Can you list those earliest symptoms that slowly developed and how they changed?
Well, i had glandular fever/mono badly when i was about 14, and id say i havent been right since then. But to be fair, the year after i went and competed in the Tall Ships Race, and things like that, playing football everyday, etc. So, i must have recovered quite well at the time.
But by the time i was about 18 and going to pubs and then clubs afterward, i never enjoyed clubing, simply because i was too tired. I couldnt hack the late evenings, it was just too much for me. I also had big problems getting up in the mornings.
Next thing i really remember is being 21, on my birthday and being knackered by about 21:00 when at the pub with friends to celebrate. I just wanted to go home and go to bed.
Its difficult to know, because i had sleep problems, and i cant tell whether i had ME problems, or was just sleep deprieved.
I had periods when i was better than others though, but sleep remained the same, and this continued going forward. When i was 23 i met my wife, and she lived 100 miles away, so i would work a very demanding, long hour job 5/6 days a week, and on weekends i would go see my wife (girlfriend at the time) so i was overdoing it. After anohter couple of years, I was struggling to keep this up, and eventually my girlfiend moved down to where i was based, we got married and i got a equally demanding, but less hours job. I seemed to be doing alright. I would swim 3 or 4 times a week, about a mile each time, and was fit and ok. But then i just got more and more exausted, tired in the extreme (I began just closing my eyes in public and having naps, coffee shops, waiting rooms, whatever - which was very unlike me), i also had recurrent sore throat for about 2 years, and also began having problems thinking straight.
I went on anohter year like that, working full time, coming home at 18:00 and going straight to bed, resting weekends, taking time off sick to recover when i needed to, usually 1 or 2 days a week. All this time i was having a million blood tests to try and find out what was wrong.
Eventually i saw a DR who said, i think its ME, and sent me to an ME/CFS clinic to get diagnosed.
I was desperate by then. Had i not have got a diagnosis i would have had to stop work anyway, because i was a mess. But when i got the diagnosis, i told work and agreed to take 2 weeks off work. Within days i absolutely crashed. Hard. Aches and pains in every muscle, weakness, the usual fatigue, brain fog to that point i coudlnt even speak alot of the time. That was 2 and a half years ago, and i havent worked since. I got a little better after nine months, sort of balanced. Then i was given GET - 5 minutes on a cyclemachine, lowest setting. I crashed badly again. I spent alot of time just lying on the sofa or in bed in the day. Functioning was almost nil really. I was skipping meals at lunchtime because i coudlnt get up and get something, not even a sandwich or a packet of crisps. Eating was hard, because i couldnt lift my hands to my mouth or bite.
I would say that i recovered from this GET damage about a month ago, so its taken me more than a year, and probably wouldnt have happened at all had it not been for the methylation treatment.
I feel quite pleased having writen the above, because its reminded me how very bad i was about a year ago and how much i have improved. I had thought i maybe improved 10% but actually its probably more like double that. I have weakness, serious fatigue and muscle weakness, pain even at times, i am far from proper healthy functioning, but i have definately improved.