# Sick, Not Tired: Life With Severe ME



## M&M (Jan 20, 2002)

This is a fantastic, first-hand account of what it's like to live with SEVERE ME. A must read for those who are severely incapacitated by their ME!Following are an excerpt, and a link to the full article:----------------------------If the medical administrative staff are anything like the students they work for, they will be told little or nothing about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), the illness that has kept me largely bed-bound for the past 15 years. Iâ€™ve lost count of the times medical staff have said to me: "I donâ€™t really know very much about ME. You get tired a lot, donâ€™t you?" No. Iâ€™m 35 and havenâ€™t been "tired" in the conventional sense of the word since I was a teenager. As anyone with severe ME will tell you, it has nothing to do with being tired and everything to do with being physically ill. On the many occasions I am unable to watch TV or hold a conversation, sit upright or walk more than a few steps, it is not because I am "tired". It is due to the fact that there is some catastrophic, metabolic imbalance within my cells that leaves me feeling poisoned and weak to the point of collapse. Muddying the waters further is the fact (sorely lamented by many sufferers) that ME is sometimes referred to as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Trust me, "fatigue" or "tiredness" donâ€™t even register on the scale of how life-shattering an illness this can be. Tiredness is to ME what forgetfulness is to Alzheimerâ€™s disease. Read the full article - which is very real, and very gritty - here:http://www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/adv7.html


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