I recently posted that my fatigue had a name. The clinical name is myalgia encephalomyelitis. Even though chronic fatigue has been recognized as a real thing by science and medicine the methods to cope with it left me feeling less than informed.  I had read several articles and found that a common thread through these articles was the idea of pacing yourself.  I confided on this forum that I did not know how to go about doing this and asked for help.

Noah Greenspan answered with two answers that made complete sense.  After reading his explanation, I knew why I ran out of spoons very early on a Wednesday evening.  I take out my trash out on Wednesday morning and I still use the big garbage bags which must be carried or drug up my driveway which is on an incline.  I do rest between trips, but I know that I expend a lot of energy or in respect to the spoon theory, I use a lot of spoons in this endeavor.

In order to pace myself on Wednesday, I need to plan less strenuous activities for the remainder of the day.

The clinician, Noah, was able to tell me what I needed to do in order to determine how many spoons that I have and how to calculate how many that I have used on a given day.  A good example of how the patient expressed their problem and how the clinician helped to solve it.

I also have a degree in science and understand that the research being done is not always the research that needs to be done.  The research community need to hear the patient and clinician’s perspectives in order to plan their research.  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge has its place, but research for the benefit of life should take a higher precedence.