• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of, and finding treatments for, complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

My journey to heal from CFS - diary

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,270
Location
UK
@researcher

Because it would clearly show if the foods you are eating are causing the symptoms. Surely you will put he weight back on quickly especially if you eat nuts?

You are on a lot of supplements also.
 
Messages
99
I see Brenda, thats a good point.

However, I've been tweaking my diet and trying out different foods, while watching out for changes in the symptoms. I realized that fat (good fats, that is - I don't consume bad fats) TEND TO cause the problem. This is true for highly concentrated fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, cashews and dark chocolate, but also less concentrated ones such as beef and salmon. I do way better if I do hake and turkey as proteins.

That is right, I am on a ton of supplements. Maybe this can overload my liver, if/whenever it is weakened. A 3 day fast from supplements every now and then won't hurt ;-)
 
Messages
99
I would encourage you to trial avoiding eggs....................they are one of the worst (in my opinion) foods that their is. They provide fuel for pathogens.

Could you please lay the foundation for this answer? This goes opposite to everything I know about eggs.

Thanks
 

Tammy

Senior Member
Messages
2,186
Location
New Mexico
Eggs have been used for years as a medium for growing viruses and bacteria. Maybe not as much today as they used to.................but there was/is a reason for it. Pathogens thrive on the egg medium. If you have virus/bacteria in your body as I suspect many people with any chronic illness do.............then you are just enabling those pathogens to thrive. Just my personal opinion! If a person isn't dealing with any virus or bad bacteria............I think eating eggs would be OK in moderation. Animal fats really tend to clog up the liver.
 
Messages
99
I just read my messages from February, and realized I am WAY better than before. This is great news. I am actually so caught up in this bubble that I tend to have problems seeing the forest... I can only see the tree.

Today is a very bad day (the worst of the last 30 or so, by far), but I know overall I am doing better, so I will keep my brain wired properly. :)

More tomorrow.
 
Messages
99
Hi y'all,

Since April 28th, I've been feeling like shit. Honestly, I can't connect the dots. I new that eating more cashews and a small bite of dark chocolate would cause dizziness to appear, but this went too south too fast. This was not a crash, this was a total meltdown. I've been trying to extract the most information out of this, and perhaps I was able to find things that I would not realized if I hadn't crashed...

1) When I crash, my brain goes "sick" immediately. This extends the crashes a lot and prevents from healing. I need to apply the LP and other mental-based programs. I think I must devote at least 30 minutes a day to this. I will do LP, visualization, meditation, etc. The reality is, I think about my symptoms 80% of the day (if I am going through a good phase, then I almost don't think about it...). This is wrong. Plain wrong.

2) My liver is even more off than I thought... Even small changes lead to catastrophic results. I must play "clean" even when I am feeling well. The thing was, I was feeling pretty good so I thought "let me have some cashews, I will feel a little bit worse tomorrow but then I'll be back on track". I can't have that luxury right now.

3) At the end of the day, I must simplify things. I am looking for highly complex answers (even reading this forum can be overwhelming, as people talk about genes and what not). I think I should look for more simple answers. I am working on the physical side, I must work a lot more on the mental side and apart from that I must relax. My body knows how to be extremely healthy, because I've been there. I need to trust that what I am doing is cleaning the body, turning off bad genes, cleansing the mind and everything will be alright.

Physical things to work on (still):
- Parasites (and other pathogens)
- Liver and spleen
- Sleep (my circadian rhythm went off again during this crash)
- Getting regular (although almost, still not fixed).

Mental things
- I must re-wire the brain, stop bad thoughts (these are a real problem) and I need to do this 30 minutes EVERY DAY, religiously.

I will be 110% healthy again. My brain better assimilate that or it will be defeated... I am NOT giving up.
 
Messages
99
Hi y'all,

I decided to take 5 days off and head to the beach side. The first days were amazing, but then I have got food poisoning, which was extremely hard to handle: my dizziness broke loose like never before and I honestly wanted to die...

At first I thought it was actually the dizziness getting worse, but then because I started to puke like there is no tomorrow plus I had some cold-alike symptoms the following hours, I came to the conclusion it was food poisoning.

The thing is, I want to to everything right, sometimes this harms more than helps. I took food with me and even though I used a potable freezer, things may have gone south and I didn't realized that. Either that or the Indian restaurant I've been to...

Long story short, I am still recovering from that, and I DO HOPE that it doesn't worsens my dizziness from this point on. I think that what happened was the liver got affected by the food poisoning and guess what... it shouted like crazy with super aggressive dizziness.

You don't lose! You either win or learn. I learned a painful lesson, but a heck of a good one. I never had food poisoning before, from now on I will be way more careful.

Today, 3 days after the incident, I feel dizzy as fuck (curiously, yesterday I felt way better dizziness-wise).

This trip was still amazing (it would have been PERFECT without this food poisoning), because it gave me the time and the perspective to think about many things, which I will summarize now:
  • Although slowly, what I am doing it getting me some results; I am way better than in Dec-Feb. I will continue down this road; I must remember I am getting better whenever a crisis pops up.
  • I am ready to finally enter a new level of detox (maybe give it another 3 weeks, so that things stabilize). I will start with colonics (I have never done this, I will certainly need help) and coffee enemas, progressively and steadily. I am SOOO sure that my body is clogged up my toxins... I must start pulling out those heavy metals, chemicals and what not. This is hurting my liver and creating tons of inflammation, I am sure. The word for now is "binders". I will progressively use different binders (not before I fix my regularity for good) and I will start with the basics. My colon must be full of toxins, parasites, fecal matter from ages ago, etc.
  • I will start attacking parasites in a totally different (aka more aggressive) manner. These must be a big part of the puzzle, I understand that now.
  • I must tweak the diet even more. I will probably reduce animal protein a little, introduce superfoods for nutritious content, have liquid meals until lunch time, have detox dinners every day (hello sauerkraut, avocado, cucumber, carrots and all the moving dudes). I will go with a fully clean diet* for the next weeks and see what results I have.
  • I must working on finding a sauna... SOON. I don't sweat for over 2 years now, my detox pathways are messed up and I don't need no testing to know that MTHFR is a problem for me. In fact, I think that a lotta detox genes have mutated by now. 10% of what I have been doing would have had 100000% more results 5 years ago when I was super healthy.
  • I can't connect spiritually, that is gone. It must be due to all the toxicity I have in my body, which is forcing me to operate at this lower frequency, which is all about "sickness", "sadness", "making money to survive", etc. I believe more and more on the spiritual world, but I can't connect because there is not enough "energy".
  • Anxiety is not an evident problem, but it is still a problem, I am sure.
  • My mind is, as I said before, too focused on my symptoms. For that reason and a few more, I will use 5-HTP and L-tyrosine from now on.
As for being regular... I ain't. Kiwis seemed to work well, but if I change my schedule (diet, timing, etc) I miss the restroom on a day. This is crucial for me, especially while detoxing, so I will continue down that road... I must find something that works really well if I havent been to the bathroom until say 3pm. I've tried everything, so the next thing will be a laxative herbal tea (I can't do Gaia herbs... I am not in the US) and Aloe Vera (always the night before).

My circadian rhythm gets off very easily... since I woke up at 5am on Thursday (due to the food poisoning), I have been waking up at 5am since, and I can't sleep nomore. This happened in the past. The body tries to stick to the previous schedule, which tells me the cr is off. I must improve this.

Another big thing that happened.
... which I learned the hard way... I neutralized (aka destroyed) my HCl, by taking too much sodium bicarbonate. I haven't taken HCl supplements (not sure I must), so I will season all my salads with lemon juice to stimulate the production of acids. In hindsight, I think this let me vulnerable to food poisoning.

Action


*fully clean diet will be:
BF: Kiwis, strawberries, protein powder, superfoods, binders (for now I will stick to 2 kiwis + small salad + beef liver, until I sort this out with my naturopath)
Lunch: Kiwis, salad, turkey/hake, broccoli, carrot soup (no more rice at lunch - food combination/improving digestion)
Snack afternoon: organic kiwis and strawberries
Dinner: Salad + Quinoa/Rice + raw veggies and sauerkraut (no more animal protein at dinner)

(fat will be reduced to 1 avocado a day and sips of coconut oil. I love fat in the diet, but my liver can't handle it).

Go for a walk after every meal, if possible. Stretch a lot.

Way more meditation, visualization and 0 work on weekends: these will be reserved to work on my body.

Improve my schedule even further. Turn off tech at 8pm and go to sleep at most at 10:15pm.

Binders will be cilantro, chlorella and bentonite clay for now. Cilantro will be a big one.

Superfoods will be 1) shilajit (especially while taking CoQ10 and PQQ), 2) moringa, 3) Milk Thistle 4) Maca, 5) Ashwaghanda, 6) Cats claw.

I will also start using way more ginger, garlic and apple cider vin.

Coffee will be cycled. In the next 8 weeks I will remove coffee and then start it again.
 
Last edited:
Messages
99
OK, this food poisoning episode brought me down like fuck. I was better 2 and 3 days after the episode, and when I thought I was going full speed towards recovery...

These days have been bad, very bad. I feel very weak and dizzy (the latter the entire day), not to mention this sense of feeling unwell / motion sickness, which is a killer. It has been though.

I think that bad days are part of the journey (but I am truly scared because I am coming back to the symptoms I only had 3 months ago).

I hope I get better soon. I am non-functional as of today;

Yet, I have had bad sequences before. Some of them lasted more than the others, but eventually every one ended and I returned to where I was before that.

Right now, my focus is on getting to the state I was prior to the food poisoning ASAP. Will pray and meditate more than usually...

Will start 5 HTP and L tyrosine today. This should help getting me back on track.
 
Messages
99
I am writing this here so that I can come back to it and appreciate feeling better.

I am on total crash, feeling exhausted, super dizzy, my head hurts a lot, nausea, etc. This is by far the worst status of the past 90 days.

I believe this happened due to a combination of factors such as:
- The food poisoning in the middle of the month
- Too many stimuli on my body including
-- Two sessions of sauna
-- Discussion with friend/problems on my online business
-- Two sessions of a cranialsacral therapy I am doing for dizziness
- Possible changes on the diet
-- Leaving coffee
-- Introduction of fermented foods such as Sauerkraut

I believe both my adrenals and my liver are suffering a lot right now.

This is exactly when we need to EFT/LP/tap/whatever the most. It is easy to fall on this trap and get worse and worse.

I need to get back on the very same diet that I was on while doing OK:
- Kiwi + little bit of salad + beef liver + brocolli
- Kiwi + little bit of salad + rice + turkey/hake
- Kiwis + berries
- little bit of salad + rice + turkey/hake

I will allow myself 1/2 avocado a day and 1 tbspoon of coconut oil. That is it for fat.

Will pray, tap and LP a lot. Hopefully this will get me back on track.

I am very sad right now..
 
Last edited:

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,397
Location
Austria
As for being regular... I ain't.

Sorry, don't know if it's been recommended already, but personally had many different benefits from grams of pure ascorbic acid. Though regularity hasn't been my problem, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work for that in everyone. My father suffered severe constipation where no doc's prescriptions helped. Finally out of pure desperation he mustered all his courage and followed my advise of a teaspoon pure Vitamin C in a glass of high Mg-mineral water (in some already one glass of this brand brings relieve, not my father though). It worked like a charm. Though since he thinks every day bowel movements are a bit extreme, he takes it every second day only.

You need to know that each person has a different tolerance for Vitamin C. For some it's 1-2 gram a day only, others like me can easily take 50 grams a day till a bowel-flush occurs. So maybe start with less than a teaspoon. Though this flush isn't dangerous, even beneficial, just not that convenient always. And you may want to find a lesser dose where it isn't compulsory.

I started high dose vitamin C 10 years ago due to a 60% walking-disability from PAD (from a 80% blockage at my abdominal aorta bifurcation). It very fast eased it's symptoms and after 6 years it was completely gone. Also it helps with its anti-histamine action each season against my hay-fever. And a for 2 years persistent skin rush ceased with its commencement. But overall, vitamin C helps neutralization of all kind of toxins.
 
Messages
99
Dear @pamojja,

Thanks a lot for this comment.

Yes, once I am done with CDS, I will slowly increase my C to 6-8g/day, taken throughout the day w/ magnesium (different forms). Regarding the form of C, what form and brand do you take?

I will take either buffered C or liposomal C (I will probably do the latter, but I need to invest a few bucks into an ultrasonic cleaner first). I will do this with raw camu camu (this source seems OK) and sunflower lecithin (this source seems OK). I never head of mixing camu camu and pure ascorbic acid, but I will probably to that as well. This is the best way to ensure I will be getting 8g/day. Not sure yet how much I will have to drink every day yet though.

There are 2 main reasons why I will do this:
1) Move toxins (especially heavy metals) out of my body
2) Support my adrenals, which desperately need a hand. I just started the Adrenal glandular...

As for 1), this puts it nicely:

 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,397
Location
Austria
Regarding the form of C, what form and brand do you take?

Since I've been taking 23 g/d in average for the last 10 years, with even more surprising results when my hayfever forced me to temporarily take more, I only take pure ascorbic acid powder 8 g 3 times a day 20 min. before meals and bed. I do mix it with a little of potassium or sodium bicarbonate though. In that amounts one would get to much binder and fillers if taken as capsules or tablets.

I will take either buffered C or liposomal C

Self-made liposomal did increase my bowel-tolerance from 50 g/d further to about 80 g/d. Not practical for regularity at all. Also buffered or as mineral ascorbates tolerance is generally greatly increased. Beside, if taken as calcium ascorbate you would definitely overdose on calcium thereby.

Not sure yet how much I will have to drink every day yet though.

Strictly for regularity, as my father takes 1 teaspoon in a glass of water every second day - about 4-5 g of ascorbic acid - helps him to have bowel-movements every second day. But that's individual and so easy to find out how much would be needed.

For detoxing mixing all kinds of vitamin C, ascorbates, liposomal or ascorbyl palmitate could certainly be beneficial. However even so, pure ascorbic acid is just so much more affordable and convenient to take in the long term and really high doses.
 
Messages
99
Self-made liposomal did increase my bowel-tolerance from 50 g/d further to about 80 g/d.

Did you do it like in the video? Soy lecithin + ascorbic acid in the ultrasonic cleaner?

Not practical for regularity at all.

You mean the liposomal it didn't increase your bowel movements?

How much were you taking?

Also buffered or as mineral ascorbates tolerance is generally greatly increased. Beside, if taken as calcium ascorbate you would definitely overdose on calcium thereby.

I plan to take it as pure ascorbic acid, liposomal or both. Perhaps a few capsules here and there, but not as a main source!

Strictly for regularity, as my father takes 1 teaspoon in a glass of water every second day - about 4-5 g of ascorbic acid - helps him to have bowel-movements every second day. But that's individual and so easy to find out how much would be needed.

Sure. I am not 100% regular, but I never miss the bathroom more than 2 days in a row. This is probably considered "normal", but in my case I want to detox and clean parasites, so being regular (and perhaps going to the bathroom 2x/day) is mandatory (plus it will tell me my gut is healed.

Has your father done any gut healing at all?

For detoxing mixing all kinds of vitamin C, ascorbates, liposomal or ascorbyl palmitate could certainly be beneficial. However even so, pure ascorbic acid is just so much more affordable and convenient to take in the long term and really high doses.

Right, this is why I intend to take both liposomal and pure ascorbic.

The biggest thing about liposomal for me is that its half life is basically infinite. I have a big problem with half lives. This was probably what messed me up the second time around.

What are your symptoms? Do you have CFS?
 
Messages
99
Just leaving some pointers, as this will be useful in the future...

I know what I want to do, as the protocol is ready to go. I am simply finishing the CDS cycle and then I will start my grand plan.

Either way, these are things I want to explore either during the plan or after if I have no results:

Dizziness - this source points out that dizziness + neck stiffness + fatigue (exactly what I have) can be the result of a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Essentially, the treatment would be to increase salt (I do consume a LOT of salt already) and lower the carb intake (which in my case is medium as I eat rice twice a day). I will definitely have to check this later on.
´
Gut diet - my diet isn't optimal, I am sure; it is simple the best I arrived at so far, and its quite good if I don't crash. But I know I am not supporting my gut as I should, and I believe I will get results from IF, one meal a day and other diets, such as the GAPS diet. This one was tried by members of this forum with moderate and big success (see here). Many people who don't get results on GAPS make these mistakes.

Mucus - my body is full of mucus, period. I have tons of mucus in my stool, by HEAD seems to be inflamed and full of mucus - I kid you not! - and I can't smell anymore because my nasal passages are blocked. I will probably take a look at the Dr. Sebi's protocol for mucus and see what it can do for me.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,397
Location
Austria
Did you do it like in the video? Soy lecithin + ascorbic acid in the ultrasonic cleaner?

Didn't watch the video now, though probably saw it some time ago. I tried it maybe about 9 years ago with ascorbic acid + soy lecithin in an ultrasonic cleaner.

You mean the liposomal it didn't increase your bowel movements?

How much were you taking?

It did, just as said: instead of 50g of regular ascorbic acid throughout a day, I needed 80g ascorbic acid prepared with soy lecithin in the ultrasonic cleaner throughout a day to cause a bowel-flush.

Has your father done any gut healing at all?

Nothing at all.

What are your symptoms? Do you have CFS?

Had too many to mention here. But retold it in detail in this post. ME/CFS symptoms remaining.
 
Messages
99
Had too many to mention here. But retold it in detail in this post. ME/CFS symptoms remaining.

This is awesome! Congrats on the detail. I hope you're feeling better.

I am on my way to stabilize, I think. I haven't been feeling so awful in the past days, but I still seem to have a lot of symptoms from this setback, including:

- Swollen head, face and eyes, especially when I wake up.
- Space out type of feeling.
- Sadly, I continue to have dizziness / feeling unwell / etc, simply not so much as during this last crash.

Now, and more importantly, I believe that I have finally put the pieces of the puzzle together! I believe that a big root cause of what I am going through is a very dysfunctional detox system, with particular attention to the the lymph system and the liver. This alone explains all my symptoms. I have many reasons to think this, including:

- All the toxins I've been exposed to, including the antibiotics.
- I don't sweat nomore;
- My liver hurts;
- I feel toxic and full of garbage;
- When I detoxed aggressively last year I got way worse.

It all started in the gut dysbiosis + liver poisoning + lymphatic system overload. This has probably resulted in mitochondrial dysfunction and a few other conditions, like poor blood circulation and Oxygenation, etc. This may have impaired my detox pathways big time. I think that I am also dealing with toxic metals big time.

At this point my body is not able to eliminate junk at a good rate, so it simply lies in the body and gets re-absorbed and circulates day in that out.

Therefore, I will slowly but steadily put a plan in action that will activate the detox pathways by removing all the garbage that is in my body and slowly rebinding it.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,397
Location
Austria
Well, taking ascorbic acid in water doesn't take much of plan, just as nobody needs a plan to put sugar in coffee. Just start with a half teaspoon in water, without a bowel flush next dose a full teaspoon, so on till you get to 2 teaspoons of ascorbic acid (if bowel tolerance allows), which would be highly beneficial dose. If that is too acidic to you, add some bicarbonate. Continue with the dose which doesn't gives too much unwanted effects (ie. liquid bowel-movements, flatulence..). Even if you wouldn't benefit as much as me from ascorbic acid, since we are most to some degree dehydrated, the 3 glasses of water would already benefit on its own.

I only experimented with self-made liposomal C, but found it needs in the long term just too much efforts to sustain.