I think you answered your own question - "I went out and went way over my limit".

You had a mild case of CFS then a really bad episode and when that got better you thought you it was over. And you reclaimed your life. But your body wasn't up to it.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this. Some people say they have recovered but since there is no follow up no one knows if they did recover or just had a long period in remission.

I have to assume that I will be ill the rest of my life. But I'm 62. If I were younger, I would try to be more hopeful.

I started out with a good days and bad days version but a lot of stress over time made me worse. Then surgery after surgery and breast cancer with more surgery. I got worse and worse and now I spend most of my time in bed.

This is such a complex complicated illness. There are many symptoms that we share but others that seem unique to us.

Do you have a good doctor? One who understands CFS?

I will pray for you. I hope you get answers from a doctor who's knowledgeable. You'll get more advice from other DS members.

God bless you.

Thank you. I am so sorry about all you went through. I send you a hug. Gabe

I seem to get worse with each time I get sick. For the first three years I seemed to be getting steadily better, then I moved to try and finish my undergrad degree, caught H1N1 and a host of other things from being around so many students, and am now just barely able to get through my 4hr shifts at my sit-down job. The only normal moments I have are when I'm riding an adrenaline high. Once it's gone, game over. I've tried to pace myself but, I'm sorry to say, I haven't been able to find a successful routine yet. I can't predict where my limit is gonna fall one day to the next.

I'm also really sorry to hear about your girlfriend. My boyfriend left me a couple months after I became ill because he couldn't handle the new responsibility and stress of it. We're still friends but, that doesn't change the fact that it was quite heart-breaking at the time.

I think with regular rest you will start feeling better again. It may take months though. Patience is best. :) -hug-

Hi Gabe -

I would quess, if I may, that the combined overdoing & the emotioanl shock of a relationship ending did you in. I'm so sorry. If resting does not work - if you really have CFS, resting won't work - please find a medical professional that knows something about this. Are there integrative docs in PR? Ask around, especially at health food stores, who's good with this kind of thing. Best of luck!

Lynx

Sorry - I need to clarify. If your crash is an adrenal crash - there are 7 levels of adrenal dysfunction. I was in 1&2 first & did come back by resting. The next time I crashed due to a major surgery, I went to number 7- totally crashed - on the couch for 1 year. Resting was getting me nowhere. Professionals & my own persistence has gotten me back to level 4 - moderate adrenal dysfunction/CFS. And I'm still working to come up from that.

It sounds like a short term relapse since you were functioning quite well managing to work. Your intestinal pain seems like it is probably a secondary health problem...I'd see a doctor about that.

I'm in bedridden relapse right now from going waayyy over my limit, I should have known better.

I have no idea what Lynx is talking about since the only cure for CFS relapse is bed rest. Bruce Campbell has some good info on that (on the CFIDS.org site), mainly stay in bed and gradually return to your normal. Gradually means really gradual.

I've had CFS for about 18 years now, but with pacing can lead a good life. I also met and married my husband after I got sick, so don't get discouraged about the marriage partner.

I've also had lots of surgeries, both hips and both knees. For some reason my CFS gets better with surgery and I always beat my surgical buddies in recovering faster. I didn't get much rest with these surgeries either, they made us walk, walk, walk on each surgery.

Are you feeling a bit better now, it's been 4 days since you posted?

hollie

Hey, this will be a long post, but time to tell my story again I think - you can recover - keep reading.

In 2001 I was an extremely fit 17 year old, first year uni student, and at one point broke every world record from 200m to 1500m in one swim. Never got my chance to prove it, I'd over done it. I caught glandular fever, and not knowing what was wrong with me, kept pushing and kept getting sicker. I wound up in bed for 3 months straight. My sister would spoon feed me blended soup, holding my head up and operating the spoon which was too heavy for me. And I got worse from then. I got asthma, diabetes, epilepsy. Basically all my organs were shutting down. I would be in hospital for one thing one day and back again for something else the next. I had some near death experiences at the time too, not breathing for up to 5 minutes. I stayed that way for a couple of years, but by 2003, I'd figured out I was worse around certain triggers and I started avoiding them. I saw some improvement and got back into sports as soon as I could.

I played social volleyball in 2003, in which my role was to stand in my spot on the court, I couldn't move - just stand. I'm not sure that I was much of a help to my team, but they didn't have enough to make a team without me. As time progressed, I was able to move more and more. I eventually started getting fitter from it, and my health got better again. In 2004 I started swimming with a masters club and by 2006 progressed to a club where I was training alongside Olympians. I was still experiencing a few funny symptoms and after a blackout episode, I was kicked out of my first club for insurance reasons and moved to another. I didn't tell them about the chronic fatigue there, and they never worked out that there was anything wrong with me. I never had any more residual issues with it anyway while I was there, so I would say I was fully recovered. I was training 10 x 2 hour sessions a week, plus land work, plus a 40 hour a week job and managing it all just as well as anyone I was training with - I think most people would say I was fully recovered.

Then in 2008 I had a very bad dose of food poisoning. I was basically not really conscious for a few weeks because of it. I got a fungal sort of necrotic lining all over my mouth and throat which turned out to be glandular fever gone really really wrong - I still have holes in my tonsils because of it. And after an episode of glandular fever that bad, I think the chronic fatigue was completely unavoidable. I did everything I could to dodge it, but got it for a second time. Doctors confirmed that this wasn't a relapse, it was a complete new case - based on the history and Epstein Barr virus levels which proved I'd had a 2nd dose.

It didn't get as bad this time, because I knew a lot about it and how to avoid really grinding myself into the ground. I had to foster care for my 4 month old neice pretty early on though for a couple of months, and that wiped me out more than I would have liked. I got out of it pretty quickly and was recovering well at the beginning of last year. But then I had a huge allergic reaction to some chemical sprayed on a new pair of pants. My entire body swelled up and I stopped breathing. Then I relapsed again, back to square one, back in bed April last year - I collapsed many times just crawling from bed to shower and back, I had zero energy again. But it was only a wipe out from one episode and as big as the wipe out was, it didn't last long. By June I was working full time again.

Almost a year on, its still holding. I haven't had any more relapses, big or small (except maybe whatever I'm off work today for - I think its a slight allergy, I'm just being careful not pushing it). I've been socialising as much as I like again the last few months, and have increased commitments to other activities too. About 2 months ago I started swimming again, and at the end of April, rejoined my old elite training squad. I've moved up and am now leading the slow lane. My coach is limiting what I do quite a lot, and says I could lead the fast lane if he'll let me, but we're just being a bit cautious still. Check in with me in 6 months time, I'm pretty confident I'll be racing at masters pan pacifics (I've bought my plane tickets) by then and hopefully claiming another full recovery (hopefully for the last time!).

My toolkit to share on recovery is - pray for recovery (get everyone else to too), be patient and don't push your body when its not up to it, be wise about how you use your small amount of energy every day and put it into the things that help recovery the most (exercise and eating well), listen to your body and rest as much as it needs to, learn your triggers (allergies, socialising etc) and avoid all of them like the plague, ask for help even if its embarrassing, and arm yourself with as much knowledge about cfs as you can it can only help and they are always learning more, get some good doctors and support medical team who know about cfs (ask about anti-depressants, even though I didn't have depression as a symptom, it also helps with other aspects of recovery - just by stopping the brain from telling the body its tired) and finally try the odd quacky sounding thing anyway as long as it won't do any harm. Its pretty hard to perfect all these things and will take a bit of time and effort to work it all out - plus you have to be so strict with yourself (and friends & family who want to break the rules), but definitely worth it.

I had brushes with CFS twice, at least, before I got it this last time and it has been 18 years.

So yes, I did fully recover twice. But this time I don't think so. I think if I hadn't been under so much stress for so long, had a horrible breakup and auto accident...maybe I wouldn't have gotten it this last time.

This last time I caught it, there was a vicious flu going around and everyone but one person and me got well. I stayed sick and it became CFS. This is kind of like the Incline Village and other outbreaks where CFS develops in clusters. So I do believe it is viral.

hollie