conditions - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), is characterised by prolonged fatigue associated with a wide range of accompanying symptoms. It affects one’s everyday life, and doesn’t tend to go away with sleep or rest.

As the name suggests, people with this disease feel very tired and exhausted most of the time, as well people with this condition often also suffer from muscular pain. The symptoms can vary widely in intensity with each individual. People with severe CFS will usually find carrying out everyday activities highly, sometimes excessively challenging.

For some people, symptoms will improve over time, for others symptoms may persist for long periods, in some cases even many years.

There is no specific diagnostic test for CFS, therefore tests are usually performed to rule out other potential conditions, such as diabetes, abnormalities of the thyroid gland, and so on.

From Chinese medicine's perspective, Chronic fatigue syndrome is considered as a Qi, life force energy, deficiency and imbalance. This leads to varied underlying and interacting factors causing disharmony in the body's organ's energetic system and Chinese Medicine will look at such disorders as "spleen Qi and Yang deficiency", "Liver Qi stagnation" "Heart blood or Yin deficiency", "Kidney Qi and Yang deficiency", "Dampness retention" or "Heat toxicity" in the body for example.

Chinese Medicines finds that often it is the Spleen and Liver that are affected. In Chinese Medicine the Liver regulates the emotions, stores blood and regulates the flow of Qi. Therefore when there is disharmony in the Liver system, there can be depression, poor blood circulation and Qi, leading to stagnation of Qi energy and blood flow

The Spleen, in Chinese Medicine, transforms and transports the nutrients and fluids of the body and controls the muscles. Therefore when the spleen is affected there can be muscle weakness. Emotionally, the spleen is related to worry, overthinking and mental tiredness.

In Chinese medicine, all organs, energetic systems and functions of the body are connected and related to each other in maintaining balance and harmony throughout the system, thus when one organ system is out of balance, it affects the others to various degrees.

Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine can help by acting on the body’s subtle energy system and physiology to clear obstructions, and maximise the circualation and free flow of energy, blood and fluids, in order to enhance the body’s own innate healing capacity, which leads to an overall increase health and vitality. Chinese Medicine treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome mainly focuses on improving efficient immune function, regulating abnormal activity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and improving the bodies ability to detoxify.