Re: Pacing should be key ME/CFS therapy option: Belgian, UK, US & Australian experts explain (ProHealth, 21 December 2011)

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Pacing should be key ME/CFS therapy option: Belgian, UK, US & Australian

experts explain (ProHealth, 21 December 2011)

http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16725

In advance of reading this paper about pacing (Pacing as a strategy to

improve energy management in myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue

syndrome: A consensus document, Goudsmit et al, 2011) in full - not

always easy for long-term sick or disabled people, dependent on

benefits, if purchase or subscription is required - it is not possible

to assess whether it adds anything to a common sense notion, with which

I have never heard anyone disagree: Do as much as you can, without

overdoing things, then rest or sleep as required and repeat.

Since, however, there are probably as many models of pacing as there are

advocates of it and as many individual differences in estimating the

limits of overdoing things, which vary daily, with the unpredictable

nature of this illness, it is nigh impossible to compare strategies in

any scientifically controlled way.

Most worrying is that some therapists are actually equating " pacing "

(almost universally agreed as " helpful " ) with " Graded Exercise Therapy "

(GET), which all research to date shows makes a majority of people with

M.E. worse (Twisk & Maes, 2009), some irrecoverably so.

My note of caution is that we must be sure exactly what it is that we

are talking about before we can decide whether something is advisable

and should be embraced or is to be avoided like the plague.

Best wishes

drjohngreensmithmecommunitytrust (DOT) org

M.E. Community Trust. org