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   I've just heard another doctor recommend "graded exercise" as a self-help treatment for ME. While I can just about sit here with my mouth shut when people recommend an ineffective treatment, if they are selling that treatment or if a treatment that can actually do harm then I have to speak.

   Graded exercise sounds like a great idea to some: Do just enough walking each day to maintain your activity levels, - then simply increase the level of activity until you're better! Fantastic! Let's tell people with cancer to do the same shall we? If this was the only problem there wouldn't be an illness here to treat.

   The trouble is, that just as you would if you were trying it with cancer patients, very soon you reach the limits of your illness and then collapse (hopefully just to bed). Recovery time for this kind of collapse is not good, (in my experience).

   The secondary trouble is that while you are trying graded exercise you are wasting energy that you could be more valuably spending on other parts of your life!

   I accept that a certain level of exercise has to be done, to keep things ticking over - but in my experience, anything more makes me extremely ill - and helps the illness to keep it's hold over me.

  
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