My body told me to rest -I got better by doing the opposite

[Guest guest]

From: ME Free For All.org

PERMISSION TO FORWARD, REPOST & USE IN

NEWSLETTERS.

My body told me to rest: I got better by

doing the opposite (Glasgow Herald, 28

April 2008)

I don't know whether the Editor of the Glasgow

Herald will afford me the amount of space I'm asking

for this larger than usual response to an article

promoting Mickel Therapy (link below my signature)

but, worringly, advocating defying listening to your

body and taking exercise. Still, I think it's worth a

shot.

There are quite a lot of comments under the article

online and the majority seem to be in favour of

Mickel Therapy.

May I suggest that, as many as can manage, send a

response - shorter than mine - to the letters page,

letters@...

For economy of effort, just before you send the

e-mail copy it and paste it in the online comments

and, if you want it to appear on our website, whether

they publish it or not Bcc it to info@...

or to my e-mail address. Same applies if you want to

send any discussion point, without writing to the

paper.

I think that if they receive a good number of letters,

especially with a variety of views and experiences,

there is more likely to be a good follow up.

I have copied mine to Dr Mickel. If you want

to, his e-mail address is drdavid@...

Although this is a therapy that has been developed

in Scotland, there are Mickel Therapists practising

throughout the world, so opinions and experiences

from abroad are equally welcome as those in the UK.

Cheers

drjohngreensmith@...

````````````

Letter to the Editor of The Glasgow Herald,

McGhee.

Cc: Greig, Sports Writer.

I hope - in the interests of seeing all sides of an

argument and because the consequences for M.E.

sufferers could be so serious, even potentially

harmful - that you will allow the same space and

prominence to my response, as you did to

Greig's article, promoting Mickel Therapy and the talk

to be given by it's inventor, Dr Mickel, in

Glasgow, on Saturday 17 May 2008 (My body told me

to rest: I got better by doing the opposite, Glasgow

Herald, 28 April 2008), which prompts it.

Before embarking on any course of treatment -

including Mickel Therapy - M.E. (Myalgic

Encephalomyelitis) sufferers would be well advised

to weigh up what is known about the therapy being

offered and learn from other areas of medicine in

order to better understand any possible risks or

consequences.

It is a quite legitimate, understandable, early step in

any scientific enquiry to set out with a theory. The

traditional approach is to test a hypothesis and,

once it has been proved valid and reliable, with a

high degree of probability of repetition, usually 95%

or 99%, accept that the suggested treatment is

appropriate and safe. Often, treatments are tested

thoroughly under laboratory conditions, or on

animals, before they are given to patients, to

maximise safety.

In M.E. research, the approach has too often been to

skip the testing and expect M.E. sufferers to be

guinea pigs (for example in the PACE - Pacing,

graded Activity and Cognitive behaviour therapy: a

randomised Evaluation and FINE - Fatigue

Intervention by Nurses' Evaluation - trials, which are

being carried out on patients before the results are

in and have been assessed, a practise which would

be unethical in some drugs and animal experiments).

No one, as yet, has a cure for M.E. but some people

claim to have treatments which " help " people with

M.E., though the ways in which this help are clearly

observable, such as a return to some measure of a

previously healthy life, like returning to work or

school, are not always obvious.

When people have been ill for long periods of time

and have tried everything suggested without

success, they tend to be less critical of and take

bigger gambles with, more radical treatments. There

is, undoubtedly, an opportunity for charlatans but,

even when the practitioners are well-intentioned,

reputable and honourable, they only have a theory.

Interestingly, the advocates of different radical

treatments advance different theories of M.E. with

equal firmness that theirs is the correct one - the

hypothalamus (Mickel Therapy), amygdala (the Gupta

Programme), adrenaline (the Lightning Process) - yet

they all remain unproven theories.

No one - not even the practitioner - knows how they

work. There is no scientific evidence for them. They

are not approved by any medical organisation. They

have not been independently reviewed and rely only

on recommendations from people, who claim it has

helped them, not balanced by any dissatisfied

customers, who may be too ill to speak out or fear

the consequences if they do.

They are often, quite secretive, pyramid-sold

treatments, practised by a motley crew of people

with disparate, indefinite, qualifications, such as 'life

coach'. There are no follow-up studies, or statistics

available, to check whether M.E. sufferers relapsed;

anecdotal evidence suggests that many do. A single

session often costs as much as some people, on

benefits, have to manage on for a week. They rely on

faith and put the responsibility to get better squarely

on the patient.

Thus, if the M.E. sufferer says they feel better,

success is claimed for the treatment but if they say

they have not improved, it may be said the patient

was somehow negative or not ready for it.

In other areas of medicine, treatment is given even

when the causes of an illness are not fully

understood and the scale of possible side effects of

treatment is unknown. The stakes are high. For

example, we are now seeing some of the undesirable

after-effects of chemo- and radiotherapy; I'm sure

that the people behind Thalidomide had nothing but

good intentions; frontal lobotomies seemed a good

idea at the time. This is not scaremongering. We

know, for sure, these things happen; we do not

know, for sure, how many cases there are of

damaged M.E. patients and whether any

improvements would have been achieved without any

treatment at all.

It is probable that there are many more M.E.

sufferers, who have been badly affected by a

particular treatment than we know about because

the victims are too ill, after it, to speak out; some

are daunted by the energy required to respond

publicly; some fear threatened litigation, even

bullying.

We simply don't know the figures because the work

hasn't been done. Furthermore, claims of success for

M.E. patients do not take account of later relapses,

again because follow-up studies have not been done

and the statistics are not available.

It is also possible that the success doesn't belong to

the therapy claiming it because the patient may not

have had M.E. at all but some other illness

misdiagnosed. Or, credit may, instead, belong to

some other intervention taken simultaneously, which

has not been considered, in a multivariate analysis.

Or, improvement may be due to the passage of time,

during which resting and gentle pacing has had an

ameliorative effect. Indeed, pacing is recommended

as the treatment most likely to show a beneficial

effect by most M.E. sufferers, though it does require

discipline and is easier said than done.

For some, it's too late once the damage is done.

Patients considering any exercise treatment, even in

clinics with recommended therapists, should take

note of the experience of M.E. sufferers who had

well-meaning advice from GPs to exercise and

finished up in wheelchairs, or bed bound, from which

they have not recovered their previous level. There is

also experimental evidence, in this country and in

Belgium, that even the more orthodox recommended

treatments have no lasting benefit for people with

M.E, or leave some irrecoverably worse than before.

The advice of this Research Psychologist and 20-year

M.E. veteran is that it is better to have no treatment

at all than one which does you no good, or leaves

you worse after it. Remember, the burden of proof is

on those recommending the treatment, not for

patients to acquiesce for any other reason than firm

evidence.

At ME Free For All. org we have a reputation for

even-handedness and welcome contributions of all

shades of opinion to our discussion groups at

http://www.mefreeforall.org/Mickel-Therapy.212.0.html

Yours sincerely

drjohngreensmith@...

Dr H Greensmith

ME Free For All. org

`

``````````````

http://tinyurl.com/64lk5g

My body told me to rest: I got better by doing the

opposite

MARTIN GREIG April 28 2008

I remember the morning. It is seared in my memory.

It was a beautiful summer day, the first of my

holiday. A world of possibilities lay ahead - only I

was struggling to open my eyelids. Swinging a leg

out of bed seemed like an effort. I looked at my

alarm clock: 9.15am.

I showered and had breakfast. The tiredness hung

over me like a storm cloud. My girlfriend phoned to

make plans; I said I didn't feel up to doing much. I

could feel my eyelids getting heavy again. I put

down the phone and looked at the clock: 11am. I

wanted to crawl back into bed.

I wasn't overly concerned. I had started a new job

three months previously and had been working flat

out. It was August 2004. Around March or April that

year I had picked up the flu, which I believed initially

to be the start of my problems. I tried to work

through it but never quite shook it off.

advertisement

I moved to my new job as a sports writer at The

Herald at the end of May, but as the months passed

I felt increasingly under the weather. So I took a

holiday. And here I was - sun shining, exhausted,

but confident that a break would re-charge my

batteries. I was, after all, 25, physically fit and had

never been ill in my life.

By the third day, my best-laid plans had fallen by the

wayside. I phoned in sick the following week, by

which stage I was suffering from deep fatigue. I

began to worry, so I went to my doctor and she sent

me for blood tests. They came back clear. She could

see I was drained and signed me off again, but there

was little improvement. Thankfully, all my colleagues

at The Herald, to my eternal gratitude, were very

understanding.

I went back to the doctor. " We could be looking at

something like malaria, " she said. My jaw dropped. I

sought a consultation with another doctor who

diagnosed it as " post-viral symptoms " , which was at

least more likely than malaria, but even she could

offer no remedy.

I was off for three months. By then, I had recovered

enough to make a phased return - two days at first

and then gradually building it up. After six months I

was working normal hours, but still not back to

where I had been before. I still felt more tired than I

should have done and regularly experienced other

symptoms - muscle tightness, pin pricks in my feet

and light-headedness.

It was clear that physical exertion exacerbated my

symptoms so I was worried that any form of it would

lead to a relapse. The only real advice from medics

and support groups was " pace yourself " .

I tried other things. I ate more slow energy-

releasing foods; I went to my bed early. The

differences were minimal. I became increasingly

concerned that I would never fully recover. By then, I

had realised that orthodox medicine did not have a

clue what was wrong with me or how to treat it.

Hope came from an unexpected source. A friend was

suffering from a similar condition and found it even

more debilitating than I did, having had to stop work

completely. She had been researching the series of

interrelated conditions commonly referred to as ME,

chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, and her

trawl of the internet threw up something called

Mickel therapy. The explanations it offered - see

panel below - struck a chord so she booked an

appointment. I dropped in to see her one night, as

usual feeling under par.

The subject of Mickel therapy came up and she said

that it had started to make a real difference to her.

After three sessions, she felt less tired and more

confident about the future. I was delighted for her. I

left feeling much more positive and e-mailed my

friend's therapist for an appointment that night. I

instinctively felt that this was something which could

help me. In particular, two things I liked were that it

did not involve any medication and was not

psychotherapy. I attended my first session a few

weeks later with a Mickel therapist called Lynda

Carnochan.

The theory is that the symptoms of the " energy

disorders " - currently labelled variously as ME,

post-viral fatigue syndrome, chronic fatigue

syndrome, fibromyalgia, and many more besides -

are caused by a malfunctioning hypothalamus gland.

Treatment involved a series of one-hour sessions

during which I learned why my symptoms were there

and how to work with them to regain my health.

What struck me was how practical Mickel was. It

required dedication and decision-making, but I was

prepared to do anything to improve my situation.

Like my friend, after three or four sessions I noticed

a difference. I would still have bad days or weeks

but the length between them was increasing. I

started to build things back into my daily routine

that I would never have contemplated previously,

like physical exercise and socialising.

The process reminded me of an episode of the

sitcom Seinfeld. In an episode called The Opposite,

Jerry's best friend Costanza attempts to turn

his life around by doing the opposite from what his

head tells him to. Instead of being intimidated by

beautiful women, he approaches them. Instead of

being subservient to his boss, he challenges him. As

a consequence, his life turns around for the better.

When experiencing symptoms my head had always

told me to rest. I realised, through Mickel, that doing

so only caused my symptoms to escalate. So I did

" the opposite " , exciting, life-enhancing stuff that

sparked positive emotions. I was apprehensive at

first, but I soon started to feel like I had a life again

and gained confidence from not suffering setbacks.

One night out in particular sealed it for me. It was

my friend's birthday. The drink was flowing and all

seemed right with the world. At one point, I looked

at my watch and noticed that it was 5am. I had been

partying all night and felt great. I went to my bed for

a few hours, woke up early afternoon and still felt

fine (apart from a bit of a sore head). In the past, I

would not have gone out at all, expecting to have

experienced tiredness for several days at best

afterwards. I was getting better.

That was last year. The symptoms have continued to

diminish. Even if they do raise their ugly head, I now

know how to respond to them so that my body no

longer needs to create them. Seven sessions later

and six months on, I am back living the kind of

active life that a 29-year-old should. It is all thanks

to Mickel Therapy.

It was developed by a ish doctor: so what is

Mickel therapy?

Mickel therapy is a ground-breaking new treatment

for a wide range of chronic health conditions

including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), myalgic

encephalomyelitis (ME), post-viral fatigue syndrome

(PVFS) and fibromyalgia (FMA). Developed by

ish medical doctor Dr Mickel, pictured, the

treatment involves no medication, dietary change,

supplements or psychotherapy of any sort - Mickel

therapy is unique, in a genre all of its own.

Treatment involves a series of sessions during which

clients learn why their symptoms are present and,

crucially, how to work with them to regain their

health.

What does Mickel therapy believe causes

CFS/ME/FMA and related conditions?

Mickel therapy is underpinned by the hypothesis that

the conditions of CFS, ME, PVFS and FMA are created

by a dysfunction of the hypothalamus gland.

However, Mickel therapy recognises the conditions of

CFS, ME, PVFS and FMA as being purely physical and

not psychological in nature.

How does Mickel therapy work?

Until Mickel therapy's hypotheses and process are

studied properly then the answer remains unclear.

However, the results show that it does. Dr Mickel

believes a whole range of chronic health conditions

are created, and subsequently maintained, by the

effect of negative primary emotions such as anger,

fear and boredom on our physical cells. These are

primal, instinctive emotions that are being created

spontaneously in our mid-brain without cortical or

" thinking brain " activity. Unfortunately, in our modern

world, increasing numbers of people have stopped

responding to these negative primary emotions,

which ultimately manifest themselves in physical

symptoms. Mickel therapy reunites clients with these

emotions and coaches them in the constructive

handling of them, to leave them symptom-free.

What does Mickel therapy involve?

# Trained practitioners meet sufferers in a series of

face to-face-sessions lasting one hour. All

practitioners are supervised following each and every

session, thus ensuring a high standard of therapy

across the board. What proof exists that Mickel

therapy works? Mickel therapists point to the

testimony of more than 1000 clients who report a full

return to health - a 92% success rate. This, of

course, requires validation by approved research. The

Mickel team would welcome such research, and want

to have Mickel therapy properly studied. To find a

practitioner in your area visit www.mickeltherapy.com

# Dr Mickel will give a one-hour introductory

talk about the therapy on Saturday, May 17, in

Glasgow. More information from Lynda Carnochan on

07866 454064 or at lynda@...

````````

Comment:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2229020.0.my_body_told_me_to_rest_\

i_got_better_by_doing_the_opposite.php#comments_form

Read Comments (35)

http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2229020.0.my_body_told_me_to_rest_\

i_got_better_by_doing_the_opposite.php#comments