Has the mystery of ME/CFS finally been solved?
For decades, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) has remained a medical enigma—misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and often dismissed. Millions live with overwhelming fatigue, post-exertional malaise (PEM), brain fog, unrefreshing sleep, chronic pain and “normal” test results that explain nothing. But breakthrough research may finally be changing the story.
In this clear, hopeful, and deeply researched guide, ME/CFS patient Patrick Ussher distills the pioneering work of Professors Klaus Wirth and Carmen Scheibenbogen. Their unifying model brings together low blood volume, microclots, autonomic dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment, autoimmunity, and more into one interconnected cycle. It may at last explain why activity leads to PEM, why rest doesn’t restore energy, and why so many develop chronic fatigue after a viral illness.
This book goes beyond theory. It offers practical, patient-centred strategies, including:
• Breathing techniques such as the Buteyko Method
• Ancestral nutrition and gut repair
• Microclot-oriented treatment approaches
• The Perrin Technique
• The strengths and limits of neuroplasticity (“brain retraining”)
• Pacing, PEM management, and mitochondrial support
• A look at future potential treatments—including the Mitodicure medication currently under development
Patrick also shares his personal journey with ME/CFS: what helped, what didn’t, and how he learned to navigate a misunderstood illness with clarity and hope. His aim is simple: to empower patients with knowledge, practical tools, and a framework that makes sense of their symptoms.
Whether you live with ME/CFS, Long Covid, post-viral fatigue, POTS/dysautonomia, fibromyalgia, or chronic exhaustion with normal test results, this book offers clear explanations and grounded strategies to help you better understand your condition.
Includes a foreword by Prof. Klaus Wirth, principal developer of the potential Mitodicure medication.
Editorial Reviews
“I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone seeking to enhance their quality of life or to better understand possible pathways to improvement for conditions like ME/CFS, Long COVID, or other post-acute infection syndromes. Patrick Ussher’s work is a beacon of hope, offering both scientific understanding and tangible solutions for those in need.”
– Prof. Peter Deen, Professor in Metabolic Physiology of the Radboud university, Nijmegen, The Netherlands and CEO of Streasure4Health, a start-up developing diagnostics for ME/CFS, Long Covid and Other Post-Acute Infection Syndromes
“In this book, Patrick Ussher skillfully integrates a huge amount of research that at first glance looks unrelated. From it, he communicates a unique and compelling hypothesis about what is going on in ME/CFS and how to recover. Ussher supplements the science with his own personal journey of improvement and that of other patients. Understanding ME/CFS is a respectful, balanced and very readable book for both practitioners and lay readers”.
– Dr. Eleanor Stein MD FRCP(C), Canadian physician with 35+ years-experience in the field and former ME/CFS patient.
“‘Understanding ME/CFS & Strategies for Healing’ offers one patient’s view through the long grass which has grown around an illness badly served by medical dogmatists, and it is a view which readers have much to learn from. It could herald a sea change in how ME/CFS is researched, managed, treated… and, just possibly, cured.”
– George Winter, The Medical Independent
