..his career was over after a devastating illness but Michael Crawford is poised to make..comeback

[AndyPR]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/eve...-make-stunning-West-End-comeback-aged-74.html

He was forced to quit the show at the end of 2004 when dehydration and exhaustion triggered a virus that led to myalgic encephalopathy, or ME.

‘You go… [he slumps in his chair]. There’s no energy. You’ll sit on the sofa and there’s nothing. You’re feeling like a blob. You ache. I had every scan – they found nothing.’

That’s the point at which some people suggest ME is psychological, don’t they?

‘That’s the most frustrating thing, because that’s what it feels like. You want to work. In the end I gave up and thought, “I’m going to go to New Zealand.”

'I had to change my life, because I didn’t want to feel like I was feeling any more. So I went far away from responsibility.’

Crawford went sailing and bought a house.

‘I was on my own. Already my head had changed. I was seeing hills and greenery, beautiful palms and things I wasn’t familiar with. And sun. I thought, “This is bliss.”’

He lived as a recluse for a while but gradually emerged.

‘I wanted to make new friends and sail. I put about 3,000 plants in the garden. Within a year I was growing vegetables. I changed my diet and lived completely off the land.’

His career seemed to be over. Tash went out to join him and for five years they lived in rural New Zealand. They still have that house – and spent the winter there – but gave up the chance of residency in 2010 when Lloyd Webber asked him to return to the West End to play the title role in The Wizard Of Oz. Why give up his idyll?

‘I did it for the grandchildren, as they’d never seen me in anything.’

The show ran for 18 months, after which he retired again – or so he thought. But here he is, shoulders back and chest out, to demonstrate how he plays Leo.

‘When I come through the door on opening night, it’s him. Michael isn’t there any more. Michael is inside, because Michael’s working him.’

Eight shows a week is a big challenge. Is he frightened the ME could return?

‘I guess it’s there in my head. But that was yesterday and you have to think about today, tomorrow and the next day. And that’s where I am…’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/eve...-make-stunning-West-End-comeback-aged-74.html

It's a long-ish article, I've posted all the relevant, to us, bits that I saw.

Don't know about anybody else but, with this limited information, this sounds to me more like a misdiagnosis than M.E., although if it isn't then we all know the cure now!

 

[Hip]

There is an old existing thread on this topic: Michael Crawford and the Locations Effect

The most dramatic case of the locations effect I have come across is the following super-rapid full remission (within a week or two) of ME/CFS after moving to Costa Rica:

A Remarkable Recovery Story

 

[Deepwater]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/eve...-make-stunning-West-End-comeback-aged-74.html



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/eve...-make-stunning-West-End-comeback-aged-74.html

It's a long-ish article, I've posted all the relevant, to us, bits that I saw.

Don't know about anybody else but, with this limited information, this sounds to me more like a misdiagnosis than M.E., although if it isn't then we all know the cure now!

Agree about the misdiagnosis. I heard Michael Crawford talk about his ME on Radio once, and he blamed it on the fat suit he had to wear playing Fosco in The Woman in White. This is from the Wikipedia article on the musical, but it's the same story he told on radio: "At the end of 2004 Michael Crawford was taken ill, as a result of oversweating in the fat suit he wore to play the grossly obese character Count Fosco (originally reported as having the flu). Crawford explained: "For four months I had played the obese Count Fosco in a fat suit: a costume that had been my own clever idea. Unfortunately. Night after night on stage, the suit meant that I'd sweat profusely, to the point where I was losing all the essential minerals and nutrients from my body."
So basically his illness was very serious but self-limiting once he got those deficiencies sorted out. Really the lifestyle change was incidental and he didn't have M.E. as such.

Similar story, isn't it, with Martine McCutcheon and the Lightning Process? Now she seems to realise it was the change in hormone balance due to pregnancy that improved her condition (which I can well believe as I was free of my post glandular fever ME for 5 years due to pregnancies and breast-feeding), and she accepts that she's not actually cured. But the media do love a good psych miracle for us.

 

[Hip]

Unfortunately. Night after night on stage, the suit meant that I'd sweat profusely, to the point where I was losing all the essential minerals and nutrients from my body."

So basically his illness was very serious but self-limiting once he got those deficiencies sorted out. Really the lifestyle change was incidental and he didn't have M.E. as such.

Firstly, if profuse sweating could cause an ME/CFS-like condition, you find such an illness prevalent in tropical countries. Or in people who enjoy regular long saunas.

Secondly, standard blood tests look at sodium, calcium and potassium levels, so if there were a deficiency, his doctors would have detected it.

Thirdly, if it were a mineral deficiency, that would be rectified in week or months, not the 6 years it took Crawford to recover.


Not arguing for or against the possibility that Michael Crawford had ME/CFS; but excess sweating is not going to explain his illness.

 

[Deepwater]

Firstly, if profuse sweating could cause an ME/CFS-like condition, you find such an illness prevalent in tropical countries. Or in people who enjoy regular long saunas.

Secondly, standard blood tests look at sodium, calcium and potassium levels, so if there were a deficiency, his doctors would have detected it.

Thirdly, if it were a mineral deficiency, that would be rectified in week or months, not the 6 years it took Crawford to recover.


Not arguing for or against the possibility that Michael Crawford had ME/CFS; but excess sweating is not going to explain his illness.

Yes, okay I took Michael Crawford's testimony at face value. But I do believe that in a suit like that under theatre lights there could be very profuse sweating, enough to cause dehydration and mineral deficiency. I see in this article he says this then triggered a virus, so that would have delayed recovery. Also you need to understand how difficult it can be in the UK to get tested for anything if you present with CFS-type symptoms because the guidelines insist on only minimal testing so as not to encourage the patient's illness beliefs. I'm sure I'd been seriously ill for about 13 years before I first got those tests.
The parts of the article posted don't actually suggest that the illness went on for six years, only that it caused Crawford to retire from his hectic lifestyle and disappear off to the wilds of New Zealand, and that it was 6 years before he was persuaded to return to the theatre.
During his NZ period he took up sailing and grew his own food. If that was continuing ME then it's light years from the ME I have, or have had even during periods of partial remission.

 

[Hip]

Also you need to understand how difficult it can be in the UK to get tested for anything if you present with CFS-type symptoms because the guidelines insist on only minimal testing so as not to encourage the patient's illness beliefs.

I do appreciate that (as I am in the UK myself). The NHS seem to want to save money at every turn with this disease: minimal testing, and then once you are diagnosed, no treatments offered apart from the highly dubious GET/CBT.

I see in this article he says this then triggered a virus, so that would have delayed recovery.

Again, that does not really follow. Crawford is just wildly speculating. Sweating does not trigger viruses. You catch a virus, and that is that.

 

[Deepwater]

I do appreciate that (as I am in the UK myself). The NHS seem to want to save money at every turn with this disease: minimal testing, and then once you are diagnosed, no treatments offered apart from the highly dubious GET/CBT.




Again, that does not really follow. Crawford is just wildly speculating. Sweating does not trigger viruses. You catch a virus, and that is that.

Only it isn't. Whether you get ill or shrug the virus off depends on how well your immune system is functioning. All sorts of physical stressors will affect immune function, and if Crawford says the chronic dehydration and nutrient deficiency he was suffering did so I see no reason to disbelieve him. We are not talking here about normal sweating.

 

[Hip]

Whether you get ill or shrug the virus off depends on how well your immune system is functioning.

There is evidence to indicate that may be the case: the corticosteroid evidence uncovered by Dr Chia. It does perhaps make some intuitive sense that your immune function at the time you catch an ME/CFS-associated virus may have a bearing on whether you develop ME/CFS from the virus or not; however, I would not elevate this to a fact; at this stage it is just a possibility.

Crawford says the chronic dehydration and nutrient deficiency he was suffering did so I see no reason to disbelieve him.

How would Michael Crawford know that dehydration through sweating led to him developing immune deficiency? Did he have his immune function tested at the time he was sweating?

I guess it is not infeasible that profuse sweating might have led to some sodium deficiency, since I believe sodium is the main electrolyte depleted through profuse sweating. And I found this animal study that noted antibody responses were reduced under low sodium conditions.

However, it is still a pretty speculative idea to say that: profuse sweating + viral infection = ME/CFS.

 

[Little Bluestem]

A virus, with or without sweating, can equal ME/CFS.

It says that he lived as a recluse for a while, but gradually emerged. That sounds a lot like pacing to me. I think it is possible that he had ME/CFS.

Even doing all of the wrong things, I almost recovered from my ME/CFS (or maybe it was just post viral syndrome at that time). I have often thought that if I had known what to do and could have afforded to do it, I might well have recovered.

We need more early diagnosis with correct treatment to know what that looks like.