With hindsight, I believe my ME started in c. 2003. I suffered a miscarriage at 12 weeks, and had to have a general anaesthetic as a result. After that, I started to have occasional woozy moments but thought nothing of it. In 2004 I was offered redundancy while pregnant, which I took without hesitation! I then had my first child, and was told I reacted to the pethidine with an unusual rash. I was obviously very tired with a new baby, and the days seemed to blend in to one another. After a few months I felt I needed to do something for me, and so started a tiny part time business from home doing something I love. This gave me a different focus for a short while which was psychologically invaluable, but did increase the pressure on my time. I started to have odd moments of feeling like I was sitting on a boat on a choppy sea, I suffered with more and more colds, and even though I grabbed chances to sleep whenever I could, I was still permanently tired.

I first became involved with Alex Howard’s Optimum Health Clinic 3 years ago. I was then almost totally housebound and had severe cognitive impairment. For 2 years I had phone consultations with the nutritionist and made slow but steady progress. I was no longer housebound and my brain function had improved. However I was still pacing vigorously, resting 2 hourly.

From the clinic website I heard of many inspirational stories, although initially sceptical I decided to get involved with the psychological side of the clinic. The clinic uses a combination of techniques influenced by The Lightning process, Reverse Therapy, N.L.P. and Hypnosis. In March 09 I enrolled on “the 90 Day Programme”. This involved attending a 2 and 1/2 day London course, follow-up during the following 90 days with conference calls with the group and one to one phone calls with one of the clinic psychology practitioners Anna.

I am forty one years old. When I was twenty years old we had just got married, had brought a derelict house and we were running our own business. I would write great big lists and not allow myself to go to bed until everything was done. We worked six markets and had one day buying stock. Our days started at 3:30am and finished late.

I started to get really tired. Customers would be talking to me and I would have to hold my eyes open as I felt I was going to fall asleep on the spot. One day after travelling home from the market I went to get out of the van and I couldn’t move my legs! It took all my effort to speak. I felt so ill.

When I woke up one morning with a cold, I didn’t really think too much about it. I didn’t realise that my whole life was about to change. I went to work as usual and, when I started feeling worse, took some tablets and got on with what I needed to do. In spite of swollen glands I went out to dinner with a friend but the next day I felt so ill I actually stayed home in bed. I didn’t go back to work for four and a half years.