ME Awareness Month - no wait - come back!

The following is from a letter written by Geoff Allen, edited and contributed to by Jane Hurst and emailed to their friends during May Awareness Month, with kind permission to repost.

Hello dear friend,

As you may or may not be aware, May is ME awareness month. In the main I think only ME people seem to be aware of ME awareness month, therefore I thought I'd spread the word a little (if that's ok). Normally I let this event pass without really marking it apart from posting a few things on my Facebook page but this is different for a number of reasons. Firstly a fab article appeared in the Daily Mail on 11th May and I just had to share it with you. There have been many damaging and misleading articles written by lazy and ill-informed journalists over the years, and as you can imagine, these have been hugely distressing to read. And very difficult to counter, too, of course. But Sonia Poulton's article in the Mail is a revelation. I've been waiting for an article like this to appear for the last 10 years! It's brilliant. She understands the numerous problems people with ME encounter, not just with the illness, but also with the way so many ME sufferers are mistreated by the medical profession, and how the illness is badly misunderstood by the general public. So, it's great to see an article that attempts to set the record straight and explodes most of the myths and misperceptions about ME. I know you're all enormously busy and have full and hectic lives, but if you could find the time to read it, I would be so grateful. It would mean a lot to me if you did. I'm sure most of you already have a good understanding of the majority of the problems already but it would still be great if you could read it and perhaps pass the link on to friends and associates. And, should anyone ever question the fact that ME is a physical condition, perhaps you could show them this article. I'll even print out some copies for you if you like! 

One of the other great things about this article is that it mentions a film called 'Voices from the Shadows' which was made by an ME friend's family and features little old me. Well, old me anyway. Har Ha. I'm only in a couple of shots but I absolutely steal the film with my boyish good looks and charismatic screen presence. It also features my good friend Naomi who has been mistreated terribly by the medical profession since she became ill aged 12 (she's 35 now). I've not seen the film (can't watch DVDs unfortunately) but I'm assured it's very good and demonstrates the mistreatment and downright abuse some sufferers have been subjected to. It won an audience favourite award when screened at the recent Mill Valley Film Festival in America too. The film was made principally to send to medical professionals and journalists to try and counter the misinformation (and damn right lies) about ME that remain in the public domain. And in the case of Sonia Poulton (my heroine!) it has achieved its aim. She didn't believe ME existed and seeing the film has changed her opinion. Brilliant. The film recently came out on DVD and I have bought several copies in the hope that lots of people will watch it. It's quite a tough sell tho esp when I know I'm preaching to the converted in all your cases. But I still would be so grateful if you could watch it as it is such a powerful piece of work, not only is it very informative, but most importantly it highlights the reality of this wretched illness. It's only an hour long but obviously I'd be so chuffed if you could find the time to watch it and then help spread awareness of the terrible plight of ME sufferers - especially the long term severely affected like myself and Naomi (& my many other severely affected ME friends. And there in lies the problem. The prognosis for the severely affected is not good. Most ME sufferers improve a bit over time but, despite what most people think, ME is incurable. If you hear of people in the press making a miraculous recovery, especially using one of these controversial psychological techniques, the chances are they didn't have proper neurological ME to begin with. As it stands at the moment ME's a life sentence. This will not change unless research is carried out. That's the huge problem we face. (Btw there are so many other problems with ME too but I won't go on about them now!). As I said, the main problem is a chronic lack of research funds, coupled with the fact that the medical community isn't very interested in tackling ME unfortunately. The illness is just too complicated and the situation will never really improve until there's a massive injection of money into research which we hope will then lead to a major research breakthrough - like a diagnostic test for example. That would make a huge difference.

Shockingly, there's still no dedicated research centre for ME either (unlike all the other major illnesses). It's completely unacceptable. How can things ever change for us when so little research is being carried out? As a result, there's still no bespoke treatment for ME. It's the illness with the largest number of sufferers not to have a dedicated bespoke drug. There are drugs available to try, but they are all for illness management rather than treating the root cause of the disease. Also a lot of the drugs that may help aren't licensed for treating ME so it's almost impossible to get them prescribed. Its a nightmare! We need more trials but there's just precious little research going on at the moment. And also the severely affected ME sufferer, like myself and many of my friends, are almost never included in the trials so that's a problem too especially as we're the ones who need the most help. It's all rather tough to take especially when you've been ill for so long and are dealing with frightening and often very painful symptoms day after day, and the situation just isn't changing for the better. However, I hope this article by Sonia together with the Voices film will prove to be a watershed for people with ME. That's my sincere hope anyway and that's one of the reasons I'm sending this email to you. This film is so important and we just need as many people as possible to see it. Awareness can bring about change. It could also mean we get our lives back. It gives us hope at least, which is SO important when living with a chronic illness. (I said I wouldn't go on about it but I did. Sorry. It's so difficult to hold back sometimes! I'm sure you understand).

Geoff Allen

Thanks so much for reading this. I really appreciate it. I'm sure you've got enough problems of your own without me banging on about ME. Promise I won't mention it again. Well not a few weeks anyway. Ha. Hope you're all ok and life is treating you well.

Much love to you and all your family, pets etc. And thanks again for reading. Speak soon.

Lots of love
Geoffrey

Jane Hurst