CHAPTER 1

According to the Centers for Disease Control website, many chronic illnesses feature fatigue as one component or even the primary one. Maybe you got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or a neuromuscular disease, maybe even Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a complex illness associated with low-level radiation exposure. In the Covid19 pandemic age, I am also addressing those of you who survived Covid19 but still suffer lingering effects. You are known as long-haulers, and I feel for you as I suffered the same way with a post-viral fatigue myself. Many doctors do not believe that the effects of Covid19 can still exist and fail to give you any medication for lingering effects. Viruses sometimes leave a signature behind or hide inside the spinal cord. In the first case, we call it a post-viral syndrome, which needs to follow its own time schedule to disappear. An example of a virus hiding in the spinal cord would be the chicken pox,varicella virus. We can have the illness in childhood and then as adults; it returns in a very different and painful disease calledshingles. Epstein Barr virus is another example of a virus that presents as mononucleosis. It can then go into hiding and return when under stress in some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Each illness has its own road on which to travel, but the journeys have some places in common. Most often, we need to change our lifestyle, or it is forced on us. We take medication and perhaps are forced to exercise to maintain muscle mass. I’m sure some of you reading this are very familiar with the nasty side effects of medications. Did your doctor prescribe steroids causing you to retain fluid? Does chemotherapy destroy your appetite giving you sores in your mouth and making you lose weight, especially muscle? Are you taking an NSAID (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs) such asAdvil, putting your GI tract at risk for ulcers? Then when you develop the symptoms of ulcers, the doctor prescribes another medicine to counteract the side effects. Why must you suffer from the harmful effects of extra medications when there are foods you can eat that will eliminate the side effects!?

Eating foods dense in nutrients, enhances wellbeing; increases energy; helps us think more clearly; and provides the edge over other illness that might creep up from the long-term use of some medicines. Steroids, for example, come with a number of side effects. Doctors prescribe them for a variety of reasons, from stubborn rashes all the way to inflamed bowels, joints, and many autoimmune conditions. For the long-haulers, reading this, you may have been given this to keep your blood pressure up and