How to Work With Your Doctor

If you’ve had frustrating or dismissive experiences with the medical system, you are not alone. I’ve been there too—told I was fine when I was clearly not fine—and I know how disheartening that can be. It’s easy to want to give up on doctors altogether. For a while, I did. But looking back, I wish I hadn’t.

Even though conventional medicine didn’t have all the answers for me when it came to ME/CFS, it still had some. Staying connected to medical care is important—not just for ruling out structural issues or getting proper monitoring, but because your doctor can still be a key ally as you go through this program.

This course is not a replacement for medical care. It’s a complement. An adjunct. It offers powerful strategies grounded in neuroscience, but it’s not a substitute for your doctor’s role in your care. That’s why I encourage you to involve your doctor in what you’re doing here—even if the conversation feels a little awkward or unfamiliar.

To make that easier, you’ll find two helpful things in this lesson:

• A simple blurb you can say or print out to help explain what you’re doing:

"I’m taking an educational program that teaches strategies to calm the autonomic nervous system and rewire chronic symptom pathways in the brain. It’s not a replacement for medical care, but it’s based on neuroscience and it has helped a lot of people with conditions like ME/CFS and Long COVID to recover."

• A downloadable handout to give to your doctor (either share the link or bring a printout), which explains the program, its scientific foundation, and how it fits into your overall care.

If your doctor is open to learning more, amazing. The handout includes research links and recommended reading to help them understand this approach better. And if they’re not open—that’s okay too. You can still get a lot from this work. But having even a neutral or supportive doctor in your corner can make this process smoother.

You deserve a care team that walks alongside you. So let this program be part of a collaborative path forward—one that brings hope, clarity, and new tools for healing.