Excellent Articles on Post-Exertional Malaise

Ugh...it's a Plan B day...you know, the kind where you wake up so severely crashed that you have to completely dump all your plans for the day and just give in to the need to rest.  The kind of day when just pushing through is simply not an option.  I haven't had one of these in a long while, so I guess I'm due.  I'm not sure if it's your run-of-the-mill Did Too Much crash or if one of the many cold viruses floating around triggered it.  It's only the third week of school, but my kids tell me lots of their classmates already have colds.  'Tis the season...

So, I have to postpone my plans to go into more detail on 504 Plans, but I promise to get to it next week.  Instead of me doing the writing today, I thought I'd share some really excellent articles on Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) by Jennie Spotilla a former CFS blogger and member of the CFIDS Association's Board of Directors.  Jennie is a wonderful writer and did a fabulous job researching, interviewing, and writing this 3-part article series:

Part 1: Unraveling Post-exertional Malaise
Part 2: Post-exertional Malaise Perception and Reality
Part 3: Post-exertional Malaise: Cause and Effect

Jennie's articles are easy to understand and get at the bottom of this euphemistically-named symptom that I have always felt is at the heart of CFS.  As soon as I was diagnosed and began reading about CFS and learned about its characteristic exercise intolerance (aka PEM), I knew it was one of the critical pieces of the CFS puzzle.  It is the one unique defining characteristic of CFS, and, for me at least, is the hardest part of the illness to live with.

So, check out Jennie's wonderfully written articles.  I'm going to set the laptop aside, turn off the TV, and just relax with my book and my herbal tea.