CFIDS Awareness Day is May 12
From Fatigued to Fantastic! Specialist Gives Patients Their Lives Back
NEW YORK, NY May 12, 2006 – Today is CFIDS Awareness Day and millions of sufferers with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome are hoping that more will finally bring relief for a condition that still puzzles the medical establishment and disables 6-10 million Americans.
“This is a devastating condition that robs you of your life—bringing constant exhaustion, achiness, brain fog, insomnia and weight gain,” says board certified internist Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, leading CFIDS expert and best-selling author of From Fatigued to Fantastic! (Avery Penguin Putnam), and newly released Pain Free 1-2-3 (McGraw-Hill, 2006). “Imagine having a toothache that spreads through your whole body and lasts for 20 years. That’s what it feels like living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and its painful cousin Fibromyalgia.”
Jacqueline Spezia, 40, who lives in Manalapan, NJ, is a former elementary school teacher who was diagnosed with CFIDS in 2003 after seeing scores of endocrinologists, rheumatologists, gynecologists, and neurologists. After suffering 4 miscarriages and crushing exhaustion that wouldn't get better, she finally found Dr. Teitelbaum, who took her off antidepressants, because she wasn’t depressed. “This disease is not psychological as many physicians would like to believe. Dr. Teitelbaum cured the chronic infections in my intestines, bladder and throat as well as cystic acne, and got me off the antibiotics I'd been taking for over 3 years.” Today, Spezia shows few signs of CFIDS and is ready to go back to work after a 4-year hiatus. “Before I met Dr. Teitelbaum I was a ‘2’ and now I rate myself at ‘8 or 9’ out of ‘10’,” she says. “My experience shows that a comprehensive medical approach works best to get to the bottom of this complicated syndrome. Dr. Teitelbaum gave me my life back.”
Teitelbaum is on the road this month to raise awareness about this routinely misdiagnosed, misunderstood and under-funded condition. He knows CFIDS firsthand, having contracted the disease while in medical school at Ohio State University and recovering only after taking a leave of absence for a year. Since graduation, Dr. Teitelbaum has dedicated his 28-year career to finding effective treatment. He sees patients ten days a month, some of whom fly to his Annapolis clinic from around the world. The rest of the time he travels nationwide and internationally to educate the public and fellow health care professionals about therapies that work.
Teitelbaum’s groundbreaking research published in the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (8:2, 2001) finally showed that effective treatment for CFIDS is possible. His gold standard study showed an unprecedented 91 percent improvement in quality of life among patients participating in his integrative medical protocol within two years and a 76 percent improvement within three months (p<.0001 versus placebo). The cornerstone of his protocol is S.H.I.N., which addresses Sleep, Hormones, Infections/Inflammation, and Nutrition. Dr. Teitelbaum is Director of the Center for Effective CFIDS/Fibromyalgia Therapies in Annapolis, MD.
“Our statistics on American fatigue are just the tip of the iceberg,” warns Dr. Teitelbaum. “In addition to those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, at any time 25 million Americans suffer from disabling fatigue that lasts for at least a month. That’s approximately 30 times as many people who need to get their lives back. Unfortunately too many busy physicians have written off fatigue as a psychological problem.”
Dr. Teitelbaum’s research has proven this is not so. Fatigue is a real, devastating physical disorder, as was recently verified by CDC research published in April in the Journal of Pharmacogenomic, showing a biological basis for CFIDS. Fortunately, now effective treatment is available. According to Teitelbaum, chronic fatigue is best treated through integrative medical therapies. For more information on his research, books, and to speak to patients, please contact Dean Draznin Communications, 641-472-2257.
Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D. is one of the world's leading integrative medical authorities on fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. He is the lead author of eight research studies on their effective treatments, and has published numerous health & wellness books, including the bestseller on fibromyalgia From Fatigued to Fantastic! and The Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Solution. Dr. Teitelbaum is one of the most frequently quoted fibromyalgia experts in the world and appears often as a guest on news and talk shows nationwide including Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, Oprah & Friends, CNN, and Fox News Health.
