Having a diagnosis of ME/CFS or Fibromyalgia or Long Covid is not necessarily an end to engaging with activities including working. Here one of our team shares something of her personal experience of sustaining work whilst managing fatigue symptoms aswell as many accounts from past clients who have also been supported, through our specialist programmes, to re-enter work in some capacity.

In this article, Katherine Sewell, employed by Vitality360 in an HR role, shares her personal experience of returning to and sustaining work with long-term pain and fatigue symptoms. Vitality360 is a rehabilitation provider working to support people with persistent pain or fatigue to return to and/or sustain work. With her HR expertise alongside her lived experience of a chronic health condition, Katherine looks at some of the ways that HR departments/OH Providers/Employers can support people in a similar situation - including the use of activity management diaries, how to empower people considering capability vs capacity, and how to enable employees and employers to explore some of the issues collaboratively, utilising back to work planning.

What are the similarities and differences with symptoms of autistic burnout and other fatigue conditions that we see?

One of our team members shares her experiences of being autistic and having an ME/CFS diagnosis.

Navigating work alongside the complexity of Long Covid is an extra burden that needs care and specialist support. Vitality360’s Beverly Knops outlines our approach in this article written for the Society of Occupational Medicine.

She highlights the importance of a personalised and flexible approach, and of using work as part of the rehabilitative process. She also discusses setback planning and not “waiting until someone is 100%” before returning to work.

In this blog our specialist fatigue clinician talks to three team members with pain and fatigue about how it is to have an invisible disability & the challenges this presents in relationships, how this can create misunderstandings socially and in the workplace.

When you are feeling unwell it is far more challenging to eat well.  Having the energy or inclination to spend time preparing food can seem daunting.  Many people find that they lose their normal appetite and enjoyment of food and eating can become a chore.  Some people also feel less like eating if they are low in mood or concerned about their health.

I feel privileged to be part of this team – not only because I am surrounded by a huge amount of expertise and experience, but because they’re a lovely bunch of people. For two days we spent the time getting to know each other better as well as experiencing the wonderful outdoors.

We are celebrating 10 years of supporting people with ME/CFS with a team event which synchronistically coincides with ME Awareness week. Here on our team members talks about how it is to attend this event with this condition.

Recovering from long covid can be a long haul for some and diet is very important means to aid recovery. However, advice can be conflicting. Here our specialist dietitian explores the anti-histamine diet and the Mediterranean diet and considers their benefits.

One of our team shares what its like getting back to work after burning out with post viral fatigue/Chronic fatigue syndrome and the challenges of living with an invisible disability.

Returning to work following a virus or a period of long term ill health can be a daunting prospect. In this article one of our team utilises a particular model and her personal experiences to explore how it’s possible to sustain working with the support and adjustments from an employer, with a long term condition such as fatigue.

Our specialist dietitian explores the value of vitamin C in a balanced diet in fighting infection and recovering from post-viral fatigue especially if caused by COVID-19.

In this blog our specialist fatigue clinician talks to three team members with pain and fatigue about how it is to have an invisible disability & the challenges this presents in relationships, how this can create misunderstandings socially and in the workplace.

A high percentage of clients we are seeing with Long Covid describe cognitive dysfunction as one of the main symptoms they are continuing to experience. In this blog our Careers and Employment Consultant and our Executive Manager/Occupational Therapist explore what it means to be debilitated like this and how to manage it especially in relation to returning or sustaining work.

Long-Covid and diet… our specialist Dietician offers her reflections on this hotly debated topic.

We recently ran a partnership webinar for health professionals alongside Affinity Health at work where we shared our expertise on the complexities of supporting those with post-covid-19 syndrome/long covid with returning to work. This blog is a summary of this event with some strategies utilising recent case stories and research findings on the collaborative approach that’s needed.

As a rehabilitation provider with expertise in the field of pain and fatigue we have been able to transfer our knowledge of supporting people with post viral fatigue following infections to the Covid-19 virus and the symptoms of long Covid.

Several of our team members have ME/CFS and associated pain, and as part of our 10-year anniversary, we gathered together their top strategies for learning to live well with fatigue which they share here.

In this blog, our expert team of specialist clinicians talks about:

• How we are drawing together our experience to date of those presenting with long-tail symptoms such as breathlessness, anxiety, and fatigue following a COVID-19 infection.

• How we have been successfully treating clients with post-viral fatigue syndrome for ten years.

• News of our exciting research proposal looking at recovery from the COVID-19 virus.

In this blog, we address the relationship between viral infections such as covid-19 and fatigue symptoms and the potential for longer-term impacts such as post-viral fatigue. We collate some of the latest research/articles on this topic and draw together, from our clinical specialism in this field of fatigue, our advice for how to manage fatigue at the acute phase of illness and subsequently.