Miraculous Recovery

“I am compiling an inspirational book for people with ME/CFS and am looking for people who are happy to contribute their personal story of recovery . . . to give hope to many people who are still suffering . . . Deadline for receipt: 30 September 2005.”

For definition of ME/CFS, see Wikipedia article on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

This is about how I got well. The first question is whether I really did have ME and how long for. The symptoms go back to 1974, when I was struck down with some mystery illness which made my limbs so heavy I could hardly walk. I had been exposed to a form of hepatitis and it seemed my liver function was down. I had further tests over the years which showed I was normal, so it seemed strange that I sometimes felt so weak and tired, with a variety of other unpleasant symptoms.

In 1992 I was given an exclusion diagnosis of ME by Dr Weir at the Royal Free Hospital in Coppetts Wood, North London. Very slowly, my health got worse over the next fifteen years. Up till 1998 I was able to work full-time, but travelling to get there became an increasing problem, and I had to confess my limitations to bosses. Then I was forced to work part-time or did small contracts and commissions at home. Overall, I tried to pace myself and my relapses seemed always due to miscalculation or emergency. I learned pacing from a telephone support person recommended by the ME Association. I used to ring her up as a kind of agony aunt. She published a book on ME later on. But I think in retrospect that her advice was more hindrance than help. Pacing for me involved an ever-diminishing scope of activity, with use of a wheelchair eventually for any outings that involved more than driving myself from door to door. I was dependent on others for shopping, cooking and so forth, and feared I would never get better.

So I tried to cope, making a number of adjustments and simplifications, in both worldly and spiritual life. I moved some way in the direction of wisdom, happiness and fulfilment. So why was I still plagued with this chronic fatigue thing? What lesson was it still trying to teach me? One morning I raged against it with the fiery strength of a lion caught in a trap by hunters. That was the moment I sent out my passionate cry for help. In fury, I typed in something like “ME/CFS waited long enough for cure”, as if sending a complaining telegram to God, and not just entering keywords into Google. I immediately hit on David Mickel’s book, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, ME and Fibromyalgia—The Long Awaited Cure. Had my cry been heard? I made an appointment with a local practitioner, Dr Alastair Reece, who lived a few miles away. He sounded very confident that he could help.

When I arrived for the first session, he explained that it would take 1½ hours, to allow time for history-taking as well as treatment. I tried to tell him as much as I could, answering the anticipated questions before he asked them and messing up the structure he’d planned. This was partly due to a strange sense of impatience. He explained the theory and said I would have to keep a journal, which we would dissect in our next session in two weeks’ time. I was thinking, “I’ve waited so terribly, terribly long. I am sure this is what I have waited for. Give it to me now! How can I wait two weeks for the next instalment?” I felt as a mother would feel when giving birth, with the baby’s head already engaged, if the midwife suggested completing the delivery on a future date.

So I interrupted Alastair and asked him whether the therapy offered instant or gradual cure. He replied that it could be instant, though whether someone could cope with that was another matter.

This was the turning point. He’d explained that my symptoms were not caused by exertion but by an internal alarm system, which in CFS never gets switched off. I recognised that this was right, from some of the symptoms I used to experience. Suddenly, something happened inside me, that felt neither mental nor physical. Suppose you’ve been lying half-awake in the night, disturbed for hours by the racket of someone’s burglar alarm. You almost get used to its rhythm. You adjust to it and drift off back to sleep. Then suddenly it stops. You wonder what happened. Silence sounds strange. That’s just a metaphor, but it felt a bit like that, right there in the session. It was dramatic and it conveyed to me a profound knowledge that I was cured.

It happened near the end of the session and I didn’t say anything to Alastair. But here is an email, unedited, which I sent him a week later:

Dear Alastair
I am so glad I asked you if the therapy can work instantaneously, because I let it do that and it did. As soon as I walked out of the consulting room, I knew. It is as if a switch was thrown and the lightbulb was illuminated.
I wanted to write and tell you the same day, but caution dictated that I should wait a while. And so now it has been a week and the certainty, the deep knowledge, has not wavered. I have done more physically, but the main thing I have done is rejoice in my new freedom, my recovered abilities and the sheer wonder and joy of a miracle. The fact that there is an explanation does not diminish the sense of miracle.
All week I have been fine. Aches, certainly, the symptoms try to grab me at times and persuade me that all is not well, but my deep knowledge—that is what I call it—has so far remained intact and I see no reason why it should not gain in assurance every day. So I will say that the cure was instantaneous but adjusting to it physically and mentally is something I am happy to take time over and savour.
Thank you for presenting to me what I needed to know so effectively. I will see you for the next session as agreed.
Best regards
Vincent

His response, also unedited here, was more cautious:

Dear Vincent

I’m totally delighted with your clarity. Also to hear that you have got a firewall up against the viruses of doubt and uncertainty. Things can happen. Sometimes dealing with one level opens up another. Sometimes to test you three things happen on one day. Even if this brings on a temporary blip, know that once you have found the exit route you need never get lost again.

I look forward to our next meet.

Alastair.

In the second meeting he continued to be cautious. He told me off for not having kept a journal. We analysed a small incident in which I had felt the old symptoms, even though they cleared up unusually fast. He proposed a further appointment, but I said I would call him as and when I felt the need. I never did. I was now equipped to understand myself, and knew what to do. There have been times when old symptoms have bothered me a little, but I’ve known they were flashbacks and not the real thing.

Six months later, I feel fitter, at 63, than I can remember. I gaze with satisfaction at my muddy walking boots. My youngest daughter, aged 16, can’t get over it. All her life I had been afflicted. She’d never seen me like this.

It’s taken me more than 30 years to get my full health back. I’m deeply grateful that others need not go through it as I did. Everyone with ME/CFS/Fibromyalgia should try this therapy. It works.

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PS Revisiting this post in Feb. 2018, I should add that the cure was indeed permanent, but I’m slightly sceptical as to whether to recommend Mickel Therapy. I took the training myself and became a practitioner for a while. My instantaneous cure owed more to Dr Reece, I think, than the rituals prescribed by Dr Mickel. What seems certain was that I was ready for a cure, and needed only a catalyst to complete the process.

There were 6 comments

ellie
I have written about darkness and doubt having no independent existence but being the absence of light and affirmation. The idea of absence or void can be applied to your long illness: you fell into the void of ill-health and then returned to health when you recognized that that option was available to you. Under the guidance of your therapist, you immediately understood that you were reacting to misinformation about the status of your body functions when you learned that something in you was continuing to react to circumstances which no longer existed.What a miracle to be so released.Blake’s Songs of Innocence, NightSONGS 21″When wolves and tygers howl for prey They pitying stand and weep;Seeking to drive their thirst away,And keep them from the sheep.But if they rush dreadful;The angels most heedful, Recieve each mild spirit,New worlds to inherit.And there the lions ruddy eyes,Shall flow with tears of gold:And pitying the tender cries, And walking round the fold:Saying: wrath by his meeknessAnd by his health, sickness,Is driven away,From our immortal day.”
ZACL
I came across Mickel’s work some years ago, when I was in contact with two very different people. In the longer term, for one of the individuals, the process eventually strengthened that person beyond recognition. I guess it has to be right for you, and, you have to be ready to move on and out of where you are.It is wonderful and heartwarming that you can so openly share your experiences and feelings. I am thrilled for you, your family, and in particular, your youngest daughter.
Brian Spaeth
I don’t believe that anyone who has never experienced CFS can possibly comprehend how debilitating it actually is. There are such an infinite variety of auto-immune illnesses that it can be extremely confusing as to the cause, diagnosis, over-lapping symptoms, etc. I myself suffered from CFS for many years, but mine was caused by Malabsorption Syndrome, (or leaky gut). I have not totally cured it yet, but I believe that I am well on the way, and am certainly greatly improved in the last year or so. But your case is extraordinary in every way! What a wonderful blessing—I am truly glad for you.
Vincent
If you go to Alastair Reece’s site http://www.hockleycorner.co.uk/ and click on “Treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”, you’ll see that he mentions leaky gut.
When I went to see him in mid-2005, he was a Mickel therapist. In important ways, the treatment method followed a script. But I’m glad to see he’s practising independently now, evolving his own theory from clinical experience—which includes his brief encounter with my own case.
I’m sure he won’t mind me quoting a couple of excerpts:

ACUTE SICKNESS SYNDROME Anyone familiar with cats will have noticed that cats will crawl under the bed when they are ill.The wisdom of their bodies is such that it recognises the danger of being out in the normal environment whilst ill. If it did venture out the cat would be the last up the tree and the most vulnerable to any pursuing predator.Thus the remaining white cells struggling to deal with the infections caused by the crash in the immune system, release messenger molecules that suppress energy, sociability, appetite etc. Another thing it does is to magnify the body’s sensations so it doesn’t go out too soon. The cat doesn’t think this up itself. It is written into its make up.Hypersensitive, feeling unsociable, just wanting to crawl under the bed covers? Recognise this?It is the same with humans. . . .. . . . . . The body then declares ‘enough is enough’. It switches on a protection against further pain/disappointment. It happens to animals as well as humans. When the ancient protection system senses a state of being ‘overwhelmed’ it tends to direct you to hide.

Vincent
ZACL, I believe Dr Mickel comes from your part of the world: Elgin, in Morayshire. Yes, my sudden recovery was a wonderful surprise to the family. And you are quite right that you have to be ready to move on. I practised for a few months as a therapist, and saw that directly. My best patient was a young man who scarcely left his parents’ house any more. He felt much shame at his helplessness, the abandonment of his studies, the lost contact with his old buddies, etc. He’d been invited with other members of his family to a wedding about 150 miles distant, several weeks ahead. Could he make it without relapse? A lot of fear had to be overcome. It was my own experience which enabled me to help him, more than the therapy I’d been taught. The trip was a great success, fortunately. Knowing that it was his own achievement gave him the strength to shake off the illness and be well thereafter.

Ellie there is wisdom in what you say about reacting to misinformation about the status of body functions. However as I learned from the theoretical side of the therapy, and as reflected in the excerpts above about the cat’s “acute sickness syndrome”, there is something that the patient needs to understand about the relationship of conscious mind to body-mind (as they call it).Body-mind does what the cat does. It instructs us to lie low to give time to heal our wounds. Unfortunately, the wounds are not just in mind, they are in body too, using up all our energy in a state of permanent stress. Body-mind is unconvinced by conscious will—fortunately because our conscious will is capable of all kinds of foolishness and evil. It responds to its own blind perception of the dangers that beset us.What I felt from the therapist—even from the first phone call to make an appointment—was that he really did understand, as opposed to all the doctors and healers I’d seen before. When he transferred his understanding to me, and gave me permission to get well, I did. It was like a Gospel miracle.And I learned the meaning of knowing: something that happens tangibly and physically in your body, in a place inaccessible to ordinary consciousness.