The Rest Room

What actually is Post-Exertional Malaise?

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Episode notes

Do you experience Post-Exertional Malaise? I have for a number of years now, and it can be utterly debilitating.

But, like the term “brain fog”, I know what PEM means, what it feels like, subjectively, but I didn’t know all that much about what we actually mean when we talk about PEM.

What’s actually happening inside our bodies when we experience these exacerbation of symptoms hours or days after exerting ourselves?

These are questions I’ve been pondering for a while, so I’m delighted to be joined for this episode by Todd Davenport, a Professor at the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of the Pacific in California in the US. Todd has been involved in pioneering studies of Post-Exertional Malaise in ME/CFS patients using CPET exercise techniques and has such fascinating insights and understanding of PEM, which I can’t wait to share with you. 

In this episode we cover: 

* The science of PEM

* What are the symptoms of PEM 

* How to recognise it 

* What triggers it 

* What we can do to reduce PEM 

* A realistic conversation about pacing to mitigate PEM…

…and much more!

To listen, you can just click play at the top of this email, or you can listen on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Google.

If you’d rather read the transcript of the episode, I’ve made that available on my blog.

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Thanks to my brilliant producer Philly Guillou at OG Podcasts, to Lucy Dove for the episode art, and to Amit Rai for my intro music.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit natashalipman.substack.com