Thing's I learnt at clinic: Cause

Now before we begin let me just stress that I am obviously not going to talk about a definitive cause in this post because sadly as we know there is none and if there were then everybody would be doing their best to avoid developing this condition and we would potentially have found a cure. M.E can hit any body at any time, even children. It is more prevelant in the northern hemisphere and therefore generally but certainly not always in white people or caucassians. No matter how many medical tests that you have they will generally all turn out 'normal' or 'negative' and so you beat your head against a brick wall over and over again, wondering why then we feel like we're dying, that we sleep all night and day but still feel as though we haven't had any at all and ache from head to toe.

In my last post about personality I listed a series of statements that referred to doing things well and feeling a need to do things for yourself, which had a high response level amongst the attendees of the clinic, not just in that session but in others and enough for them to include it in the course syllabus. Perhaps there is something to be said for certain personality qualities being a contributing factor. Then again not all people that have type A tendencies are likely to develop M.E. I have a friend that has many type A attributes, she hates doing nothing, is constantly on the go, thinking about lots of different things at once and is many many things to many different people: Always more than willing to go out of her way for people, as well as working a busy job and travelling the country. But will she get M.E? It's certainly debateable and I surely hope she doesn't. Afterall we never truly know everything about a person, as well appearing to live life at full throtle pace they also may be more conscious of looking after themselves and take more time to unwind. Or be healthier. We just simply do not see it. Some people though can just live like that, simple as.

People can also usually track the onset of their M.E to a certain event, no not a party, but a certain trauma such as illness, virus, injection, operation, grief or bereavement after which they notice that they are not healing or recovering as expected. Often we do not allow ourseleves the time to recover fully either. Especially if it is taking longer than we thought it would. We stress about getting on with our lives, that the children need looking after and the house is a tip. That we have jobs to get back to and deadlines to meet. Especially in todays competitive job market. It is easy to feel that you are replaceable, that someone else is waiting to step into your role. Again apparently this is a type A thought process. Companies too are getting stricter about absenteeism, creating fear of getting a warning. Ultimately this means people are trying to rush their recoveries and in turn are not allowing their bodies to restore properly before returning to the rat race and straight back to pushing our bodies and minds hard. These traumas though are not something that we should rush even if we are risking diciplinary action. It is not as if you're hung over or are wagging to watch the World Cup. This is exactly what I did. Although I had been rushed to hospital 6 times with suspected appendicitis and was still in pain I was assured that nothing was going to explode, in fact back then they had no clue what it was, which meant lots of outpatients appointments and more tests to wait for. I didn't have time to wait for them and just do nothing, nor did I want to so I just tried to work through it. To enjoy this life that I had created for myself and felt so proud to have achieved. However the more I pushed the more my body pushed back. I have talked about me falling down the stairs, getting a nasty infection in my face and how my body went into utter melt down when my Mum was ill as well. Until I was caught out big style and my body and mind literally felt as though they had switched off and that has been a battle ever since.

So what I am trying to say is that people stretch themselves to thin and then life happens and you get stretched even more as your body is consumed by a trauma. Many people believe that they had Glandular fever before getting M.E and this has been the topic of much research but again there has been nothing definitive proven. Then you try and push through it but in doing so our bodies become susseptible or our immune systems weaken. Of course though it is not as simple as that because otherwisse a lot more people would have M.E and this does not explain why children get M.E because sadly there are many child sufferers. I am just reporting what appears to be a common factor in many M.E sufferers but again is that just down to this busy world we live in?  What else makes us susseptble is unknown  and the subject of much research. Is it a sleep condition? Is it in our genes? In our blood? Or our nerves? Whatever it is seems to be very good at hiding but let us hope that one day it will be found out and then we can start developing a cure.