Chronic Fatigue Syndrome "affects one in 100 pupils"
"A study following 2,855 pupils at three schools, published in the online journal BMJ Open, found 28 missed school with chronic fatigue syndrome."
"The researchers looked at every pupil between the age of 11 and 16 at three secondary schools in Bath. The 461 pupils who were absent for at least a day a week in a six-week term were investigated further."
We already know that M.E/CFS affects around 25,000 young people in the UK, which works out at around one student per secondary school. This is something that doesn't come as a surprise to me, and from my own personal experience I've found myself being someone who attends a school where somebody else suffers from M.E/CFS as well as myself, and through speaking to teachers I became aware of previous students that had attended the school who had suffered from the illness, too.
As for the figures about students who are absent from school - again, I'm not surprised. After all, that was me 5 years ago. Attending school whilst having M.E is one of the most difficult things I had to do in my life and one of the toughest periods of my illness so far. Many students who have M.E will be unable to attend full time; I myself went through several attempts at part time schooling, the most being 2 hours per day and the least being 5 hours per week. Of course there were times where attending school at all was completely impossible, and so there were months, literally, where I wasn't in school at all. Eventually in Year 11 I was given a home tutor to complete my education as attending school became too much for me.
Battling the symptoms of M.E every day is hard enough, but school presents all kinds of issues on top of that. The daily symptoms of crippling fatigue, muscle weakness and pain, joint pain, headaches and sore throats are combined with the struggles of keeping up with peers, in an attempt to live a "normal" life. With M.E sufferers missing large chunks of school through illness then it is easy to get behind, meaning time spent at school has to be subsidised with catching up on all the work you've already missed, as well as battling to stay on top of the current workload. On top of that, schools are a hotbed of germs and bugs, and with many people with M.E suffering from low immune systems, one cold caught from a schoolmate can be enough to set you back weeks if not months. For me, walking around the school building became increasingly difficult, and during my time at 6th form I would often find myself coming home only for my legs to give way from underneath me after a mere hour at school.
So much more research needs to be done into this illness, as more and more people become aware of the wide reaching consequences living with M.E comes with. Missing out on school during your teenage years can have a huge effect on people, not only from an educational point of view but a social one as well. School is where we make friends, or where we see out existing friends on a regular basis. M.E is an extremely isolating condition, with many sufferers becoming housebound and at worst bedbound. This is no existence for a teenager, and I hope people will see the news today and realise that we need to be doing more to help these people - not cutting funding and leaving sufferers to deal with their illness on their own. On top of that, in light of these figures then I hope schools themselves will look into this illness more and put in place plans of action for M.E patients. Teachers and school nurses should be educated and fellow students need to be supportive.
I'd urge anyone who is struggling with school whilst living with M.E to contact the Association of Young People with M.E for help and support - details can be found at http://www.ayme.org.uk/
Thank you,
Sarah x
