The Galway ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome support group will hold a meeting on Saturday May 16 at 3pm at the Forster Court Hotel to mark ME Awareness Week. Admission is €3 and all are welcome.
A DVD of a talk on ME/CFS given to a conference in the US by Dr Daniel Peterson will be shown at the event. He has been treating people with ME/CFS in the US since the 1980s after a cluster of patients in his area came down with the condition. Since then he has been involved in raising awareness and conducting research into the illness as well as continuing to see patients.
Dr Peterson was one of a team of doctors who produced international diagnostic and clinical guidelines for ME/CFS in 2003. The Irish ME/CFS association sent an overview of these guidelines to Irish GPs in 2006. The diagnostic part of the guideline was forwarded to Galway GPs again this year.
In this recorded talk Dr Peterson discusses his research into ME/CFS as well as examining the diagnosis and history of the condition. A selection of literature on ME/CFS will be available at the meeting.
The cause of the condition remains unknown, according to the local support group. However, most patients experience a flu-like illness before the onset of it.
“Patients experience symptoms such as sore throats, concentration problems, sleep problems, muscle pain, and flu-like weakness and exhaustion especially after activity. Results from research indicates that the immune system and nervous system of sufferers can be affected. There is no known cure at the moment though some sufferers do improve over time.’
The Galway ME/CFS support group supports medical research into ME/CFS with the hope of finding the cause and cure. For more information or for a free information pack on ME/CFS telephone (01 ) 2350965 or text (086 ) 2353497.
