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Has anyone been completely cured of CFS?

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Anecdotal it might be, but it is an irrefutable fact that the Lightning Process has indeed cured some of whatever it was they were suffering from.

An anecdotal irrefutable fact. Very funny.

Are you sure that you have scientific training?

Besides, these anecdotes are even more suspicious than normal when it is part of the process to suspend critical thinking, deny any health problems and claim to be feeling fantastic no matter how one actually feels. Participants are instructed to lie about their condition to themselves and others.
 
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MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
"I find it puzzling to read the kind of malignant comments some of your bloggers place on your web-site and else-where (from what I can see it’s often the same comments from a select group of individuals* in a variety of venues). I also find it interesting that some patients in the UK have received very derogatory comments, and even hate-mail after publicly claiming to have recovered using the LP." Dr Frivold April 30, 2010 here http://www.forums.aboutmecfs.org/content.php?114-An-MD-on-the-Lightning-Process. His wife had been diagnosed with CFS she went on the Lightning Process and like me and my colleague was cured. Subsequent to her cure she became a practitioner herself and is now helping others as she was helped. Of course on this forum this fact alone means she's a liar, a charlatan and anything her husband says on the matter is solely for commercial advantage! It really must be horrible to be that cynical. Some more from her husband: "I do not know of reliable long term statistics on the Lightning Process trainees, but from the people I personally know who have trained with this program – I am no less than amazed at the results. This includes patients who have been bed-ridden and wheelchair-bound.". And more "........I can understand that it is difficult to hear that some are making a recovery without the use of a sophisticated medical regimen. The suggestion of any mind-body component of this illness is understandably difficult to accept." And "Had we read the recent comments on your forums we would probably not have had the courage to pursue the training". Hear, hear!!!!!! (#310)
*Parker has independently come to the same conclusion in Chapter 8 of "An introduction to the Lightning Process" as have I during my forays here and checking who "likes" whose posts. An amusing little sideshow which always makes me smile.
Anecdotal it might be, but it is an irrefutable fact that the Lightning Process has indeed cured some of whatever it was they were suffering from. Unfortunately, dogma masquerading as reason prevents acceptance of this fact.

Quoting from the above 'evidence':

His wife had been diagnosed with CFS she went on the Lightning Process and like me and my colleague was cured. Subsequent to her cure she became a practitioner herself...

In science this is known as a potential conflict of interest, and has to be borne in mind when a research paper is read.

And this is not even a research paper.

I'm afraid we need better than that.
 

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
Dster said:
Unfortunately, dogma masquerading as reason prevents acceptance of this fact.

BTW not believing in mind over matter and positive thinking is not dogmatic. The concept is very old and established in medicine and it is quite mainstream despite never having worked for anything. Not believing in it is being open minded.

NewImage8.png


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Coué

Willpower[edit]
Coué observed that the main obstacle to autosuggestion was willpower. For the method to work, the patient must refrain from making any independent judgment, meaning that he must not let his will impose its own views on positive ideas. Everything must thus be done to ensure that the positive "autosuggestive" idea is consciously accepted by the patient, otherwise one may end up getting the opposite effect of what is desired.[7]

For example, when a student has forgotten an answer to a question in an exam, he will likely think something such as "I have forgotten the answer". The more he or she tries to think of it, the more the answer becomes blurred and obscured. However, if this negative thought is replaced with a more positive one ("No need to worry, it will come back to me"), the chances that the student will come to remember the answer will increase.

Coué noted that young children always applied his method perfectly, as they lacked the willpower that remained present among adults. When he instructed a child by saying "clasp your hands and you can't open them", the child would thus immediately follow.

Effectiveness[edit]
Thanks to his method, which Coué once called his "trick",[8] patients of all sorts would come to visit him. The list of ailments included kidney problems, diabetes, memory loss, stammering, weakness, atrophy and all sorts of physical and mental illnesses.[citation needed] According to one of his journal entries (1916), he apparently cured a patient of a uterus prolapse as well as "violent pains in the head" (migraine).[9]

C. (Cyrus) Harry Brooks (1890–1951), author of various books on Coué, claimed the success rate of his method was around 93%
.[citation needed] The remaining 7% of people would include those who were too skeptical of Coué's approach and those who refused to recognize it.[citation needed]

Criticism[edit]
While most American reporters of his day seemed dazzled by Coué's accomplishments and did not question the results attributed to his method,[11]), a handful of journalists and a few educators were skeptical. After Coué had left Boston, the Boston Herald waited six months, revisited the patients he had "cured", and found most had initially felt better but soon returned to whatever ailments they previously had. Few of the patients would criticize Coué, saying he did seem very sincere in what he tried to do, but the Herald reporter concluded that any benefit from Coué's method seemed to be temporary and might be explained by being caught up in the moment during one of Coué's events

Doesn't LP forbid to talk about how you feel in absence of the coach?

Isn't LP studied in children because it "works so well" for them?

Doesn't LP claim a 81% success rate for all kind of ailments?
 
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A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Great post chipmunk1. You left out an interesting paragraph though:

While most American reporters of his day seemed dazzled by Coué's accomplishments and did not question the results attributed to his method,[11]), a handful of journalists and a few educators were skeptical. After Coué had left Boston, the Boston Herald waited six months, revisited the patients he had "cured", and found most had initially felt better but soon returned to whatever ailments they previously had. Few of the patients would criticize Coué, saying he did seem very sincere in what he tried to do, but the Herald reporter concluded that any benefit from Coué's method seemed to be temporary and might be explained by being caught up in the moment during one of Coué's events.

Looks like a placebo treatment, just like LP, CBT and all the other mind over matter psychobabble hogwash.
 
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Tired of being sick

Senior Member
Messages
565
Location
Western PA USA
This thread is surely not positive..

So why waste your already severely limited amount of energy on what most likely is a shill?

Letting these over the rainbow wild conjectural claims work you up and responding is severely wasted energy any way you look at..

What healthy positives have you all gained from this dime a dozen claim anything thread?

This post is not wasted because I am trying to help in a much needed positive way...

If you don't post in these type of threads they will go away all on there own..

So there is no sense in giving life to something you already know is dead...
 
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Gingergrrl

Senior Member
Messages
16,171
I don't think anyone in this board should be spending their precious energy arguing with this poster re: LP. This is what he wants and negative attention is still attention to his cause. This is the only thing I am going to say on this matter and if everyone goes silent on it, he will eventually stop.
 

Tired of being sick

Senior Member
Messages
565
Location
Western PA USA
Negative attention helps their cause..

You see when chronically ill patients respond to this babel it only strengthens the already doubtful medical industry's view of credibility of this nearly invisible disease(by the choice of the industry to remain ignorant of course)..

Medical "professionals" can easily write CFS/ME off as a mental condition as LONG as there are conversations alive and well like this one..

They are provoking you and you are falling for it, hook line and sinker!!!..
 
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Messages
64
I started visiting this site early/mid-2013 as someone diagnosed with CFS/ ME 2 years prior to this. Typical symptoms were PEF, swollen, glands, depression, agonising muscle pain, cognitive impairment. I had seen a long suffering, colleague cured of her CFS/ME by LP and in my web searches of the condition I became aware of the site and the negativity towards LP . I engaged in a fair amount of discussion around LP, and received a lot of abuse. The views expressed on this site very nearly put me off risking the £650 for the course. But in January this year I took the plunge and attended an LP course and I have been transformed. I attend a gym four times a week, play golf and have just returned from a walking holiday in Scotland, activities beyond me pre-LP.
Now, did I and my colleague have ME/CFS? If we did then LP helped us and can help others. If we were both misdiagnosed, then there will be others, similarly misdiagnosed, who can also be helped by LP. Either way I have a duty to visitors to this site to give a view opposed to the general consensus of this forum that LP is psychobabble hogwash, taught by charlatans and promoted but the prince of darkness himself, Phil Parker. This way at least they have an opportunity to see an alternative viewpoint, based on my experience. If members of this forum find this unpalatable that really is too bad.
To answer Snowdrops questions in order: I am very aware of how ill some of the members of this forum are - the colleague to which I refer spent most of her weekends in bed summoning what tiny amount of strength she could muster to try to sit at her desk for three hours a day, four days a week for 5-6 years. I won't bang on about her symptoms any further but she was dreadfully ill, and it was very very sad to watch - her pain, frustration, sadness and hopelessness was a terrible experience for her, her husband and kids and everyone who knew her. So don't you dare assume I don't know what this illness consists of - I've helped nurse this woman for six years and journeyed with her for every step I could and I now count her as one of my closest friends. And I also experienced with my own disbelieving eyes her appearance when she came back to work the day after LP. Bright eyes, colour in her face instead of grey and a spring in her step. And she's doing a marathon next month. Now I really don't care whether you think I've made up any of the stuff I've just written - your minds are closed already - but I'm an experimental physicist by training to PhD level so not particularly open to voodoo etc - again I say this to ensure that anyone new to the site and reading this understands that this isn't some weed smoking, tree hugging, slack brained half wit describing his latest acid trip but a rational, critical thinker with probably a much higher level of academic and professional achievement than most who post here
I am aware of the guidelines
I'm very familiar with the illness people on this forum experience, see above
There are many illnesses LP is inappropriate for - cancer, heart disease, a broken arm, etc etc
I started visiting this site early/mid-2013 as someone diagnosed with CFS/ ME 2 years prior to this. Typical symptoms were PEF, swollen, glands, depression, agonising muscle pain, cognitive impairment. I had seen a long suffering, colleague cured of her CFS/ME by LP and in my web searches of the condition I became aware of the site and the negativity towards LP . I engaged in a fair amount of discussion around LP, and received a lot of abuse. The views expressed on this site very nearly put me off risking the £650 for the course. But in January this year I took the plunge and attended an LP course and I have been transformed. I attend a gym four times a week, play golf and have just returned from a walking holiday in Scotland, activities beyond me pre-LP.
Now, did I and my colleague have ME/CFS? If we did then LP helped us and can help others. If we were both misdiagnosed, then there will be others, similarly misdiagnosed, who can also be helped by LP. Either way I have a duty to visitors to this site to give a view opposed to the general consensus of this forum that LP is psychobabble hogwash, taught by charlatans and promoted but the prince of darkness himself, Phil Parker. This way at least they have an opportunity to see an alternative viewpoint, based on my experience. If members of this forum find this unpalatable that really is too bad.
To answer Snowdrops questions in order: I am very aware of how ill some of the members of this forum are - the colleague to which I refer spent most of her weekends in bed summoning what tiny amount of strength she could muster to try to sit at her desk for three hours a day, four days a week for 5-6 years. I won't bang on about her symptoms any further but she was dreadfully ill, and it was very very sad to watch - her pain, frustration, sadness and hopelessness was a terrible experience for her, her husband and kids and everyone who knew her. So don't you dare assume I don't know what this illness consists of - I've helped nurse this woman for six years and journeyed with her for every step I could and I now count her as one of my closest friends. And I also experienced with my own disbelieving eyes her appearance when she came back to work the day after LP. Bright eyes, colour in her face instead of grey and a spring in her step. And she's doing a marathon next month. Now I really don't care whether you think I've made up any of the stuff I've just written - your minds are closed already - but I'm an experimental physicist by training to PhD level so not particularly open to voodoo etc - again I say this to ensure that anyone new to the site and reading this understands that this isn't some weed smoking, tree hugging, slack brained half wit describing his latest acid trip but a rational, critical thinker with probably a much higher level of academic and professional achievement than most who post here
I am aware of the guidelines
I'm very familiar with the illness people on this forum experience, see above
There are many illnesses LP is inappropriate for - cancer, heart disease, a broken arm, etc etc


To be honest though, your college was in work, which involves getting up, getting washed and dressed and travelling to work and then working.

I know mine is so severe I cannot leave the house more then once a fortnight or so, by the time I am washed and dressed I already feel too ill to move and then the next day I cannot move at all.
To use that much mental energy to work from home is too much for most.

I know people on here will be worse, so I have to say that your college to me does not seem very severe.

I know you cannot be swayed from the LP. I know a few people who they made do it when they were younger and they ended up in hospital for months as it damaged them so severely.

If it is a 'cure' then your friend wouldn't need to go back for more top ups, it should just be gone and she can carry on. By her going back it means she is still getting symptoms, so she is not cured.
 
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chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
We were not allowed to discuss the process with other sufferers but just to do it and recover. We were told to cut off all contact with other M.E. sufferers and when asked about LP to say we were cured. We were told to ignore symptoms and keep saying we were cured regardless

lol
 

Revel

Senior Member
Messages
641
Thank you, @Kina, for that link to "LP does not work for ME".

What an entertaining read - but then I do have a seriously dark sense of humour.

Not funny for those who tried it and were left with reduced functioning, a sense of failure and lighter pockets, though.
 
Messages
60
I promised I would let this forum know if I ever relapsed following the Lightning Process - 4 years on and no, I'm still cured. As is my colleague L. I still have to use the process occasionally
 

nanonug

Senior Member
Messages
1,709
Location
Virginia, USA
I promised I would let this forum know if I ever relapsed following the Lightning Process - 4 years on and no, I'm still cured. As is my colleague L. I still have to use the process occasionally

Based on my understanding of what "Lightning Process" is, it seems both of you were, all along, afflicted by what used to be called Hysteria. It is nowadays called Conversion Disorder or Functional Neurological Disorder. Therefore, given that you didn't have SEID, you can't conclude that you were/are cured of it.