Sally’s ME/CFS Journey

Sally’s Story

Before the Course

Before coming on the Energy Excellence Course, Sally describes a picture of relentless, all-consuming fatigue: one where even the ordinary events of a day would leave her completely flattened.

“Before I came on the course, I was very, very tired all of the time. I was exhausted by everything. Every event that happened during the day left me flattened. I couldn’t think clearly. My brain was full of fog. It was like a grey blanket of fatigue sitting on me all the time.”

Alongside the exhaustion and brain fog, she also experienced what she described as ongoing viral symptoms.

“I also had kind of viral symptoms. I had often headachy, sore throat, generally feeling ill a lot of the time.”

The physical exhaustion had a significant emotional cost, too. Sally describes the frustration and grief of not being able to live the life she wanted.

“Being so exhausted left me emotionally very fragile. I cried all the time. I was unhappy, frustrated, angry that I couldn’t do all the things I wanted to do with my life. I felt I was letting people down because I wasn’t able to do all the things that I would normally do.”

Coming to the Course

Sally came to the Energy Excellence Course having tried other things and feeling that this was, in her own words, a make-or-break moment.

“The course felt like it was a last chance to get better. It felt very make-or-break for me, so there was a lot riding on it. It felt like it was a chance and opportunity to get better, or it might mean I might not get better. So it felt very important.”

She was also sceptical, something she describes honestly.

“I was very skeptical about the course. I thought that there may be other things going on and that it wasn’t right for me. But I felt very reassured when I walked into the room and all the other people there were very much like me: very intelligent, thinking people, unlikely to have been taken in by anything, which was what I was a bit worried about.”

She also valued the way the course was run, particularly the time given to each person, and the science underpinning the approach.

“I liked the way Amir gave everybody time to talk and listen to everybody and answered all their questions. I liked the science he has behind what he says. That was very important to me, and that he had answers for everything was brilliant.”

The Energy Excellence Course

Sally noticed a difference on the very first day. For her, one of the most striking early signs was the return of clear thinking, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

“At the end of the first day, I noticed that my head had cleared. I was able to find words, I was able to think clearly, I remembered things. I was able to remember the names of all the other people on the course, which I wouldn’t have been able to do before the course.”

The change was noticeable to those around her too. That evening, her flatmate immediately picked up on something different.

“I spoke to my flatmate that night, and she noticed a difference immediately. She said she could hear the difference in the way I was talking, but also the fact that I wasn’t hesitating in my speech all the time because I wasn’t having to hunt for words in my head. It felt like somebody had turned a light on.”

After the Course

Sally is clear that the course involved real effort, and that the work was hers to do.

“It took me about six weeks to get better. And it’s six weeks of hard work. It’s not a miracle cure. You have to put the effort into it and you have to be prepared for that, otherwise you’re not going to get better. What Amir offers isn’t a miracle, it’s a solution, but you have to be the person who creates that solution, so you have to put the effort in.”

She describes noticing improvement almost immediately, with significant progress within the first six weeks.

“I noticed a real difference within a few weeks, and it kept building from there.”