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dr myhill, the brain effect, which type are you??

amaru7

Senior Member
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252
Bump, I for one measured my urinary neurotransmitter levels and all came out below range. The text can be good at estimating levels of neurotransmitters, but actually measuring them is more accurate of course.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
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13,810
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Logan, Queensland, Australia
The first step is to identify your personality type, which points to specific deficiencies, then try different interventions to see if they have a beneficial effect. I have summarised Braverman's findings but you can read about them in much more detail in his book

What if you are every type except GABA predominant, at the same time? I am suspicious of this type of easy answer. A lot more research is required.
 

Leopardtail

Senior Member
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1,151
Location
England
After rereading dr myhills link, its the dopamine defiency type personality traits i feel i have since cfs, Although pre cfs i dont think my personality was dopamine dominant. Out of the personalities mentioned , i dont think i was dominant really in any, maybe lean towards gaba dominant.
ME patients have been shown to have all kinds of Neurotransmitter deficits, it's also very difficult to separate Dopamine vs Adrenalin without brain scans. If you have very low ATP that will mimic the symptoms of low Dopamine and/or Serotonin.

Ask yourself this question: does your low energy annoy you, do you still have drive to get well?
 

heapsreal

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ME patients have been shown to have all kinds of Neurotransmitter deficits, it's also very difficult to separate Dopamine vs Adrenalin without brain scans. If you have very low ATP that will mimic the symptoms of low Dopamine and/or Serotonin.

Ask yourself this question: does your low energy annoy you, do you still have drive to get well?

Gee that post seems along time ago, i posted out of interest so i dont think its black and white. My response to the low dopamine would have been answers to the questions but also my response to treating certain neurotransmitters. Increase noradrenaline through NRI has just made me feel very jittery and not right and destroyed my sleep. Dopamine agonist like macuna dopa or small amounts of modafinil definately help, gives a calm type of energy and good focus.

To answer your questions, yes my low energy annoys me, i still have a drive to get well which i have improve quite alot, but the drive to get well is what many have unless they also get severe depression from the ME, which many do at times and just get the shits with everything and ignore cfs/me stuff for awhile. The drive does need energy and may need to come from a few different angles and combination of neurotransmitters and hormones.

After reading the initial article, what area do you think you fit into?
 

Leopardtail

Senior Member
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Location
England
Gee that post seems along time ago, i posted out of interest so i dont think its black and white. My response to the low dopamine would have been answers to the questions but also my response to treating certain neurotransmitters. Increase noradrenaline through NRI has just made me feel very jittery and not right and destroyed my sleep. Dopamine agonist like macuna dopa or small amounts of modafinil definately help, gives a calm type of energy and good focus.

To answer your questions, yes my low energy annoys me, i still have a drive to get well which i have improve quite alot, but the drive to get well is what many have unless they also get severe depression from the ME, which many do at times and just get the shits with everything and ignore cfs/me stuff for awhile. The drive does need energy and may need to come from a few different angles and combination of neurotransmitters and hormones.

After reading the initial article, what area do you think you fit into?
I read the original book rather than myhill's article. I have had ME so long it's hard to say. When well I definitely had a larger degree of Serotonin & Acetylcholine than I do now.

I remain ambitious / driven but I now have VERY high dopamine in general circulation (less sure about neural).
 

heapsreal

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I read the original book rather than myhill's article. I have had ME so long it's hard to say. When well I definitely had a larger degree of Serotonin & Acetylcholine than I do now.

I remain ambitious / driven but I now have VERY high dopamine in general circulation (less sure about neural).

do you think when we come to terms with this illness, we then know our boundaries? Where as pre cfs our boundaries seem unlimitless. Now with boundaries our goals and drive have taken a nose dive and we mostly live on a day to day level. I think we always hope theres something else out there that will help.

I will say l have had a good spell of late and was starting to become abit more ambitious with work etc nothing put into action put making plans of some possiblities. But the last few days i feel like crap, but it is the winter season here and everyone seems to have a cold/flu so i think i have caught something, cold/flu?? I have found that ambition has just climbed back in his hole again. Uncertainty is great for lowering dopamine and drive?? I guess?
 

heapsreal

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@Dr.Patient with your personal experience, have you noticed any particular issues with neurotransmitters that are common to many cfs/me and your experience in treating these issues with any particular antidepressant or supplement made a difference?
 

Dr.Patient

There is no kinship like the one we share!
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505
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USA
@Dr.Patient with your personal experience, have you noticed any particular issues with neurotransmitters that are common to many cfs/me and your experience in treating these issues with any particular antidepressant or supplement made a difference?

I have not seen any patients with CFS/ME, I have seen a lot of patients with fatigue, and I don't remember any of them being CFS like. Sorry...
 

amaru7

Senior Member
Messages
252
Most antidepressants are reuptake inhibitors so won't be much of use at least in my experience with them I was a non responder because neurotransmitters are low in the first place.
The Prof. Ionescu at the cfs clinic in Bavaria told me that NT deficiencies do correlate with the severity of cfs.

My next biggest hope after so many failures are stims and now I think I found something there that could improve my suffering..
 

Leopardtail

Senior Member
Messages
1,151
Location
England
I guess people will vary. My drive never went, as a result I did and still do get very frustrated with it. The way I describe it is "the drive & ambition are still there buried under layers of exhaustion".

The dopamine issue is relevant here because it CREATES drive.

For me it's more I was forced to grow up, accept my limitations and stop making myself more ill. I was still forcing myself to read medical textbooks with a 20 second concentration
span though. There are very few ME experts with more than a basic understanding of endocrinology so by virtue of have type I diabetes too, I had to educate myself in medicine and critically evaluate everything a medic said to me.

The approach I have taken, is I am going to work out what tests are needed, I am going to interpret them and then find a doctor who'll do it my way or sack him/her. I have had to be very tough to stop diabetic specialist's screwing up the ME, or purported ME specialists messing up the diabetes AND the ME.

I take the view that unless the ME specialist has recovered from ME - they just don't get it. The second as soon I am well enough, I will be getting involved in research. WE have to grab this problem by the nuts, nobody else will.

What ME still messes with is my ability to rapidly collate masses of information and get finished product on paper. I suspect that's a mixture of residual fatigue and low cerebral Norepinephrine.
 
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Leopardtail

Senior Member
Messages
1,151
Location
England
@Dr.Patient with your personal experience, have you noticed any particular issues with neurotransmitters that are common to many cfs/me and your experience in treating these issues with any particular antidepressant or supplement made a difference?
Doctors very rarely test them heaps, you can't test in blood/urine it has to be a brain scan for the stuff Bravermann's book.
 

Leopardtail

Senior Member
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Location
England
If they were involved in research im sure there would be ways of doctors to do other tests if the choose to.
Fraid not, the same metabolites are produced in different locations for different purposes and sometimes at different times. Many cannot pass the blood brain barrier hence brain scans.
The issues with those are cost and hardware availability.

If you are interested the book is well worth a read.

PS there has been research into Neurotransmitters however (with the exception of Glutamate) it's been done by the psychiatric lobbyists hence the 'sample set' had an inherent bias towards depression / mental disorders.
 
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Dr.Patient

There is no kinship like the one we share!
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505
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USA
I take the view that unless the ME specialist has recovered from ME - they just don't get it. The second as soon I am well enough, I will be getting involved in research. WE have to grab this problem by the nuts, nobody else will.
.

Well said!!!
 

minkeygirl

But I Look So Good.
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4,678
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Left Coast
You might enjoy reading about Dr Amen. The Washington post has an interesting article about him. Tc .. x

I live near Amen and he's really sold out the past few years. He does infomercials with his wife about ADHD and their program using supplements A few years ago he was doing MRIs and other scans to bolster his research but his questions were specific to ADHD.

I just don't think he's doing anything "special" that could help us. Same old stuff IMO.

Here's his website http://www.amenclinics.com

It also bothers me that he refers to it as Chronic Fatigue, not syndrome, not ME.. shows me he doesn't really understand.
 
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