ME, CFS, PVFS & Fibromyalgia

Please note that because we consider Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Post-Viral Fatigue Syndrome (PVFS) & Fibromyalgia to all be part of the same type of condition, and find that they all respond equally well to the Lightning Process Training we use the term ME to refer to all those illnesses.

The Lightning Process & ME

After Phil Parker developed the Lightning Process, and found it so successful with all sorts of 'difficult to treat' cases he began to consider if it would be effective in helping ME sufferers.

To Phil Parker's astonishment the effects were instant and profound. Clients with all kinds of different ME symptoms got better over night.

After Phil Parker had seen his first five ME clients, who all reported the same dramatic improvements, and a complete remission from all their symptoms, and following them up over the following 2 years he discovered three important things

  1. ME can be turned around rapidly.
  2. The Phil Parker Lightning Process is an extremely effective approach for rapidly recovering permanently from ME
  3. There appears to be a set of common findings in ME cases, which are a number of repetitive and specific thought patterns. It's is important to emphasise however, that this does not mean that the Phil Parker Lightning Process considers ME to be all in the mind, it is not; it is an illness with major physical components. However, physical approaches to this condition have a poor and slow outcome, whilst addressing these thought patterns seems, so far, to consistently produce rapid and lasting recovering. This can be considered to be yet another example of how the body and the mind powerfully influence each other.

To give an example of some of the elements that seem to be common in all ME sufferers, below is ONE aspect of Phil Parker’s ME research.

THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CATCH 22

Many sufferers find themselves stuck in the following downward spiral:

  1. You fall ill due to an initial 'bug' or some stress, or external factor that started your ME. This event caused an extreme stress on your immune system.
  2. You felt very unwell. The symptoms were either very strong or lasted so long that you began to wonder if you'd ever get better. You consulted your doctor and specialists in a number of fields, but nobody seemed to have any answers, or provided much useful help, and the illness continued.
  3. These concerns, understandably, made you even more stressed than you were when you got ill, which in turn made your body produce adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) and cortisol are a good and normal response to short term stress, but long term production of them exhausts us, it affects our blood sugar and thyroid levels, it suppresses (and messes up the proper regulation of) our immune system and makes us prone to illness and tiredness…..this unfortunately makes you loop back to step 2.

Please note: The physiology of this cycle is well documented by other authorities (Selye et al), and is explained more fully during the seminar. We've tried to keep the above description brief and simple, but it is of course only a partial glimpse of the complex interactions of the mind, body and hormonal systems, and should not be taken as the entirety of our understanding of the physiological mechanisms involved. More complex events can result from long term stimulation of this cycle, such as adrenal exhaustion and low cortisol levels which in turn create different physiological responses and immune system regulation issues- again these more advanced issues are explained in detail on the seminars.

All in the mind ?

People with ME are very rightly concerned at any suggestion that ME is a psychosomatic illness. It's not. It's not all in the mind. It's a physical illness.

It's taken medicine a long time and much campaigning to get ME recognised as a physical condition, and we are very keen to emphasize that we concur with that view.

It's also true for most people that attempting to recover from ME using physical methods rarely succeeds. The Lightning Process however has been very successful at changing people with ME's physical condition rapidly and for the long term.

We would suggest that if what you are doing isn't working, then it's time to do something different.

Relapse

We are often asked if once you have recovered using the process is it possible to relapse (which of course is a huge fear of many ME sufferers as it happens with so many other approaches). The simple answer is NO, not if you continue to use the process as you have been taught it.

Consider if we were training you to speak French and you left our French course with a good understanding of how to speak French, then, would you expect to be able to speak French a few months or years later?

The answer would not depend on our French training, it would depend on whether you had kept up practising your new acquired skill, and because The Lightning Process is a training programme, it's exactly the same - if you don't use it you will lose it!

Read about The Phil Parker Lightning Process ™ and Multiple Sclerosis (MS)