Trust Your Gut Instincts

I’ve always been a firm believer in trusting one’s gut instinct. I taught The Apprentice and Junior Accountant, when they were young girls, that if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t, and I’ve started teaching the younger three the same thing.

It was a combination of frustration and gut instinct that motivated me to return to the doctor in October 2010, six months after my original virus and post-viral fatigue diagnosis, and ask for antibiotics. I told her that it felt like the original virus was still in me.

She explained how post-viral fatigue symptoms usually presented in the same way as the original symptoms and that she couldn’t give me antibiotics without targeting a specific illness. I knew she was right, but I was so frustrated and fed up with being ill that I went home, cursed the doctor and sobbed.

I continued to Google information on chronic fatigue syndrome and post-viral fatigue, but I still wasn’t finding the answers that I was looking for. I found many alternative remedies to help with the lack of energy – a tablespoon of Manuka honey three times a day being a popular one – but I was sick of ‘coping’ with it. I wanted it gone! I even Googled CFS and PVFS misdiagnosis, but there were so many illnesses misdiagnosed as CFS and PVFS that I had no idea where to start.

November arrived and I developed a cold that lingered. I didn’t take much notice of it as I was already fatigued and depressed. I wasn’t surprised that there was something else going wrong with my useless body.

The cold became a cough, which continued to worsen as Christmas approached. I returned to the doctor the day before Christmas Eve feeling wretched as the cough moved to my chest. She gave me antibiotics to prevent a secondary infection and sent me home to rest.

Within 48 hours of starting those antibiotics, I was racing around the house like a mad woman cleaning everything that had been neglected. Mr T was hot on my heels begging me to slow down before I crashed, but I knew, without a doubt, my ‘post-viral fatigue’ was gone. Even with horrendous cold symptoms still plaguing my body, I had more energy than I’d felt in eight months.

I returned to my doctor in January 2011 and told her about my miracle recovery. She agreed that the antibiotics curing my PVFS meant that I didn’t have PVFS. Not only was my gut instinct right, but from that day onwards my doctor started to trust my instincts as well.

I left the doctor feeling ecstatic, over the moon, deliriously happy – I was cured! Or so I thought…

Next week: The right diagnosis…sort of…