In this testimonial, Rachel recounts her experience developing Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) after a chest infection and appendicitis in her early twenties. She describes how severe, persistent fatigue and related symptoms disrupted her work, social life, and exercise routine, leading to long periods of inactivity and reliance on supplements and meditation with limited success. During the COVID‑19 pandemic, fearing further setbacks, she sought a more structured approach and enrolled in the Gupta Program (the Goethe 7‑step protocol). Within weeks she noticed a marked reduction in fatigue and a shift in mindset from “sick” to “recovering.” Over the next 9–12 months she regained 80% of her prior function, enabling her to hike, travel, return to full‑time work, and take up badminton. The narrative emphasizes the rapid early relief from the 7‑step process, the sustained gradual improvement, and the liberating impact of restored physical and occupational capacity.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Rachel. So before I was unwell, I mean, I was in my early 20s. I'd been to university. I'd done an English degree. I've always been very into kind of reading and theatre. And I had my first job working in local government and was doing a lot of exercise at the time, which I think was something that then led, was a factor in me becoming unwell. But yeah, just living quite a busy life, but having a lot of fun as well and enjoying my work and things. So I I came down with a, like, a virus, like a chest infection type virus. Didn't really stop for it, kind of was going on like a weekend city break to Italy at the time, so I carried on with that. And it took me a little while to get over it, which was unusual. And I kind of noticed that when I was in classes at the gym, that like it had kind of hit me. And I was really into my exercise, so I noticed the difference in my fitness. Then I got appendicitis, so yeah, kind of came out of nowhere. And I think it can be linked to kind of respiratory viruses and things. And then, yeah, just from after that, just never really got back to normal. Just generally feeling unwell. So headaches and things like that. Some aches in arms and legs. But yeah, fatigue, fatigue was the overriding and just all kind of consuming symptom for me, really. I was struggling at work and I was working from home more and more and we have kind of flexible working. So I was doing less hours but running a huge deficit of hours that I owed my work, which was quite stressful. So it did really impact on me work-wise. I missed out on a lot of social things with friends, had to cancel a lot of plans, had to cancel holidays. I would time how long I spent with like family and friends at gatherings and maybe just have an hour and then need to go and rest. Obviously I wasn't, I stopped going to the gym completely. I wasn't exercising anymore because that made me much worse. But even with walking, like if we did go somewhere, I would time kind of how long I was on my feet and walking for. So it was very restrictive. I was someone who kind of went out and looked at everything possible out there that could help and was taking all sorts of supplements and trying various different things. So the first few videos that you can get for free, I accessed those a couple of years before doing the program properly. And I was, by that point, because I was probably 2 or 3 years into being unwell, I was much more open-minded. Obviously at first you think, well, how is this going to help me? And I incorporated the meditation recommendation just from having seen that, and that actually helped me to some extent in my health on its own. But then when things came along, like I got a cold or something, it wasn't enough. It helped, but it didn't stop me having setbacks and things. So I had various ups and downs like that. But then I think during the pandemic, whenever it was obviously very stressful, I found it very stressful with thinking that I was at higher risk. And I remember saying to people, like, if I get COVID, this could set me back for a year, 2 years, for life. That's how I saw it at the time. I found it very worrying. That was the point at which I was like, I need to try something more and something more structured, um, and kind of put my trust in something. Um, and I'd already done research of the various programs out there, but the Goethe one particularly appealed. So then, yeah, I then decided to give that a go. So I noticed straight away in starting it, um, but I found it, it reassured me. So I felt a little bit more at ease and just a bit more comforted by kind of, um, watching the videos and things and feeling like a sense of like there's other people doing this. And it's, yeah, it was very supportive, obviously, in the way it's put forward. But then with the 7-step, as soon as the 7-step process was introduced, I found that actually started to relieve some of my symptoms quite quickly. So within even a couple of weeks, I felt like I was largely out of the, the kind of really bad dip I'd been in, which was amazing. And obviously to have that response to it made me have a lot of faith in it. So, so yeah, I noticed less fatigue very quickly, but I was in a particularly bad place. And I think I felt yeah, just a greater sense of ease, more relaxed about things, and was able to take a different approach mentally towards being unwell and see myself as someone who was recovering rather than someone who was sick. And I think that made, yeah, a huge difference. Took me maybe about a year, or nearly 9 months to a year, to kind of get to that 80% kind of mark. And soon after that, we went on a holiday, and I just felt so well and able to, like, walk and go on hikes and not worry about it. And I think that's been something that's been really liberating for me, to be able to go out hiking or something like that and not think, like, oh, I need to, you know, I can only walk for 20 minutes, then I need to stop and then that's it, kind of thing. So yeah, that's been huge. And then more recently I've returned to work full-time, so that's obviously been a milestone. I've been able to— so for years the only exercise I've worried about is walking and working on walking because it's such a practical thing and it's so useful. But more recently I've been able to kind of do exercise more for the sake of exercise. So I've started playing badminton, so that's quite a big thing.
