My seventh MORA treatment

I've had a good week.

My aches and pains are still on and off; but the good news is that they're more off than on these days.

I'm sleeping better.

My mind is clearer (I read the book Voyage of the Dawn Treader in one day! Granted, it's not a very challenging book, but still, you'd be hard-pressed finding another person with CFS who can finish a book in a day).

Also, I'm walking well around the house. I noticed that it's easier for me to get up from a chair these days. Because it used to take so much effort for me to get up from my seat, I used to plan what I was going to do every time I got up: I'd plan to go to the toilet, get a drink, pick up a remote, get a pen from the table... and invariably I'd forget to do one of those things, and it was a giant pain in the ass to have to get up again. Now I find it's not as big a deal if I forget something, because I can just get up again, with less difficulty than before.

Of course, I still have limits. If I had to get up from my seat five times in fives minutes, I'd probably tire myself out. My stamina is still poor, and I still suffer from sensory overload (ie. not being able to think with too many people talking at once).

But the nurse I've been seeing said I have to patient: I've been sick for a long time, so it's going to take a long time for me to get better. She said it's exciting that I'm improving already, and that I should remember not to push myself too much.

My sixth MORA treatment

This week's MORA treatment was much the same as last week's. I had the treatment, and the nurse asked me her usual questions.

I asked the nurse about the issue with my feet today. Since the onset of my CFS, I've had tender soles. I described it to the nurse as feeling like I've been walking on rocks with bare feet for hours. She asked me if the pain is in a specific place, or across the whole foot; I said the pain was across the whole foot. She said it sounds like hypersensitivity. When she asked the doctor about it, he increased my dose of vitamin B complex.

After the MORA treatment was over, the doctor and the nurse stuck two little stickers with tiny balls underneath them to two points on my arms. Apparently they're meant to prolong the effects of my treatment.

I guess what most of you would like to know is whether or not I'm feeling any better. On the whole, the answer is a definate yes. My muscle strength has improved, my energy has improved, and my sleeping has improved. Having said that, I'm still not very independent, small tasks are still taxing for me, and I'm not really functioning as a normal person should. But the important thing is that I have improved. (In a way, I hope that makes people realise just how debilitated I was a few months ago.) I'm still feeling a bit lousy from the colon cleanse, but like I said last week, after the colon cleanse is done, I hope I'll start picking up even more.

Why CFS is thoroughly frustrating

One aspect of CFS I find the most frustrating is not people who don't understand what CFS is, but people who almost resist trying to understand what CFS is.

I don't expect anyone to spend hours reading about CFS on the Internet. What I can't stand is when people ask: "What's wrong with you, exactly?" over and over again. And when I say "I have chronic fatigue syndrome" and explain it to them, they dismiss what I have to say, and ask me the same question again in a few months' time! It's thoroughly frustrating. At least five people I know are regular culprits of this.

One that I'll call "H" is the most exasperating to deal with. She cares about me, but she doesn't seem to realise just now debilitating CFS is. She seems to think that I'm just depressed. And that is the most annoying attitude anyone can deal with.

Not only do I have a mysterious, invisible, debilitating disease; I have to battle with people who think I'm just depressed as well.

Update, and my fifth MORA treatment

I vomitted a few more times after publishing my last post, however, in the past four days, I haven't vomitted again.

My vomitting episode was a bit of a setback in my quest to rid myself of CFS, but I think I'm on the mend again. My aches and pains have toned down a lot, I have some energy (though not as much as when I first started this treatment yet), and most importantly, I'm starting to sleep well.

Dr S gave me a bunch of remedies to help me sleep better. Today, I woke up at 9.30 am for the first time in weeks. (I've been getting up between 11.30 am and 12.30 pm -- shocking, I know!)

Still, I feel the need to rest; I've been spending most of my mornings sitting in bed reading -- rest assured I'm fully awake and I stay in bed just for comfort and warmth mostly! (It's been really cold here lately.) I'm feeling the need to rest probably because my body's weak from the vomitting, I suspect. Dr S said the vomitting could have been due to a virus.

Anyway, I don't feel drained after MORA treatments anymore, yay! My fifth treatment was uneventful. The nurse asked me her usual questions, told me to continue with the treatment as planned, and I'll see her next week.

At this stage, I'm hopeful that once my body recovers from the vomitting and the colon cleanse, there's a chance I might be feeling a lot better. One can only hope!

Third appointment with Dr S

My third appointment with Dr S lasted for an hour.

Dr S and I discussed my nausea and vomitting, and he's taken me off some of the pills that might be causing those symptoms. In particular, Dr S is putting me back on the brand of vitamin D pills I was on before last week (last week when I stocked-up my pills at the clinic, I had to buy a different brand than usual because they were out of the pills I'd been on before).

I'm into the next phase of Dr S's treatment plan now. I'll be taking some medication that will give my colon a spring clean (so I anticipate spending a lot of time on the dunny over the next few days). Also, I'll be taking some medication that will deal with my candida overgrowth. As far as I know, candida is a kind of yeast living in our bowels, and when we have an overgrowth, it's a bad thing.

Also, I should mention that since having a laser acupuncture treatment, my mood has improved. Apparently that's mainly what the acupuncture was for. I've always wondered if acupuncture works; I haven't taken any of my pills in the last two days, and I've been feeling unwell because of my nausea; yet despite all that, my mood has improved, so I'm inclined to believe that acupuncture does work.

Yum cha with some real friends!

I've been feeling poorly these past few days; I've been throwing up, so I haven't been eating much. But I dragged myself out today to go to lunch with some friends. We'd been planning to go to lunch for over a month now, and this lunch was unusual because everyone in the group was able to go.

I'm so glad I went to lunch. This group of friends always make it so worth-while; they've been so understanding about my CFS. It's amazing how much less stressful going out seems to be when people don't treat me like I'm malingering. I don't have to worry that I'm offending them if I look poorly, and I don't have to worry about them saying anything that I might find hurtful. They just accept that I have CFS and try to make everything as easy as possible for me.

For a while I've been quite miserable about losing half my friends, but my other friends really make up for it when I see them.

We went to yum cha, as usual! I couldn't eat anything because of my diet, but I was able to have some steamed rice and green tea. It's funny how most of my friends like yum cha; none of them are Asian, but we've always eaten Asian food: dumplings, yum cha and Japanese food. Funny, isn't it?

Laser acupuncture and allergies?

I had a laser acupuncture session the other day. I felt a bit more relaxed afterwards, so I think it helped.

The nurse tried to explain how acupuncture works, although I must say I still don't understand it fully. She said that from my symptoms, Dr S knows that there are blockages in my acupuncture meridians (lines the run up and down the body), and that by stimulating certain points on the body (with needles, or in this case, lasers) the blockages can be unblocked.

Laser acupuncture isn't meant to hurt. It hurt on my legs, but I think that's only because my legs are quite sensitive because of my condition. It didn't hurt at all on my arms.

Also, I've had an allergic reaction to something in the last few days. I don't think it has anything to do with the laser acupuncture though, because the allergic reaction began before my laser acupuncture session. I'm trying to think of what I might be allergic to, but I can't think of anything. I don't think I've changed my routine in any way, lately.

But I've felt really unwell (more so than usual) these past two days, and I spent most of yesterday and today in bed. I've been itching all over, mainly at night. There are no signs of rashes though. A few times, I've seen bumps on my skin that look a bit like mosquito bites, but they disappear by the morning, usually. I thought I'd just imagined the bites, but A saw one of them, so they can't be imaginary. Also, I feel a bit fluey, and I have a stuffy nose, and itchy eyes. And I threw up earlier today.

I'm quite glad that my next appointment with Dr S is on Monday. I hope he has some ideas about what's happening.