From the responses I have become aware that I am very much only speaking from my own experience and have to clarify that I am not painting all situations with the same brush. I have moderate CFS with Fibromyalgia symptoms too and find particularly acupuncture to be very relieving in helping pain and stiffness and slightly increasing energy levels. Chiropractic and Physio also help to relieve residual pain and increase my energy slightly, but this is all temporary and acts as management rather than a treatment. I have also tried GET and found that it made me feel worse and increased symptoms, the whole principle of it is totally illogical. So what I am saying is that by comparison, these therapies seem much more appropriate as managements, I am not sure of the costs but when you think that CBT could cost the NHS £60 an hour whereas a community acupuncture session of 30 mins costs £10 (in my area) and the latter is much more of a relief to my body and nervous system.
I do understand that people with the more severe subset of ME/CFS, can find these therapies to worsen their symptoms so I am not suggesting it for everybody.
@wdb That list quite obviously ranges from the absurd and ridiculous (Coin rubbing) to treatments that not only anecdotally but have evidence based symptom relief, like acupuncture. Again
@TiredSam Reiki and Homeopathy are not the treatments that I have quoted, so that's a bit overboard, on the NHS clinical trials section there are trials for acupuncture and yoga as management so this is not totally irrational on my part.
I do firmly believe that ME/CFS is a viral/bacterial/chronic infection of some kind and would never dissuade the NHS from improving funding towards a REAL cure for this illness using biological research. But what I feel strongly is that the patient experience for new sufferers could be improved by not fobbing them off with the guilt of having 'caused' their own illness and being presented with the unobtainable task of GET recovery. Instead they could take a patient with the sudden onset of symptoms, who is crippled by pain and fatigue amongst many other symptoms and provide them with an initial treatment that may lead to atleast a little bit of relief in the absence of the correct Antibiotic/Antiviral/Immunotherapy drug or whatever it may be.
@hellytheelephant Road to recovery was definitely the wrong expression to use! To correct myself, I should say; a bit of support whilst on the endless rollercoaster ride from hell!