This just in…..small amounts of dark chocolate, can actually help alleviate the fatigue that is experienced by patients who suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Super good news for me, since my diet over the last 10 days, has pretty much consisted of everything chocolate. More information can be found here.

Its a very chilly -18 C (with the windchill factor) in Vancouver today. A temperature that I am not very comfortable with, living on a coastline. If I was living on the prairies, I would be prepared and welcoming it…ok maybe not welcoming, but definitely tolerating it. But out here in the pacific northwest, its just wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow. I just wish it was about 10 degrees warmer.
This sudden change in seasons, has made me think a great deal about how weather affects the symptoms I have. This may surprise …read more

Right at this moment, I am sitting in my kitchen looking out the window at the falling snow. I know its crazy, and totally unheard of. Snow in November, in Vancouver. Who would have thunk. Its happened though, and so its making me think forward to the holidays. Christmas, is not a holiday that I enjoy a whole lot. Its a lot of build-up to a day that ends way too quickly, and it always takes me a few weeks to recover.
Usually I try really hard to find the perfect present for everyone. …read more

I have very mixed feelings when I read a news report like this one that just appeared. It does bring awareness issues to the front, which is important, but it also casts a doubt on victims of chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS, by reporting that many people, inside and outside of the medical profession, doubt the existence of the condition.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a disease of unknown origin. They can’t test for it because they do not understand it at all. There are various ideas on the causes, many choices for treatment, but nothing has been definitively …read more

The antidepressant duloxetine (Cymbalta) appears to be a safe and effective treatment for fibromyalgia symptoms in female patients with or without major depressive disorder, according to data from two clinical trials presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.
Medical Post

This may be the first positive step toward an effective treatment for the pain experienced by both chronic fatigue syndrome patients AND fibromyalgia patients.
Antidepressant Duloxetine(Cymbalta) Effective in Treating Women’s Fibromyalgia
Cymbalta Home Page

“You blame yourself. Wasn’t it Susan Sontag who pointed out that whenever the cause of an illness is mysterious, it’s assumed to come from psychological problems or a moral weakness? And once science finally figures out the medical root of the illness, that assumption disappears.”
Lisa Kron

Are we authors of our own fates? This is the question asked by Lisa Kron. She has written, and is staring in a play on Broadway that asks that question. The play is called, “Well,” and it is about health and the choices that we may, or may not, be able to …read more