CFS Blogger Shows Up on the Biggest Blog Platform of All: the Huffington Post

Posted by Cort Johnson

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John Falk is a journalist and author who came down with ME/CFS a couple of years ago after getting an infection while traveling outside of the country. He’s been out of commission for a couple of years and has now shown up at the Huffington Post writing openly about CFS. (A CFS blogger on the Huffington Post? – Another sign that the CFS is ‘making it’ as a mainstream media item).

He’s very descriptive – check out this

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For the sufferer CFS means a total health breakdown, like a plane that inexplicably begins tearing itself apart mid-flight. Together, all the various dysfunctions associated with it leave the patient in a state of health more debilitating than chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease, or multiple sclerosis.

He notes how ME/CFS is categorized by a sloppy medical profession

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That which medicine can’t explain we tend to label psychosomatic and blame the patient, a cruel phenomenon all too familiar to those who’ve had MS, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, and a myriad of other ailments in decades past.

He’s very honest as well. Psychotherapy or CBT’s connection to CFS is the story of the day right now and he confronts that aspect straight on.

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And therein is the rub. I have no problem with CBT as part of overall treatment for CFS. I’m still fighting to get better and am not yet ready to surrender to a life where I spend 20 hours a day horizontal, lack the physical energy to sleep with my wife, and hold my new baby girl for more than a minute.

And he’s tried. He’s tried hard and because that I think he is a superb bridge for us to the public and the medical world. This is not someone who rejected whatever opportunities therapy presented – he’s given it a go…and it hasn’t worked out.

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I’ve seen four therapists to find an outlet for my frustrations. Instead, I have found each time a good-natured, well-intended professional who — when I tell them my textbook symptoms of CFS — only shake their heads and say, I never heard of that. It must be awful.

Instead the best therapy he’s gotten is to get in touch with people who understand where he’s at.

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In the end the only help I’ve ever received from a therapist, or non-CFS specialist doctor for that matter, was to seek one who has a loved one who suffers from CFS. It seems in this era only they know the devastating truth and take you at your word that you’re sick, not sick in the head, which for me is the best therapy I know of right now.

Check out his blog and lets get him some traffic on the Huffington Post. This is the first post on the Huffington Posts Health section…the only its and its future blog posts are going to stay there is if we flood those posts with comments.

Signing into Huff Post is a little confusing. I did it using my Facebook site and then had to input my email address on the right as well. You can also use the Share button on the top of the article to share the article with your Facebook site, blog, twitter, etc.

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