Watch The Video of Manuela Sharing Her ANS REWIRE Experience (Coming Soon)

Video Transcript

Hi. I just wanted to share my amazing and truly life-changing experience with the ANS REWIRE Program. My name is Ela [Manuela]. I live in Bavaria, Germany, and I work as a business analyst for a big organization here in Germany.

Around a Decade of Unexplained Fatigue, Pain and Fluctuating Symptoms

I never had a diagnosis of ME/CFS or fibromyalgia, even though I had all the symptoms for a long time.

The only official diagnosis I ever got was long COVID. I was ill for about 13 years. I first got symptoms in 2012, which were really mild symptoms in comparison. Just heavy, fatigued, painful legs climbing some stairs. That's how it started, and it just didn't make any sense. And then over the course of the 10 years until 2022 it was like a roller coaster of increasing symptoms.

At times it would be completely normal, no symptoms at all. But other times I would have increasing fatigue, increasing pain, body aches mostly in my arms, shoulders, back and thighs and also food intolerances. But that went on, like on a roller coaster ride for about 10 years and yeah, I couldn't figure out what it was. And then in November 2022, I caught COVID, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and after that I never recovered until now, because I am recovered. So some of my worst symptoms, like I said before, it was fatigue and it was body aches, like neuroplastic pain that I didn't understand at the time.

I would go to work, and I pushed through the week and then be completely exhausted at the weekend and just couldn't leave the couch. Or I would come home from work and have to go to bed at six o'clock at night because I was so fatigued, just to hopefully recover enough to make it through the next day.

But at other times, like I said, I would be completely normal for a good two, three weeks and then fall back into it.

COVID in 2022 Led to a Severe Deterioration

When I had COVID, after COVID in November 2022 my symptoms increased dramatically. I was bed bound for, and house bound, not-- I wasn't bed bound the whole time, but for a good year and a half I was bed bound, house bound.

I would be in bed for twenty-two hours a day. In the beginning it was really severe. Severe fatigue, severe pain all over my body, just absolutely unbearable. Then what I had from November 2022 was extremely severe cognitive problems. It felt like I had a brick in my brain like a massive brick, and it was so severe that when I would walk, I could only tread on the floor very lightly because any vibration would be so painful that, yeah, for a good year and a half I could only walk extremely slowly.

I had noise sensitivity. I would always have to wear earplugs. I would walk around with sunglasses, light sensitivity. I had pain in the area of the solar plexus, which also makes sense now in hindsight, but I didn't understand it at the time. And I had yeah, brain fog, slow speech memory problems.

Yeah, those were the most severe symptoms that I had. It limited me yeah. For the first 10 years, I would still go to work as best as I could, just pushing through. Sometimes obviously I would have to take time off, but I would try and just function, push through. It was very hard at times because these symptoms didn't make any sense, and often my friends and family just didn't understand what was going on.

Why are you-- Oh, you were okay last weekend, and you were fine, and you were at this party, or you were out hiking, and now you're on the couch all weekend. What is wrong with you? And I didn't have an explanation for this, but people in my environment, yeah, just often didn't react very empathically.

And it was hard at times. You feel like an outsider what's wrong? Why am I having this that nobody else seems to have? Very difficult feelings to deal with, especially when you have the mentality of a person to push through, to really function.

Years of Searching for Answers and Trying Different Treatments

Yeah. I had tried so many things over the years.  Obviously, I went to see several naturopath neurologists. I went to the clinic for diagnostic in Wiesbaden. I tried food supplements oxygen therapy, Ayurvedic therapy, lots of different things but nothing worked. I went to the long COVID specialist clinic here in Bavaria, and after that COVID incident, and that only took a year and a half.

I was on the waiting list for a year and a half. And when I walked in the door the first thing at reception that they told me was, "We cannot help you. There's no therapy. Basically, we're just here to collect your data and use them for studies." So there was no help. It was extremely difficult to find help anywhere.

Long COVID Rehabilitation Helped Manuela See a Common Pattern

So what happened before I enrolled in the program, I had been at a rehabilitation stay for eight weeks, a long COVID rehabilitation stay. This was in April of 2024. Yes, about a year and a half after the infection.  I was there for eight weeks, and there were probably twenty to twenty-five other long COVID patients.

And they all had various symptoms, like some had POTS, which I had never heard of before. I didn't know what POTS was. Some felt extremely nauseous. Some had pains. Some had blood pressure problems. Like, all sorts of different symptoms. But then what I realized was that what we all had in common was the fatigue And I thought, "Wow, that's interesting."

So there's lots of different symptoms. I just had this severe brick in my brain, severe headache pain and fatigue, but other people had all these other symptoms. So when I got out of the clinic after eight weeks, my functional doctor, she sent me an email and she said, "I have a link to this program here.

There's this guy in Australia, and he recovered from chronic fatigue syndrome." And I thought, "Oh my God, if I could only get rid of the fatigue, that would be amazing. If I only had to live with the pain and maybe the brain fog and the noise sensitivity but if I didn't have the fatigue anymore, that would be a massive step."

Why the ANS REWIRE Explanation Made Sense to Manuela

So I opened the link and I looked at the intro videos and I thought, "Wow, this makes sense. This really makes sense. I love this." And I told my son, I told my friends, and they were very skeptical. They were like, "Don't you think this sounds a bit woo-woo?" And I thought, "No. No. This makes sense.

This is something about the brain and the nervous system, and I'm gonna enroll in the program." So my only goal was to get rid of the fatigue. I had no idea that all the symptoms were connected .

Early Changes in Noise Sensitivity, Pain and Walking

And after the first four weeks probably, I noticed that my noise sensitivity got a lot better and I thought, "Okay, this is weird.

What does that have to do with anything?" And then I realized my legs were not painful I still had pain in my upper body, but all of a sudden I could walk better. I-- it was just weird. And then, yeah the program helped me to understand, oh my God, this is all connected and I can actually get rid of all of this. So that was a big surprise for me that I hadn't expected in the beginning. 

From About 15% to 80% in Four Months

After about four months, I was already physically almost fully recovered. I was at eighty percent. I could go out again. I could meet friends. I would go on a holiday with a friend for a first careful hike. Yeah, so it took about four months for me to get to whatever from fifteen percent to about eighty percent.

But I was determined, and I did that. I followed the program religiously. I did all the exercises. I did the homework. I would look forward to the new video every day, and I really followed it religiously I thought if this one person recovered, then at least from fatigue, then I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do everything that he says.  That was my approach. Yeah. 

Returning Gradually to Full-Time Work and Normal Life

Now I can do everything that I want to do. I, I can go out, I can travel, I can... I'm back to full-time work. That was the one thing that took a bit longer, I have to say getting back into work because of my severe cognitive problems and the severe headache.

It, I it took a good six months for me to get back to full-time work. I started very slowly with two hours a day for a whole month, and I'm very lucky that my employer gave me that opportunity. And then I would work for three hours for a whole month, and then four hours for a whole month. So I did that, and I had to do it very slowly, and I had to keep applying what I had learned and just be patient and push through.  Yeah. So it was that was another extra challenge for me but it worked. It worked. 

How Manuela Describes the ANS REWIRE Program

So the program for me was, the way I see it, it's a holistic educational training program on the mental the emotional, and the physical processes happening during this illness It makes you aware of so many things that you never thought would play into this illness.

Like awareness of the stressors in your life, awareness of your thoughts your posture, your-- so many things that you never thought make a difference. The, the words you use how you live your life, your environment, all these things play into this. And you think, "What does that have to do with my pain?"

But it does. It teaches you, that was a big one for me. I wanted to get back into exercising. How can I approach that? You learn about how your personality type plays into all of this. So it's really a holistic training program, and it's also- it's like a coaching because you get a video every day, and so you're accompanied.

Yeah, it's like you're not on your own. And then you do your homework, and then, yeah, you watch the next video the next day. Sometimes my brain fog would be really severe, and I would find it difficult to follow the content of the video. But I would, I would just play it again, just take it easy watch it again the next day, take my time with it, and then, yeah, and then, and just do it.

Just do it. Just take in what you can at the time and yeah, and that's how you progress.

What Full Recovery Means to Manuela

So yeah. Recovery. Now I am fully recovered. I can do anything I want. I it means I have my life back. My life is not determined about the illness anymore, about the pain, about how many hours of the day I have. Can I make it to the store? Can I go shopping or am I too fatigued to do that? So I have my life back. I'm in the driver's seat again. That's what recovery is. .

Manuela’s Message About Responding Differently and Self-Compassion

So a final message to people thinking about enrolling in the program. I started doing yoga about a year ago, and this is an online yoga program. And in the middle of the class, the yoga teacher-- We're holding a pose like a quite kind of a difficult balancing pose. And the yoga teacher said "It doesn't matter if you fall.

It's absolutely okay if you fall out of the pose. It's about how you respond to to the fall." And I feel this is what I learned in the ANS REWIRE program. I learned to respond differently to the symptoms to so many things in my life. I learned to respond differently.

And I found it so interesting when I heard it in that yoga class. I thought, "This is exactly what's, what I learned in the program." So that's my final message. It's it's what we have to learn in life sometimes. To be patient, to hang in there and to respond with self-compassion and not beat ourselves up when we fall. Okay, so if you think about enrolling in the program, I would really highly encourage you to do that. Watch the introductory videos. It gives you a very good overview of what you can expect. It's a very honest educational program, and it changed my life.

It really changed my life and it saved my life. And here I am now, fully recovered, and I could not have done it without the program

Yeah, I think that's my final message to you

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