colourful flouting balloons with title, Gift Guide, what to buy for your Chronically Ill Friends

Gift guide: what to buy for your chronically ill friends, part 2

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I know many people find such joy in shopping for gifts. They start shopping months in advance and they buy the most thoughtful, personalised gifts anybody would love, that’s not me. I’m so unorganised!  If you’re anything like me, you’ve waited till the last minute to do your gift shopping. Whether it’s for a birthday, Christmas or a house warming gift, I just cannot get it done unless it’s right around the corner and then I might just give up…

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A bowl of colourful confetti spilled on a wooden table. Title says, Gift guide, what to buy for your chronically ill friends.

Gift Guide: What To Buy For Your Chronically Ill Friends, Part 1

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It can be quite tricky deciding what to buy your friends with chronic illness because of all the limitations and intolerances we often have. What would be useful and not harmful in their condition? There are many lists out there, and they’re all slightly different depending on the condition they’re tailored for, so I’m making a list of the things I would have loved to receive over the years of being housebound. I have chronic fatigue and chronic pain as…

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Feet in a bath tub, water moving. Title reads Shakes and Tremors with ME/CFS. Myalgic Encephalomyeitis causes visible body tremors.

Shaking And Trembling With ME/CFS

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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…

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Join the MAIMES campaign, Chronically Hopeful #MEcfs #pwME #ChronicIllness

MAIMES: Medical Abuse in ME Sufferers

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…

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ME Awareness Hour

ME/CFS Awareness, 15 Nov 2017

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…

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ME Awareness Hour

ME/CFS Awareness, 8 Nov 2017

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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…

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Update: current ME/CFS flare is slowing me down

It’s hard to deal with these unexpected flares or relapses that seem to come out of the blue. You end up asking yourself a million questions. What did I do wrong? Did I eat the wrong thing? What did I do yesterday or the day before to cause this much pain? Why am I so weak today, did I overdo it this week? Was the TV too loud? Did I miss the signs and push too hard? Did I get…

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ME CFS Flares, How to cope BLOG

ME/CFS flares: what do they feel like and how to cope

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People with ME all suffer at varying degrees, we cannot compare our flares to somebody else’s. What one considers an ME/CFS flare another considers just another regular day with ME. What one person with ME considers a normal day, might be somebody else’s idea of torture. Once thing they all have in common is that everybody’s battle is devastating. We learn to acknowledge and respect everybody’s pain and everybody’s victories, because despite not fully understanding each other’s experiences, we can…

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a close up shot of forget-me-not flowers

ME/CFS Awareness Pictures To Share, Part 1

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Ever wondered where to find M​E awareness pictures to share? Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is a very misunderstood illness, ​so ​my aim is to empower ​people with ME or CFS to raise awareness, share their own ​experience and to educate the public about the condition. In this series I will be sharing M​E awareness ​pictures that I have created and shared on social media ​and I’ll elaborate on each topic here on the blog. ​All these posts and graphics have been created…

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Healthcare professionals pulling a patient's bed along the corridor

Why I Avoid Emergency Services And My Top Tips For Coping At Home

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I often see people with ME/CFS writing about how they have spent hours in the emergency room only to be completely disappointed, misunderstood or even disbelieved. They go to the emergency room because they are feeling so weak and exhausted that they don’t know where else to go or what to do, they’re scared because they feel so utterly ill. I understand the fear that leads you to that conclusion, it’s scary to lose control of your body, but it’s…

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