Introduction

The 5th October 1996, found the Royal College of Physicians officially recognising the presence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and in January of 2002 the Chief Medical Officer of Great Britain stated that the medical profession also recognised this illness. Disliking the terminology M.E. they stated that the illness was not physical, not perpetuated by a virus, not psychological (although recognising that complicating psychological problems were relevant), not stating what they believed it might be but more what it was not. This however, is how I have been perceiving the illness for the last seven years, and I will tell you that the illness lies as a biochemical dysfunction of the central nervous system affecting all neuronal tissue and sustained by an immunological dysfunction of heightened immune activity, loss of central regulatory mechanisms and intellectual processing. Despite popular understanding to the contrary this illness is not only treatable but potentially curable.

Within these pages and fields of this website you will find the description of how these various named disorders came about, definitions of C.F.S. and some of its major subsets. Understanding the generation of the symptoms experienced by sufferers and the philosophy of what is going wrong in this illness complex. More importantly however, you will find details of how to develop the three major stages to recovery. Firstly, the development of a modified activity programme for both physical and mental activity, secondly the use of sedative tricyclic antidepressants to restore and normalise and regulate sleep pattern and thirdly the introduction of antidepressants in the day to try and help the reduction of fatigue and anxiety to help sufferers move forward. Since the 10th of June 1994 I have been using a combination of Prozac (Fluoxetine Hydrochloride) in the day for its anti-fatigue effect and for its increment in cognitive function and also the use of Seroxat for similar reasons but also for its anxiolytic effect. These are medications that are used during the day and at night various combinations of tricyclic antidepressants to help normalise and restore sleep pattern. Since that time the success rate in treating C.F.S. and more specifically the subset that appears to have been precipitated by an acute virus onset has risen to 95%.

The files that I present are still being worked upon and there may be some errors for the next few months. These will be corrected in time as we improve our website information. Please, therefore, bear with me while I work towards providing a total service for the treatment and cure of this ubiquitous disorder. I hope you find the following pages enlightening but also please remember that I cannot enter into specific answers with patients that I have not seen.

David Smith