At first, I thought I was depressed. I had just got back from holiday and felt exhausted. My joints were so painful I could never get comfortable. I had heart palpitations and could not concentrate in my job to the point where my employers were concerned about my lack of productivity. I tried doing exercise to boost my mood, only to find I felt worse for it. I eventually quit my job as I felt it was draining me and I wanted to focus on being a musician. I was praying that the job was the cause of my exhaustion.<\/p>\n
Eventually, I saw my doctor who was amazing and said it might be ME\/CFS. After being prodded and poked and tested for everything, a specialist confirmed it was. It’s been a learning curve and there have been ups and downs. Now I feel that I have accepted it and have found a balance to keep me well enough to do what I want to do (although in a very low impact way)! Sacrifices have been made and I do miss my old life at times, although, I know how lucky I am to be mobile.<\/p>\n
One thing I wasn’t prepared for is sudden intolerances to certain foods and things. I can no longer have caffeine and tiredness now makes me physically sick. When first diagnosed, I used to push myself as I was in denial. I soon learnt that my body will not tolerate that and will get its revenge! Also, the brain fog at times has been terrible. I forgot how to say the word \u201cthermometer\u201d for months. My friends and I do laugh about my brain fog at times (if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry)! \u201cFlood lids\u201d instead of \u201cdrains\u201d is a favorite.<\/p>\n
I think one of the worst parts of my ME\/CFS is having to be reliant on my mother and sister so much at times. I’m in my thirties and, when I have a bad flare, they have to help me cook and read documents for me. Fingers crossed, I have now found a good balance between managing my illness and living my life. Thanks to the National Health Service, ME\/CFS groups, and social media groups, I don’t feel alone in this and I can talk about my illness and worries frankly with people who truly understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humans of ME\/CFS At first, I thought I was depressed. I had just got back from holiday and felt exhausted. My joints were so painful I could never get comfortable. I had heart palpitations and could not concentrate in my job to the point where my employers were concerned about my lack of productivity. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/sarah_d.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}