{"id":19549,"date":"2019-02-07T08:12:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T08:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=19549"},"modified":"2019-02-07T08:12:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T08:12:21","slug":"a-winters-tale-a-former-mountain-climber-reflects-on-pem-me-cfs-fm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/a-winters-tale-a-former-mountain-climber-reflects-on-pem-me-cfs-fm\/","title":{"rendered":"A Winter\u2019s Tale \u2013 a former mountain climber reflects on PEM & ME\/CFS\/FM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health rising<\/strong> blog post, by Simon Parker, 5 Feb 2019: A winter\u2019s tale \u2013 a former mountain climber reflects on Post Exertional Malaise and ME\/CFS\/FM.<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and ME (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), a debilitating condition that includes continual pain and delayed fatigue as its primary symptoms.<\/p>\n

I often find myself trying to explain to other people what the delayed fatigue is like by giving an example that describes the degree of exhaustion I experience \u2026<\/p>\n

Have you ever been Winter Climbing?<\/p>\n

Well let me tell you a tale \u2026<\/p>\n

[Simon tells the story of a tough climb in snow and ice, concluding:]<\/p>\n

I was utterly exhausted from the physical efforts of the day and I hadn\u2019t realised that the cotton underclothing I was wearing was soaked through. A combination of sweat from the physical effort of the climb and the copious amounts of water from the snow showered over me during the boulder-in-the-gully incident had seeped through my clothes and my padded mountain jacket.<\/p>\n

The heat from my body core was draining away and the sub-zero wind chill was not helping. Tunni walked ahead of me breaking a path and I followed, using his footsteps to make each step I took easier. By the time we reached the mouth of the cwm, I was flailing and failing. Each step required a Herculean effort and I was falling further and further behind.<\/p>\n

I remember thinking that I would sit down and rest for a couple of minutes to recover myself. Even as I lay back into the snowdrift, I realized that if I didn\u2019t get up, there and then I would simply fall asleep and die of exposure, and at this juncture my resolve was overcome by a fatigue that went beyond movement and reason. I had become hypothermic. Blood wasn\u2019t reaching my legs, arms, or brain. I was drifting into that blissful state between waking and sleep.<\/p>\n

My brain was shutting down and I didn\u2019t care \u2026<\/p>\n

All I recall of the remainder of that day is a dim memory of being hauled to my feet and half-carried the remainder of the way to the car; sometime later standing in front of a roaring fire whilst being plied with large mugs of hot tea; and a long hot bath to gently re-heat my body core back to normal.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what friends are for.<\/p>\n

They save your life.<\/p>\n

And now, in 2019, I get to feel like this whenever I do more than I\u2019m capable of; like walking upstairs or having a bath.<\/p>\n

And when I\u2019m asked, \u2018How fatigued are you\u2019?<\/p>\n

Well, this is my measure.<\/p>\n

Paul Tunnicliffe \u2013 Diary entry for 10 Feb 1996<\/p>\n

\u201cWinter Climb. Black Ladders. Eastern Gully with Simon, Loads of snow. Walk-in took 4 hours! v.knackered. climb took over 4 hours. so much banked up powder the climb was hard to start, even. Si had a couple of new screws & pegs and I got placements on the first bit and belayed on the lip with no rope left. Snow in the gully proper a bit dodgy looking and loose(ish) and we \u2018daggered\u2019 about 90% of it. 5.00pm top out and v.exhausting walk out mainly with head-torches during which I lost the spare battery and Swiss army knife and Simon had an epic! A good day.\u201d
\nDedicated to Paul \u2018Tunni\u2019 Tunnicliffe and Mark Pither<\/p>\n

Simon Parker is now 62 years old. He lives in rural Anglesey, North Wales. His story:<\/em><\/p>\n

Simon Parker
\nIn 2000 I was completing my PhD in Pedagogy at Bangor University North Wales and enjoying an active outdoor lifestyle, when I caught a bout of flu that resulted in increasing periods of debilitating fatigue and pain after exercising. I was diagnosed in 2003 with fibromyalgia and ME\/CFS.<\/p>\n

When I was first diagnosed I underwent the procedures recommended by my local ME\/pain clinic (CBT & GET) who advised me to \u2018exercise to my full capacity as the condition is temporary\u2019 \u2013 a course of action which only made my symptoms worsen.<\/p>\n

Luckily I found a ME\/CFS consultant (Dr Sarah Myhill) whose tests and approach (leaky gut, PK diet, and mitochondrial functioning, etc.) made a huge difference in understanding the condition and in taking appropriate steps to mitigate the worst of the symptoms.<\/p>\n

My symptoms have increased in severity over time and I now spend about 80% of my time in bed and the remaining 20% of my time trying not to over-exert myself while making time-lapse videos of blossoming trees in my locale each Spring.<\/p>\n

I still (literally) dream of going climbing and live in hope that the current research avenues will one day lead to a cure or at the least an alleviation of the symptoms so that I could go rock climbing again with my son.<\/p>\n

Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health rising blog post, by Simon Parker, 5 Feb 2019: A winter\u2019s tale \u2013 a former mountain climber reflects on Post Exertional Malaise and ME\/CFS\/FM. Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and ME (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1912,4861,4688],"class_list":["post-19549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-health-rising","tag-simon-parker","tag-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-55j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19549"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19567,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19549\/revisions\/19567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}