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Who am I?

Hey there, welcome to my blog. My name is Sian, I’m 28, I live in Scotland and I have a chronic illness called M.E.  What is M.E.? M.E stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).  How long have I had ME?  I developed M.E 2 years ago at the start of September. I was about to start college to study beauty therapy and the day before I had a headache. Ok, no big deal, everyone has headaches. By the evening it had developed into a migraine (you know, when you can’t stand the light, or sounds, and you feel like you’re going to throw up). I didn’t think too much of it and hoped it would be gone by the morning. Well, it didn’t go. In fact, I had that same migraine constantly for 6 months straight.  What did you do?  I got on with it. I started college the next day, and I attended every day I was supposed to until I couldn’t handle it anymore, which was Christmas 2016.  What ...
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Appointments

I have finally had some positive appointments come through. 


I was put on a waiting list at the start of 2018 to see Keith, the local M.E nurse specialist (incidentally, the only M.E specialist in Scotland) and today I finally got an appointment for the start of February. There are several hundred people living with M.E in this area of Scotland known as Fife, and so anyone who knows and understands M.E is going to be in high demand, hence the year long waiting list. 


I'm part of a local M.E group for Fife, and as a group, some of us have met Keith, and his manager, to discuss the service and how it can be improved. The main problem is how in demand his services are, and we need more specialists to cope with it, but where does the money to do this come from?

I also have a follow up appointment with my neurologist on Monday. The last time we saw him was December 2017, when I received my diagnosis. He wanted to discharge me, but we insisted on a follow up appointment in a year's time to see how things are. I'm interested to know what his opinions are on a few treatments, such as low dose naltrexone, which I have seen people being prescribed online, although in the UK it looks like a lot of doctors won't prescribe it for chronic illnesses. There are also treatments like the Perrin technique, hydrotherapy, acupuncture and the list goes on. I expect he won't have much of an opinion on these though, but I'm wary of throwing money at treatments that might not help. 

I guess I'll just wait and see what he says on Monday. 

Thanks for reading. 
That ME Girl 
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