Wednesday 1 November 2017

ME Diagnosed by Post Exertional Malaise (PEM), So Why Treat With Exercise?

My son was left bedbound by Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) that told him not to speak about the increasing pain, the blackouts he was experiencing, the stiffness and cold joint pain, the headaches - when he thought his head was exploding. The symptoms are all part of Post Exertional Malaise (PEM). This makes ME unique - every activity, thought, feeling or laughter causes PEM. ME is not a fluctuating illness without a cause. The fluctuation comes from overdoing, which causes increasing severity of symptoms, and further damage to the many systems within the body.

You keep in a rested state you can live relatively free of pain. You increase in the wrong way at the wrong time; you cause damage to your body. This has been proven, and can be tested with a two day physical cardiopulmonary exercise test (CEP). This test has been known about since 2011. If you do a CEP test and then do MRI or SPEC scans, with bloods taken, the damage can be seen! Blood serum and microbiome tell a complete, yet individual story. We will have to look at biomarkers in a different way as every little thing affects ME sufferers, changing the markers.
My son was 8 in 2013, when the psychiatrist and multidisciplinary team he was under insisted on him going to school, and put him on Graded Exercise Therapy (GET). They said he had reached a baseline? He was suffering more pain but they told him not to mention this, so how could they tell he had reached a bassline where his symptoms were under control? This multidisciplinary team did not test for POTS, EDS, coeliac or infection like Lymes. The coexisting conditions well known to those that understand ME.

Since the beginning of time people have understood about Flu and the symptoms?  That awful stage of when your eyes are suck with cocktail sticks, your ears are sore and are ringing, joints ache and burn, cold sweats or raging temperature, your tummy is out of kilter and going to the bathroom is like climbing Mount Everest? You cannot face eating and you constantly feel sick. We did not need to know its pathway and we understood it took some time to get over. That was until HIV and AIDS. Now we understand that all sorts of chronic conditions can be caused by assaults upon the body, we are learning how B, T cells work and cytokines. The cause of inflammation and how autoimmune can seriously impact upon a body after infection, we are beginning to understand how Sepsis sets in.
We are beginning to appreciate how all the dots of Cells, cytokines, ATP, inflammation and DNA changes impact, glycolysis and lactic acid cycle, all these problems, centre around the central nervous system, gut and brain and the damages or changes through our DNA.

Yet I am the one who is told I am in “science denial”, an ME activist portrayed by Professor Crawley as some sort of criminal, for wanting to learn all I can about the illness that consumes my son? A person who has a belief that I cannot let go of? Once silenced by threats of Fabricating or Inducing Illness, but NO MORE!

I have been abandoned by the medical profession! They don’t know about all the physical problems and only told to treat with ever increasing activity. I am seen through the preaching of Professor Crawley. SMILE trial based on the Lightning Process, FITNET-NHS with the WII fit, parents re-educated about illness beliefs? Set on by society because my child’s body fails to keep up.


I have found the facts. With those facts I now have my son out of bed but house bound. So when you listen to Professor Crawley won’t let the Children speak of their negative experiences, and carry on with exercise regimes REMEMBER DO NO HARM REMEMBER ME

I would like to take the time to explain what happens to a child with ME as Professor Crawley who educates other doctors, and does not seem to grasp the concept or take the time to observe. Any activity causes the body to disregulate in may systems deepening on the ME suffer as an individual. This is from watching TV to laughing at a joke. https://youtu.be/DNNeE6rhTm0

Interview with David Tuller PhD, May 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbikuCqoD98&t=160s


Stop The Abuse - Dr. Myhill On PACE Exposed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LasPOnRx1Ek

Friday 18 August 2017

ME is like a Pair of POLK-DOT-PANTS!!!! Passive Aggressive Non-Trusted Science PANTS




 What do I mean by ME is like a pair of Polka-Dot-PANTS I hear you cry? 
And why: Passive Aggressive Non-Trusted Science?

Well as an illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) has been hung out to dry and ridiculed due to its many spots and the fact it never does what you would expect an illness to do. The biggest trial on ME in the UK was the PACE trial and it was the biggest load of PANTS, science has ever produced!

So by flying your Pola-Dot-PANT you are giving recognition to many hidden truths about this unseen illness.
We don’t normally wash our dirty PANTS in the open, but we have been forced to do just that, and now we stand proud against the ridicule we have endured for decades.

How as a society, have we been taught to hate those that either don’t die or don’t get fully functional?

It seems we have decided, you can live with adversity but you must be a hero of some kind, you must never be average or different if you are disabled in the UK. If we can’t see your disability you don’t have one! These threads of our society have been carefully woven into our unconscious mind as a “stiff upper lip”. But that “stiff upper lip” has been woven to discriminate and like all discrimination, it is butt ugly.

In 2011 a group of master weavers showed their Emperors of Parliament the cloth they had woven, it was called the PACE trial. It put forward a treatment called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - a mind over body approach, that stiff upper lip at all cost. With Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) which was used to get the patient back to work. They promoted that these patients were just deconditioned and not physically ill. This idea has been scientifically disproven. The very physically ill ME suffers, get no treatment, no support and not empathy. The trial is now considered the worst trial by the world research community.
Yet at every twist and turn, even to those that have been bedbound for decades through this treatment, they quote the PACE trial figures at them, as gold standard research.
This trial was important to the government, DWP, and the insurance industries, all of which the researchers were and still are involved with. It enabled them to link ME to a mental illness. DWP and insurance industries don’t have to pay out if they could force ME patients into the Mental Health box? Whatever the world Health Organisation lists ME as, and which they should abide by, they do their own thing? This has taken a large amount of funding from those that need mental health support.
They played on our lack of understanding over the mind, and told everyone how devilish it could be to your body with no real evidence, just a preconceived idea. Mass hysteria was thrown in as the cause of ME. You only have to look at the Camelford water incident to see how it pans out. Or the contaminated blood scandal; to see the tricks our Government and National Health Service are willing to play with our health. Our journalists, were only too happy to oblige with the ridicule as that sells papers? The comic element brought in by YUPPIE FLU and the changed name from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, was an easy play on symptoms that could be turned on the patients behaviour. This abuse has carried on through the decades, after all who listens to the mentally ill?
As a country we love anything that we are in charge of, feel empowered by, have an element of self-help and more importantly – can be pinned on the individual’s responsibility, so that society can wash their hands of them? With this in mind, it was easy to fool the medical profession as a whole, if not the entirety. These patients, they assured all, just need to move to get better, even though it was contrary to the evidence. None listened to the patients, through conferences and meetings doctors and healthcare professionals were told these poor souls are just non-compliant to treatment. Being bedbound was just deconditioning; they did not need tests, as you can just tell their “type”?
The confusion over pain even for cancer patients is becoming so widespread; people are now needlessly dying with no treatment. The adoption of biosocial model; with Medically Unexplained Symptoms, Bodily Dysfunction Disorder, are masking all known diseases like cancer, diabetes, Lymes, Lupus, Thyroid and ME to name just a few.
I had two uncles that had rarely visited the Doctors who have suffered by this and have died after being refused treatment or tests. Both told that they were imagining the severity of the pain. Both found the cause too late, both could have been saved. We hear this all the time with cancer; those numbers are collated, but there are other illnesses and diseases that suffer this fate too and need our support?
Yet a well know group physiatrists and psychologists insist that doctor’s time is wasted by patients that imagine the pain is more profound than it is? These professionals do not learn the fate of those they have dismissed. This is where the trouble begins. We need those professionals to be accountable for their theories, and aware of the damage they have done?
They also seem unaware of the new line of research tracking down our bodies many mechanisms, and how they control our many ecosystems. They seem convinced that they can see another person’s pain, just by looking at them? That they can tell what is going on deep inside a patient’s body without testing, investigating, or spending time to listen to the symptoms and what they tell us?
It is society’s responsibility to make the difference? But our apathy based on the enormous respect we give the medical profession; that they would “do no harm” and are overseen by stringent controls for safety. So we step back, until it happens to us? How many people, who looked happy, and healthy, died the next day? How many young sports people die sudden deaths? Illness does not hang a sign on your face to tell you what is going on deep within your body. Nor do our emotions save us from illness or cause our deaths. Happy people do die. Feeling young, being fit and looking healthy, death has no regard, it will carry you off regardless!
No up-to-date figures are kept of how many adults or children have ME/CFS, no figures of misdiagnosis, or treatments that have helped like Vitamin B12. No SPEC scans that can show the damage. No figures are kept even in trials of the patients that became bed or housebound, after PACE trial like treatments, including those young children. Nothing is done about the false allegations of FII. No figures on how many children taken from loving homes and what happens to them. No autopsy’s to follow the disease and learn. These are stark failings, don’t you think?
For those doctors; who were not fooled by the control the body with your thoughts approach, were sent off to the GMC, who happily chopped of their heads ­­- figuratively speaking. The GMC allowed this to continue, why? Why are parents accused of FII with no indication that is the case? They are given little to no support after a gruelling and stressful court hearing, and are coping with a chronic illness on their own.
These passive aggressive attitudes ripple through our society, so that it has become the normal thinking. They systematically take everyone down; patient, doctor, researchers, journalists and advocates of ME. They ridicule in public so that ME is not taken seriously. They don’t care who gets in their way, even good sound and solid science is brushed aside. Their ability to weave like a snake in our society has been made easy? You only have to look at the Judicial Review details, the many court cases, to see how far they as a collective are prepared to go, and still prepared to go. No matter what the courts say - NHS, GMC and our Government encourage this passive aggressive treatment. The House of Lords debates with countess Mar, heroically stating truths, bare whiteness to this too; spirituality sighted as the best medicine and the only support ME suffers deserve in 2017?
It did not matter if those they defaced, dehumanised were suffering. The more this collective got away with this passive aggressive behaviour, the more the weavers promoted those that could have, or should have, spoken out. Again you only have to look what happened when Philip Hammond wrote a piece in the Private EYE on this subject.
This collective employ their chosen few, rightly believing catch the doctors early and just keep repeating mind over body and it will sink into the fabric of society. How many times do you go to the doctors to be asked are you anxious? Well yes doctor, I do feel anxious. I need my two jobs, I feel so unwell and I do not know what the flying fig is going on with my body. We have now so watered down the true meaning of anxiety, and muddled it up with good reasoning and protective concern.
They ridiculed patients in public or behind closed doors. They locked patients up and exercised them to death, and then they hide or gloss over the facts. It does not seem to bother them; that some of those were young children. Karina Hansen’s medical records are beyond words. Naomi Whittingtom and her family have put the truth out there for all to see. How the forceful physio can harm, I could write endlessly about the blindside of society. How many children are still hidden with no medical care or locked away? Lynn Gilderdale story hurts beyond endurance. Ean Proctor’s court case is fraught with inconsistencies by medical professionals that whitewashed over and never taken to task over the cover-up. Sophie Mirza treatment is sickening beyond belief. Clair Wade along with all the others children through ME history, will show you how detrimental NICE treatment is. But none of these heroes’ collective stories are news worthy apparently “it’s not like cancer”?
A lead paediatric researcher into ME tells us there are two arms of ME, One that can get better, and the other not? That is all the information she has? No reasoning to that statement? No data tests from previous trials show the damage that might be done? The ethics committee, just on this paediatrics say so, agreed we need to put young children through a FITNET program to exercise them unsupervised? To see which group are harmed? Not why this might be? I kid you not! The sad thing is there have been many such trials, and no good results? 1000s of children put through trials that tell us nothing?
Our not so NICE, are willing to wait for this trial on 700 children, to review their guidelines for all sufferers? Fluff a duck in cold bad weather. Even after the fiasco of PACE trial? We have tried very hard to stop these types of trials, but we are ridiculed as simpletons.
Can we trust them to be honest and true with their figures? Anyone who has read the history of the PACEgate will know the answer to that. We are still waiting for the results of another trial on children called SMILE, only it doesn’t make our kids smile. Do they have to report the decline in health of these children?  Well their get out of jail card is that ME is a fluctuating illness that can from time to time make you hospitalised. The science proves otherwise. If you over exert past your bodies limit, your body deteriorates. However keep your body within its limit and you can live without deterioration, and even recover slowly. Turning this truth on its head any decline can be explained away even if the child becomes tube fed, catheterised, bedridden, it is just part of the illness? Is this ethical?
Research proves beyond doubt that physical and mental activity harms the body of an ME patient. So you would expect NICE, NHS and the ethic committee; that passed the FITNET-NHS trial, will be keeping a close eye on the data? Engage with the parents and children, make sure they are safe? Make sure the Helsinki agreement is upheld and ultimately be held responsible for their actions, along with the paediatric researcher’s team? You would be wrong!
Parents are silenced; accused of FII, the courts won’t let you tell your truth. Your children are dropped from trials as recovered. Or as with SMILE trial, parents were accused in a passive aggressive manor that they did not want their children going through the treatment. When in fact the children were too poorly to continue. They are then left unsupported medically and silenced. NICE do not listen to the patients voice. Just PANTS science?
The group of weavers tell you; you must be progressive and intelligent to understand the workings of the mind. You must believe, but most of all you must not test the cloth they have so expertly woven, and they themselves and their friends have tested. The results of the trial you would not understand, because it is far too complicated. They explain they were adrift for a while but they always knew where they would dock, you vexatious lot. The most important thing is not to look at the data; it must be hidden at all cost! TAX payers have paid dearly for the cover-up.

ME treatment can be equated to having a broken infected leg with diabetes and told to walk, close your mind to the pain, be happy and start to live. Yes it is that bad.

You must not ask for an x-ray to show the damage done, because you will believe it? This would just show us your “illness beliefs”; we can lock you in silence for that. Deny the damage or we will not be nice to you, and you will not like us when we are angry! Would you trust this sort of treatment?

As far as infection, they tell us - what a ridiculous idea? Inflammation we can explain that, we have made it as clear as mud! Not that we understand it anyhow? Who would do that in their right mind? What doctor would do such a thing? It’s not as though that has ever happened in the past? MS, crohn's disease, Epileptic fits, Stomach ulcers, coeliac, Alzheimer’s, Autism the list is endless and still we think with just will power, we can control these conditions? They are purely behaviour? Mind control?

Energy production, and metabolomics, mitochondrial difficulties, DNA what silly nonsense they say?


The weft and warp of the cloth is Mass Hysteria and mind control.

Mass Hysteria may be all the fault of the woman. They suffer this in greater prevalence the same as MS. Women are discriminated within the medical profession, we know that. More women suffering maybe down to the fact autoimmunity is different between the sexes. It is to do with X chromosome amongst other things. Anyhow if their theory “Mass Hysteria” was true more ME sufferers would be seen in highly stressed areas of the world? We don’t see that. We do see outbreaks similar to infection or around infectious diseases throughout the world. Take the Ebola outbreak for instance Dr. Abudul El-Sayed is treating one doctor, who is still suffering after recovery from initial infection, and his bloods have come back clear.

The mind is where the weavers got a grip on the illness. They manufactured that the mind controls the brain, which controls the body? How or why they reach this conclusion is uncertain, but apparently it is beyond any doubt?

Science would disagree and say there is a large amount of doubt. Our thoughts are just that, thoughts; some innate, some subconscious and some conscious decisions. You cannot put them all together and have one control box. Experience and behaviour are only part of our complexity of control. We also are only beginning to understand the willed action and how this can be disturbed by damage to the basil ganglia, at the prefrontal cortex which we know facilitates willed action. We are only just beginning to understand this innate and willed process and how this affects us.

Within our gut sits a large neuro transmitter with massive amounts of serotonin, a collection of nerve bodies the size of a cat’s brain, how does that affect our reactions and defence against autoimmune, infection and our moods? Who knows?

We can cope with adverse situations by a positive attitude, but to change our whole body’s complexities, who are we kidding? Headless chickens spring up in my mind!

So where does this all leave people with ME? Flying our Polka-Dot-PANTS in the wilderness for now. But with your help things could change. NICE can be made to listen to good science and not PANTS science.

Our complex dots are ridiculed, discriminated against, demoralised, defaced and dehumanised in public, and we need to change that, with your support we can.

I don’t want anyone; let alone a young and venerable child to feel they have to be a super hero in order to receive treatments their body’s need. It is everyone’s right as a human, to be treated with respect.

I don’t want research carried out that has known damage. The Helsinki agreement needs to be upheld, it is there for good reason!

If you feel the same I would ask:

Are you brave enough to stand up against fabricating “Illness Beliefs”?
To stand up for disability, difference, suffering and hope?
Stand up for good doctors who “do no harm”
Stand up for good researchers that believe in open and honest science, and that have and still are proving all the physical dots of ME?
Stand up for the best care for patients so that our NHS gives the best advice and treatment?

Are you brave enough to stand up and proud against NICE?

Are you brave enough to Fly Polka-Dot-PANTS for ME?

Please put the pants as your status for one week to show your support as NICE debate ME future and that of 700 children that suffer the indignity of PANTS science




Tuesday 11 July 2017

NICE refuse to take down harmful treatments 25,000 children harmed?

I had my reply from NICE.


For some reason David Hahalam did not want to talk to me. Well I am not important, am I? After all I am just one of the 25,000 parents that would like ME taken seriously to protect the children from harm. A good solid diagnosis for a seriously abused illness, it would seem is too much to ask for. For them to understand, it is their responsibility to stop the emotional blackmail that goes on with CBT under their guidelines. Head against establishment wall I am afraid.

Perhaps they should note that CBT was no good in education and it would appear that in depression it is only a placebo effect, as explained by Oliver Burkeman in the guardian. So for a physical immune response, they are offering a Placebo treatment?


So here is their resonance and my thoughts in red. Please do add your comments in the comments box below.
Do you get the feeling they did not read my letter?

What will it take for NICE to do no more harm to children with ME?

How can they say no harm done if they have not asked those who have been harmed. Do we not learn from history?

When will NICE start listening to children and their parents, let alone the 250,000 patients who have been suffering decades of abuse at the hands of those reported to protect them.

What is the point of NICE to do no Harm?

This is the letter I have just sent to NICE, it is one of many. I sent it at 9.30 this morning 11th July 2017. Below is the one I have sent to my local MP, I will be sending this to all parties, so if you are reading this and you are in a party get in touch, PLEASE.

I don't expect to be listened to, but you have to try and maybe some of you will sign the petition from the ME Association and get involved?

http://www.meassociation.org.uk/2017/07/me-association-petition-the-nice-guideline-for-cfsme-is-not-fit-for-purpose-10-july-2017/


Dear Professor David Haslam, and Surveillance team,

Regarding the decision not to update the NICE guidelines on ME.

I am a mother of a child who has classic Ramsey defined ME. I have been coerced into giving my child CBT and GET against my better judgement. He went from 70% ability to a function of only 5%, for which I was blamed. I AM NOT ALONE IN THIS!

Through my due diligence and care, with an awful lot of research, attending Invest in ME conferences, talking to researchers like Ron Davis, Jo Cambridge, Fluge, Mella, Armstrong, Maureen Hansen, listening to Mark Van-Ness, speaking with Doctors such as Speight and John L Whiting who is working closely with Neil McGregor, my son is now able to get out of bed and have some normal but careful monitored activity around the house. It has taken years to undo the damage done to him from GET and CBT. 

The damage done to myself, and my family is immense, the words for which I do not possess.

Medical staff try to back me, they know of treatments that can help, but they are aware of the constraints imposed on them and enforced by PACE trial believers, that are more akin to a cult than a guideline for health. This should never be allowed to happen. Doctors, not allowed to treat and support patients with known helpful treatments like Vitamin D? Or ask for tests, this is outrageous in any civilised society. 

NICE should denounce the PACE trial, it is a flawed study on so many ethical grounds that you are fully aware of. PACE has been used to control, demoralise and harm those it states it helps, insisting the term CFS is used with no legitimate reason. There should be a public enquiry and I am sure in the near future there will be. 

PACE has been based on the theory of “Mass Hysteria”, “Illness beliefs” and “spiritual healing”. This then alludes that NICE believes in Mass Hysteria and spiritual healing and forgoes science, and ethical treatment? Would parents be allowed this flimsy theory to deny treatments? NO!

The inability of a ME patient to process energy causing the body to shut down, is beyond doubt. Considering the body needs energy for activity, this then makes it nonsensical to give a patient activity as treatment, so therefore both GET and CBT are abusive, and could be construed as torture? Infections rise in many places including the gut after exercise, this has also been proven, along with lactic acid increase. The guidelines are untruthful and therefore should be overhauled and I am appalled you do not seek patients/care givers views, as they are the only ones who truly understand ME, and yet never get heard. Yet we are taunted at every turn, and left to defend against harmful treatment and misdiagnosis on our own. NICE is directly responsible for this.

NICE have allowed the abuse of patients and the demoralisation of disability, this has caused many suicides and clouded the reality of this condition, and stopped furthering the biological research that was happening decades ago. No records of number of patients, harms, changed diagnosis, or deaths are recorded, why is that? When this should be a matter of course.

There are no treatments for ME, which is inexcusable considering the physical evidence of disease. NICE should be open to all research and not close down the guidelines at every opportunity, only listening to one group of researchers that have a discredited theory or belief. 

The guidelines have been used against parents and FII is a constant battle for families, where the NICE guidelines have been used to harm children, which you are fully aware of. It is then left to parents like me and charities that have no connections with the PACE trial or FITNET, MAGENTA or SMILE trial researchers, to support those parents as best we can. 25,000 children harmed, is unforgivable. The Centre for Disease Control in the USA have now taken both CBT and GET out of their recommended treatments, and have made sure it is clear that activity that causes symptoms should be avoided.

The term CFS is a manifested term along with Unexplained Medical Symptoms, which holds no science behind them, and used to confuse the danger behind many conditions. This manufactured term leads to misdiagnosis, confusion and ultimately death. 

Many ME patients have co existing conditions like cancer, brain tumours, diabetes, kidney failure, EDS, PoTS, OI all left untreated because of the term CFS and the PACE trial, as it alludes to no harm of exercise and that the patients are just stuck in a cycle of thinking they are ill. 

As with the America you should at least take CBT and GET from the guidelines, not to do so would put further children in danger of lifelong harm and disability. NICE guidelines should DO NO HARM. 

This is an open letter and as before, a copy of which, I will be sending to Countess of Mar.

I have also attached my letter to my MP, which I will be sending today, and will be attaching this email also.

Many Thanks for your time

Tina Rodwell

My letter to my MP:

Dear Jo Churchill,

I need your help and support as my MP to guide me through how to stop false accusations of Fabricating or Inducing Illness, for those parents, with children who have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

You may have heard the program on BBC radio four, 1File on Four about the way parents are treated, or the question being asked in the 2House of Lords by the countess of Mar? It is very frustrating to see the House of Lords frame a question about ME in the context of Medically Unexplained Symptoms. ME is not Medically Unexplained Symptoms, It is underfunded, lacks a test, and inappropriately treated but not medically unexplained, the history and research from all over the world shows you it is not dissimilar to Type 1 diabetes, most sufferers also have unknown aetiology.
There are many adults who like my son, where given Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) which took away their ability to live a normal life physically, and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), which took away all of their self-esteem and belief in self. If the first program from the same reporter 3 Matthew Hill “Sick and Tired” 4 1999 featuring Ean Proctor amongst others. In 2009 he explains what happened to him. Have we not learnt to listen to the children? If these experiences had been adhered to my son would be at a much better physical state and safe? Who knows living a normal life. Uan Proctors experiences are being relived in 2017. How have we let this happen?

ME is classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurological condition and is a disease of the Central Nervous System G93.3. You would never know this as most Doctors are ill-informed or given the wrong impression, and treat sufferers as mentally ill. This is both harmful physically; as the wrong treatment is given and psychologically; if you are asking from your body to do more than it can permit, you are left demoralised and feeling inadequate.

From the age of eight my son has suffered at the hands of this misinformation, and was inappropriately given CBT and GET, through the NICE guidelines as many are, 25,000 children are treated this way and no number collated unlike other illnesses. Doctor’s lack of understanding is partly due to misinterpreting the NICE Guidelines and my son slowly went from 70% function to 5% Bedbound. NICE are aware of the situation and have been for a very long time, and I feel if they had taken notice of the patients, then my son would have been saved the horrendous behaviour from the medical profession

NHS, who I have written to, along with NICE have dismissed many parents in my position. ME is one condition they do not allow the sufferers or carers to have a say in the guidelines, or in treatment; which surprises me due to lack of research and funding, our experience is of paramount importance? For decades we have been dismissed, this has to stop. Like the Grenfell tower our voices fall on deaf ears, and I ask at what cost to our country?

My son at the age of eight was told to take responsibility for his illness and recovery, not to talk about symptoms. He was also reminded many times; and in my view inappropriately, that I had to give up my job to look after him. Many times I have held him racked in pain, as he sobbed his apologies, wondering how the medical profession got so inhumane.

I was never listened to, or supported. Later we found out my son has celiac, PoTS, OI and hypermobile joints, all of which impact on his ME, and the symptoms of which they told us to ignore. He is not deconditioned his body has failed him, you could see his decline in a matter of weeks. He was active and then he was very ill. He is not avoiding exercise, for when able he runs like the wind, breaking free for a short time from his constant pain, dizziness, sickness, swollen glands like conkers, every joy comes with a “payback” Post Exertional Malaise (PEM) an inability to repeat exercise. It is quantifiable and testable, and for which a group of researchers deny and lack the ability to understand. He is not “fear avoidance” he grabs life by the throat, but laughing can send his HR into 200 beats per minute plus, this then takes days for his BP to settle back down, and like anyone oxygen staved, the consequences are severe.

I have witnessed him have hypoglycaemic like attaches, similar to those my Nanna Ann used to do before her diabetes was under her control. I have nowhere to go, because of the constant threat and real fear that any negative test, whatever they are, and who ever has asked for them, would probably put us further under peril of not being believed I can assure you it has been the scariest of times, for when you hold your child, concerned over their physical health with nowhere to go, and no idea what the end result of this severe episode will be - this is the relentless place I find myself in. Imagine having a child with diabetes and no one understanding the condition, worse still believing it is one of avoidance of life, and not the physical illness it is. Imagine the damage done to such a child not being given insulin when needed, due to lack of research into the illness. Told to exercise and control their symptoms with relaxation technicities that just don’t make sense of what you witness them physically going through, and you will get a good understanding of how I feel on a daily basis, on my own, with no support just ridicule.

They are working on how the ME patients bodies use energy, and what causes the many differences they find in bloods, cells and DNA, but because of the complexities and for many other reasons, as yet they have not found a good enough, or cheap and easy to do test to enable patients to regulate their energy levels, or doctors to confirm diagnosis. More than nine biomarkers are waiting to be funded.

Many mothers like me are forced to hide in silence. We hide because we are blamed, to get us off lists so they do not have to report harms or the worsening of condition after treatments or on trials? Over 200 parents have gone through FII, none have been charged with Fabrication or Inducing Illness. That fact should say, all there is to say, about how parents are treated when they have a child or worse, children with ME. But there is worse to come. We are called MUPPETS by a leading Paediatric in the CFS field, who researches a denounced psychological theory of “perpetuating illness belief”. This research has to stop, a data exercise should be undertaken of all children with ME to find out how many are house or bedbound, this will show the harm done by GET and CBT, as all children are forced to go through this treatment. A recording of all parents accused of FII when they have a child with ME should be undertaken. All government organisations refuse to collate numbers?
Researchers seem able to deny any research that shows how harmful over exerting can be. When they are challenged or asked questions, those that put forward those questions are called saboteurs or militants, however world renowned they are. We know the smearing that goes on behind our backs by some Doctors, Researchers, and Professors that have closed seminars, Universities and mental health professionals. Still we mothers do not buckle, we stay strong, supporting each other and we learn.

We learn how to handle the medical fraternity; we learn how to tell hospital staff when our children fall ill with chronic pancreatitis, kidney problems, cancers and many more co existing illnesses. We support the medical staff when they are at a loss what to do for our very sick children. We hold them as they crumble with no true information about this common illness, and as they realise they have been fed the wrong social landscaping, we teach them how to cope. Many good doctors are hounded by others when they support parents, this has to stop?

We hold each other, protecting each other, and supporting the best we can in educating the medical profession as our children slip away into the abyss of ME.

25,000 parents know the pain of ME, 25,000 children suffer in quiet dignity the humiliation of being told they are not ill like cancer patients, and they do not deserve medical help or support; yes that is said often in 2017 to our children. With over 9000 papers logging all the physical problems and testable differences of ME, with little to no funding in taking those possible biomarkers further, or replicating solid biomedical research. UK has done very little to none existent purely biomedical research. You cannot find what you are not looking for?

We shake our heads in disbelief when ethics committees pass yet another exercise research program that point the finger at parenting rather than the illness, knowing if diabetes did not have its blood test they would be treated just the same; exercise the symptoms away, change your brain function by positive thinking?

I need you to supporting me, to get ME recognised throughout Suffolk and the rest of the UK as the illness that it is; a complex one that effects every cell and system in the body, so that Education, Social Services, GPs and Paediatrics do not keep making false allegations of FII, and those that keep doing so get educated in the seriousness of this complex and chronic illness.

Then we need to give parents, carers and sufferers the correct information so that they can be supported through their child’s disabling illness, and find the best way forward with managing their child’s symptoms and condition, without fear, until such a time a robust biomarker has been funded and treatments can be tested against.

I have enclosed and email that I have just sent to NICE. They were due to change the guidelines to take out CBT and GET, but have now refused. It is worth noting that the Centre of Disease Control in the US have changed and have taken out GET and CBT as treatments, and noted that any activity that causes symptoms should be stopped.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as you possibly can make it

2.     http://www.meassociation.org.uk/2017/07/countess-of-mar-and-lord-hunt-defend-mecfs-in-lords-debate-on-medically-unexplained-symptoms-05-july-2018/
Many thanks for your time

Tina Rodwell

Tuesday 27 June 2017

Mothers Accused of FII Because Their Children Have ME Why?

“Why do the doctors hate me so much mum?”
I look down at my son wrapped in a leaden body, full of lactic acid, brain fog that muddles his thinking like my grandad’s Alzheimer’s, with moments of crystal clarity that lulled you into a false sense of security.
“Hate is a strong word my boy”
“But they really do mum; I can see it in their eyes”
I kiss the top of his head and I recognised his truth. His forehead was clammy. I gulp down the panic as I feel his little heart pound like a thundering train.
“They don’t hate you; they just don’t know how to help you.”
“They don’t even try, mum”
I had taken his temperature it was 35.4 his nausea was bad, he had his eyes closed trying to dispel the urge to be sick, constantly dizzy with glands like conkers, but I could not take him to the doctors. I knew they were running out of patience with me, with him. I had never been scared of doctors before, I was now.

I knew what could happen; two of my friends had had their children taken away. It had taken 30 days from the hospital suggesting that a 2-4 week stay in hospital; without visiting from mum. They assessed rehabilitation was appropriate medical intervention at that time. A policeman knocking down the door physically taking the child away, it was deemed appropriate action at that time? I look down at my restless son and knew he would never cope.

One of the children that were taken away for rehabilitation to hospital, came out tube fed; it was all hushed up nothing in the papers, no action taken against the paediatric doctor responsible or hospital and I would never have believed this could happen. I lost touch with the other mother, so have no idea. This trauma they put families through is happening every week, if not daily. Some manage to get away and find another way or just fade into the distance.

A week ago, the physio had taken my son out of the consultation room so that I could have a word with the psychiatrist, it was prearranged mutually and I was comfortable. The physio and psychiatrist were part of the team helping us, I thought to cope with ME, I believed and trusted them. That ended when the physio had taken him off happy and when I saw him next he was in an elated state, he had managed to do all the exercises and as the physio had made eye contact with me, she took great pains in telling me that he had NO TROUBLE DOING ANY OF THEM!

Although I was taken aback; as they had previously educated me in how even putting on socks had to be factored in as an activity, I trusted them that they would not do harm and was hopeful this was the turning point of his recovery. He didn’t recover though; he slid dramatically down and was now in constant pain and mostly bedbound.  

They called a meeting for the next week, asking for all the family to attend. A team meeting they said was needed as things were not progressing as they should. My husband and I were happy and thought we were getting somewhere. We sat in the room as they explained that they had taken some advice from a colleague; who had great expertise in this field, and it could not be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because our son was detreating on Graded Exercise Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and this was most unusual. They were going to look at the diagnosis again with a view of re-diagnosing. They questioned me and my husband on what had happened to our son after the last appointment. I kept quiet and just looked on closely at the group huddled together around my husband, while my husband spoke in his frank and honest way. They seemed to inch ever closer on his every word.

I dismiss the scene from my mind. I looked down at the grey faced boy with those familiar dark panda circles around his sunken eyes. A deep sigh escaped me, at least he was asleep. I put my legs against his cold ones avoiding his feet as warm as toast.

I had received a letter that morning, more or less demanding permission to take our son into hospital for rehabilitation. After mopping the floor and cleaning the house, I had sat down and  had written a letter to my sister-in-law and my dearest friend. I was asking them to hold on to it until such time they took my son away. I rang them to tell them what it was about and not to open the letter, to keep it sealed and only give it to the solicitor of which I gave them the details I hoped this would show a court if need be, that what I suspected to happen had. Hoping this would give a more balanced view of the situation and some understanding into the facts of ME.

My friend’s reaction was touching; they immediately came round in support. They were astounded and gobsmacked over the letter I had received, and were ready to march so justice could be done, but march where, I asked, who will listen? This has been going on for decades I explained.

What is wrong with these people, how can they do such a thing. I thought there was Hippocratic Oath. How can they not understand ME? They only have to look at him, and you. You are a mother we all look up to, the one we all go to when we need help. They both spat the words against the medical staff, the system, the GPs response, interchangeable with vigour, but it was no good. Their words were not going to change events. I’ve rang the Tymes Trust the only Charity I trust, they will help I’m sure, I reassure them.

You see I had researched the history of how mass hysteria had given a foot hold of loosely based mental health explanations of ME. How the psychiatrists had lobbied to self-promote the idea, other disciplines happy to delegate responsibility. The Department of Work and Pensions, the insurance industry, and Government were jumping for joy that they could all offload the “ME problem” and keep the truth under wraps.

The National Health Service along with NICE Guidelines seemed to say the right things to the charities, but played bat and ball with the reality. The General Medical Council only took action against anyone who opposed the status quo, with ethics committees seemingly blind to the consequences of their actions. While the Medical Research Council stood by and let it all happen and even if the courts intervened; those involved directly or indirectly to the PACE trial, were allowed to ignore the courts and carry on spouting their rhetoric. All other academic fraternities and medical departments turned their backs on those that suffered. The amount of families stressed to breaking point, hidden. All of them that should know better, loosely agreed with the notion ME could be linked to mental health; they did not want an untreatable illness on their books, clogging up their promotion and self-esteem? Whistle blowing is only worth doing if there is treatment to fall back on, and only the bravest try.

You have very little choice; as a women even in 2017, but to be embroiled in femininity and argue about your sensibilities. Motherhood is a double edged sword it seems. You are stripped of identity and accused of everything they can throw at you. You have to stand stripped necked and humiliated, play the system so that no harm could come to your child, and I find it barbaric, beyond words. There is no control or restriction on mental health's abilities to run riot and rough shod over general health.

You find out you are a stronger woman than you thought, as you catch each accusation and start to juggle. Mental health is steeped on you because of a wondering womb, hormones, autoimmune problems or deferring understanding from every side of the medical profession, all baying for funding. Little truth seeps through and everyone it seems allows this to happen. Then a light, a glimmer of a sparkle shines and you hope. But is hope going to be enough?

My son starts to babble on and like a brook in spring; his body ripples and sings in the moonlight. As my tears flows to him, I wonder what the best action would be. I force the tears back and breathe deeply as I unhook my arm from his grasp.

It is common practice to accuse a mother of Fabrication or Inducing Illness (FII) when their child has ME and does not recover in the specified 6 months. The only research they talk in the media is exercising yourself to health, taking responsibility of your illness and the anxiety that is ME/CFS. You write letters and fight, but you are just one of many voices that fall on turned backs.

As a mother of a child with ME I have never asked for extravagant tests, treatment or operations the classic signs of FII. Yet because of the social landscaping of ME, and untruths told, they can still get FII through the courts with little to no resistance. Even if you put up the best of evidence their backs are turned and their ears closed, they let it happen?

If I agree to the rehabilitation in hospital, I wonder as the first glow of the new dawn star-lighting through the kitchen window; to what I know is harmful treatment, who would help my son recover? Would anyone know how to help him recover? Who would get justice for him? Who would stop the harm done to him? 

The answers to these questions are for all to see in the history of ME, the answer:

No one, not one of you will do no harm! For doing nothing, is harming over 25,000 children in the UK that suffer from ME. Still known harmful treatments have got through ethics committees????? Parents are accused of fII, none have been charged. The Children are taken and harmed by rehabilitation and the result of harmful research is hushed up in the UK in 2017. They do not report decline of health or ability as a harm in research, why is that?


The glimmer of hope are a few Dr’s like Dr Speight that are true heroes, who stand firm with mum's like me, with a few other brave souls that are hounded by the PACE trial crew who try to show the truth behind the myth. It is truly truly SHAMEFUL how this is allowed to continue!

Me and my boy what happened to us. We learnt to fight stand tall and announce to the world ME is a very serious life changing illness, with no treatment, and no sound prognosis but we hope. At any time there could be a knock on my door, it is hard to live with but sometime you have to stand up for what is truth!

With your support behind us adding to our voice and demanding change, we can change the medical profession and the NICE guidelines and start to tackle the last big medical condition of our time.

As a mother you are Gaslighted and I explain a little her of how it feels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWjCaIoJPs&t=154s