The Grand Goal
Health Rising is committed to empowering patients, their supporters, advocates and researchers to bring about the end of ME/CFS.
Health Rising’s goal is no different from that of other ME/CFS/FM organizations – to help bring about the end of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM). Some organizations support ME/CFS by funding research. Health Rising supports that goal by keeping the community engaged in the research going on, by empowering research efforts, and by providing information on the latest treatment options.
Keeping the Community Engaged
Keeping the ME/CFS/FM community engaged in the evolving fields of ME/CFS and FM with our articles is vital to the success of this field. Spelling out the needs that do exist is a critical part of Health Rising’s mission but so is providing hope by making clear that exciting work is being done, new people are joining these fields, and advances are being made.
Empowering Research
Empowering the research foundations that are making vital discoveries needed to cure ME/CFS/FM is one of Health Rising’s key goals. You can’t support, after all, what you don’t know about. By providing, we think, the clearest and best information available on their work Health Rising provides an important gateway function. In fact, Health Rising’s vital role in empowering the work that is making a difference in ME/CFS, is by itself a great reason to support Health Rising. The better Health Rising does – the better these organizations and their work to end ME/CFS will do.
Treatment Help
Providing treatment information that supplies new options, relieves suffering and improves the lives of people with these diseases is another key commitment. If a treatment breakthrough occurs, Health Rising is committed to covering it quickly and comprehensively.
Looking Back at 2018
Keeping the community engaged in the work to understand ME/CFS and FM is a key goal
Both ME/CFS and fibromyalgia are still with us but some novel things did happen this year, and surprisingly enough, they involved possible treatments. For the first time in decades, a new drug (Cortene) is being tested in ME/CFS, plus a two-drug trial by longtime researcher and doctor, Nancy Klimas, is underway. On the fibromyalgia side, the huge infusion of money the federal government is providing for the hunt for 15 new pain drugs over the next five years provides much hope for better pain relief.
When considering where to put your precious money, please ask yourself where else the following topics were given the kind of comprehensive reporting they received on Health Rising. HR’s articles are also longer than others on the internet because we strive to provide a balanced analysis that puts research and treatment findings into context and provide you with the resources you need to benefit from them.
Some of the highlights covered by Health Rising this year included:
- The Cortene Trial – a 4-blog series described how an unusual occurrence for ME/CFS – a new drug trial and a new hypothesis – came to be.
- Jarred Younger’s Work – a 3-blog series examined Younger’s neuroinflammation, his search to determine if immune cells are invading ME/CFS patients’ brains, and his study of a new, possibly much more effective form of naltrexone.
- The Metabolic Trap Hypothesis – a 2-blog series covered a brand new hypothesis from Robert Phair that has got Ron Davis excited. Now being tested by Davis at Stanford.
- The Dysautonomia Conference – a 7-blog series covered a wealth of information on dysautonomia and POTS including IVIG, new autoimmune results, spinal fluid leaks, sticky blood, and others.
- Nancy Klimas’s New ME/CFS Clinical Trial – clinical trials are rare in ME/CFS; clinical trials informed by models employing hundreds of millions of data points are even rarer. Dr. Klimas’s two-drug ME/CFS trial is believed to be underway now.
- Fibromyalgia and Neuroinflammation – just after Younger finds neuroinflammation in ME/CFS, another study finds it in fibromyalgia – in the same areas of the brain.
Small Website: Big Impact – Unique Resource
Get a great return on your investment – push a little money Health Rising’s way.
Health Rising is not just a “blog”. Its Resource Center contains links to over 350 resources and it has the largest database of Recovery stories on the internet.
Over 600,000 users visited the more than 1,600 articles and resources found on Health Rising over the last year, producing over 1,500,000 page views. Health Rising did that on a small budget which included one full-time person and one part-time person working at very low rates (See our financial statements here).
BIG (little) Fundraising Drive
We call this the BIG (little) Fundraising drive because small amounts of money make a big difference for HR. We believe that your return on investment when you invest in HR can’t be matched anywhere else. Our overhead, after all, is incredibly small. Despite the fact that we feel we do professional work we don’t pay anything close to professional salaries. (Check out our financial statement.)
We do vitally need your help, though. The more you support us the better we can spread the word, provide vital resources and help bring about a world without ME/CFS and FM. Our goal is to raise $35,000 – peanuts for many organizations but which would empower us in ways that I assure you will see and appreciate. 🙂
10 Ways to Support Health Rising
A little bit goes a long way at Health Rising
Recurring Donations
(1) Become a Recurring PayPal Donor – Recurring donors provide the financial bedrock for Health Rising. To become a recurring donor simply go the right sidebar of any page, click the amount you would like to donate, and hit the Subscribe button.
(2) Already a Recurring PayPal Donor? Want to increase your donation? Simply send me an email stating that and I will stop your current donation and you can restart it.
(3) Become a Recurring Donor with Online Banking (non-PayPal) – Don’t want to use PayPal? Use Bill Pay or similar programs at your bank.
One-Time Donations
(4) Make a One-Time PayPal Donation — One-time donations provide important one-time cash infusions to Health Rising. You can make a one-time donation by clicking on the Donate button in the right sidebar.
(5) One-Time Checks! – We Love checks! Please make out checks to Health Rising and send them to us:
Cort Johnson
2555 Hampton Rd Unit 6308
Henderson NV, 89052
USA
(6) Bothered by Currency Conversion Charges? Use Bitcoin and Avoid Them – Use Health Rising’s Coinbase Bitcoins account and save on currency conversion charges on your one-time donation. Our Bitcoin address is 18D9JkiGxPcpx8RYNcG5p2Be1joU9J6v5D
Other Ways to Help
(7) Shopping on Amazon.com for HR – Earn money for Health Rising by shopping on Amazon.com. This nets us a commission of 4% to 10% (The exact percentage is determined by Amazon). U.S. residents can use the Amazon.com search bar on the right sidebar of the page.
(8) Amazon Gift Card – Don’t like using PayPal? How about donating an Amazon gift card?
(9) Provide a Place to Stay – Trips to the East coast to attend conferences and meet with researchers and doctors are expensive. If you live in the Midwest, South or East Coast and can provide shelter for a night or two for me and two dogs, please let us know using the contact form.
(10) Volunteering – Interested in writing blogs, providing help with accounting, helping us manage or produce projects? How about creating a new project? Contact us using our contact form (click on Contact Us in the top menu bar).
Normally I’m all for donating anonymously. For Cort I do make an exception.
Cort’s website is free. But it does cost money. Looking at Cort’s financial statements, he goes a long way with limited funding. He does reward himself only a very modest salary.
Cort’s website is free. But it’s information is valuable. How much would we be willing to pay if Healthrising was only available as a glossy magazine? For me, that’ll be more then the small amount I just donated.
Thanks Cort for what you, your website and the people of the Healthrising community have done for me and my health!
Thanks so much De Jurgen. If I may say so – Health Rising and the community owes a lot to you for your many, many insightful comments 🙂
As I just stumble across this page a few days ago the Lord lead me to it
answered my prayer I have gain so much insight from you..I want to thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, thoughts and wisdom..Your a true blessing to this page..
Cort–I appreciate that you have been finding interesting stuff to tell us about, and made a move to send a small one-time donation–but the only “donate” button in the right hand list seems to be for monthly donations–below that mention is made of Paypal, which I can use, but no button… am I missing something obvbious?
Hi, Christopher. When I went through the PayPal process, I eventually arrived at a place to check a “monthly” box. I didn’t check it, so I think I made just a one-time donation. See what you think, when you get to that place. I think it looks pretty clear.
Thank you for your comment. It made me curious, and that led to my actually making my donation. You’re a great inspiration!
Thank you Chris and Jeannie!
Thanks for your attempt at support Chris and your support in the past. I wonder if this could be a browser or smartphone problem. The box should have on top – Become a recurring member and then a “subscribe” button. (I don’t know why they call it “subscribe).
Below that should be “Give a one-time donation” and a Donate button. Oddly enough I don’t see any mention of Paypal – which is what we use.
Could you provide the ‘machine” – smartphone, tablet, computer that you’re using to access the site and the browser if there is one?
Sorry about the mixup.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is my technique, dispatched to my email address book, for helping HEALTH RISING while eliminating the costs for cards, postage, useless gifts, and exchanges:
Please do not send me any Christmas gifts; instead, please consider a small donation to HEALTH RISING :
https://www.healthrising.org/
HAPPY HOLDIAYS
Frank
Woo-woo! Thanks so much Frank 🙂
Cort is there a way for all the purchases made from Amazon to go towards Health Rising without going through your site every time we make a purchase? I usually forget to go to your site first….
That’s a great idea. I use amazon smile to give to ALS Research Institute throughout the year. Health Rising should be an option, if it isn’t now!
Cort, I have donated monthly thru PayPal for years and did not realize they charge a fee to you. I am considering changing to a yearly check, which it sounds like you prefer. Correct?
Thanks for all you do for us!
Thanks to the 48 people who have donated to Health Rising thus far we are about 25% of the way to reaching our goal.
Cort it looks like Amazon Smile is where one can put in a charity and all purchases will automatically go to it vs needing to go to site first – lots of CFS/ Fibro organizations such as Open Medicine are there — any chance you could get on the list? I get mad at myself when I’ve ordered something and then remember I didn’t go thru Health Rising first….
Thanks Betsy. Unfortunately HR is not a non-profit and so doesn’t qualify. Thanks, however, for going through HR when you remember 🙂
Oh, Sorry for the redundancy. I just now saw Cort responded.
Hi Cort,
I couldn’t get the Amazon button on the sidebar to click or do anything.
Darn it all! I will email you Susan. Thanks for letting me know.
Six days into our drive, thanks to the 86 people who have donated, we are exactly 1/3rd of the way to meeting our $35,000 goal!
I assure you that you will be surprised at what Health Rising will accomplish next year when we meet that goal 🙂
Please keep donating!
I can’t get the give a one time donation button to work. Although it operated I can’t put an amount in, it just comes up $0.00.
Uh oh… can you tell me what machine you are using? Computer, smartphone or tablet and what kind?
Laptop, running Windows 10. I’m in the UK if that makes any difference. I will have another go today. Unfortunately it was not going to be a large donation so if others aren’t having problems it might not be worth pursuing! Thanks for everything you do, it is great being able to rely on quality information
No still sets to $0.00 which I can’t overwrite
Thanks Steve. I will tell Stavya about this. I would love to visit England some day 🙂 Thanks for the invitation.
Problem solved dejurgen described why I was having a problem. It is data entry method I haven’t come across before. I needed to click on the $0.00 amount to give a blinking cursor and then use the number keys. It sounds obvious when I describe it that way but it wasn’t! When you have visited Steve in the north you can come down to the south coast and stay with us 🙂
Hi Cort, I am very grateful for what you do. I can’t see the donate button on my iPhone, tho I will donate when online later.
If you ever make your way to the North West of England, UK, (maybe not somewhere you’re planning at the moment!) you and your group would be very welcome here, just get in touch.
Best, Steve
Thanks Steve. I will tell Stavya about this. I would love to visit England some day 🙂 Thanks for the invitation.
Ready to donate but can’t see how. Please make it more obvious.
Horrified to hear we’re making it hard – gratified to hear you want to donate 🙂
I wish I could put an image in here but if you you’re on a computer just look to the right of any page on HR you should see, below the subscribe section a section which is titled “Support Health Rising”.
If you’re on a smartphone or tablet just keep scrolling down.
Recurring Donation: Below that first there is an option to do a monthly recurring donation. To do that pick one of the options ($5, $10, $15…$150? 🙂 and click subscribe. )
One-time donation – to give a one-time donation – click on the Donate button and a page will open up which will give you an opportunity to select an amount.
I hope this helps. If you
I agree I am willing to donate I am already on disability I receive a very small check on the 3rd of every month for $800 I know it’s personal to tell about my income but I want people to know that pain throughout the body at least mine and from what I’ve read through others is debilitating I cannot tell you how how much it means to me to hear from other people that have the same pains and aches throughout their body. I have been seeing a pain management doctor for four and a half years and he has prescribed me very strong medications as well as anti-anxiety meds I can’t sit down I can barely do my daily house work anymore I have a hard time sitting and watching TV, walking my dog my excetera excetera I I have a hard time sitting standing focusing walking excetera excetera the hamster is running in the wheel in my head but my body is overwhelmingly killing me mentally and physically I do not have much money as I said before but I feel like I need to donate just to be able to listen to other people’s disabilities. It makes me feel good to know that other people are having the same fibromyalgia & these other disabilities I have shared with you thank you all and I’m glad I found this website. Please God hear our cries for help and please bless us as you have been I am just thankful for having Electric water and a roof over my head at this time. Unfortunately the man that I am married to has the bedside manners of a dry mop???? I will be praying for all who reads this post God bless to all and Happy Holidays
Hi Giselle,
How did you try to enter the amount? I tried a few things. A potential problem is that entering a number in Paypal is different then with most other sites.
When I tried to select the amount and delete it or when I tried to use the backspace key to delete the zeros as I would usually do, it didn’t work. Just clicking on the amount until you have a vertical blinking cursor and entering a number key does work.
At least I had to figure out too and I have a technical education and only moderate brain fog…
There is another possibility that someone installed a script blocker on your computer (for security reasons), but that gives a different sort of error with me.
Thank you dejurgen I tried it your way and it worked. I have never come across this before, goof to know.
Love this site even though I can’t understand most of it. I also found Dr. Lapp through you and really appreciate him. Your site gives me hope and is a handy way of trying to keep up with all of the various research projects going on. Here’s hoping for a real breakthrough! My check is on its way. Thank you for all of your hard work.
Thanks Sara! 🙂
Thanks to the 143 people who have donated, after 8 days, we are 40.81% (how’s that for exactitude) the way to our $35,000 dollar.
Hi, If you need a place to stay when/if you come to the Bay Area, please let me know. I live in Walnut Creek,CA on the BART line to SF. Be a pleasure to host you and yours.
I dont join paypay so didnt send in a donation now.
Thanks to the 223 people who have donated with about two weeks left we are 64% of the way to our $35,000 goal 🙂
Please support us in getting the word out about the latest news in ME/CFS.
Wow…thanks to the 319 people who have donated over $30,000 (!) to Health Rising we are 88% of the way to fulfilling our goal. Just 12% to go 🙂
Sending some money your way; wish it was more. Thank you Cort for your ongoing efforts. Ever articulate, persistent and professional. What would we do without you?
Moving back home to WY after 3 1/2 years in Oregon. One of the worst years for me since 1991 and initial diagnosis. Altering habits, adapting to circumstance, accepting…again…limitations, aging, and forgoing gloom…ever vigilant for “hardening of the attitudes”.
We cannot relent, give up, nor succumb to being victimized from the clutches of this malady. There are so many of us, and we need this forum.
This platform is priceless, precious, and a gift. Please support Cort. And yes, you are always welcome in our home too!
Blessings to all, Linda
Thanks Linda,
I’m sorry Oregon didn’t work out! I’m sure I will be up your way sometime. Wyoming is beautiful!