Athletes with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Set Sights on Olympic Gold
A lot of people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS) feel like they've run a marathon after picking up a few groceries, so now imagine working against ME/CFS, complete with post-exertional malaise, to make it where only the finest athletes even dream of getting - to the Olympic Games.
Somehow, 2 athletes with ME/CFS have set their sights on Olympic Gold this year. Greco-Roman wrestler Ari Taub, from Canada, already has secured his spot. He was diagnosed about 8 years ago. Flatwater canoeist and former Olympian Anna Hemmings still has a few hurdles to clear, but 5 years after her diagnosis she's hoping to lead the British team to victory.
Certainly, not everyone with ME/CFS can hope for this type of recovery. It has to help a lot that Taub and Hemmings were both world-class athletes before they got sick. Still, to think that they were able to get back to that is amazing and encouraging. If they can regain their former abilities, maybe the rest of us can at least make progress. Also, perhaps their presence in Beijing will help bring much-needed attention and awareness to the disease.
- Read more about Ari Taub's long, winding journey to the Olympic Games.
- Find out how Anna Hemmings says she was able to overcome ME/CFS.
Do stories like these give you hope? Do they make you worry that other people will expect this type of miraculous recovery in you? Share your comments here or in About.com's Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome forum (look under Newsletter & Blog Topics.)
Comments
Although these stories are wonderful for the athletes involved, they leave readers (who do not know MR/CFS) with a possibly completely erroneous misconception of the condition. It sounds to me like both athletes had a potential post-viral syndrome which resolved with time, unlike most of the “normal” ME/CFS population. I fear their stories being touted as the “ME/CFS poster-stories” because I do not feel they represent the norm. I know a women who caught Parovirus (5th’s disease) from her child and had FMS/ME/CFS for 1.5-2 years. It is now completely resolved. For the majority of us with ME/CFS, we’ve had it for many, many more years. And we’ve found it is long-standing, and chronic. It is a condition to be managed like diabetes or COPD. It is not something most of us recover from and go on to work 60 hour weeks and ski the slopes again. Our lives are inevitably changed and we have little understanding from the government, the medical community, and the public in general. We must also keep in mind that there are many subgroups of ME/CFS being studied. Perhaps this “quick recovery” group is a particular subgroup; but they are not what should or can be expected in general. I fear stories like this will simply put patients with ME/CFS who are struggling terribly at even more disadvantage because the public, families, and others will begin to expect us to just “get over it” like those other folks did.
I agree with Edna. These two athletes are not the norm. Also I have not read anthying about “reverse therapy” to stimulate a gland in the brain thought to cause ME” Anyone know what that is all about?
Edna, you basically took the words right out of my mouth. I have felt this way ever since the story of Michelle Akers, a former member of the Women’s U.S. Soccer Team , having chronic fatigue syndrome came out. And that was almost 10 years ago. I was only 18 at the time and I had been suffering with cfids/fibro for about 3 years then, so I was struggling with the lack of understanding from so many people and this story just made my situation seem not so bad. One of the ways I learned to explain it was that Michelle only had chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a bit more manageable than chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome,which I had, where your immune system attacks everything causing numerous other problems.
Where are the stories of people that have a far worse battle with these diseases?!?