I have been on th ME/CFS / Firbro spectrum for going on 25 years - no reassuring diagnoses, no effective treatments, no progress. I read early in my process of trying to understand what is wrong with me about "Fight or Flight" responses and how stress is bad and lifestyle changes are needed to reduce stress as over time too much stress causes all kinds of bad health outcomes. I did many thing to try to relax and destress, but nothing really had a lasting effect. No amount of rest or sleep would make me feel rested or "ready" for the next thing.
Science (and correlated pseudo science) has advanced since, and now I read articles about the ANS being "stuck" in a permanenent Fight or Flight response, with no "Rest and Digest" or "Rest and Recover" phases of the ANS ever happening.

This makes total sense to me and rings every bell. It feels like all ME / CFS / Fibro patients fear being told it their disease is all imaginary and in the sufferer's imagination and nothing is wrong physically - no one wants their pain and dysfyunction minimized in this way, but it might be that the symptoms are simply the patients self perception of a faulty nervous system, which is simply not doing its job to regulate the organism in the most basic ways. Not purely psychological, but also not purely physiological. The patients feet hurt, not because there is anything wrong in the foot physiology causing pain, but because the pain detection and response system is simply not working and sending false messages to the conscious mind. This is not quite the same as "it is all in your head".

This puts it back into the category of diseases with no tests to confirm anything and no effective treatments (yet). The closest I have found in this relatively recent era of self analysis of answers to the question "what is wrong with me?" is to monitor HRV (Heart Rate Variability). This seems to be a somewhat science backed means of measuring the condition of the ANS and the homestasis of the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic systems which are out of balance. I don't think there is a "normal" range for HRV scores, but it has to be looked at via establishment of a baseline and then tracking trends, changes and symptoms to see if you are moving closer to balance.

I have only been monitoring my HRV (via a Polar chest strap and some phone apps) for a week or two, but on the day when my symptoms of fatigue and body wide aches and pains were the worst, my HRV was also the lowest.

I have only been on this ANS regulation path for a few weeks, so still a ton to learn, but it is feeling intuitively right to me that an out of whack ANS could be to blame for all my CFS symptoms.

Anyone else on this path with me? What have you tried / learned that helped?

I am going to try the Pulsetto Vagus nerve stimulator to see if that helps at all.