This year has not been good for chronic fatigue; I’ve been low in energy for most of it, apart from a brief spell over the summer during which I crammed in as much writing as I could, probably not the wisest idea. About three weeks ago, I was so annoyed by this extended period of low quality health that I started looking about on the internet for information. I hadn’t done this in a long while and it occurred to me that research might have moved on.
I was, in fact, surprised, shocked and motivated by what I found out. The information I’m about to pass on comes from two main places: the website of Dr Sue Myhill who seems to have devoted her research to CFS, and the Optimum Health Clinic, who have been dealing solely with CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia sufferers since 2004.
Both places argue that chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by mitochondrial failure. If we compare the body to a car engine, ‘mitochondria are the engines of our cells – they supply the energy necessary for all cellular processes to take place’. Whilst we might have all kinds of different cells, they all gain energy by the same means: the supply of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). As we use energy, ATP converts to ADP and back again, but when we stress the body, demanding more energy than we are creating, this convertion happens faster than we can recycle ADP back into ATP. So ADP builds up and converts to AMP – a ‘metabolic disaster’, because it is lost in urine. So, our ATP levels drop, meaning energy is supplied more and more slowly, and now the body is struggling to create new ATP, a very slow and complex process.
It’s one of those great corporeal wobbles; once the body is out of balance, it’s difficult to get back on track again, and since all our cells are running on low speed, we clock up other forms of damage to the body: our immune systems are poor, hormone production is compromised, brain function suffers. Essentially, the heart (which is nothing more than a big muscle) is impaired, which is why CFSers really badly want to lie down. Standing up, we may be in borderline heart and organ failure. But the problem doesn’t show up on an ECG. I remember reading on a website several years ago that ‘fatigue’ is so much the wrong word for what we are feeling, and that ‘prostration’ would be better. CFSers feel so ill they are prostrated, and this is why; the imperative to protect our heart function is overwhelming.
It’s serious stuff this, and more problematic because the way medical authorities have treated CFS has not been helpful. Graded exercise and anti-depressants have no impact whatsoever on the root cause. What does make a difference? Well, you’ve got to cure your mitochondrial function, which means most importantly, not to make more energetic demands on the body than it can cope with. You’ve got to live at the level of ATP you are managing to produce. Then you need to sleep really well, and eat really well and supplement any deficiencies in magnesium, B3, B12, Co-enzyme Q10, and acetyl L-carnitine. Detox helps, oh and by now you’ll probably have a host of other issues in your liver, immune system, hormone glands and digestion that also need fixing. All of which will challenge your ability to eat and sleep well, never mind anything else. It’s hard to know where to begin.
I have to say this chimes perfectly with my experience.
And when we do finally get back to better health again, the chances are that we will trip our systems once more. The clinic (which supplied me with a very informative brochure) argues that CFS comes about as a combination of physical weakness with personality type. There are four personality types pre-disposed to CFS because of their tendency to maladaptive stress response – a bodily ‘high alert’ in the face of chronic stress. They are ‘helper’ types, who put the needs of others above their own, ‘achiever’ types, who push themselves and are perfectionists, anxiety types, which is self-explanatory, and finally those who have experienced trauma. Oh good news! I tick ALL FOUR boxes. And the experience of CFS itself tends to exacerbate the high alert response that causes all the trouble. The whole thing is like a big vicious circle.
Let’s talk briefly about adrenal glands. Adrenaline has obvious functions in stress, sport and all sorts of performing, but it’s essential every day. Adrenaline gets you through when a busy day is followed by an evening event. Adrenaline also acts as a buffer to anything that’s in the least stressful – which is why CFSers jump a mile when the telephone rings. Without enough adrenaline in our systems we end up hypersensitised, everything is much more stressful to do, and has a greater impact. And if you have properly fried your adrenals, it takes on average TWO years to heal them.
So, you might be wondering how I felt, as someone who’s had CFS on and off, mostly on, for the past 18 years. I felt: YIKES. I felt it was time to get myself in order. I suppose I have always been persuaded by the idea that CFS was no big deal, that it was a silliness on my part, my own fault for being a stressy sort of person, and that I really needed to keep working whenever I could. But to think I am doing long-term damage to my cells is not comfortable. Mitochondrial production goes down with age – I have effectively aged my body too fast. It’s a scary thought. And what about my poor toasted adrenal glands? No wonder I’m anxious about ordinary things; I’m wringing those poor old glands and barely a drop of adrenaline comes out.
I told all of this to my reiki practitioner, who has a wonderfully pithy way of summing things up. ‘So do you understand now that you are not weak or oversensitive, but there is a biochemical basis to your illness that has to be healed?’ Well, I said, if you put it like that. ‘And are you able to forgive yourself for not meeting your impossibly high, fear-fuelled standards?’ she continued. Hmm, trickier. I only like myself as a helper and an achiever. Now they tell me I have to be selfish, underachieving and calm about it?
When I was discussing this with Mr Litlove, the cat barged through the door, flopped down between us with his paws up for some fussing, and then fixed us with the deathstare that says: you’ve got hands, don’t you? Why aren’t you putting food in my bowl? ‘There’s your role model,’ said Mr Litlove.
So I have to live like a cat. Well, a cat that can read and cook, at any rate. We’ll see how that goes.
