Recovery guidance - ME/CFS, Long Covid and related illnesses

s-porter4
Nov 10
3 min read

Inspirational guidance & tips to support recovery from ME/CFS, Long Covid, Fibromyalgia and related illnesses.

Post 22 - 10/11/2025

"Green Shoots"

An important part of recovery is about building evidence to support the view that you are making progress. Avoiding big relapses and making gradual, sustained improvement is an essential strategy. I have previously written a piece about recording weekly wins as a way of increasing motivation and monitoring progress.

A client recently asked me this question;

"What are the signs that I am making progress. What am I looking out for and what will I notice?"

There are more obvious signs like those listed below;

You find that you have a bit more energy and that you are able to do a bit more activity over the course of a day e.g. walking further, household chores, gardening, reading for longer or engaging in a longer conversation.
Across a day and a whole week you find that you can combine more mental, physical, emotional and social activity without any significant rise in symptoms.
You can raise your baseline to another level (through the concept of adjustment periods (see my previous piece on progress cycles) without any obvious PEM.
Ability to undertake more high, or medium energy activities (I refer to these as red and amber) across an individual day, and a week e.g. a shower and a walk on the same day.
Experiencing less pain in your body. There is likely to be less intensity and fewer arears of the body will be affected.
You will see a reduction in the number of symptoms (although fatigue is likely to continue) and there will less intensity from those that remain.

Then, there are more subtle signs. This will obviously depend on the stage of the illness that you are in and your capacity at any point. You might notice that;

Sleep becomes a little more refreshed (although it will still be unrefreshing on the whole.)
Your sex drive starts returning.
Appetite returns to normal and/or you have less sensitivity to certain foods.
You can tolerate small amounts of alcohol, and caffeine.
Feet and hands do not feel as cold.
You are starting to consider your future. This could be making plans, organising a holiday etc.
A longer time is spent out of the house.
You are more inclined to engage with others in conversation.
You start considering the needs of others more and begin to notice the little things.
There is a more positive feeling about life and your future, and you start to get more satisfaction from your baseline.
There is more motivation to do the things that "make your heart sing" e.g. playing guitar, listening to music, swimming or meeting a friend for coffee.
You begin to notice a calmness returning.
You smile and laugh more!
People comment on the healthy appearance of your skin tone, your general healthiness and that you are returning to your old self (this might not always be a good thing!)
You feel more confident when increasing activity and are less fearful of consequences.
Your tolerance level (sometimes referred to as your envelope) is wider. You can stretch your baseline by a greater amount without a fear response from the brain.
There is a letting go of the past. This could be guilt, regret, frustration, sadness, anger etc.