ANS Rewire

My experience with Daniel Neuffer’s ANS Rewire program

But what about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME?

Ever since I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea and learned how devastating interrupted sleep can be to our health, I (and this blog) have focussed on treating it, as I believe it’s the root cause of my chronic fatigue symptoms. While I am making steady progress with my Vivos mRNA appliance, the truth is that it’s a slow process and I’m yet to reap the full rewards. I still have mild flu-like symptoms which flare up when I’m stressed or don’t get a great night’s sleep; which is more common than I would like given that I need to sleep with a CPAP machine and mask strapped to my face every night.

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By Graham Stoney, ago
Graph showing my average AHI ranges between about 3 and 21.

Results From My First Seven Months on CPAP

I’ve just passed seven months using CPAP, so here’s an update. It took a while for my nose to stop hurting when I first started using it, and fortunately Chris Kelly from AER Healthcare recommended I try paw paw ointment, which turned out to be a lifesaver. As a result, my compliance over the period has been over 98%. Here’s my AHI overview during that time as reported by OSCAR:

Graph showing my average AHI ranges between about 3 and 21.

My AHI results using CPAP for 7 months

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By Graham Stoney, ago
graph showing symptoms moving from very severe range down to mild range over 12 months

My Experience Of Dan Neuffer’s ANS Rewire Program

I first came across Dan Neuffer, the author of the ANS Rewire Program, in 2012 after watching some of the videos on his CFS Unravelled YouTube channel. At the time, I had been desperately ill for almost 5 years and wasn’t getting any helpful response from my doctors. They just didn’t seem to know what was wrong with me. I checked out Dan’s CFS Unravelled website, read his free e-Book Discover Hope, and sent him an email to thank him for putting the information out there.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

All I Want For Christmas Is A Good Nights Sleep

It’s exactly ten years to the day since I started this blog. Oh my god, that’s a fucking long time to feel like shit every minute of every day. I’m so angry about the whole thing, there aren’t even words to describe it.

Fortunately, there is some hope on the horizon for me, so I channel that anger into action that will hopefully restore my health. It’s also just over 12 months since I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which I now suspect is the cause of my malaise. It turns out that getting a really good nights sleep is incredibly important for your long-term health. The symptoms of CFS and sleep apnea are both like an extreme version of what athletes experience when they overtrain, the common link being that the body isn’t getting sufficient chance to repair itself. (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Sleep Apnea: Mandibular Advancement Device, Didgeridoo Practise, Vocal Training, Nose Cones and Throat & Neck Exercises

I’ve been using a combination of a Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD), Vocal Training and Didgeridoo practice to treat my severe sleep apnea for about 4 months now and I thought it was time for an update.

I wear the MAD all night every night, and most of the times that I have the occasional afternoon nap. During this time I have gradually adjusted it out by 6mm, when I hit the point where my temporomandibular joint (on which the lower jaw pivots) started to ache too much. I don’t find the MAD particularly uncomfortable to wear during the night.

It took about a week or so to adjust to sleeping with a chunk of plastic in my mouth but after that I didn’t really mind. I use the repositioner that came with my Somnomed device each morning to reposition my jaw. I notice some pain in my teeth eating crunchy foods particularly in the morning, but figure it will be worth it if it restores my health.

I’m definitely never getting laid again.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

Update On Sleep Apnea

It’s about 3 months since I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, after spending a sleepless night in hospital wired up to a monitoring machine doing a sleep study. Since that time I’ve been trialing a Continuous Positive Air Pressure Machine, which is the front-line treatment for sleep apnea.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

CFS Unravelled (2nd Edition) by Dan Neuffer

I first met Dan Neuffer, the author of CFS Unravelled, when he contacted me through this blog back in 2013. He told me at the time that he had made a full recovery from CFS by treating what he saw as the underlying cause of CFS: a dysfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

When he first contacted me he had just published the first edition of his book on Amazon Kindle and set up the cfsunravelled website to offer hope and support to help other people recover more quickly. He was a man on a mission to spread the word, freely spending hours of his own time talking to suffering people all around the world, and was clearly a very genuine guy.

At the time I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and I remember Dan asking me:

“If you knew that you would soon make a full recovery, would you still be feeling so anxious?”

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By Graham Stoney, ago

What Would I Recommend?

Just got this question via E-mail from a woman who has had ME since 1986 and thought I’d share my answer with you all:

Knowing how hard it is to be disciplined when one is exhausted, would you recommend Gupta, Dynamic NRS or something else?

My short answer is to focus your energy on getting the life that you want, rather than on recovery from ME per-se. That said: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

My Anxious Brain

I’ve just finished reading Joseph LeDoux’s most recent (2015) book Anxious: The Modern Mind in the Age of Anxiety, in an attempt to get a better handle on why I feel so anxious as I recover from CFS, and what I might be able to do about it.

LeDoux is the neuroscientist whose earlier work inspired Ashok Gupta’s amygdala hypothesis for CFS. Another fun fact about him is that he plays music in a band called The Amygdaloids. I’ve noticed that a lot of highly intelligent and creative people love playing music, even if it’s not their main gig in life. My guess is that it exercises the emotional side of the brain that often gets neglected in our overly analytical western society. Writing books about how emotions work in the brain isn’t the same as actually feeling something.

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By Graham Stoney, ago