FOR 12 years she lived with ME – a chronic illness that left her so exhausted she had to crawl up stairs and use a wheelchair.

But after reading in The Press about Jenny Gilmore, a York practitioner who had once suffered from the same condition and now taught the technique that she had used to overcome it, Janet Black decided to give it a go.

The 47-year-old, from Bishop Wilton, near Pocklington, contacted Jenny and signed up to a three-day training course in the Lightning Process.

After the first day, she had ditched her wheelchair and was walking again.

“I just felt amazing, totally amazing,” said Janet, who lives with her husband, Jim.

“At the end of the third day I walked into a Top Shop and bought myself a new top. That was just unbelievable – it just would not have been possible before.

“It was like a miracle, it was just so quick.”

Janet had been a fit and healthy 35-year-old when she was suddenly struck down by ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

“I started getting a lot of flu and began feeling really run down,” she said. “I never recovered my strength and just deteriorated.

“It affected everything. I became housebound because I couldn’t walk any great distance and I lost my job.

“I couldn’t even get my own meals and had to have care 12 hours a day.

“When you have ME, you have absolutely no strength. I had to crawl up and down stairs and doing anything made me feel so ill.

“I also had a lot of digestive problems and trouble with my vision. At the time I was shown Jenny’s story in The Press, I was absolutely desperate.”

Janet, who completed the Lightning Process training course last year, is now working again as manager of Bugthorpe Pre-School and is even studying for an early years degree.

She goes swimming, attends exercise classes and is a volunteer at Caring For Cats – a cat rescue centre in Market Weighton.

“The last year has been fantastic,” she said.

“If I hadn’t seen that story in The Press I would never have contacted Jenny and I’m just so grateful. I’ve got my life back again.”

For more information about the Lightning Process, phone Jenny on 01904 655911, or log on to www.generatingchange.org


What is the Lightning Process?

* ACCORDING to Jenny Gilmore, it is a three-day training programme designed by the osteopath Phil Parker to teach patients how to use carefully targeted language, movements and postural change to retrain the brain and create new brain connections to heal the body and mind.

* Research shows that around 85 per cent of ME patients who take the Lightning Process training make rapid and positive changes and, when they continue to apply the techniques, maintain these changes and go on to lead normal lives.