@amaru7 - I have spent thousands of dollars over the last 19 years primarily on supplements, hardly any drugs. I've used myself as a guinea pig after doing lots of reading. I would guestimate that 95% of what I've tried has not helped; however, the 5% that has helped makes it worth it.
I was fortunate to have a doctor who got me on a good basic supplement regime (probably good for any healthy person), and then almost everything that has helped specifically with ME/CFS has been through my own research and experimentation, although I highly recommend Nutreval testing. It pinpointed a severe B6 deficiency and also a leucine deficiency. The leucine deficiency led to research re BCAAs and ME/CFS and PEM, and since I started taking BCAAs almost 3 years ago, my PEM recovery time was cut in half. Plus my energy increased a bit.
The primary things I credit with helping me have more energy are (though I'm still quite limited in activity due to PEM; I have days where I feel normal, but I still have to ration my energy carefully - 3-1/2 - 4 hours of light activity - otherwise I crash):
d-ribose
thiamine
B6
folate
methylcobalamin
potassium
BCAAs
adrenal glandular
andrographis (for chronic sinus infections - very effective)
I also take a bunch of other supplements (magnesium, CoQ10 etc.) but these are the ones where I noticed the biggest difference when I started taking them.
Also I had a ton of detox reactions for many years, I reacted to many things quite strongly and would feel sick, tired, woozy, spacey, generally poisoned. A liver detox plus the amino acids glycine, glutamine and inositol eventually took care of this. It's a long story but I almost never have detox reactions any more and they used to be a huge part of my life. I have to remind myself how bad it was. If I wasn't crashed or sick I was detoxing - something always making me feel like crap.
I also credit chiropractors trained in muscle testing who were particularly helpful with detox issues, digestion in general and my adrenals. My digestion used to be chronically screwed up (and thus would feel crappy - I wasn't absorbing nutrients properly) until I found I needed to take betaine HCL with pepsin with meals.
So it's been a long slow journey but I am noticeably better than say 10 years ago. So I don't regret money I've spent on things that didn't help - though it would certainly be nice to have it back!
![Nerd :nerd: :nerd:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)