also fibromyal­gia, ME, etc.

by Phillip Day

Pro­file

For years, the med­ical estab­lish­ment would not recog­nise chronic fatigue syn­drome (CFS), fibromyal­gia or ME as stress con­di­tions, even though doc­tors were report­ing cases show­ing up at the surgery with dis­con­cert­ing reg­u­lar­ity. Known var­i­ously down through the years as Ice­land dis­ease, post-infectious neu­romyas­the­nia, chronic Epstein-Barr virus syn­drome, etc., CFS, for exam­ple, has had a rocky ride get­ting itself taken seri­ously by all save those suf­fer­ing from its debil­i­tat­ing symp­toms. Many doc­tors for years wrote it off as Yup­pie flu (malin­ger­ing), yet it’s hard to main­tain this pre­tence when ME alone is cost­ing the UK econ­omy £100 mil­lion a year in lost productivity.

We now know from a ded­i­cated Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity study that these con­di­tions have no viral or bac­te­r­ial cau­sa­tion and appear to be immune-system linked. ¹

Symp­toms

Flu-like symp­toms, con­stant sore throat, list­less­ness, fatigue, aller­gies, mus­cle pain, sleep dis­or­der, stiff­ness, visual blur­ring, swollen lymph nodes, mul­ti­ple chem­i­cal sen­si­tiv­ity, fibromyal­gia, migra­tory joint pain, depres­sion and emo­tional disturbances.

Com­men­tary

CFS is a clas­sic immune sys­tem chal­lenge. Those suf­fer­ing from its var­i­ous symp­toms have likened it to dri­ving with the hand­brake on. As men­tioned, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a mem­ber of the her­pes group, has been blamed, as have oth­ers, like Cytomegalovirus, Bru­cella, Human her­pes virus-6, etc. CFS suf­fer­ers often dis­cuss with oth­ers how tired and debil­i­tated they are, and how hope­less their con­di­tion is, which is one of the first clues to what is going on.

Nine out of ten peo­ple who approach me with com­plaints of CFS actu­ally do not think they will recover. This is what I refer to as ‘toss­ing your­self under the bus’. Emo­tional neg­a­tiv­ity and depres­sion are key fea­tures in Can­dida albi­cansand fun­gal infes­ta­tions (gas­troin­testi­nal over­growths) which some­times accom­pany, since fungi and yeasts release tox­ins that manip­u­late their host’s envi­ron­ment to their advan­tage, often hav­ing a direct impact on mood and motivation.

In a nut­shell, stress­ful, 21^st cen­tury lifestyles, one-off shocks and emo­tional non-linearities are at the heart of this group of prob­lems, which are not helped by poor diets, dehy­dra­tion, the con­sump­tion of excess alco­hol, fizzy sugar drinks, foods sat­u­rated in sugar, and cof­fee abuse in par­tic­u­lar – all of which depress the immune sys­tem, giv­ing rise to a num­ber of spin-off con­di­tions such as hypo­gly­caemia, hypothy­roidism, food aller­gies (sen­si­tiv­i­ties), Can­dida over­growths, etc. Patients often get talked into tak­ing psy­chi­atric drugs in an attempt to alle­vi­ate emo­tional symp­toms. This is a major wrong turn.

A multi-factorial lifestyle approach to CFS almost always brings relief from symp­toms in time, but only if the patient is pre­pared to take action con­sis­tently. Part of the prob­lem with CFS/ME, etc. has always been that the patient all too often can­not bring them­selves a) to appre­ci­ate that recov­ery is wait­ing for them and b) to do what it takes con­sis­tently (there’s that word again) to work their way out of the prob­lem. Many are in denial about lifestyle issues, stress, vit­a­min D defi­ciency and poor diet because stress-loops in the sub­con­scious mind, which caused the con­di­tion in the first place, seek to keep the patient in their thrall.

Remem­ber, your thoughts affect your bio­chem­istry. Dr Bruce Lip­ton gives the exam­ple of you run­ning in the Olympics. Every­one around the world is look­ing at your com­ing per­for­mance on satel­lite TV so the pres­sure is on. Your body is tuned like a Stradi­var­ius. On your marks! Get set! But what if the ‘go’ never comes? The body has pre­pared for explo­sive action but there is no release. How many of us are liv­ing in a ‘get-set’ world where the go never comes, asks Lip­ton. Remem­ber also, Pavlov-patterning in the sub­con­scious is all about rou­tine, and there is the dan­ger. The brain hates to be jerked out of these com­fort zones once they are estab­lished. The whole idea of tak­ing time off to view the pyra­mids in Egypt is met with hor­ror by the sub­con­scious mind because actions like this jerk the patient out of their geo­graph­i­cal and psy­cho­so­matic com­fort zones and over­write their pat­tern­ing. Which is pre­cisely what we want to happen!

Take action!

Work­ing your way out of these con­di­tions takes time, so be patient. The more con­sis­tent you are about tak­ing action, the quicker you will recover. Change your world­view. Change your loca­tion and scenery. The regime is all about what you stop doing as well as what you take. It always helps to have pro­fes­sional super­vi­sion to ensure com­pli­ance with the mea­sures below. Need­less to say, avoid psy­chi­a­trists and their drugs.

• DIET: 80%-plus raw organic whole­food diet with veg­gie juices. If suf­fer­ing from overt fungal/yeast over­growths, COMMENCE THE ANTI-CANDIDA DIETARY REGIMEN and anti-fungal sup­ple­men­ta­tion, tak­ing spe­cial care to avoid the foods in the exclu­sion sec­tion (see can­didai­sis sec­tion). After three months, or as directed by a physi­cian, change to THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN, a more lib­eral regime. The diet should com­prise super­food juices such as man­gos­teen, noni, goji, etc., along with green mix juices and reg­u­lar sal­ads sprin­kled with seeds and nuts. Avoid con­cen­trated fruit juices which yield sugar and acid.
• RESTORE NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM
• Opti­mise vit­a­min D lev­els to 60 ng/ml or 150nmol/L. Very impor­tant. (see AGuide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments before taking)
• High-dose oral vit­a­min C, 35–50 g a day (see AGuide to Nutri­tional Sup­ple­ments before taking)
• DETOXIFICATION: Con­duct a mag­ne­sium oxide bowel cleanse
• DETOXIFICATION: Ensure that harm­ful lifestyle actions, such as tak­ing drugs, smok­ing and exces­sive drink­ing are halted immediately
• TIP: Exer­cise reg­u­larly. Join a gym and exer­cise to the degree that you are able
• TIP: Rest, rest, rest and get into a good book or do some­thing that takes you emo­tion­ally out of your day-to-day grind
• TIP: Give up read­ing news­pa­pers and watch­ing the news
• TIP: Are you on med­ica­tion which might be depress­ing your mood and cre­at­ing side-effects?
• TIP: Avoid stress­ful sit­u­a­tions. Take a four– to six-week hol­i­day where you can relax and have fun while eat­ing good, whole­some foods with peo­ple you enjoy being with and get­ting some sun (Vit­a­min D)
• TIP: Com­pel your­self to stand back from your sit­u­a­tion and eval­u­ate it for what it is. You are burnt out. Have you been jam­ming the nee­dles to the red and smok­ing the rub­ber to the cord?
• TIP: Work­ing your way out of CFS, in my view, is actu­ally about work­ing your way out of the stress and diet cycles you have com­pelled upon your­self over the years
• TIP: You may not know it at the moment but it’s a beau­ti­ful life. Embrace it

Excerpted from The ABC’s of Dis­ease by Phillip Day

Copy­right © 2011 Phillip Day