MeSci
ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
- Messages
- 8,231
- Location
- Cornwall, UK
But that's the personal choice of some, and both some patients and some doctors have trouble putting exercise completely on the back-burner until someone is sufficiently recovered enough to handle it without there being a significant trade-off with daily functioning. Klimas might have a mild tendency in that direction, but it is strongly tempered by insisting on using heart rate to set an upper limit.
So while her approach requires constant warnings and clarifications, it's probably pretty harmless if pain, PEM, and other symptoms are also used to indicate that activities must cease. It's also easier for non-ME specialists to accept that sort of approach - NIH, CDC, and most mainstream doctors probably can't comprehend that exercise is flat-out harmful for us, but they could probably accept that exercise is possible within strict limitations which exclude most of us from doing it
I suspect that most doctors earn a comfortable-enough living so can't imagine patients not being able to afford to hire people to provide domestic services, etc., so that they can do some kind of formal exercise.
For many of us that choice doesn't exist. There IS no one else to do the essentials - so we have to, which uses all available energy - indeed more energy than is really available. Just the essentials can cause PEM and prevent recovery.