It has now been four months on the protocol for me, my younger daughter and my wife. My older daughter has now been on the protocol for over two months.
I have stated before that I am better, but I've never gone into a lot of detail. I feel it might be helpful to others if I did so at this time. It is important to understand I'm not new to this. I've been sick for 23 years. For the first seven years I had no diagnosis of any kind. Since then I have mostly operated under a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis, but I have also been diagnosed with Lyme Disease and coinfections. I feel certain the Lyme diagnosis is wrong.
I can think of at least 14 different medical practitioners I have worked with during the course of my illness. I've made major commitments in time and money to many of them. I have conferred with many other medical providers that could offer no help. I've treated in five different states. I have read that long term sufferers of CFS do not experience a placebo effect. That is certainly true in my case. I have done treatments that helped me, but these improvements have been minimal and ended up being temporary.
There has not been any time during the last twenty years I have not been on one treatment or another. I have done endless antibiotics, including a five year stint I was on them every day. I did three months on daily IV antibiotics for lyme disease. On another occasion I did six months (seven days a week) of twice daily high dose IV antibiotics for lyme and coinfections. I've done many CFS related protocols, including protocols for mitochondria dysfunction, immune boosters, detoxification regimens, IV and oral chelation therapies, acupuncture, oral antivirals, IV antivirals, a number of other IV therapies with several providers including IV vitamin C, Meyers cocktails, detox IVs, etc. In the last few years I've gone through two different protocols for mold detoxification and treatment. I've tried a plethora of alternative remedies, some of which are just a little alternative, and some of which are way, way out in left field. As the years have marched on and other family members have become ill, they have done many of these treatments as well, all to no avail.
Through all this, in all of these years, none of these treatments worked for me, but the mold colonization treatment developed by Dr. Brewer is working very well. I take no binders and do not practice extreme mold avoidance, yet I continue to get better.
I was working at the time I became sick in 1991. I was able to work until 1998, but I should have quit several years earlier. My biggest issues have been extreme fatigue and malaise. I simply felt very sick all of the time. I have had a lot of issues such as peripheral neuropathy, chronic sinusitis (4 surgeries and never ending antibiotics), sleep disturbances, mental fog, headaches and body pain. I would gladly put up with these other issues if I didn't have so much fatigue and malaise.
At the time I started the protocol I was about a 3 on a scale of one to ten, with one being bed bound, two being able to be out of bed with very limited activity, and so on. In the last six year or so, I'd say I spent quite a bit of time being a 2 but I had improved up to a 3. This is pretty much the same range I have been in for about 15 years.
The protocol set me back significantly for about seven weeks, then suddenly I was able to start exercising. By this I mean walking for 30 minutes at a fairly slow pace. I have been able to exercise the great majority of days since then. In the prior year I was never able to exercise at all. Not a single time. In the two years or so before that I probably only able to exercise one time per month or less. .
I have slowly gained ground these last couple of months. I added the mupirocin about 4 weeks ago, which initially set me back but has now seemed to give me an additional boost.
I am now consistently around a 6.5 on a scale of one to ten. I am very productive and active every day. My daily ability to get things done is probably 3 or 4 times what it was previously. I have reduced the time I spend watching TV by about 70%.
My energy is up. My brain fog has diminished. I read more and comprehend better. I have less pain. My malaise is greatly improved . My over all quality of life has improved immensely.
I'm now able to go out and do things I wasn't able to do before. Earlier in my treatment I did things while really wishing I could feel better doing it, but now I am able to enjoy it much more. The best part of this is I can now plan to do something knowing I can and will do it. I no longer have to worry that when the time comes, I will have to cancel. This does not mean I can do everything I want to do. I still have limitations.
I had my first real check up in many years. I have lost weight. My blood pressure has dropped 15 points. My bad cholesterol has gone down. My good cholesterol has gone up. My labs were all good.
If I never got better than I am right now I would consider my treatment to be highly successful, even life changing. Of course, there are no guarantees about what the future will hold. I will just have to see.
I don't have as much feedback with regard to the other three family members. My wife, who has been working full time does feel better but she has had to pace through the protocol to keep working. What she notices more than anything is a dramatic improvement in her ability to sleep and an improvement in the quality of that sleep. It seems like she is really starting to rest (and improve) for the first time in years.
I don't ask my daughters how they are doing. They have been asked too many times and at the stage of life they are in, they don't want to talk about it much.
I do feel it is important that I mention my younger daughter. I had reported a while back that she had reached a milestone and had really turned a corner. I know that many people have been reading this thread and I have wanted to be as objective and accurate as possible. As such, I have tried to not overstate anything. In retrospect it seems she really hadn't improved as much as I thought. Then she went on mupirocin a few weeks ago she really had a major apparent die off reaction. She now seems to be past that.
I am confident she is now better than when she started, but it is not a profound improvement. She has had some minor symptomatic improvement but her neurological symptoms and fatigue continue to limit her greatly. She does have small windows of feeling better. These windows are pretty spread out, but when she is better it is quite clear because she is doing things that had not been able to do previously. She has been so sick these past six years that she has been very isolated and unable to interact with others around her own age. She has now been able to socialize on her good days, which is a very meaningful step forward. In the big picture, I feel she is just sicker and it will take longer, but she has great promise going forward.