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 | | | | As time went on, his physical energy levels improved dramatically and, before Easter, he began playing football and badminton again and enrolled in the Scouts. School was far more difficult because he felt behind in all his subjects and that was very stressful, draining his mental energy. Going in for the first hour or two each day wasn't an ideal solution because he was doing something of everything but all of nothing. Eventually we resolved the issue by his attending all the lessons in core subjects and coming home in between, gradually increasing the number of subjects week on week until he was attending full-time and he is now completely well.
| | KS 2005 | | | | Read more testimonials |
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Video Interviews |
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We have a number of video interviews with ex-clients who have recovered from serious illness through Reverse Therapy.
You can watch these videos by clicking on the links inside the article. |
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Video Interviews |
We have a number of video interviews with ex-clients who have recovered from serious illness through Reverse Therapy.
You can watch any of the interviews by clicking on the links below.
To watch the interview with Jo click here
To watch the interview with Caroline click here
To watch the interview with Alex click here
To watch the interview with Francis click here
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From The Independent on Sunday - July 29th 2007 |
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Yet four years ago Hemmings was told by doctors she might never race again after being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a debilitating illness which left her exhausted and aching every day, unable to take even basic light exercise. However, just over a year later, she learned about Reverse Therapy, an innovative and successful new treatment, and in February 2005 she was able to resume training again, going on to win a clean sweep of national, European and world titles. |
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From East Anglian Daily Times 8th Feb 2007 |
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Anna Stephenson was a teenager who embraced life to the full - enjoying the likes of music, dance, drama and sailing.
But the Woodbridge school pupil's life fell apart when she became increasingly tired as she studied for her GCSEs. And then, after achieving six A* and four A grades, Anna became seriously ill with the ME chronic fatigue illness.
Anna, from Grundisburgh, is now on the road to recovery from a new 'Reverse Therapy' treatment that her family are paying for privately in London.
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From East Anglian Daily Times 8th Feb 2007 |
Anna on the mend after fatigue illness
Anna Stephenson was a teenager who embraced life to the full - enjoying the likes of music, dance, drama and sailing.
But the Woodbridge school pupil's life fell apart when she became increasingly tired as she studied for her GCSEs. And then, after achieving six A* and four A grades, Anna became seriously ill with the ME chronic fatigue illness.
She was determined to continue with her studies, but had to give up everything outside school, would go home in the afternoon to sleep before doing her homework and then take to her bed for a 14-hour sleep.
Anna, from Grundisburgh, is now on the road to recovery from a new 'Reverse Therapy' treatment that her family are paying for privately in London.
Now the 18-year old is supporting the ME Research UK charity in its effort to raise awareness of the illness.
Anna, a member of the Suffolk Wind Band and Suffolk Youth Orchestra, said: "You do not realise until you have had ME how little other people know about it. A person who has ME does not look ill. They may not look tired , but it is not as thought they have a broken leg, which is obvious to see. It is such a horrible thing to have to go through, not just for the person but also for family and friends and I would not even want my worst enemy to face it."
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From Woman's Own - 9th April 2007 |
Reverse Therapy
Laurna Killin, 33, from Ayr, solved a sore joint problem by letting out bottled-up emotions
"Ten years ago, my hands became achy in the joints. I was referred for X-rays and it turned out to
be Fibromyalgia, a condition that causes pain in the body's tissues and joints.
I was prescribed painkillers to manage the condition but they were so strong they made me ill, and
I became tired and depressed.
My condition worsened until I was in so much pain I couldn't manage stairs. I needed a stick to walk
and had to take time off my work at a call centre.
Then, two years ago, I heard about Reverse Therapy, which claimed to treat the condition. I booked
an appointment. The therapist, Andy, explained the theory that the holds on to unresolved emotions,
which end up manifesting themselves physically. The treatment is called Reverse Therapy because it
reverses symptoms.
Andy asked me to keep a diary about my feelings, which I'd need to work through with him.
Even after the first treatment I felt so much better I was able to walk without my stick and a month later I stopped taking painkillers. Then over the next six months of monthly sessions, I acknowledged that I'd never recovered from the bullying I'd suffered as a child - mostly for being tall for my age. I'd bottled it up and never even told my parents about it.
It's a year since my last treatment and the pain in my joints has largely gone, except when it rains.
Other than that I feel I'm back in the land of the living and finally have my life back.
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From The Newcastle Chronicle April 23rd 2007 |
I got to the root cause of my M.E.
For three years Lyn White's life was blighted by ME until she discovered a remarkable new therapy. Health reporter Jane Picken discovered how it works and how it helped the mum-of-two.
For months at a time, former nurse Lyn White could barely manage to get dressed and make it down the stairs.
And once she did, she would be so weak it was to do little more than lie on the sofa for hours on end, only venturing out if there was someone to assist her or a wheelchair on hand.
This is how ME, or myalgic encephalomyalitis, affected Lyn for two or three month periods over the course of three years - rendering her unable to look after husband Conrad, 50, and their sons Alistair, now 21, and Christopher, 19.
But now, thanks to a new technique called Reverse Therapy, Lyn's life is back on track - with 11-mile walks around her native Durham countryside, skiing trips and kayaking in Sunderland harbour to prove it.
And as a trained therapist now herself the recovered mum is using her own experiences to help others trying to overcome ME.
"I was incapacitated on the sofa for long periods of time and the boys were left to fend for themselves in a way," remembers Lyn, 48, who lives with her family in Neville's Cross, Durham.
"When I started to get better I was so excited to be able to get out and have some fun again and I want to see other people with ME get well too."
ME, which is often referred to as or mentioned along with chronic fatigue syndrome, and is a long-term tiredness which simply cannot be cured with a good night's sleep.
It can have severely debilitating effects on a person's life and can also lead to muscle pain, as well as possible inflammation of the brain and spinal cord.
Women are more likely to get it than men, and there are an estimated 150,000 people with the condition in the UK. Unfortunately no-one knows the exact cause of ME/CFS, although some think a viral infection such as glandular fever can trigger the condition.
In Lyn's case a diagnosis came about in April 2003 when her fatigue and muscle pain became too much and the worried mum collapsed.
After suffering from a life-threatening respiratory illness Lyn had been recovering in Sunderland Royal Hospital when, with her immune system already low, she started to feel the burn of ME.
"I felt this overwhelming fatigue and heaviness throughout my body," says Lyn, who had to give up her job as a staff nurse on a children's ward.
"The mum is the lynchpin of the family and they just had to pick up where I left off.
"My calf muscles were aching and I was having difficulty thinking properly - I felt like my head was full of cotton wool. It also became really apparent when I was trying to get back to walking and I could barely make the length of the ward."
Lyn was discharged feeling weaker than ever and before long started having problems with her bowels. And 11 months later her doctor told her it was ME.
Although all the< |
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From Prima - July 2007 |
Mind, Body and Soul
For Fibromyalgia and M.E., both hard for doctors to tackle, look at Reverse Therapy. It's based on research over the past ten years into the complicated relationship between the mind and the body (psychoneuroimmunology). Therapists believe trapped emotions can surface as physical symptoms and, so far, this treatment, which involves talking and keeping a diary to bring buried emotions to the surface, has an 80% success rate in the UK with fatigue-related conditions. For more information call 0870 626 0100.
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From The Observer - April 2nd 2006 |
'My body was aching so much I couldn't even wash my hair'
Interview by Alex Gibbons
A mystery illness made even the simplest tasks impossible and threatened to force Anna Hemmings out of the sport she loved. But Britain's world canoeing champion battled back to regain her title
It all started to go wrong in 2003. From the start of the year I began to feel suddenly very tired during training and would not be able to recover. It had happened before but as a rule I needed only a day to recuperate. Now, it was taking up to a week. I'd go back to training and, after two days, I was back to square one. One afternoon after training I just slept and slept. When I returned to my canoe I realised after 10 minutes that I couldn't go on. I no longer had the energy. I went to see the doctor at the British Olympic Association. He said that I had unexplained under- performance syndrome, a polite way of saying I'd over-trained. He put me on a recovery programme, which I did for two weeks, but it made no difference. I sought numerous opinions from different doctors offering a variety of treatments: acupuncture, spiritual healing, psychotherapy, yoga. Everyone said they had the solution. I'd get my hopes up then a month later they'd be dashed. One doctor even said that my body had had enough and that I should retire. Who was he to tell me to quit? There were times when I was scared that I wouldn't find a way out.
It was then, in September 2003, that I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. And yet now it felt as if part of my body was being taken away from me. I'm a very focused person, yet I no longer had a goal to aim at. I would wake up every morning not knowing what to do. It was strange because I looked absolutely normal, yet inside my muscles were aching so badly that sometimes I couldn't even hold my hands up to wash my hair in the shower.
There is a lot of debate about chronic fatigue syndrome and how it should be treated. What happened to me was that I lost balance in my life; I became too consumed with my sport and, paradoxically, some of the qualities that helped me to become a world champion also contributed to my failing health. I was, for instance, too single-minded, too determined. I simply put too much pressure on myself. I always went to bed early, I rarely saw my friends and I always had to eat the right foods. I never gave myself a break. Nor was I good at speaking to people about how I was feeling. I have great friends and I'm close to my sister but every time they asked me how I was, I'd tell them I was fine, even if I'd been bawling my eyes out that very morning. It was the worst period of my life - and I wasn't letting anyone help me.
One afternoon, on a trip to Chicago, one of my sponsors mentioned Reverse therapy. This is all about trying to treat the causes of chronic fatigue syndrome, rather than the symptoms. It recognises that mind and body are connected, that emotional health is linked to physical health. So I began reverse therapy in September 2004, which meant looking into myself more deeply. It was hard at first, very hard. But once I changed my attitude the experience was liberating; soon I was back in a canoe and training again. I entered my first race the following spring and, in July last year, I competed in the European Championships in the Czech Republic. Everyone was telling me to enjoy the experience, but without expecting too much of myself. But of course I wanted to win. There was a real conflict going on. I was tense throughout the race, so when I won by just half a second - well, it was so special. When I started therapy, my goal was always the world championships in Perth in 2005. When I won my fourth title there I had fulfilled my dream of the last two years. I don't worry about chronic fatigue syndrome returning because I know how to identify the symptoms and do something about them. Now, I'm planning for the Be |
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From the Strathspey Herald - 6th December 2006 |
Dave beats pain barrier in bid for fitness
Strathspey & Badenoch Herald - 6th December 2006
AVIEMORE bobsleigher Dave Smith has his sights set on the comeback trail after successfully overcoming an injury-plagued 18 months which threatened to end his fledgling career.
A catalogue of problems, headed by a serious back injury and a bout of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, left Smith facing the possibility of seeing a promising start go to waste after only four years in the sport.
However, the Strath athlete is now looking forward to getting back in a bob after declaring himself fighting-fit as the new winter season gets under way.
His full recovery comes despite having to endure nine months on the sidelines after damaging his back in a freak training accident attempting to weightlift 150kg in July, 2005.
While recuperating, the 28-year-old also suffered the further blow of being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which left him with a further battle to overcome.
At his peak, the bobsleigher had to stop training, lost a stone in weight, and saw his strength desert him.
But since getting the all-clear from the condition earlier this year, the dedicated athlete has spent the summer months camped at the Olympic Institute in London beginning the long road back to recovery.
Smith told the "Strathy" this week that he now had his sights set on beginning 2007 with a bang by returning to competitive action at the end of January.
"I'm glad to say that I'm now in good shape and I'm feeling stronger and fitter with every training session that goes by," he said.
"I'm back working with my conditioning coach, Clive Brewer, and he said recently that the weightlifting he's seen from me is the best I've been doing for the last few years.
"I hoping that I'll be able to clean and jerk 140kg again within the next month or two.
"During my time out I dropped from 17st to 16st and lost all my strength in my muscles, but now I've put the weight back on and everyday I am getting that little bit more power back.
"I'm getting stronger and I'm certainly fit enough to train, but it's getting to that next level when I'm fit enough to compete again – that's the challenge right now.
"Hopefully I will be back in competition in January or February by getting involved in a couple of Europa Cup races with the GB 3 lads and then I can build from there."
Reflecting on his recovery, Smith said his first hurdle had been to get over the mental scars left behind from his nightmare year.
His time on the sidelines ruined his chances of appearing in February's Winter Olympics in Turin and instead Smith had to watch the action unfold at home in Aviemore.
Nevertheless, the athlete said he had used the disappointment of missing out on what would have been his first Olympics to spur him on back to health.
A talk with friend and four-times world sprint canoeing champion Anna Hemmings also helped Smith overcome his demons and begin training again.
"Having the motivation to get back to full strength was a big challenge for me, but Anna had Chronic Fatigue for three years and has come back and had so much success," he said.
"She represented Britain at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but was diagnosed with the condition, and soon after didn't have the strength to wash her hair.
"Since coming back though, she has become a four-times world champion in sprint canoeing.
"Speaking to her really gave me a boost as it was nice to know that I was not on my own (suffering with chronic fatigue)."
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From The Independent - December 22nd 2006 |
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Anna Hemmings won her fifth world marathon canoeing title this year. A great achievement given that the 29-year-old economics graduate was told by medical experts three years ago that she would have to retire from her sport after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
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From The Independent - December 22nd 2006 |
From chronic fatigue syndrome to a fifth women's world marathon canoeing title
Anna Hemmings won her fifth world marathon canoeing title this year. A great achievement given that the 29-year-old economics graduate was told by medical experts three years ago that she would have to retire from her sport after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.
It is a condition that has blighted the careers of other top sports people such as Peter Marshall, the former world No 2 in squash, and for a while Hemmings thought it had done for her too. "It was a condition that left me feeling exhausted, aching with pain all over my body," she says. "I was actually scared, really scared that I would be trapped by it for ever."
She escaped with the help of a new method called Reverse Therapy, which helped her to identify the triggers that were overstimulating the brain's hypothalamus gland, which controls the body's functions.
Hemmings, whose marathons involve 18 miles of river, seems to have cracked the fatigue problem good and proper these days. She celebrated her latest world title in France three months ago by partying in St Tropez before returning home for a big night in a bar in Wimbledon Village.
"Winning the title last year just seven months after returning to training was one thing, but retaining it presented another kind of pressure," she said. She will seek to do the same again next year - but after thatwill focus on her "next big goal", the 500-metre sprint at the 2008 Olympics.
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From The Northern Echo - 26th January 2007 |
I used reverse gear to beat ME
Hundreds of thousands of people have their lives blighted by ME, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Could the condition be reversed by changing our behaviour? Health Editor Barry Nelson meets a North-East convert.
Busy Staff Nurse Lyn White tried to shrug it off at first.
"My throat felt terrible, I thought it must be tonsillitis," recalls Lyn, who was working on a children's ward at a new Durham hospital at the time.
Lyn went to see her GP who agreed that she probably had infected tonsils. But overnight her condition worsened significantly.
"In the morning I felt quite panicky. I was finding it difficult to breath and the swelling in my throat meant I couldn't even swallow my own saliva," she says.
Lyn packed an overnight bag and jumped in a taxi to her local doctor's surgery. Her GP took one look at Lyn's inflamed throat and arranged for her to be admitted to hospital.
"It was terrifying. I couldn't swallow or talk and the swelling was blocking the airwaves. At one stage I thought I was going to die," she recalls.
The mother of two was given medication to reduce the swelling and an oxgyen face mask. "They put me in a bed next to the intensive care unit," she says.
Her illness was diagnosed as supre glottitis, a potentially life-threatening swelling of the glottis, the vocal apparatus of the larynx probably caused by a virus. It was while she was recovering that the staff nurse began to develop a different set of symptoms.
"About the third day into my illness I felt an incredible heaviness in my legs," says Lyn. "It felt like your batteries had run down. I was getting pains in the back of my calves and it felt like I had just run a marathon."
Doctors ran a series of tests to find out what was wrong.
"They kept telling me I might have had a heart attack but I knew that wasn't right," she says.
Lyn, who was then in her mid-40s, was allowed to go home after a week in hospital. While her throat condition had cleared up, she still felt utterly shattered.
"I just felt this awful heaviness in my limbs which wouldn't go away," says Lyn.
For the best part of a year she tried to follow her GP's recommendation and rest as much as possible. She did try to go back to work at the University Hospital of North Durham but had to go home after colleagues told her she looked "grey" with fatigue.
Still baffled by her energy-sapping illness, Lyn persuaded her GP to refer her to specialist at Sunderland Royal Hospital. It was early in 2004 that the specialist told Lyn she was almost certainly suffering from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, otherwise known as ME.
According to the ME Association, the main national charity which represents people with this condition, ME affects an estimated 250,000 people in the UK.
Symptoms include chronic fatigue, muscular pains, digestive problems, memory lapses and what sufferers describe as 'brain fog', where patients find it difficult to concentrate.
Research into ME suggests that it has physical rather than psychological causes but there is still little hard evidence to explain the symptoms. In the worst cases some patients are virtually bedbound. Some are so weak they have to be fed by tube.
Armed with a diagnosis, Lyn was determined to find out as much as she could about ME and figure out how to get well again |
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From The Daily Express - January 24th 2006 |
New hope at last for ME sufferers?
World Champion athlete Anna Hemmings stood in the shower and felt she hadn’t the strength to lift her hands to her head and wash her hair. Her muscles ached, her head was muzzy and she felt defeated and demoralised.
This was not the aftermath of one of her furiously-paced 32km marathon kayak races which had brought her four world championship gold medals. Anna had barely trained for months, was sleeping 14 hours a night and taking a nap in the afternoons, and she collapsed with weariness if she tried more than a gentle paddle.
She had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), or ME – an illness so debilitating it can keep patients housebound for decades. At 26 it looked set to rob her of a glittering career, her livelihood and even the very core of her identity, and no one could say how long it might go on. But last October a fit and glowing Anna was back on the podium after reclaiming her world crown in Perth, Australia, following a four-year break. “That victory was sweeter and more special than any other in my career” she says.
Now 29, she attributes her health to a controversial new treatment developed by British psychotherapist, Dr John Eaton. The treatment is based on the idea of “Bodymind”, which seeks to explain the link between the brain and physical health. Reverse Therapy Practitioners believe CFS is caused by the Bodymind reacting to emotional stresses by sending the hypothalamus into overdrive. This pea-sized area of the brain in turn overworks the adrenal glands, causing muscles to burn up too much glucose, resulting in fatigue and pain. The therapy is designed to send a message to the hypothalamus that the problems have been dealt with, allowing it to stop sending out distress signals.
Anna became so ill in the spring of 2003 while training in Florida that she had to abandon racing for the season. She then consulted the British Olympic team doctor and tried every alternative treatment. She had acupuncture and reiki, saw a nutritionist and an endocrinologist, took up yoga and swallowed vitamins and other supplements. But nothing worked.
When I met her recently during a break from training on the Thames, she recalled: “One doctor told me all I could do was rest. I asked for how long and he just said ‘Until you get better’. I’d heard of people having this for 10 or 20 years and I thought: ‘No, that’s not happening to me.” “It was very frustrating when people said things like, ‘Why don’t you get your act together?’
Some suggested I was scared of not winning again. But you don’t get to be world champion if you are lazy or not willing to put yourself on the line. It was hurtful to have people doubting my integrity.”
When Anna started the therapy, she was told to keep a symptom diary for two weeks. Then she and Dr Eaton worked out what triggered the symptoms. “Everyone has different triggers but one of the most common is not expressing emotion,” she says. “Though I felt hugely angry and sad about my CFS, I always told friends I was fine. I didn’t cry with anyone though I cried a lot on my own. I also had a lot of ‘must-dos’ in my life, including, ‘I must get ten hours sleep a night’ and ‘I must eat the right things’. “I thought I was in tune with my body but I ignored alarm bells going off all over the place. My body cried out for a bit of balance in my life and when I didn’t listen, it gave me the symptoms.”
Dr Eaton’s treatment was to write messages on cards which she had to read aloud and act on whenever the symptoms appeared. “They said things like: ‘My symptoms are with me now as a reminder to stop isolating myself.’ The next time my fr |
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From The Sunday Times - January 8th 2006 |
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Britain's leading female marathon canoeist, Anna Hemmings, 29, spent 2½ years battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome before making a dramatic recovery and winning both the European and World Championships last year As a kid I was always active. There wasn't an afternoon when I didn't do sport after school. I played judo for Middlesex; I was ice-skating at national level when I was nine. I spent Saturdays canoeing. My friends didn't get it. As teenagers they were going to parties and staying up late. If I went out at all, I'd be looking at my watch and then leave early because I had to get up at 6am to train. My life revolved round my training schedule. |
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From The Sunday Times - January 8th 2006 |
Anna Hemmings
Interview by Caroline Scott
Britain's leading female marathon canoeist, Anna Hemmings, 29, spent 2½ years battling Chronic Fatigue Syndrome before making a dramatic recovery and winning both the European and World Championships last year As a kid I was always active. There wasn't an afternoon when I didn't do sport after school. I played judo for Middlesex; I was ice-skating at national level when I was nine. I spent Saturdays canoeing. My friends didn't get it. As teenagers they were going to parties and staying up late. If I went out at all, I'd be looking at my watch and then leave early because I had to get up at 6am to train. My life revolved round my training schedule.
The worst thing about getting ill was that I lost my identity. I'm such a focused, challenge-oriented person, and when I couldn't train, I didn't have a goal. I'd wake up and think: "What do I do today? Where's the challenge?" I first went to the doctor in April 2003 because I couldn't recover from training. My muscles ached and I was constantly exhausted. To begin with, my coach was very patient, but after a couple of months he said: "Anna, you've just got to deal with the tiredness." The doctor felt I was overtraining and needed to slow down. But that didn't make any sense. I sought opinions everywhere. I saw an endocrinologist, an oriental medical practitioner, a nutritionist — at one point I eliminated red meat, sugar, wheat and dairy from my diet — but nothing made a difference. I was sleeping for 14 hours at night and napping for another couple of hours during the day. Even washing my hair in the shower was a struggle, because I couldn't hold my arms up. And because I couldn't compete, I lost my national-lottery funding and then the flat I was trying to buy. That was a really low point. My mum kept reading stuff on the internet and giving me supplements, but I wasn't getting better. I didn't want to talk about how I felt. When anyone asked, I'd say: "Yeah, I'm fine." I used to cry a lot on my own, but I found it hard to open up, even to friends, because I didn't want to appear weak. A couple of people said: "Just get your act together, Anna, and stop being lazy" — it was like turning a knife in a wound. After six months the doctor diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome, for which there is no cure, apart from rest, and I'd tried that. I went to Canyon Ranch in Arizona and did yoga and meditation; I tried spiritual healing and psychotherapy. I spent many of those sessions in tears and I just got more and more depressed and isolated. But for my friends and family, I was still putting on a brave front. I'd spend a morning crying on my own, then when someone asked me how I was, I'd say: "Oh, fine, thanks."
I'd been out of the sport for 18 months when an employee of my sponsor, Pindar, introduced me to Reverse Therapy. Its premise is that Chronic Fatigue is a mind-body-environment imbalance, and the therapy tries to reverse that. Every day I wrote a journal recording the stresses and pressures that triggered my symptoms, and very soon I began to see a pattern. I had no balance in my life. I was consumed by my sport to the point that I would do anything to be the best, even if it wasn't making me happy. A big contributor to chronic fatigue is non-expression of emotion. The longer it went on, the more I suppressed what I felt. The other big trigger is fear, and I feared the symptoms. As an athlete, no matter how bad you feel, you go out to win. The therapist hit raw nerves. He'd say: "You must feel very isolated out there." I'd cry through every session. But it was only when I broke down in front of friends that I started to make progress. Letting everything go was really liberating. No one judged me or thought any the less of me. In fact, they made an effort to drag stuff out of me. The therapy helped me realise that I constantly put pressure on myself, not ju |
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From Conscious Living - September 2005 |
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Sharon Matthews came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1997. For eight years she struggled with the common symptoms of muscle pain, headaches, exhaustion, dizziness, irritable bowel and ‘brain fog’ (poor memory and concentration). A woman in her twenties, she was soon forced to give up her job in a bank and, by degrees became entirely reliant on her boyfriend to do the simplest things. She herself became housebound, fearing to walk even a hundred yards for fear she might collapse in the street. Told that there was no cure for her condition, Sharon’s life looked bleak indeed. But in the Summer of 2003 she began her first consultation in Reverse Therapy. By the following Spring she was entirely symptom-free. A few months after that she was back at work in a new job and living a full and active life. |
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From Conscious Living - September 2005 |
Sharon Matthews came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1997. For eight years she struggled with the common symptoms of muscle pain, headaches, exhaustion, dizziness, irritable bowel and ‘brain fog’ (poor memory and concentration). A woman in her twenties, she was soon forced to give up her job in a bank and, by degrees became entirely reliant on her boyfriend to do the simplest things. She herself became housebound, fearing to walk even a hundred yards for fear she might collapse in the street. Told that there was no cure for her condition, Sharon’s life looked bleak indeed. But in the Summer of 2003 she began her first consultation in Reverse Therapy. By the following Spring she was entirely symptom-free. A few months after that she was back at work in a new job and living a full and active life.
Reverse Therapy and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Reverse Therapy is a groundbreaking new therapy for the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and Fibromyalgia (FM), pioneered by Dr John Eaton, a UK based academic and former psychologist and psychotherapist who has spent the past nine years researching ‘Bodymind’ intelligence and developing and refining a unique therapeutic approach to ‘Bodymind’ healing. Although Reverse Therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of symptomatic conditions, it has been mainly used for the treatment of CFS/ME, producing nothing short of spectacular results in the UK so far.
Reverse therapists consider Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and so-called Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome, to be different expressions of the same underlying condition. Symptoms are created when Bodymind detects that a state of ‘dis-ease’ exists – a fundamental disharmony between Body intelligence and Head intelligence, and between environmental demands and personal needs. Specifically, Bodymind – working mainly through the Limbic system – registers that the individual is under threat from external pressures and that the emotions linked to these pressures are creating an overload within the body. This triggers the Hypothalamus – the area in the brain that is responsible for maintaining homeostasis (equilibrium) – to overwork the glands – particularly the Adrenal glands to the point of exhaustion. That, in turn, leads to overwork of the Immune system, the Gut, the Muscles and Circulation until these different systems cease to function normally – leading to the multiple symptoms described. One reason so many sufferers incur viral problems at the start of the illness is not because the virus caused the illness but because a breakdown in the Immune system led to a breakdown in the organism’s defences.
However, these problems can quickly be reversed once the Hypothalamus returns to normal function. Reverse therapy focuses on working with Bodymind healing processes in order to abolish the state of dis-ease that underlies the need for Bodymind to create symptoms in the first place.
What is Bodymind?
Dr Eaton first became interested in the relationship between the body’s intelligence and a state of ‘dis-ease’ in 1996 when his wife, Yvonne was diagnosed with a rare and debilitating auto-immune condition called Sarcoidosis. At first he noticed that his wife’s symptoms often rose or fell according to her emotional state, indicating that some symptoms may be a type of ‘distress signal’ designed to alert his wife for a need to re-establish her emotional health. He then came to believe that certain symptoms might also contain an implicit ‘message’ that - if acted upon - could reverse the body’s need to create the symptoms. Dis-ease, it became clear, was a state in which the individual had somehow lost the< |
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From The Daily Telegraph – August 22nd 2005 |
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For Anna Hemmings, the Sydney and Athens Olympics tell two very different stories. In 2000, the professional canoeist was a member of the British team, but just four years later, she was in no position to compete against the world's best. Hemmings was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, and was so exhausted that she slept for 15 hours a night and was sometimes too tired to wash her hair. |
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From The Daily Telegraph – August 22nd 2005 |
| 'Reverse therapy' helped cure a champion canoeist's exhaustion.
Christina Hopkinson reports
For Anna Hemmings, the Sydney and Athens Olympics tell two very different stories. In 2000, the professional canoeist was a member of the British team, but just four years later, she was in no position to compete against the world's best. Hemmings was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, and was so exhausted that she slept for 15 hours a night and was sometimes too tired to wash her hair.
Anna Hemmings says her recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome is thanks to Reverse therapy's 'mind-body healing process'
A year later, and it's all change again. Last month, Hemmings won the 32km marathon in the European Championships in the Czech Republic, thanks, she believes, to a revolutionary treatment for her condition. She's now gearing up for the World Championships later this year, and the 2008 Olympics.
Things began to go wrong in April 2003. "I knew I didn't have a cold or flu," she says, "but I was exhausted and my muscles ached. I was sleeping lots and was generally fatigued." She went to see British Olympic doctor Richard Budgett, who diagnosed her condition as "unexplained underperformance syndrome", thought to affect between two and 10 per cent of elite endurance athletes.
"He didn't seem to think it was that serious, so he put me on a rehab programme which meant I went out on the water for low-intensity sessions for two weeks. But at the end of the fortnight, I was still tired. I couldn't perform at the British team trials and by June, I'd stopped training altogether."
Having assumed recovery would be quick, Hemmings began to panic. "It was coming up for the Olympic year and I was beginning to get desperate. And it wasn't like having a broken arm - I looked fine, so people didn't understand how I felt."
In September, Hemmings was diagnosed with Chronic fatigue syndrome, the debilitating and little understood illness that affects between 120,000 and 250,000 people in Britain. She tried Oriental medicine, acupuncture and yoga, and consulted a nutritionist and an endocrinologist, but nothing helped ease the exhaustion. "It felt like I was searching for a needle in a haystack that might not even be there."
A chance conversation led her to explore a controversial treatment called Reverse therapy. "It instantly made sense to me," she says, "because it was described as a 'body-mind healing process', in recognition that the physical and the psychological were connected."
Practitioners of Reverse therapy believe that emotional blockages in the mind cause the hypothalamus gland to overreact, leading to responses in the pituitary and adrenal glands that put the body into a state of red alert.
In her first session with the session's founder, Dr John Eaton, they analysed what Hemmings had done for six weeks before the symptoms developed. She had changed coaches and was living in Florida, away from her family and friends. "This told us that her illness had a lot to do with getting the balance right between work commitments and spending time with people who are emotionally supportive," says Dr Eaton.
Hemmings rated the severity of her symptoms on a scale of nought to 10, and kept a journal so she could relate them to other aspects of her life. "I didn't tend to get them 24/7, but certain activities and environments were triggers."
During her subsequent sessions with Dr Eaton, they studied the journal to identify those triggers. "We realised that my life was imbalanced and that I was bad at expressing emotions. Every time there was an unresolved emotional issue, it left behind an emotional discharge that built up.
'And that's it... just conversation, a journal and some flash cards'
"Of course, you< |
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From The Art of Healing - August 2005 |
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Janice Sutton, a freelance journalist who worked with BBC Radio for 10 years before moving to Australia, reports on Reverse Therapy - the radical new approach to Bodymind healing that is coming to Australia in November 2005. |
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From The Art of Healing - August 2005 |
Reverse therapy - a new treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia
Janice Sutton, a freelance journalist who worked with BBC Radio for 10 years before moving to Australia, reports on Reverse Therapy - the radical new approach to Bodymind healing that is coming to Australia in November 2005.
Sharon Matthews came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1997. For eight years she struggled with the common symptoms of muscle pain, headaches, exhaustion, dizziness, irritable bowel and ‘brain fog’ (poor memory and concentration). A woman in her twenties, she was soon forced to give up her job in a bank and, by degrees became entirely reliant on her boyfriend to do the simplest things. She herself became housebound, fearing to walk even a hundred yards for fear she might collapse in the street. Told that there was no cure for her condition, Sharon’s life looked bleak indeed. But in the Summer of 2003 she began her first consultation in Reverse Therapy. By the following Spring she was entirely symptom-free. A few months after that she was back at work in a new job and living a full and active life.
Reverse Therapy is a groundbreaking new therapy pioneered by Dr John Eaton. Although Reverse Therapy can be used to treat a wide variety of symptomatic conditions, it has been mainly used for the treatment of CFS, producing nothing short of spectacular results in the UK so far.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E), Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS) or Chronic Fatigue & Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS) is a relatively common, complex & genuine physical condition that can cause profound and often prolonged illness and disability in people of all ages. Although the illness is officially recognised by the World Health Organisation, The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the UK Government and, in Australia by The Royal Australasian College of Physicians - who three years ago produced Clinical Practice Guidelines for the management of the condition - CFS/ME still remains a controversial and baffling illness. Unfortunately, the ongoing controversy has only served to fuel the widespread ignorance, misconception, scepticism, prejudice and even hostility that exists within the medical profession and wider community about the illness.
“For a CF person to be listened to, understood and believed is a rare experience for them”
(CFS sufferer).
A recent UK Government report into CFS/ME suggests that the broader impact of the condition, even in its milder form, can be extensive with quality of life often diminishing more severely than for any other chronic illness. Disability is said to be on a par with Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Action for M.E. (UK) says that the condition not only imposes a substantial personal, social & financial burden on sufferers and their families, but the lives of those who are severely affected - or those with longstanding illness - are also often profoundly compromised. In fact, it seems that all too often the immobility and isolation experienced by many sufferers can lead to isolation and ‘invisibility’ - an experience that often goes hand in hand with the gradual - and often insidious - erosion of self esteem and confidence as relationships crumble & finances buckle under the constant strain of trying to cope with prolonged unemployment and disability without the support they need. Indeed, the emotional fall out for people with CFS/ME can be severe with many people with CFS/ME experiencing an array of complex emotions: from confusion, fear and uncertainty - particularly pre-diagnosis - to feelings of denial, anger, abandonment, invalidation, victimisation, guilt, shame, hopelessness and grief as sufferers struggle to accept the loss of their old life.
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From Grazia - 25th July 2005 |
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Athlete Anna Hemmings is tipped to win at the European Championships next week. Yet just a year ago, the canoeist was crippled with fatigue. Here she reveals how a revolutionary new treatment saved her career. |
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From Grazia - 25th July 2005 |
Athlete Anna Hemmings is tipped to win at the European Championships next week. Yet just a year ago, the canoeist was crippled with fatigue. Here she reveals how a revolutionary new treatment saved her career.
People assume that ME is a disease that affects unhealthy or lazy people, but I’m a professional athlete. When I first felt shattered, I assumed I’d been overdoing it and had a few early nights. But I kept getting more tired and my muscles wouldn’t function. Eight weeks later, I had to give up training. I went from exercising 16 hours a week and sleeping nine hours a night to no exercise and sleeping up to 15 hours. Some days, washing my hair was too much.
My doctors believed I’d been over training. Finally, after six months, the sports Team GB doctor diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), as ME is now known. I was terrified my career was over, as there’s no recognised treatment. Since I was eight, my sport had meant everything to me.
No one could say why I’d developed CFS as tests didn’t reveal a cause. Then, last summer, a friend told me about Reverse therapy, a new treatment with amazing results. It’s based on medical evidence that negative emotions, like anxiety, emit a chemical discharge in the body. If left unexpressed, these can build up, switching on symptoms like exhaustion. I knew nothing was wrong with me physically, so it made sense.
As part of the treatment, I was asked to keep a diary of my symptoms. After a few days, I saw I was writing the same thing, that I was terrified. It dawned on me that I was terrified of failure, and I’d been hiding it most of my life. I’m so self-reliant and focused on winning, I hadn’t let myself dwell on fears.
During sessions, we’d discuss times when I’d hidden my feelings. The therapist also wrote messages on postcards for me to read when I needed to. One reminded me to be open about my illness. So if people asked if I was better, I should say, “ Actually, no.” It was like being forced to change my personality and I was in tears after every session. But I could feel it working - I had to score my symptoms on a scale of one to ten and each session my score went down. After three months, I was averaging three, and I felt well enough to go out in my kayak and do some training.
Incredibly, three months later, my training was going so well that it was almost as if nothing had happened. This May, I won two 15-mile races and I’m back in the national squad. I’m now preparing for the World Championships and the Olympics in 2008. I can’t believe it’s all turned around so fast - I feel healthier, mentally and physically, than ever.
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From The Dundee Courier - 10th May 2005 |
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Once known cynically as ‘yuppie flu’, ME is now recognised as a serious and debilitating illness that affects nearly quarter of a million people in the UK. Now a London doctor claims to have developed a method that cures more than 80% of sufferers and is opening clinics across Scotland. Jack McKeown reports. |
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From The Dundee Courier - 10th May 2005 |
Waging war on a baffling illness
Once known cynically as ‘yuppie flu’, ME is now recognised as a serious and debilitating illness that affects nearly quarter of a million people in the UK. Now a London doctor claims to have developed a method that cures more than 80% of sufferers and is opening clinics across Scotland. Jack McKeown reports.
For years, Myalgic Encephalopathy, or ME as it’s more commonly known, was considered by many to be an imaginary ailment dreamed up by people who fancied a few months off work but had nothing really wrong with them.
It’s now recognised as a serious illness which can bring the lives of those affected to a virtual standstill. Symptoms include severe fatigue, painful muscles and joints, digestion problems, sleep disorders and poor memory and concentration.
Mainstream medicine has struggled to come up with an effective solution for the disorder, but London-born doctor John Eaton claims to have come up with a successful technique, which he calls Reverse therapy.
“We’ve been offering our treatment to the general public for about three years now and it’s proved a very successful solution for Chronic fatigue syndrome—also known as ME,” said Dr Eaton. “I’m in the middle of doing an audit on the results and there’s been an over 80% success rate, either eliminating or severely reducing the symptoms.
“My PhD is in psychology and I worked as a Psychotherapist since 1988. I must stress that Reverse therapy is not a form of psychotherapy, however. The symptoms of ME are physical and can make you very ill. A lot of sufferers get very upset if people say they’re suffering from a mental disorder because their symptoms affect them so badly.
“Much of Reverse therapy is about what I call “Bodymind” which is a term that is becoming more and more accepted in the United States. It sums up the link between emotion and the brain mechanisms.
“Nine years ago my wife developed an Auto-Immune disease and I noticed the symptoms got worse or better according to her emotional state. This provided the trigger, and over a number of years I developed various techniques for coping with it.
“People became more and more interested in this and in 2002 I was able to begin working exclusively with Reverse therapy. We started applying the Reverse therapy technique to ME cases. We found it to be very successful, and we added ME to the list of conditions that we would treat. I didn’t realise then how desperate the need is for ME sufferers to have an effective treatment for their condition.
“Reverse therapy is an educational process, really. It differs from psychotherapy because we’re not exploring the past history of people’s lives or looking for traumatic situations in their childhood. We’re not looking at beliefs they may have had. What we’re doing is teaching people to pay attention to the link between their symptoms and situations they find themselves in. A lot of it involves increasing people’s awareness of what their body’s telling them. A lot of people spend their time using their head to think about their problems, but that won’t work with ME. What’s needed is to become aware of the symptoms and the situations they were in at the time. We then try to work out what situations cause the symptoms to get worse and what situations make them get better.
“What happens when people get locked into illness is they tend to give up and become very inactive, which is in itself unhealthy. We’re trying to get them to go back to a more varied lifestyle and get back to leading a balanced life.”
Dr Eaton is looking to be able to offer Reverse therapy on the< |
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From Women's Health - July 2004 |
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I was made very welcome by Dr John Eaton at his London clinic and any feelings of apprehension were quickly dispelled by his friendly, laid-back approach. John explained that the symptoms of CFS and ME were created by a dysfunctional Hypothalamus gland, thus producing physical effects through the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. |
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From Women's Health - July 2004 |
We try Reverse Therapy
I was made very welcome by Dr John Eaton at his London clinic and any feelings of apprehension were quickly dispelled by his friendly, laid-back approach. John explained that the symptoms of CFS and ME were created by a dysfunctional Hypothalamus gland, thus producing physical effects through the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. In Reverse therapy the client and therapist translate the unconscious messages that trigger the Hypothalamus, allowing them to be processed to the point where the bodymind no longer requires symptoms to be produced. John began by asking me to describe my symptoms and then asked me what I thought my body was telling me. At first this was difficult to answer, but it soon became apparent that I was doing something to cause my body to produce these symptoms. By interpreting the messages and re-coding them with more helpful information, I was able to initiate the healing process.
Even after the first session with John, which lasted around an hour, my symptoms seemed less severe and more infrequent. And although the therapist is there for your guidance, its essential that you keep full and accurate records on a daily basis [so that you may check what it is your bodymind is trying to tell you about specific situations]. If I notice any of my symptoms returning (which are now few and far between), I no longer spend time wishing they would disappear. Instead, I'm able to interpret the messages my body is giving me, re-code them and act accordingly.
The method really seems to work and I'm confident that after another one or two sessions it will leave me fully recovered and symptom-free. And that's the outcome I didn't dare hope for.
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From The Edinburgh Evening News - April 25th 2003 |
Controversial ME clinic coming to city
A CONTROVERSIAL new therapy for the treatment of chronic illnesses including ME is to be made available to sufferers in Edinburgh.
The treatment, called Reverse therapy, is based on the theory that ME, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are caused by the hypothalamus - the part of the brain that controls all of the body's internal message systems - going into overdrive. When the hypothalamus becomes inflamed, it sends out signals to the rest of the body that causes the muscle pain and fatigue associated with the illnesses.
"The easiest way to understand it is by saying that the body's thermostat is turned up," explained Dr Eaton. "There is usually some kind of trigger that causes the hypothalamus to panic and go into overdrive, and so it sends out messages to all of the body, causing it to go into overdrive. Then it becomes a cycle, and eventually, the body burns itself out. What reverse therapy does is to try to establish the trigger that causes the hypothalamus to react like this, and then break the cycle by decoding the messages it is sending out to the rest of the body."
Depressed Housewife Marion MacGregor, 48, from Granton-on-Spey, said she had suffered from ME for more than 20 years before she went for Reverse therapy last December.
"I had all the classic symptoms of tiredness, aches, pains - I got very depressed about it, and I really just couldn't see any future at all," she said. "Even after the first treatment I felt so much better. I could feel my energy coming back, and my breathing become so much easier. My trigger had been a bout of post-natal depression, and once I had learned to give my body the correct messages, I felt completely cured. I had four sessions, and it has changed my life completely ."
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