Fiona’s Chronic Fatigue, an Extraordinary Story

Approach: Curable

Background

Fiona’s healing journey was one of the first I heard about in the sphere of Chronic Fatigue and Chronic Pain recovery. If I hadn’t personally known her, I don’t think I would have believed such an extraordinary story. Learning about Fiona’s journey was one of the reasons I decided to specialise into chronic pain physiotherapy and focus my attention on folks that had trialled everything that the bio-medical approach had to offer and turned their attention to neuroplasticity.

Fiona’s symptoms started when she was ten, after falling off of a horse. She specifically recalls intermittent symptoms of neck, shoulder, back and hip pain which over her teenager years gradually worsened until she was in constant pain. Her fatigue symptoms started in her early twenties, which for many years left her confined to home and unable to work, socialise or live in any way that she wished. She had to move in with her parents to help her manage and had tremendous worries about how the situation was feasible long term.

During this time she connected with other suffers of ME through social media channels to keep her company and support other sufferers. It was during this time she came across an advert for Curable on Facebook and initally dismissed it as unsuitable for her symptoms. Only after reading countless other reviews did she decide to give it a trial and has never looked back.

The Journal of Medical Internet Research in New Zealand rated Curable as being an excellent quality tool for Chronic Pain. It includes highly rated pain neuroscience education and encouragement of self-management skills and core management skills (Devan, 2019)

Fiona reports that after approximately one week of using Curable she saw a significant improvement in her fatigue and pain symptoms. Fiona was apprehensive that this was only an intermittent break but after 6 weeks, when she hadn’t relapsed, she believed she had found her answer.

Fiona no longer needs to complete daily exercises from the programme, but continues to use techniques as and when she finds them useful. She states that her symptoms have never returned to the extent they once were, but when she occasionally feels a tiredness or headache she addresses them with the Curable methodologies, which very quickly resolves them. 

One of these techniques is written reflection, which we know can significantly improve a person’s suffering with Fibromyalgia’s pain (Schubiner, 2010).

She treats any of these mild flair ups of discomfort with kindness to herself, instead of trying to push them down, to take rest when it is needed and know herself enough to be aware of when she may have overfilled her diary.

Before Fiona found Curable she had been through the wringer of NHS services and pain management approaches, including but not limited to multiple high dose pain medications, Steroid injections, Physio led pain management programmes, Denervation surgery, Prolotherapy and Psychotherapy.

Fiona now works as a university researcher and continues to publish articles and advise others about how she found her resolution via her twitter. She is soon to publish her website. She is happy to talk to anyone who feels they might benefit from the Curable approach but wishes to ask further questions.

Intangible Factors: Mindset (What is this?)

• Determination – Fiona reports using her, sometimes, negative trait of ‘perfectionism’ to work extremely hard on the online course Curable. She had a strong determination to focus all her waking attention on it, as with limited energy, she had to choose where to place her focus. She puts this determination as a key feature why she recovered so quickly.

• Curiosity – Fiona was and is an avid user of social media to connect with other people suffering from Chronic fatigue and other chronic conditions. She used this skill to search for healing methodologies when her bio-medical approaches failed.

• Open-minded – When Fiona learnt about Curable she was initially dubious that it would be the resolution she was looking for. However, after reading many testimonials on the approach she reasoned that it was worth trying, even though she had tried similar approaches in the past. Her continued openness to various approaches and giving them complete trials, helped her discover a technique that challenged her belief systems about pain and to help her learn invaluable skills.

• Goal setting – Fiona set many goals when she started to see improvements in her symptoms and this became the driver to her continued recovery. She wanted to get better so that she could continue to achieve these goals. Since recovering she has been able to independently travel abroad, hike, mountain bike, dance, restore and move house without assistance. More than I think many people can achieve!

• Kindness – One of the biggest features Fiona states she had to learn and remember during her healing journey was in the act of kindness. A state she was very familiar with applying to others, but not to herself. She had to learn how to apply the same patience, care and gentleness to herself that she was so good at applying to other people.

Tangible Factors: Environmental

• Pain Education – the knowledge of how the central nervous system works and how it is different to our preconceived notions of why we are experiencing discomfort

• Reframing Self Talk – to become aware of how we are treating ourselves and thus the information that is being fed to our nervous system

• Meditation – to learn how to recognise the information behind the sensation

• Self Led – a technique that requires no outside participation of a guide or teacher, but that follows a strategic pathway that a participant may follow at their own pace.

• Journaling – to address hidden emotions related to current or past events that relate to pain processing

Barriers and Learning

• We were trialling a new microphone set up in this interview prior to which we hadn’t quite ironed out the kinks. Therefore the sound quality in this interview may not be as intended. There was some background noise of people walking about and dogs barking we are learning how to edit out. The external noises may have presented a distraction to Fiona and I know at a point I looked around to the source of the noise. I would like to remain focussed on the interviewee in case it distracts them.

• Fiona was having her house renovated, so we were kindly allowed to use her neighbour’s house to film the interview. We didn’t know if the change in environment would affect the answers given. However, Fiona is quite used to telling her story of resolution, we suspect it may not have been too distracting as it may have been for a different participant

• We had a time restriction on today’s interview to catch a train. At no point was the interviewee asked to speed up or change any answers, but she was aware that the deadline was there. This may have affected the calmness and relaxed atmosphere that should be present during recording. I have learnt to try, if possible to not overbook the day so that no rushed atmosphere is present.

‘Case Studies shared on Liberation Found reflect the individual experiences of people who have undergone different methods of treatment and have found a way that has worked for them. However, individual results may vary. We do not claim, and nor should you assume, that any experience recounted is typical or representative of what another person might experience. We cannot guarantee that anyone will achieve the same results. Before you undertake any methodologies that are new to you, please work with a medical professional to ensure this is a suitable technique in your circumstance. We encourage you to discriminate carefully and make your own decisions before signing up for any retreats, sessions, or healings.’

‘The opinions and beliefs shared in individual case studies do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of “Liberation Found”. The video content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. We do not make any representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness or completeness of the video content. We do not warrant the performance, effectiveness or applicability of any sites listed or linked in relation to the video content’