We returned from two lovely weeks in Florida last weekend. We had a glorious time of warm sun, balmy breezes, beach walks and nights falling asleep to the lullaby of waves. It was a great respite from the long winters that we have here at home. Colorado has a great climate—temperate summers, golden autumns and pleasant winters (I don’t mind winters of reasonable duration filled with the beauty of snow!). But spring in the Rocky Mountains is a different story—just one long extension of winter.
But shortly after arriving home I crashed. In spite of my time of rest and relaxation in Florida I am experiencing fatigue, headache and general malaise. Due to ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), I always have a hard time adjusting back to high altitude after a trip.
High altitude means less oxygen and in my case, less oxygen exacerbates my symptoms. When I travel to low altitude places, I feel much better. We are seriously considering moving.
The nature of ME/CFS is such that the cells of one’s body fail to receive or use the oxygen they require. This raises the question; could routine oxygen therapy be helpful to those who suffer from ME/CFS? In my continual perusal of articles and blogs regarding anything that is about ME/CFS I have run across a few references to this. But it is by no means a commonplace treatment.
3 comments:
Glad you had such a good trip and fun days. Sorry to hear your body is having to adjust once again and resting is your major activity right now. Thanks for your comments on my blog. God bless.
We'll just have to head for lower ground and more oxygen.
Hello - I now you posted this a while ago, but I was doing a search on CFS and high altitude and found your blog. I too have CFS (and FMS) maybe even ME and I am doing not very well at all in Denver at a 5280 feet. I did better in Montana at 4793 after a month. I still had crashes, but I got over them by the next day. In Denver, I never seem to recover my energy and feel it is getting worse every year. I too felt much better closer to sea level in the south. I am wondering if you moved to lower ground and if it helped. Good luck! I think I am going to head to lower ground anyway. The summers in Denver are getting unbearably hot anyway.
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