Chronic Fatigue

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) can be described as extreme fatigue that cannot be explained by an underlying medical condition.If you suffer from CFS, every kind of physical activity can become a chore, a feeling of exhaustion overriding almost your entire life.

The typical Symptoms are: Fatigue (doesn’t improve with sleep), poor memory/ concentration, unexplained muscle/ joint pain, sore throat, enlarged lymph nodes, headaches, and more.

How does Chinese Medicine interpret these symptoms?

Fatigue always suggests a deficiency, a lack of some substance or life force, be it either Qi (Energy) and/or Blood deficiency, which, untreated, can lead to a loss of Yang. The initial deficiency can be triggered by many factors, the most common is the Liver (Wood) overacting on the Spleen (Earth). The closest Western analogy would be long-term stress with severe nutritional imbalances.

This creates energy stagnation within the body. An energy blockage acts like a stone thrown in water, causing ripples that occur further and further away from the stone, with far reaching effects.

The typical treatment would involve acupuncture and herbal remedies to move Qi & Blood (get rid of the initial stagnation), and to combat the deficiency that was caused by the stagnation.

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