Shiatsudo Blog

I happened to catch an interesting feature last week on Radio 4’s Case Notes about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). CFS is also known as Myalgic Encephalitis (ME) and is characterised (as the name suggests) by extreme fatigue with all sorts of accompanying symptoms. I think one of the most difficult things for sufferers of CFS/ME is that there isn’t any specific treatment for the condition, so apart from feeling run down and exhausted, people with CFS/ME might also feel helpless, because there doesn’t seem to be a silver bullet for their condition. Often, treatment is aimed at the symptoms that accompany the disease (such as headaches, muscle pain and depression), because there just isn’t enough known about what causes it.

The program I caught on Radio 4 featured Dr Esther Crawley who is the UK’s only paediatrician to specialise in CFS/ME and had some interviews with her and some of her patients.

The full transcript of the program is a very interesting read. Dr Crawley’s approach seems to be one of regulating activity and trying to spread a patient’s energy through the week. This is a great idea because often people with CFS often only feel the effects of higher intensity activity a day or two after they have exerted themselves. So there is this horribly “payback” that hits them a day or two later if they exert themselves too much on a good day. This can become a bit of a cycle – as soon as someone with CFS/ME feels good, they rush out and over-exert themselves, and then a day or two later they crash, then a bit later they feel OK again and rush out etc etc. Regulating activity through the week helps her patients break this cycle.

Also interesting are Dr Crawley’s thoughts on sleep. People suffering from CFS/ME often sleep much longer than normal because they feel tired. She suggests that this might not be the best solution, because sleep quality deteriorates the longer you sleep. So, counter-intuitive though it seems, restricting sleep to similar amounts that other people get is another key to Dr Crawley’s treatment.

It would be fascinating to see a therapy like Shiatsu incorporated into something like Dr Crawley’s approach. I think it would fit in well. Certainly the parallels are interesting. In treating with Shiatsu, we always try and encourage balance. Sometimes, this means restricting the treatment - doing less rather than more. All Shiatsu students will at some point in their training be told something akin to “you are trying to do too much”. It seems natural to us to try and tackle a problem by doing everything we can to solve it; maybe we throw in every possible point we know, or we extend the time of a treatment because we haven’t “finished” treating a meridian. It is counter-intuitive, but sometimes we have to pull the reigns in a little. Using only a few points in a treatment will allow the body to really focus the energy on those functions we are stimulating, rather than scattering energy through the functions of 10 or 12 points. Making sure we cease treating before the client’s energy stops responding to the treatment makes the treatment more effective, because we don’t exhaust our client.

In fact, in Shiatsu, we really should do as little as possible, whilst doing just enough to give an effective treatment. Encourage energy to the deficient meridian, but don’t stimulate it to the point of excess. Move energy that is in excess, but don’t move so much that it becomes deficient. It is a balancing act, much like Dr Crawley balancing the activities of one of her patients.

Anyway, I’ve probably written too much; go read the transcript of the program.

Tags:balance, cfs, chronic fatigue, me