Customer Reviews

CFIDS, Fibromyalgia, and the Virus-Allergy Link: Hidden Viruses, Allergies, and Uncommon Fatigue/Pain Disorders

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This book is awful! The author's style is impossibly difficult to read, the information presented is not sourced or footnoted adequately, and the editing is terrible. I would not recommend this book to anyone, but especially not to a layperson with CIFDS looking for help and information. Save your money and spend it on something else.

There is a wealth of information in this book, which I am sure would be useful if only we could understand it. Duncan's approach to writing seems to be "everything and the kitchen sink." Case studies, patient quotes, observations, "surmises", treatments, and charts are all thrown together willy-nilly. It was a real chore to wade through the chaos. From what I could gather, Bruce Duncan is proposing to treat ME/CFS with a combination of food elimination diets, detox programs, avoidance of toxins and allergens, allergy desensitization, and viral (and protozoal) desensitization through provocation/neutralization.

On the whole, there isn't anything new in this approach. Detox programs, avoidance, elimination diets, and provocation/neutralization are all standard "alternative" fare. What intrigued me was the use of provocation/neutralization techniques for latent viruses. Can you really treat viral reactivation of HHV6, EBV, etc. with sublingual drops? Unfortunately, Duncan's "explanation" raised more questions than he answered. (How can you treat someone with "latency" to dengue fever if they have never had it?) Although I found the concept of treating latent infections as if they were allergies interesting, I regret to say that after finishing this book I was as unenlightened as when I started it.

CFIDS, Fibromyalgia, And The Virus-Allergy Link provides new therapy for chronic functional illnesses, offering explanations of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue disorders and providing both a set of tests for hidden viral and allergic causes of these conditions and treatment options. Any who suffer from chronic fatigue will welcome this different approach and theory.

This book is very informative and provides a great deal of information which is difficult for non-professionals. As an RN and having Fibromyalgia, I found this very helpful.