Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

Interesting how defensive people get when it's suggested that CFS has a psychological or as this article puts it, a partial psychological origin:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...d6189c-4041-11e5-8d45-d815146f81fa_story.html

Since the scientist-father of the patient was involved with the human genome project, his approach is based on finding a genetic origin for CFS. No one seems to be willing to admit that emotions can have real physiological effects. I guess that's some kind of medical heresy.

 

I found the article quite distressing to read. How sad for all the family. But then, my feelings changed to anger, and how some medics won't consider emotions in the role of illness.

I am so thankful to have discovered TMS and how to deal with it.

 

Oh yeah, dad's understandably going on a medical crusade based on his work in genetics, which presupposes a cause for CFS written into the patient's DNA code, rather than stopping to consider the obvious that perhaps self-imposed stress altered his son's neural-chemistry? CFS is as I recall one of the equivalents of TMS so may have a similar stress-related origin. I do think his methodology is on solid ground by selecting only the worst CFS patients for rigorous testing. That is, if CFS is an hereditary condition and not a byproduct of psychic stress like TMS seems to be. Well, more power to him. Have to see what he discovers.

 

sad but I think we all know the desperation of searching for ''the cure'' and giving up hope it will ever come. I was convinced utterly there was no way back from what I was experiencing and got caught in the 'death spiral' of chronic pain. Sarnos work is world changing, if only the medical community would put aside their pride and really listen.

 

What happens when they find people with CFS who are related? The problem being that we know that emotional stress can be (and usually is) "inherited".

The medical profession and big pharma are still on the wrong path, and the epidemic is upon us.

 

I wondered immediately about the relationship between the demanding, perfectionist science-minded father and the over-achieving son he drove and drove for years and years. Well, now his disabled son has morphed into another one of his father's pet "science projects," hasn't he? Of course, I'm not on site to make an assessment, but I have my suspicions.

 

I'm totally on board with your assessment, Bruce, and I don't think you have to be on site to figure that one out.

Easy for us to say based on our world view, of course. And impossible for them to see. It's tragic.

 

I am relatively new to TMS and found it because of back pain. However I have had CFS on and off for 25 years! My CFS started during a very stressful time and I always thought that stress was the predominant trigger, however and Prof James Alexander agrees, that CFS could have multiple causes, virus etc. I think CFS is a much harder beast to tackle than back pain. Correct me if I am wrong and any insights would be more than welcome!

 

Hi whitebeach, and welcome to the TMSWiki Forum!

Most of us here believe, along with Dr. Sarno, that CFS is a TMS equivalent, along with fibro. The thing is, anything can trigger the onset of symptoms that eventually morph into TMS. For example, I crashed my bike and broke my hip in 2008 - an actual structural injury, right? Followed by surgery to insert pins into the femur, so I had to recover from that as well as the break. But to have worsening symptoms two years later, of hip pain, foot pain, dizziness, and shaky legs, all being attributed to the original injury by chiros, PTs, and orthotics specialists - well, it turns out that was all TMS, and a downward spiral of increasing and worsening symptoms was stopped cold by learning about TMS and making a decision to fully embrace that knowledge.

But the initial trigger was a broken femur. Just like a virus could possibly be the initial trigger for CFS. It doesn't mean you have to have a lifetime of symptoms. It's just that your brain has latched on to a weak spot in your physiology as a convenient place to produce symptoms, somewhere where there is a conditioned or memorized response. You have to take charge and force your brain to let go.

Anyway, what we find here is that everyone is different. Their symptoms are different, their associated "equivalents" such as anxiety and depression are different, and what is easy or difficult to tackle is profoundly different. Because we're all unique.

To get back to your specific question, I can personally relate to what you're saying. Not CFS, but my vague non-vertigo dizziness/off-balance/brain fog symptoms are very difficult for me to tackle, whereas pain is not that big a deal for me. I sometimes get pain in various places, but it's never enough to keep me from doing anything I want to do, I assume it's TMS, and it eventually goes away, although it can take a while. I sometimes get headaches and digestive distress, but both of those are quite easy for me to banish quickly, using self-talk and mindfulness techniques that I've learned doing this work. But the vague dizziness - that one seems to be tougher for me, perhaps because it's hard for me to visualize a different outcome. It can totally disappear if I'm engaged in something fun and active, but it often shows up at what I know are conditioned times and places, and it's definitely worse when I'm under stress. It's clearly less when I practice mindfulness more consistently for several days at a time (but I always end up getting distracted again).

For what it's worth.

 

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the post. Big question is how do I 'force my brain to let go'? If my brain is wired to having pain in my mid back or feeling fatigue or any of the other symptoms that I can have with CFS, how do I unwire it?

I also recently had to go to hospital for a minor surgery which threw me into a bad relapse. I have just started reading Dr Levine's 'In an Unspoken Voice' and the first chapter talks about uncontrollable shaking. This is exactly what I had in hospital. I've had this a couple of times before and always thought it was the virus rearing its ugly head but Levine's description is totally different, quite fascinating and a relief to know it was my animal instinct of flight and fight that was in operation. Only trouble was I couldn't flight out of the hospital!

 

Which may not have been the best choice of words on my part. If you haven't yet read one of Dr Sarno's books, I recommend The Divided Mind. Then start doing the Structured Educational Program on tmswiki.org. And read a lot of other posts on the forum!