I promised to keep you informed about my health following the ayurvedic treatment in India in January. You may remember how well I felt. Healthy enough to work, work out in the gym, swim, cycle, drive and ride my motorcycle, doing tai-chi. I was even planning on getting back to mountaineering.
Dr Abin had given me 3 months of tablets, pastes etc. From May, when the ayurvedic medicine ran out I began feeling the slide back into mild ME/CFS, sufficient warning to stop all the physical activities except for two days of eight hours working in the lab.
Gradually, my week became centred on getting through those two days and recovering from them. I managed to maintain a Saturday morning tai-chi class. I satrted using half a modafinil tablet on hard work days.
Last Thursday at work I had one of those nightmare days with analysers failing, no technical support and a surfeit of patient samples to get through. I was overtaxed. Then, last weekend I had a complex, anxious and heavy weekend trying to sort out a variety of family problems. I was overtaxed.
The result: I am once again the mutant offspring of a flu virus and a massive hangover (remember when you could drink?); muscle pains, headaches, orthostatic intolerance, shivering, night sweats, unable to focus mentally, heavy bodied and asleep 16 hours of the day. It is not as bad as I have experienced in 6 years of ME/CFS but bad enough that I have been unable to work or leave the house. Probably moderate on the shit scale of ME/CFS.
So for the time being it is back to survival mode for me. Seven months ago I was diving through ten foot waves in the Indian ocean rejoicing in having made such progress, in having beaten ME. I have not forgotten that feeling, I am not going back to the bunker.
Dr Abin had given me 3 months of tablets, pastes etc. From May, when the ayurvedic medicine ran out I began feeling the slide back into mild ME/CFS, sufficient warning to stop all the physical activities except for two days of eight hours working in the lab.
Gradually, my week became centred on getting through those two days and recovering from them. I managed to maintain a Saturday morning tai-chi class. I satrted using half a modafinil tablet on hard work days.
Last Thursday at work I had one of those nightmare days with analysers failing, no technical support and a surfeit of patient samples to get through. I was overtaxed. Then, last weekend I had a complex, anxious and heavy weekend trying to sort out a variety of family problems. I was overtaxed.
The result: I am once again the mutant offspring of a flu virus and a massive hangover (remember when you could drink?); muscle pains, headaches, orthostatic intolerance, shivering, night sweats, unable to focus mentally, heavy bodied and asleep 16 hours of the day. It is not as bad as I have experienced in 6 years of ME/CFS but bad enough that I have been unable to work or leave the house. Probably moderate on the shit scale of ME/CFS.
So for the time being it is back to survival mode for me. Seven months ago I was diving through ten foot waves in the Indian ocean rejoicing in having made such progress, in having beaten ME. I have not forgotten that feeling, I am not going back to the bunker.