I was diagnosed with ME\/CFS about 15 years ago after a bad ski accident, prolonged use of antibiotics, and a subsequent surgery. Luckily, I had a very knowledgeable doctor who didn’t try to write me off as a head-case. Prior to that, I had been a very active, athletic person. But all of a sudden, I found that just trying to make lunch for my toddler daughter and that small task took every ounce of energy I had.<\/p>\n
After about 10 years of a very sedentary lifestyle I gained 30 pounds. I had finally reached some balance in my life and was functioning at a better level, when I had a major setback. Lyme disease and babesia infection. I don’t seem to be able to fight off these infections and my body is breaking down. My hair was falling out. I experienced lots of tendonitis issues all over and myofascial pain. I can’t tolerate the medications needed to treat anything anymore, which I hear is very common with ME\/CFS.<\/p>\n
ME\/CFS has compromised my immune system. I live a very unbalanced life with very little social interaction or activity. I face more and more health problems every month. It is beyond discouraging.<\/p>\n
My daughter died in 2012 in a drowning accident at age 16, which has only set back my health, as I cope with crippling grief. We used to volunteer together at a nearby horse rescue, so I try to still help out there when I can, but there is very little I am still able to do.<\/p>\n
I really look forward to the day there’s a cure, both for ME\/CFS and for Lyme disease. (Other than the antibiotics that destroyed my body!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Humans of ME\/CFS I was diagnosed with ME\/CFS about 15 years ago after a bad ski accident, prolonged use of antibiotics, and a subsequent surgery. Luckily, I had a very knowledgeable doctor who didn’t try to write me off as a head-case. Prior to that, I had been a very active, athletic person. But all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":412,"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\/debra_m.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780"}],"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=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humansofchronicillness.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}