“Take these to avoid deformity”

”Take these to avoid deformity” was the sentenc my doctor used when I was prescribed high dose NSAIDS to treat the symptoms related to a recent diagnosis of Ross River Fever (an Australian mosquitoes borne virus that causes a range of symptoms including polyathritis, fatigue, rash, headache and can last from 3months - many years)

I was first diagnosed in 2006 (I was 19 years old ) and then rediagnosed in 2012 (it is not throught to relapse so drs think I was reinfected) in Sydney I was 1 of 3 people diagnose with the illness in 2006 so it’s quite rare to get it once in Sydney let alone twice.

Unfortunately I was not well assisted by my local medical community, my ruhmatologist told me to “eat vegetables” and when I was fatigued doctors told me to “do less” and one doctor didn’t believe the lab reports and retested me for the virus 5 times, got 4 positive tests and one “equivical” so then told me he couldn’t help me because I wasn’t “sick”.

I spent 10 years bedridden, off and on.

I have always been been trying to force myself to keep as much muscle mass as possible, and re learnt to walk twice.

About 2 years ago I found a really good gp who is so much more helpful than all my other experiences (to the point where I get sad that she wasn’t around in the early days)

I have recently been watching your stuff on YouTube, and it has been really helpful. I decided to start strength training I did strong lifts 5x5 at first then the bridge. I did the workouts and then crashed out all day for the first 2 months. But I kept going because even though I slept all day after each session my lifts were still going up so I kept on the program. After a while I started being able to stay awake all day.

I would just just like to thank you for putting so much free stuff only with links to research it really helped me!

You talk about doctors harming patients through their language and I can totally relate.

Since the PACE study on GET was discredited are there any other studies around that talk about strength training and people with post viral chronic fatigue?

I think my fatige has has almost completely disapaited now I just think “what are you going to do? Not train?”

Thank you so much for your help with effective training

(My current numbers squat 75kg, bench 57.5kg, deadlift 110kg, Press 42.5 kg, I’m 95kg at 1.72m)

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I’m sorry to hear about your difficult history with this issue. Since this virus appears to be endemic to the South Pacific, it’s not an infection I’m familiar with – though it sounds very much like a number of other viral illnesses we do see frequently in the U.S. With that said, I’m very glad that our content has been helpful to you, and that you’re training now!

I am not familiar with studies on strength training in post-viral fatigue syndromes, though I can’t say I’ve attempted a complete survey of the literature on this topic either. From my understanding, there seems to be a substantial variability in people’s ability to tolerate physical exertion in these situations. It’s interesting to me that you experienced substantial fatigue, but that you continued pushing through and began noticing improvement. This is not something most people are willing to do, so it sounds like you’ve done a remarkable job!

Yes, I agree that not all patients will be able to tolerate exercise. Although I tried to think of fatigue like climate and fatigue/ pain episodes like weather/storms. And rather than trying to eliminate fatigue I aimed to reduce the severity of the storm this changed the goal post in my mind that helped me in the beginning stages of the strength training.

Because your material said that you had to induce fatige to make the muscles bigger and stronger, and medications and supplements are used to get a patiet to be able to train (increase function). I had to face my fear of fatige, and the strength training you do also looks like exposure therapy for people scared of fatigue. Each rest break between sets allowed me to practice calming down and relaxing my muscles.

I also had the support of my parents so that I didn’t work or study during the first 3 months of strength training, so I could “not worry” about letting people down during this intense phase.

There are are definitely a lot of complexities in post viral fatigue.

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