I have not been well enough at this time of the year since 2017, so this is my first blog-post to mark the international Myalgic Encephalomyelitis awareness day in three years. (Underneath this blog-post is a list of words and terms, click on any of the ones referring to M.E. to find some of my previous outpourings.)
Under the UK’s current N.I.C.E. Guidelines and by my NHS hospital specialist, I am classified as having the severe form of M.E. There are three official categories: mild, moderate, & severe. However, the severe category itself covers a range of folk from those who are mostly bed-bound, like myself, to those who cannot ingest food or water and have to be kept alive via feeds.
In my previous blog-post I wrote:
“M.E. is not about being tired all the time. It is not a psychiatric illness as the UK’s psycho-cabal (along with their colleagues in Holland & Denmark) would have us believe. It is a multi-systemic, neurological disease (recognised for decades as such by the WHO, currently under ICD-10 G93.3). There are 106 conditions on my health spreadsheet; 104 are connected with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Only three are related to sleep. Under the WHO’s ICD-10 I have conditions under sections I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XVIII & XIX.”
I have mulled over the possible threat to my privacy and so forth, but have decided to publish the full list of my conditions. Obviously I have had to hide certain personal details to prevent identity-theft. I am not publishing this list to garner sympathy. My hope is that the reader will come to realise just how ghastly this disease is in its depth and breadth of conditions and symptoms. Many of these are covered in the broad and all-enveloping rubric of the term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, many are classed as co-morbidities; but which is which is very much still debated.
The list below has not been updated since 2016. However, since that time my medications have altered. I have left the original medicines listed so one has a sense of what is or, in most instances, is not available.
The European Parliament recently unanimously voted for more funding for research into the biological causes of M.E., because despite millions suffering across Europe (and indeed the World), very little is invested into medical research. Individuals with the worst form of M.E. have worse quality of life scores than any other measured illness, including cancers and AIDs. Because we are hidden in our homes, we are ignored or dismissed. Please consider donating time or money to a Myalgic Encephalomyelitis charity or research proposal.
