Elph68
Yeah, I finally found a place that has the probiotic that I want to try next. Probiotics help me to absorb B2 and likely others - it's just that the B2 is so easy to track with urine colour....that, and I get symptoms easily. Most probiotics give me intestinal discomfort but this one is human-derived and I did OK with it 3 years ago.
I have been interested in the gut/ gut-brain/ inflammation story since way before I had problems myself. Wakefield (research now questionable? Anybody read his book?) found inflammation in the guts of about 70% of kids with autism which was twice the control group or something like that.
I have alway identified with those on the spectrum. It came up on another thread and I debated wading into the discussion but I have seen autistic kids with fatigue and post-fatigue symptoms. Anyway...yeah, I think that my life is "poorer" without my little friends living in my colon and I wish to hell that I didn't have to take their home away
As I sit here I have a little article in front of me called, "How Bacteria in your Gut Affect Your Mental Health". I remember reading that there are fringe Drs who think that antidepressants work in the 90% of serotonin nerves in the gut - not the 10% in the brain. I love this kind of thinking.
I have low glutathione, as we all seem to have. Mine must be either more pronounced or my genetics have allowed for greater expression. The Bipolar presentation that persisted for decades is oxidative/low glutathione and so is the ME. The polyposis is also a low glutathione condition. The gut gets glutathione from the liver and those of us with any GST variants should take note. My colon (and anyone else's) derived the glutathione it needed from what made its way down the pipe as supplied in the bile. There is little ability to get it from the blood.
This is one of the reasons that Gerson's Cancer protocol uses coffee enemas. The palmatates in coffee stimulate glutathione-s-transferase production and release. In a failed attempt to save my colon, I used 8 gms of curcumin a day until I became sensitized to it, as it also increased GST. You can buy palmatate at the health food store.
In spite of my gut issues, not absorbing some things .... and yet absorbing some other stuff that I shouldn't be = food sensitivities plus stomach problems, polyposis....the gut is not the origin of my problems. Mercury was. This is not to say that gut issues have not contributed to things; it is to say, that had I never been exposed to mercury as a boy, then my methylation system might have been able to get along fine. My glutathione levels, along with adequate methyl groups to silence certain genes may have been enough to avoid any gut problems.
They talk about "Crohn's personality" - I used to think that this was some form of adaptation to having a chronic illness and spending too much time in hospitals and the dependency associated with that. Do you find people with IBS have personality traits associated with the illness?
One thing else that I would like to mention and it is totally off topic for this entry but back on topic for the thread is that I think testosterone has to be addressed and that all gals should be tested. For gals most of the testosterone comes from the adrenals which take a beating with ME. There is a form of fatigue/depression/ lack of interest that is associated with this.
It has so much in common with the symptoms of ME that it would be hard to measure the response to supplements or the protocols found on this site with it "running" in the background. I have seen first hand the difference that testosterone can make in one gal that I know. She did not have ME but it sure looked like it and she is fine today.
