Hi,
Im 13 and have just found out that i have had chronic fatigue for about 6 months. And I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to deal with this at school. I am hopefully going to get half days soon to help but until then it will be very hard as you can imagine. Help?
Sorry to hear that pet. All I can advise you to do is pace yourself when it is a good day dont do loads because you will crash the next day. So a little each day and ask your gp for a referral to someone to help you with a course in pacing. Good luck
Thanks for the advice and will do
Hi Nezy
So sorry to hear you have CFS at such a young age.
The best thing to do for a start is to research this condition on the internet
and give this information to as many people as you can in your school
Your teachers, classmates, friends and family people who you feel you can trust!
If you have an older family relative that can act as an advocate for you, someone
you can trust to try and negotiate with the school to give you frequent rest periods during your school day!
The more knowledge you can give to people is the only way they will
have a chance of understanding this serious problem you have.
You need someone who can advocate for you!
Practical things like carrying heavy bags, walking up and down flights of stairs
should not be done if at all possible and definitely no physical exercise as this
will make you feel a lot worse.
If you feel better in the morning and worse in the afternoon then it would make
sense to try and get to school in the mornings. If it is the other way round and
you feel worse when you wake up but feel better later in the day then try and
go to school in the afternoons.
Also if you have a diary use one everyday because you will not remember
things if your brain gets fogged up, it will relieve the stress of trying to remember!
Keep yourself well hydrated and eat healthy food frequently throughout your
day!
I am not at school but I did work with teenagers in a college with various health issues and the key thing was to ensure that everyone could help each other once they knew their limitations.
I do hope you get some much needed help soon Nezy
Best of luck with this. Given your age and the length of time you've been ill there's a good chance that you will just naturally recover. For now, I would just try to be kind to yourself, and let yourself rest up when you feel you need to - hopefully your school will be supportive with that?
Hi Nezy,
Sorry to hear you've been diagnosed with ME/CFS. I too had it from your age. You might be lucky, it could go away - I wasn't (I've now had it 22 yrs). Therefore please don't think you don't have to do anything, just ignore it and it will go away. That isn't necessarily going to be the case. However, you are in a better position than I was cos I didn't get diagnosed until I was 35. I didn't know there was anything wrong with me - my Mum said I had a bad back and all the Oestopaths etc I saw over the years agreed with her. Therefore I tried the ignore it and soldier on route - it hasn't worked in the long run.
There is a website for younger ME sufferers (AYME). That would be a great place for you to try cos they might be able to guide you in ways of approaching your school and your life. It's not going to be easy balancing rest and friends. ME/CFS can be very lonely without your friends and family around you. I think some children have done part-time schooling, maybe you can get permission to have lay-down rest at lunchtimes in a quiet area.
I did quite a bit of sport when I was younger cos I loved it. You might have to workout how much you can do without 'Bust and booming'. Must admit over the years I have become a fantastic 'Boom and Buster' I am very experienced at it!
Is there clubs which you might be interesting in which aren't physical which means you can make friends who don't always want to be doing physical things?
Good luck and I really do think you should have a look at the AYME website.xx