a try as well, please let me know. We could look into starting a new blog with shared access to report our experiences and progress etc.