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my review on Elizabeth Turp's book "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME"

liverock

Senior Member
Messages
748
Location
UK
Hi Jody

Hope you and yours had a happy holiday, with everybody else doing the cooking and cleaning while you were waited on hand and foot. If only, eh? :D

This looks like an interesting book from someone who has actually come to terms with CFS and managed to go back to work, albeit part-time.
I suppose the fact that she actually worked in the British National Health Service would also have opened her eyes to how useless the NHS is when dealing with CFS/ME.

I read an interview she gave about her book, but I wasnt clear about whether she gave advice in the book to CFS patients about how to go about getting diagnosed and claiming social security. As we all know, dealing with these sort of questions is very draining to most sufferers and most have no idea about exactly what they are up against initially when dealing with doctors and civil servants who are clueless, or think you are a psychiatric case.

Overall looks like a worthwhile read.

http://www.jkp.com/blog/2010/11/chr...-an-interview-with-jkp-author-elizabeth-turp/
 

Jody

Senior Member
Messages
4,636
Location
Canada
Hi Liverock,

I don't recall her talking about diagnosis and pensions and so-forth. I think her main thrust was living with the condition, and trying to get ideas out to people who know someone with cfs -- trying to educate them that there ARE things they can do that make a big difference ... and they should do them. :)
 

leela

Senior Member
Messages
3,290
Hey Jody,
I bought the book, based on your review, and have only skimmed it so far (it only recently arrived.)
There seems to be lots of great info in there, particularly for those feinds and family who don't "get" the terrible struggle of the minutia, or basics of life
that we face. However, I was surprised to see some sections about GET and CBT that were fairly well endorsing them as viable options. This was a bit puzzling.
 

Jody

Senior Member
Messages
4,636
Location
Canada
Leela,

I'm glad my review struck a chord with you and you bought the book.:Retro smile:

As to her inclusion of GET and CTB I can only guess as to her thinking. But it seems to me that there is more than one way of doing GET or CTB, and that while they can be disastrous in the wrong hands or done wrong, when done in a way that is sensitive to how the person is faring, some people have attributed some success to these things.

Mind you, many other chronics are so ill they shouldn't even think about doing this stuff.

I would be leery of having someone try to impose some type of schedule upon me -- very risky and alot of damage can result -- but I have actually followed some of those principles (I think) in my recovery thus far. Of course, the chronic is the one who needs to decide what they can and can't do, nobody else can determine this.