As I sit down to think of all the things in my life that I am thankful for, I’m also narrowing it down to what may appeal to most people who suffer with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia or other illnesses. Now, that may seem odd, but I’ll share with you why I think it is important to look at this topic. One, it’s Thanksgiving, a time when we’re stuffed full of good food and probably had a pretty good day sharing our bounty with family and friends. And two, it’s time to be grateful for what we have. We’re alive, we have time to grow and become the people we really want to be and with the growing, doing and becoming, we can look forward to a life that carries its own rewards.

Let me explain a little more. As strange as it may sound at first,

“What?” you say. “Are you nuts?”

(This is short audio today, 2 minutes 48 seconds. I hope you listen to it & read the rest of the post. Then, leave a comment for what you feel thankful for. Many blessings, Cinda Crawford)

Nutt-y maybe, but not nuts. If I had not gotten so ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I would never have acquired the ability to have the compassion that I do now for people who cancel out on a fun outing (even a Thanksgiving Day meal!) at the last minute because they’re suffering with an unexpected symptom flareup -or- for people who can’t manage a part-time job because they can’t get out of bed for days at the time.

If I had not gotten so ill with Fibromyalgia, I would never have had the compassion to deal with people who have trouble thinking of the right word to say in a sentence, or who insist on telling you about the different “spots” that hurt in their body, but their doctors can’t seem to find out what is wrong -or- treat adequately.

If I had not suffered so many years in chronic pain myself, I would think a chronic pain sufferer might instead be a chronic complainer and not a worthy person to get to know or be around as a friend. If I had not had such a dysfunctional immune system, I might think that people who regularly get sick with cold or flu-like symptoms, etc., (*I know a lady who marks her calendar… . After twenty years, she’s sick for one week of every month!) are putting on airs or possibly are hypochondriacs.

After suffering for so long and now living well on the other side of illness, I can honestly say that I’m thankful for the tough and convoluted path I took to get well. My walk through the valleys was surely challenging. I’m sure yours is, too. Surely there were times when I doubted if I could or would get better.

I can assure you that having compassion and feeling grateful are not only great skills to acquire, they’re a blessing. Taking empty, non-important moments and replacing them with an attitude of gratitude is a blessing worthy of paying such a steep price.

Now, at some time during each holiday season, I give thanks. For each family visit and the shared time together, I give thanks. For each desire in life that I am lucky enough to accomplish, I am elated. For each friend I meet and each person I help, I am humbled, yet bubbling with joy. I feel grateful and I Am Thankful For YOU!

Thank you so much,
Cinda Crawford, host of the Health Matters Show

When I choose a person to interview like Dr. Robin Mayfield, I’m looking for someone who (a) has great knowledge on the subject (*in this case, Fibromyalgia), someone who (b) is positive and approachable, someone who (c) can speak to my audience in a meaningful way and add great value to the conversation -and- (d) someone with whom I feel a personal connection.

We are fortunate today to have that great combination in my interview guest. Be sure to listen to this entire edition of the Health Matters Show, plus read the blog post to the end. There are some special announcements in both!

We talk about such issues as…

(11 minutes 23 seconds)

WHY and HOW people who get Fibromyalgia may be victims of the perfect storm.

Paraphrased from Dr. Robin Mayfield:

There is no one cause of Fibromyalgia. Each person gets sick because of varied problems and disruptions of the following components: hormonal, immune system, nervous system, musculo-skeletal system, emotional/ mental, and even, possibly a ‘spiritual disconnect’.

Folks, Dr. Robin Mayfield is good at this and she helps a lot of people. Find out more about what she is doing at her Fibromyalgia website.

NOTE: She and I will be talking in depth about these issues and more on a “live” Fibromyalgia teleseminar, Tuesday, October 19 at 7 pm EST. (To determine when this broadcast will be available “live” in your time zone, use this time zone converter website.)

A) The presentation will be “live.” You will be able to hear the information right over your phone, on your computer speakers via the webcast -or- you can catch it quickly thereafter on a link I will provide you. The audio file will be up for 30 days for each person who actually registers for this specific teleseminar! And during the broadcast…

B) Dr. Robin Mayfield will answer your personal questions!

So how do you get the information about this Fibromyalgia teleseminar event? Join my teleseminar list and I will send out the information and a special “link” several different times before October 19th. Only the “smart” people who want to know more about these horrid illnesses join my list because they know I deliver and bring them great information. Wink… wink. I encourage you… sign up now.

When you get the email concerning this event, open it and click on the link inside that allows you to register for the teleseminar. (Your notice will come from Get Well Health.) You’ll get a notice about each teleseminar, but you must physically register for each one when offered. For being on the list, you also will receive 2 “free” mini-courses with helpful and healthful information.

When October 19th arrives, listen “live” by calling in -or- go to the website address provided and get on the broadcast that way, thereby enabling you to listen over your computer speakers free of charge. There’s only about a 10 second delay difference between the live broadcast and the “free” webcast audio. And even if you call in, I still encourage you to get on the website. Once there you can see what is happening and interact with your questions and comments. Dr. Mayfield and I want your questions!

Cinda Crawford
Your host of the Health Matters Show

Hold on to your hat, dear one, because undoubtedly, this interview with Mary Moeller, the author of Fibromyalgia Cookbook: A Daily Guide to Becoming Healthy Again (revised) is one of the most powerful, thought-provoking interviews I’ve ever done for the Health Matters Show! Mary really shares some truly great information.

(Note: This is actually the second part of our longer, extended interview. You can catch the first part from last week’s interview by accessing the link here, but please do it later. I don’t want you to miss what’s coming up next.)

(This audio file is 29 minutes and 44 seconds long, and it contains dynamite stuff! Either listen here or download for later. Just be sure to catch it all.)

No one can or should try to answer these questions for you. The right answers must come from you and you alone. Simply know, dear one, that you don’t have to go 20 years before you find them out and end up saying… if I’d only realized this -or- if I’d only done that!

Learn about what it will take for you to get well.

Learn about how you can be a different person.

Learn how taking responsibility for your health is the magic pill that you’ve been waiting for!

Pick up your copy of Mary Moeller’s fantastic book here at this Amazon.com link:

And if you want to check out more of what she’s doing now that she is enjoying life as a healthy person, see her newest website, Health Book Report.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Health Matters Show today. I am your host,

Cinda Crawford

PS- I would love it if you would share this post and podcast with your Fibro and CFS friends who really need some answers and help about how to get well. It just might be exactly what they need to hear. And that would make your action a very loving thing to do.

Whether you’re searching for information and answers on Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or other chronic health problems, often you can find good health information on the web, if you know where to look and who to pay attention to. That can be a significant fact in your search for meaningful answers.

At the Health Matters Show I try very hard to provide you with great sources of health information to help you re-make yourself into being all that you can be– healthwise and on a mind/body/spirit basis. I believe I’ve demonstrated the “health information” facts this week alone. (Feel free to review the timely announcements about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, if you missed them. See the blog post references that follow and the comments to those posts:

(Today’s Health Matters Show audio podcast is 8 minutes 27 seconds.)

• Failure to Duplicate XMRV Results
• UK News on XMRV from the ME Association and Co-Cure
• XMRV and CFS Controversy: Part 1 -and-
• XMRV and CFS Controversy: Part 2.

What traditional medical science is not telling you (or cannot tell you) and what you’re not hearing is the rest of the story… such as… What’s really wrong with you? What “contagion” (if any) is driving your illness? Who is coming up with answers that you can use? What health information and findings can help you figure out how to get well NOW!?

Also, critically important, what’s not being said at all is exactly what you yourself can do today to begin getting well.

The lack of significant progress by the mostly private-funded research projects creates a huge need within the Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome communities. Even so they seem to accomplish more than public entities like the Center for Disease Control or CDC. It has produced little more than stagnant inertia! (If you haven’t done so yet, please review the reference posts listed above. A new research project by the Department of Health and Human Services has recently started.)

So I ask, why should you continue to wait on answers from medical science? Why are you waiting?

Why can’t and don’t you begin to act NOW?

You might be one of the people to get ahead of the curve. Let’s face it… there is an incredible volume of people who are depending on medical science to come up a cure for what ails them!

You have to wonder if they really will find “the” cause and “the” cure for CFS. It’s been over 20 years since the newest recognition of the illness that we now know as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. As it stands now, we’re not much closer to producing a medical cure that helps the scores of people who suffer with it. Yes, we have better questions, but the answers to these questions are a ways down the road.

Did you know that to date only a few methodologies are accepted and proven to help you get on with your life and stop suffering so much? For the most part, they’ve come from the alternative medical field.

Thank goodness “medicine” can now recognize the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, except for the doctors who still choose not to acknowledge that the illnesses exist. (I wonder how they help their patients when they have such an attitude? Do they continue to spout the old platitudes, “Go home and learn to live with your symptoms?” -or- “It’s all in your head!”

OH! NO! Say it ain’t so!

Thank goodness “medicine” now has a few tested and accepted practices that they can rely on, like the 18-point trigger point examination for a patient suffering with Fibromyalgia. Along with a few other criteria, this test alone can be used to definitively diagnose the illness.

Thank goodness “medicine” and the big pharma (the huge, multi-billion-dollar drug industry) have found a few drugs to help the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. Not all, but some of your symptoms can be relieved somewhat through use of pharmaceutical drugs. The thing to keep in mind is constantly taking drugs is no healthy, long term solution.

I encourage you to sign up for the RSS feed or get on the email mailing list of the Health Matters Show. Within a few weeks, I will provide you with more information about how to feel better, how to improve your life and how to heal. I plan to make it easy for even the most cognitively challenged brains and for people who are more physically challenged, too. I truly believe that very often in life the best learning comes for the teacher who’s been there and done that. Folks, I’m one of those teachers, me, Cinda Crawford!

Thanks for your time and attention today. Please visit this website, blog and podcast often. Also, please comment and leave your thoughts about the events of this week. Your opinion and input are invaluable.

Cinda Crawford, host of the Health Matters Show