It is difficult to talk bout excercise in CFS, as the symptoms are so different in each person and the severity of illness varies greatly. On one hand we have people who are bedbound (children included ) and on the other, people who are able to work. The experience of CFS is different for each person; we have people who get up and get going every day, they have no choice; mothers with young children, people with work commitments, those with ill family members, YES! We have people with CFS who are carers , I know of someone who is a carer to her husband and also has cancer herself to deal with. (a tall order! ) These people may in fact be risking their health by doing too much. There are also children who are bed bound and quite frightened by this awful illness. A too long a period in bed, may make matters worse and make physical activity difficult to establish. In hospital now after an operation, you are up showeringand moving, even if you don't feel like it, it does increaseyour healing though.

For the busy parent or working adult the idea of graded excercise does not help. Rest does!

We also have to define what we mean by excercise. Graded excercise it to gradually incease the amount of activity over a period of time. This also depends upon your starting point. For some, this is showering and feeding themselves; for others it may mean doing the shopping solo.
What needs to be calriafied is what sorst of exercise we are talking about. Is it graded excercise, aerobic excercise or activity based excercise? It is to raise the level or improve the level of activity a person is capable of? Is it to get fit,seen as a cure, or for relaxation?
We also need to acknowledge our previous level of fitness, and at what point in our illness is the right time to start exercise
There are some doctors who actually believe that walking cures Me/CFS. It iswell known that walking has been of benefit to people with depression, and stress - related disorders, and whilst I have found that walking makes me feel great for a short while,I soon crash and my body starts to shake and my legs go to lead.

Depession, anxiety and ME/CFS have similar symptoms and if these people were included in studies on graded excercise then we would draw the wrong conclusions. There is a group of health professionals, who believe that after the initial virus leaves our bodies, we cling to our state of ill health and need to excercise/push oursleves to get out of the habit of feeling sick.
If you have an illness where having a showere or talking on the 'phone is exhausting you, then you need to l ook for gentle ways of increasing your activity.
The first thing to do in deciding about excercise is to have a correct diagnoses from a doctor who knows about ME/CFS (ring the society). Even then you may need to visit a few doctors before you choose one.
The doctor needs to assess which type of me/cfs you have and whether you should excercise. He/she should be able to divide your symptoms into catergories- muscle problems, coginitive, central nervous system symptoms, - and whether you have post exertional malaise, and/or depression.

People with depression don't usually have the desire to excercise. People with ME/CFS on the other hand have the desire to do everything but find they can't.

Excercise does not have to be a program, as such. Just try to lift the limits of your illness a little at a time. There may be a plateau that you never get beyond.

I try to plan days where I don't have much housework so that I can drive to the park (at the end of my street, 2 houses away) to walk my dogs, or go to the shopping centre. (I do this at 9am and am home at 10am..sometimes i don't shower so i have enough energy to shop.) But for some this is just sitting in a chair!

Try sitting on your bed and bouncing. This is what the astronauts did when they came back from the moon with the symptoms that resembled neurally mediated hypotension. What about dancing or floating in a cool pool? If you cannot do this then it is not your time to exercise.
Watching T.V. is a catch so don't be caught. Listen to music or listen tothe radio, read or look at pictures.

I get up each morning and shower, I make the lunches, I drive them to school, I clean my home (well!) and I shop for food. I rest! I have 5 loads of washing a day, and I cook dinner and I rest. I don't do the dishes in the evening, my husband does.
Do you think I need to exercise? And I feel awful every day.

For me, being able to wash my car, garden and vaccum my house, catch a fish,and shop 'til I drop, (without a relapse) will be a great achievment. There was a time when sitting up was difficult, but that has improved.

I had a complete remission some years ago, and I was surprised at how quickly my body went back to normal; vision, muscles and brain. I was able to go for long power walks easily within 2 weeks. I did it by resting....but it came back.
To balance rest with activity, is the answer.

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