I am going to send you a PM (not today but soon when I am more alert) b/c I want to ask you more about many of the topics you have mentioned
Sounds good! I'll look forward to hearing from you.
Also, @
zzz, I wanted to clarify that I have never taken SAM-e as a supplement but was commenting from @
Sushi's post that when she said that over-methylation can lower the natural amount of SAM-e, that made a lot of sense to me.
Yes, to me too, now that you've clarified it. @
Sushi's recent post clarified this even more; she knows a lot more about this subject than I do.
I actually am feeling significantly better today and although it took three days, I feel that I am past the over-methylation experience and no longer feeling depressed or experiencing the horrible agitation or mood swings. I feel hopeful again that my treatment is back on track.
Excellent! The fact that you recovered within three days would seem to be a good sign; @
Sushi mentioned that something like that could take more than a week for her to recover. But then she recovers, and continues to progress. So you seem to be pretty resilient, which would bode well for your continued treatment.
I also wanted to ask you why you were up until 6:00 am and hadn't eaten dinner yet?!!! I noticed you are in Oregon so we are in the same time zone. Is your sleep/wake cycle reversed?
Well, recently I've been getting to bed around 10 and getting up at 6.
Unfortunately, that's 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
So yes, I guess you could say my sleep cycle is reversed. It tends to reflect my general state of health, and my recent trauma knocked it out. I should gradually be able to move it back, though.
And now to get back to some earlier posts...
@zzz, I found your ramble quite informative. I think I have tachycardia, but it is asymptomatic. Will magnesium help tachycardia?
There are many things that can cause tachycardia, so it's not possible for me to make a general statement here.
For many people with ME/CFS, tachycardia is caused by low blood volume. Low blood volume is a type of anemia, and anemia is a well-known cause of tachycardia. It's the body's way of trying to make up for the lower number of healthy red blood cells by increasing the rate of blood flow. This is the type of tachycardia that I've always had, and magnesium does not help it.
However, a magnesium deficiency can also cause tachycardia, regardless of the state of your blood volume. So if you have a magnesium deficiency and tachycardia, taking extra magnesium can either reduce the tachycardia (if there are other factors contributing to it) or eliminate it entirely, if the magnesium deficiency is the only cause. How do you know if you have a magnesium deficiency that is causing part or all of your tachycardia? There are various types of tests, but the best test is the sublingual magnesium test, where magnesium is measured in mucosal cells obtained from under the tongue. There are various companies that do this type of testing.
Although this test is quite good, I am somewhat wary of this type of test in general. It will tell you accurately where you are in relation to the normal range, but that's the normal range for normal people. No one has done a study of what the normal range is for PWME, i.e., how much magnesium we really need. Based on the very positive response to magnesium by injection or magnesium by nebulizer by most people with ME, it's very possible that we need a lot more than healthy people. The best way to find out is if you can get your doctor to give you an injection of magnesium in the office. If it's helpful, you'll feel it immediately. Be sure that some sort of anesthetic is injected with the magnesium. Dr. Cheney's procedure is as follows:
The Magnesium used by most is Magnesium Sulfate—standard 50% solution—1/2 cc drawn into the syringe first, followed by 1 1/2 cc's of Taurine. The Taurine is compounded at 50 mg/cc. The taurine makes the injection virtually painless and the ratio eliminates the hard knots many are familiar with. The injection is intramuscular, given in upper, outer quadrant of either buttock.
Dr. Cheney's patients have reported that indeed, when given in this fashion, the injection is virtually painless.
Mark Twain once wrote something along the lines of, "I'm sorry for this long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one."
Since ME hit, I have often found myself in a similar situation. I don't have the energy or cognitive ability to write concisely, or to carefully edit to leave out the rambling. I wonder if this is an ME cognitive thing?
For me, I have always been this way when it comes to writing. It's sort of a perfectionist thing, wanting to cover everything precisely and accurately. What I notice about cognitive dysfunction is that my attention tends to wander a lot, and it's a lot harder to remain focused than it used to be. One result of this is that it takes me a lot longer to do things than it used to because I get distracted easily. This seems to be very common in PWME. Dr. Goldstein characterizes this class of illnesses as a problem with sensory gating, where the brain fails to properly separate salient information from nonsalient. In other words, he says, our signal to noise ratio is lower than it should be. This is not only for our thoughts and conscious sensory perceptions, but also in the way the brain processes input from our various bodily systems. The various intricate feedback loops that normally keep everything running properly just break down, to various extents and in various ways in various people. This makes a lot of sense to me.
