Chronic Fatigue

[crazypotato]

Hi, I have been battling hormone issues, my thyroid on the low side, weak immune system, infertility, pms, cold hands and feet, poor sleep, borderline low thyroid, poor ovarian function. FINALLY I feel wayyyy better.

All from going to acupressure and adding lots of dark green veggies to my diet, and doing breathing/meditation exercises in the morning. My hot flashes are pretty much gone, my energy is up, I have energy to exercise, my mood has evened out. And I was never a believer in alternative medicine. But I think Western medicine never looks at your spirit and your nutrition and your body all as one. Doctors just do blood tests and things and throw medications at you.

You are unhealthy for a number of reasons. This Chinese herbologist told me that every month, women lose a lot of blood through menstruation. You need to eat blood-building foods to help your immune system and build your energy and blood supply back up. Your hands and feet are always cold because of your low blood issues. Wear socks all the time, and eat a warm breakfast in the morning, with nothing cold- no cold drinks, cold anything. Eat lots of vegetables and fruit, but every day you need to eat some protein in the am, and a big, large bowl of broccoli or spinach or a dark green veggie, cooked. Every day, do some slow breathing exercises. This gets oxygen into your blood and reduces stress and quiets your mind.

I got a lot of help from the accupressure and from talking to a Chinese herbologist. They believe in Western medicine for a lot of things, too. They are not preaching a cure for everything. But it makes sense to me that women get kind of anemic every month. Also, for PMS, your body knows that it is about to lose a lot of nutrients and go through the stress of your period, so you start getting hungry and tired and craving all these foods because you need more blood-building foods.

Hope this helps,
CrazyPotato

[RobertP]

I appreciate the previous posts. I am learning a lot. I hope I have something to add that is useful as well. I have thought at times to report here on what I'm learning and recent successes. It is slow. I can't find it in me to give up though. There is always a loose thread to pull at and see where it leads. Sit here and hurt, or pull the loose thread that looks like maybe it will be a way out. I'll pull the loose thread whenever possible. I have pulled at a lot of them. For now, most of my attention is on the parasite model, specifically for now Candida. At first, the low blood sugar model, hypoglycemia, gave a little relief, way slow carbs like vegetables, mild grains. Since, it has the Candida overlay, so I see it as both, and things for both help the other. My big discovery lately is biotin. I knew already that it can help with multiple chemical sensitivity. MCS mainly means the liver is sick of cleaning poisons. Since Candida internally can create these, and chemicals externally can create others that take a similar pathway inside for detoxification, reducing these from every angle available helps, and keeping up the known nutrients that speed up this detox process is also helpful. I have known about Biotin for a long time, but I started running again (I have never done this for more than 2 weeks straight, other forms of exercise last a little longer) that seemed to move junk through and bring on another cold, one of the reasons I stop. Biotin both helps the liver clear poison faster AND keeps Candida from colonizing so there is less to detoxify. What a deal? I looked it up since I was experiencing it and hadn't thought about it in this model. I thought it just worked because it was a B vitamin. When I looked it up, I found this. The Role of Biotin in the Treatment of Candida. Since I experienced it, then read it, it seemed to hit home. Pantethine and biotin, what a team! Of course, the Pantethine is from the coenzyme active B vitamins that I'm such a fan of. Changing my whole makeup is a task though. It is like taking a big ship and holding that rudder through the impulses that would take me off course, hoping I am operating on the right set of facts, and knowing I am succeeding at times because I get worse. During the worse time there is no marker to say this is working, just that what I am doing right led me there, and a day or two later, if I hang on, it's a little brighter on the back side. I seem to be on the way out, for about 3 weeks straight now, and for 5 months straight in other ways. It is a low patient climb that doesn't always seem like it on the way out. I mark part of the start of this current round of progress to the specific carbohydrate diet, which I sort of wasted away on, but also it gave me some markers to pay attention to. Then the Cranberry, biotin seems a valuable addition, only a week I can say it has worked so far, but that is something. Exercise, but I have to leave feeling pretty good, not tired. I have to carefully monitor the level while I'm doing it or I just raise my stress levels and fatigue. That's no good. Easy does it.
Below are my favorites, for now.
Anticandida
Cranberry
GSE
Biotin
Kolorex blended in a shake
Best diet I can figure out in the mean time.

Nutritional
Super B's from Wellness Resources, let me know if there is another like this out there.
CoQ10
CDP Choline
Chromium Polynicotinate
Glandular extract, shotgun kind, a little each, thyroid, adrenal, thymus, a few others.
Omega Gold 3/6/9
Good digestive enzymes
More, many more, but this is a decent little core in my way of seeing things.

Even this post is way over simplified in some ways, I've been busting my head on this for a few years, 21 or more, but I think I am starting to see part of the root of this junk. It's big. It reminds me that I can ride a unicycle. I tried someone else's, and the crank was a different size, so I couldn't just up and ride it. For how complex this is, there is a root that lets me see a bit of the spectrum of this whole thing. But maybe I shouldn't say that. Even at this rate, I told my wife I feel closer than ever to getting over this, which I've fought longer than she's known me, but since it has an element that teases me, it will probably be another decade. I hope not of course. I feel progress though, and that is tremendous. That is largely what I am reporting on here. Possibly at least one person here can find at least one thing I suggest helpful.

For the thyroid stuff, can't remember if I posted here, but even that has a Candida connection. The Candida uses a structure to hold to your intestine (transglutamase in the article below), and the immune system attacks that, and that substance finds its way to the thyroid, and activates antibodies there. I'm sure there are other pieces to this puzzle, but this (Candida and digestive balance) has my attention for now, and it is requires patience and consistency to see if it's useful.
Digestive Alert – Thyroid, Celiac, & Candida | Health and Wellness News

Do I believe spiritual healings can take place? Definitely. When I have prayed and sought healing through that channel or means, the answer seems to be that I ought to learn something and come out wiser for this than just to have a gimme granted by a magic wand, but who knows for sure. Maybe I read it wrong and could have been over this years ago. This is clearly the path I am taking. It certainly has given me a point of view to see things from.

[funkymonkey]

I've learned a big lesson this year in regards to physical health...

Last October’s General Conference - President Dieter F Uchdorf
The Importance of Hope
“Hope is one leg of a three-legged stool, together with faith and charity. These three stabilize our lives regardless of the rough or uneven surfaces we might encounter at the time.”
“Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness. Its absence—when this desire of our heart is delayed—can make “the heart sick.”
“This kind of hope is both a principle of promise as well as a commandment, and, as with all commandments, we have the responsibility to make it an active part of our lives and overcome the temptation to lose hope. Hope in our Heavenly Father’s merciful plan of happiness leads to peace, mercy, rejoicing, and gladness. The hope of salvation is like a protective helmet; it is the foundation of our faith and an anchor to our souls."

Why is there Despair?
2 Nephi 2:11 “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so… righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor evil...”

President Faust said in October 99 Conference: “Everybody in this life has their challenges and difficulties. That is part of our mortal test. The reason for some of these trials cannot be readily understood except on the basis of faith and hope because there is often a larger purpose which we do not always understand. Peace comes through hope.”

…president Uchdorf's talk, “The adversary uses despair to bind hearts and minds in suffocating darkness. Despair drains from us all that is vibrant and joyful and leaves behind the empty remnants of what life was meant to be. Despair kills ambition, advances sickness, pollutes the soul, and deadens the heart. Despair can seem like a staircase that leads only and forever downward...

...Hope, on the other hand, is like the beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances. It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn. It encourages and inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an eternal Heavenly Father, who has prepared a way for those who seek for eternal truth in a world of relativism, confusion, and of fear”.

How do we find hope? “Hope cometh of faith”
Ether 12:6“…And I would show unto the world that afaith is things which are bhoped for and cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no dwitness until after the etrial of your faith.
7 For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him;...
8 But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen.
9 Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith."

I started with just praying every day for God to help me to be happy, regardless of my situation, and he paved the way. I still have bad days and days that are really hard, but they are 1/2 the time they used to be. The mind and spirit are very powerful aids for our bodies.

Christ has the answers...I needed to fully rely on Him. It has made a monumental difference for my own personal health, and has really taught me the power behind a Christ-centered life.

John 14:27
"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

2 Ne. 31:20
"...Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

God bless.

[applepansy]

FunkyMonkey.
That's so very true. Just because someone is in pain or fatigued doesn't mean they aren't happy. Happiness and pain are two different things in my life. It took me awhile to learn that but it was a wonderful lesson and blessing.

applepansy

[pam]

I would do something about my chronic fatigue but I'm just too tired to.

[RobertP]

I thought I would post the latest here. I have pondered at times how to break the cycle. If I ate better, I would feel better, I would make better stuff, but I don't feel better so I eat what's handy and spiral down. Now mind you, I don't buy stuff that kills me, so there is a stabilizer there in weak moments. My wife has nothing related to this, gets an hour or 3 less of sleep per night than me, I float around 9-10 hrs a night, but have shaved it to 8 or 9 lately. Since she doesn't have this, she becomes a great help in keeping me floating higher in this mess than it might otherwise be. She is a good cook who gets the rules, and just how to break them...

On to another cycle. If I studied harder, I would do better, I would make more, I could buy everything and find out the best things among them. The reality, it hampers education, earning power, and therefore options on how to get out. Another cycle. No one can tell, but I have found usefull stuff on this thread, new stuff, reinforcement of things I have heard elsewhere, so I venture again with things I have learned, maybe, just maybe, it can benefit someone.

I have mentioned that we like David Williams around our parts. He had an issue last year where he devoted the whole thing to medicinal clays, Pascalite specifically. My dad was impressed and got a pound for all of us. I tried it, liked it for half a week, then didn't like it. I kept it handy for other listed uses, but a week or so ago I did one of my searches, see what comes up, what can beat this thing, it's cycling back on me. This one suggested diatomaceous earth. I think my Pascalite clay is in that category, and it's sitting in my pantry. I started taking it, needed a little less sleep, felt better, food started smelling better. A week and a half back on it now, today was terrible, started strong, got the blinding headache, got all the normal cravings that are against the rules to keep this at bay, but in that state of being, I couldn't get a bearing on what all these signals meant. With that, I ate all the junk, all the stuff that doesn't do me any good. I said I don't buy it. I lied a little. I'm married. Things end up here that are delicious and hopefully worth the price I pay for them. But they didn't crash me out so bad. In summary, I would point people who are interested to medicinal clays, and maybe Pascalite specifically since that is one I read good things about and have actually tried. Follow your own radar.

For breaking a cycle, it's cheap in comparison to almost everything I've tried. It seems to be enough by itself but also make my other supplements work better.

Garden produce grown in soil I spiked with trace minerals last year also seems to have taken me to another level. I have had a garden for 5 years and liked it, but I do think the trace minerals added something noticeable and good. Now my food does the same thing as some of my favorite supplements, which hasn't happened before. My wife is eating green lettuce from the garden and she has never liked green lettuce. Now she planted 4 extra plants to keep up. Food always had something missing, no matter what almost, which drove me to the supplements in the first place. Now maybe I have some ideas of what part of the problem is. Gardening, pascalite, cranberry, I still have variations of SCD around, although anyone actually doing it would laugh and say it's pointless. I have 1 SCD meal per day still. It helps without withering me away.

I offer it as my opinion that clearing this junk will let the hormones stabilize. These little parasites send signals that mess stuff up, and when I have moments of clarity, it is abundantly clear to me that the body wants to be healthy and feel good as much as I do and when it has those opportunities, it seems to excitedly snap right into shape, if only for long enough to tell me it can be done. It is being done. I have to feel the pain and fly against the gradient to get out. It has barriers to get through, hurdles to clear. Some of them I am seeing more clearly, I think, until they fade. I keep looking. I hope you all are too.

[applepansy]

Thank you for your post Robert.

My hubby finally go the gardening bug. I'll definitely look into adding trace minerals to our soi.

I've also been reading about clays (specifically Redmond). I appreciate reading about your personal experience.

[marshac]

Originally Posted by Misshalfway

Does anyone know anything about Chronic Fatigue and what things help to manage it or to make it better?

Thanks!

Have you tried Provigil?

[RobertP]

The Redmond clay looks similar on paper to the Pascalite. Let us know what you think. Also, it looks reasonably rich in trace minerals. Maybe you could put some in your garden soil as one of the sources.