CFS explained
Having spent the past few brain fogged years figuring it all out and finally curing myself, here's what I've concluded:
First of all, that I AM a genius for being able to get to this point. I'm all high on myself now, can't help it, sorry, hehehe
I go into more detail in my thread "what you need to do and why" in personal stories. But this is the very condensed version because you wanted it short and sweet.
CFS (most cases, there are always exceptions but I'm talking about virtually all cases) begins with intestinal dysbiosis - the bacterial flora is out of balance. The causes are most likely bad diet and lots of antibiotics, but could be lots of things. Dysbiosis means there is not enough good bacteria and too much bad bacteria. One of the good bacteria's most important jobs is managing the integrity of the intestinal lining - making sure the intestinal wall is protected. It has very small pores in it that let nutrients and things we need pass through it. If the good bacteria is not there, the bad bacteria and yeast will infect the lining and the pores will get bigger.
Food intolerance can cause inflammation which will also injure the intestinal wall. The pores get bigger and start letting all sorts of things through: undigested food particles, bad bacteria, waste, etc. The good bacteria also help digest food so when there aren't enough, you have undigested food particles accumulating. All these things can now pass through your intestinal lining which has developed intestinal hyperpermeability or leaky gut syndrome.
Now your bloodstream is full of nasties so your liver and kidneys become overwhelmed. They stop functioning optimally. You are now starved for nutrients from impaired digestion and have more than your liver can handle to detoxify properly.
All other organs and metabolic systems start to suffer from toxin and undigested food particle overload and starvation of nutrients. No two people react to these failings in the same way, that's why our symptoms are so different.
On top of all this, as if it couldn't get any worse, heavy metals start building up in the body and start getting deposited all over. The body seems to treat metals like slimy corporations treat toxic waste - they try to dump it where it won't do any immediate harm but they can't really do anything to it to make it any safer. So your poor broken body starts dumping mercury, lead, thallium, tin and platinum wherever it can.
Those were my own high metals and I suspect them to be in my hypothalamus/pituitary (the master gland system which controls all the other ones, so his job is compromised), in my adrenals/kidneys (making my adrenals not able to perform properly or my kidneys able to balance fluid optimally) and my liver, since it just seems to be taking a licking and yet keep on ticking. And finally, some of the metals must be in my brain because my memory is shot. At least I've gotten back my ability to concentrate and problem solve - and this just from the gut fix! Oh, did I mention I also feel great and can do some easy exercise?
Okay, what to do quickly: get a CDSA (comprehensive digestive stool analysis) done by a qualified health practitioner (NOT a medical doctor) and start fixing the dysbiosis - this has to be done first. As you do this, the intestinal lining will begin to heal gradually. It took me a year to fix the dysbiosis. Then I started adding some carbs to my diet and I'm about to do another stool analysis on Monday. If it looks good, I can begin chelating heavy metals. If it's bad again because I got stupid and ate some carbs, then I have to restrict my diet again.
If I start chelating heavy metals, there is no telling how long I may have to keep doing it to get them all out. Andy Cutler, an expert, says anywhere from 1-4 years, depending on how bad you got. I was pretty bad, bedridden for 3 years.
So that's what you do: get the CDSA to gauge the severity of dysbiosis, fix the gut while supporting the metabolic systems that you can with supplements, then chelate the metals. Sounds easy but this will literally take years. Not to put you off, but just so you don't find yourself expecting to be back to normal in 6 months and giving up when you still have problems. It took years to get like this, we've already been sick years and it did damage, and so now to fix it takes yet even more years. But what else do we have to do? Sit around feeling like everything sucks? It's all do-able but you have to do a lot of your own homework so you can understand what you need to do.
It's a tough fix, and it's expensive and you have to develop an enormous amount of willpower when it comes to food. Those of us who have been bedridden and felt like we were dying for a long time have already developed infinite patience and infinite willpower when it comes to food. My own attitude is that I will do whatever it takes to get better. I won't waste any time because it takes too long. So no cheating on food, not even a morsel. I found my expert at becomehealthynow and if you look at beatcfsandfms.org, they have the protocols for CFS and fibro and they can help you find a doctor.
I also have extensive notes on how to deal with depression/brain fog, energy problems and other things all with the use of specific supplements. I had been experimenting with supplements for a few years before I figured out I need to fix my gut so I was getting pretty good at managing certain symptoms. I at least stopped the dying feeling and was able to get out of bed and start thinking.
The gut fix I did was all done with a carb restricted diet and supplements. I had severe hypoglycemia, too, and that was completely gone within one month of starting my gut treatment.
I also wish there was a way we could all sue our medical doctors for not only failure to diagnose dysbiosis and hyperpermeability, but also for the misdiagnosis of CFS which is just a BS term for "gee, we don't know what's wrong!"
I have to end on a pleasant note, though. Even if I had to stay like I am now and leave the metals in place, that would be okay. I had lost my good feeling for a very long time, even contemplated suicide because I couldn't take the agony and didn't know when it would end. But I'm glad I hung in there. My dad got me a mac laptop for Xmas in 2005 and it saved my ass. Thank God for Dr. Google. I'm now on my second laptop since I dropped the first one a few times because I was a mess and it didn't work anymore. But I do!!! DO NOT GIVE UP!!!
Oh, have to add because it's very important - when you google for health related things, always include the words "natural remedies" in with your search terms. That way you will exclude all the medical profession's advice which is misleading and useless to us. Sometimes it's even the exact opposite of what we should do.
