Simon Wessely I Know it All was created to provide a platform against nonsense in the medical profession in general, and in ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) in particular. However, it was closed down as no one in this world can be called:
1. Simon
2. Simon Wessely or
3. Wessely
So everybody with any of those names, GET a DEED POLL and change your name straight away because there is only one person who can have that name apparently !!!
I have mailed the UEFA as Spain won EURO 2008 with a dominating midfield player called SENNA and as we all know, that is someone else, just ask Mr Ron Dennis.
So this BLOG is now called:
Proper ME News, No PSYCHO Babble
But otherwise things haven’t changed, I am still bedridden 24/7, due to ME, and please remember,
I still KNOW it ALL.
Have a NICE day.
Simon Wessely, SL SWCIE ME
(Senior Lecturer at the Simon Wessely Couch Institute of Excellence, ME)
Proper ME News, no PSYCHO babble 
I had ME for 8 years, about. Not so much chronic fatigue as chronic acute fatigue, but it started with two other infections. Tests showed that I had typhoid, only the consultant was puzzled at the lack of actual symptoms. And I had the ‘flu’. The next thing I knew was that all I could do was sleep, sleep, sleep. Plus Something cycled round my body, I would be yellow for 2 days, then my heart would race continuously for a couple of days, then there would be kidney pains. A few days off and there I was, skin and eye whites all yellow again. Friends of mine had it with all this plus giant boils (think bigger than golf ball, visual disturbances, and more. I could neither work nor get benefits as it was then not recognised by the NHS. In the end the hospital consultant filled in a form declaring I had some other illness so I could pay rent, feed kids, etc.
My father – a psychiatrist – obviously thought at first it was all in my mind. Even though it was one of his colleagues (not a shrink, a pathologist) who did early research showing damage to muscle cells in ME people (1979 I think).
I pointed out that if my mind could produce these kinds of symptoms, then telekinesis would be easy for it – see me move mountains by unconscious thought alone!!
This is how we recovered from ME;
1. Amino acids – pills with the full range of amino acids in. We realised that energy metabolism was disrupted. My friends were vegetarian but one day suddenly desired a meat snack, trusted their instincts and ate some. A couple of hours later they felt a bit better and all their vision problems suddenly cleared. This lasted a day I think.
First we ate loads of meat, but this difficult and costly. So switched to the amino acids as they are easily absorbed.
2. Chinese traditional herbal medicine.
This was prescribed for my friends by a Vietnamese herbalist who was trained by monks. I saw a doctor who was qualified both as a western MD and with a degree in Chinese traditional medicine from Beijin. She had a visiting Professor of TCM with her, who also examined me. They looked at my friends’ prescription and said it is exactly what they use for ME in china. So I got the herbs and used them.
3. Deep rest. We discovered that when we felt good and with some energy (occasional days), it was essential to stay put in bed and let the energy be used for healing, immune system, or whatever. Else there would be a bad relapse. Definitely NO graded exercise.
4. Anything that brings relaxation to mind and muscles.
I had deep muscle massage Hellerwork which relaxed muscles I didn’t know I had, but which I was without realising it holding tense. This freed up energy (I learned to go home and lie down after each session, even though I felt more energetic). This treatment had to stop as the massage guy said my cartilege had become so soft he could not risk the massage.
So instead I used relaxation techniques daily – remembered from long-ago yoga sessions.
5. Healing sessions.
A total cynic, but desperate and willing to give anything a go, I went to a very experienced healer (National Federation of Spiritual Healers – pay what you can afford). I went in a whiter shade of pale and cynical. I came out pink and bouncy, and utterly astonished. And went home to bed to let the extra strength be used for the immune system or whatever.
And after a few months, I one day just felt this definitive change in my body. From thereon I started to recover strength and energy, though it took a few months to get back to normal.
I had been so ill at one point that when people spoke, it was just babble to me. I could look at a newspaper, and knew it was in English but could not make out any meaning to the words. I remember having to drag myself along the floor to the loo because my legs would not work. Only one night of the head pain torture luckily, but periods of being unable to eat – it just went through me. Once, lying down, I started to pass out, darkness spiralled inwards. I came round later to find a friend had arrived in the nick of time and started spooning Complan down me!
NO, this is not somatic, or whatever the Wessely School like to call it. I looked a one of his CFS research papers. All it showed was that the people with CFS were stressed. Of course they were stressed – nothing is more stressful, even terrifying, than having an illness like this, with no diagnosis and no cure in sight. Doctors and psychiatrists are not medical scientists. A correlation is not proof of cause. Bad science!
I have wittered on. Forgive.
Why if this is a site created by PRofessor Wessely is it so negative about him. He has done more than any other psychiatrists to improve the lives of patients with ME
I agree. I was bed bound for 2 years and then my GP referred me for grade exercise and now i am back to full time working.
I was bed bound for years and now i am back to full time employment. I was cured by a mixture of graduated exercise and antidepressents. I am so pleased. Thank you Professor Wessely, I owe my life to you
If CBT and or GET cure you then either the diagnosis of ME was wrong and you had ANOTHER ILLNESS, or you had a spontaneous recovery.
CBT and GET DO NOT CURE neurological illnesses, they don’t even cure psychiatric ones, they only make you cope with fears and anxiety according to professor Wessely in the New Statesman on 1.5.2008 ….
SW
Look at Goerge: Referred for grade exercise. 2 near identical posts. Obviously hasn’t solved all of the neurological problems 🙂 I agree. I know someone cured of CFS by eating apples. 1 sparrow does not make a spring. Look at the evidence. CBT is effective therapy as long as you exclude the 30-40% of drop outs from the studies. Imagine a drug that made people with Parkinsons Disease 30% better but gave 35% Alzheimers disease. Is that a good drug?
GEt & CBT madse me very ill, as it does most patients with genuine M.E. but I’m still being bullied & coerced to do them again. No other neurological illness is ‘treated’ by methods that leave most sufferers more ill than before.
Let’s have some real biomedical treatments based on biomedical research! It’s a disgrace that all government funding goes to the psychiatrists.
The main stress for me has been decades of serious illness,pain & disability that is treated with scorn & disbelief by the medical profession.
Antidepressants and GET help with depression, they worsen M.E..
st.clair – i wish you would witter on some more – interesting to read your comment – be interested to know more.