Sandwiched between 2 hot water bottles, under layers of clothes and blankets, medicated – multiple times, in the dark with sunglasses on, my phone’s screen dimmed and the blue light filter on so that I can bear looking at it for a few minutes at a time. This was me yesterday after I had a nap on the sofa where I toppled over after lunch, in a bundle of pain and tears as the previous night’s insomnia caught up with…
One thing that can really cause a lot of stress for people with Chronic illness is coping with Christmas and all that it entails. For me personally, Christmas has changed so much over the years. It’s changed from huge family get-togethers when I still lived with my parents, to multinational bring-and-share gatherings of friends once I moved to London, and then small meals with just my sister and I in my bedroom after I fell ill, and every combination in…
On this day last year something very wrong and so unfair came to my attention: People with disabilities, who are deemed unfit for work by doctors and occupational health assessors, are being denied benefits because of their Internet activity. They’re being stalked, not only online, but in real life too! In this post I will elaborate on some of my thoughts I’d shared online at the time. My heart goes out to anybody who has suffered unnecessarily due to such…
One of the most frustrating and debilitating symptoms of ME/CFS is the shaking and trembling after minimal exertion. Something that healthy people might get after a strenuous exercise. I was lying in the bath relaxing last night when I felt the shakes coming on. This is what I get for walking just a few steps to the bathroom and getting undressed. I started feeling a bit of the internal tremors at that point, I imagined it might come to the…
As anybody with ME/CFS and their carers will know, many doctors and health care practitioners still treat ME as a psychological disorder, when in fact it has been proven to be physiological. Patients have been dismissed for decades, disbelieved, misunderstood and symptoms ignored. The current treatment recommended for ME/CFS patients is CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, a type of psychologically based talk therapy) and GET (Graded Exercise Therapy, a controlled exercise program). This came about due to findings that came out…
As you might know by now, I spend every Wednesday evening on Twitter, along with many other ME/CFS warriors, taking part in ME Awareness Hour. It runs from 8-9pm (London time) every Wednesday evening. We tweet about what life is like with this life draining illness. We tweet and retweet for an hour, hoping to to make our hashtags trend on the front page of Twitter so we can get the most attention possible. I hope you will join us, even…
Can you really have a movie night without a pizza? For months after I had transitioned to keto, I didn’t have any pizza. The crusts are loaded with grains which just don’t work for the ketogenic diet, so I was very happy when I stumbled upon this recipe. When I tasted it for the first time I almost cried. This recipe is flop-proof and tastes so good!
It’s easy to get caught up in all the negatives that happen in life. Things don’t go your way, you fall ill, you lose people or your job, you feel sick, there are just so many things that can bring us down, but this is just part of life. The minute we stop expecting life to be a fairytale and accept reality, that’s the moment we open ourselves up to the truth and the freedom that comes with it. It’s…
I have a date tonight – with Twitter! Every Wednesday evening I spend an hour on Twitter, along with a bunch of other ME/CFS warriors, taking part in ME Awareness Hour. It runs from 8-9pm (London time) every Wednesday evening. You can join in the fun too, we’d love to have more advocates taking part! We post memes, links to research or media coverage, personal experience, all sorts of things that will help shed some light on what life is like…
The thought of tracking macros scares many people into delaying their keto journey, but it’s really not as complicated at it might seem. There are some great tools available that make the whole process so easy. Also, some people are not aware that you do not need to calculate your macros, you can just wing it and wait for ketosis and fat adaption to kick in. It might just require more patience and it certainly depends on the results you’re…