I am framing this as a 'sponsored sew' rather than a promise to make face masks for everyone! 

I am hoping people will sponsor me to make as many face masks as I can manage for however long I can keep going over the next weeks or months, or to donate to ME research in exchange for face masks I make for them. As I have severe ME, production is likely to be slow and unpredictable so I am not setting a specific goal, just a commitment to do whatever I can manage.

May 2020 is ME awareness month, and we are in the midst of a global corona virus pandemic which is likely to leave thousands more people living with the devastating and debilitating neuroimmune illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). 

Wearing a face mask in public has been shown to help reduce the spread of disease and is now mandatory on public transport and in shops in the UK. 

There is very little biomedical research into the causes of ME and current UK treatment guidelines are still based on the flawed models of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and GET (graded exercise therapy) which are now known to make many ME sufferers much worse. We desperately need more good quality research which will lead to better understanding and treatments.

ME is now acknowledged by researchers to be a complex and severe multi-system illness which affects the central and autonomic nervous systems, as well as immune, endocrine, digestive, vascular, and metabolic systems, and muscle function. Its central defining feature is post-exertional-neuroimmune-exhaustion - the illness is made worse by exertion. Research has shown that the body's cells cannot make energy in the usual way and that pushing sufferers to exert themselves causes more damage. 

25% of sufferers are house- or bedbound. Most never recover and many do not even receive regular medical care, as doctors have little understanding of the illness, and still often mistakenly dismiss it as psychological.

I developed ME following a viral infection in December 1984. Nearly 30 years ago a course of CBT and GET landed me in a hospital bed, being abused by the doctors who were supposed to be helping me. I have been ill all of my adult life and have spent most of it more or less housebound, often in bed, unable to participate in anything like normal life. I long to see better understanding and better treatment of this illness in my lifetime.

"....doctors do not treat us and science does not study us. How could a disease this common and this devastating have been forgotten by medicine?" Jennifer Brea

ME Research UK believes that only biomedical research can find the causes of ME/CFS, improve diagnosis and treatment, and, ultimately, arrive at a cure. That’s why research is our focus. We've awarded 50 grants since 2000 and invested over £1.7million. But research is expensive and becoming more so every day. That’s the challenge we face, and that’s why we need your help.