Acupuncture - A Tale of Two Days
MMS was a disaster for me. Everyone is different, but I just wanted to say, the stuff is really really strong, and even when titrating up very slowly, which I did, it was so bad I never reached the target dose and had to give up.
Cautionary note: Another fairly long post.
Thanks Leela for your comments; I couldnt agree more regarding the need to be extremely cautious when using MMS. I started out at 1/3 drop every other day, and it took me a while from there before I could consider doing more. I did get some very positive results, but I quit taking it after I no longer felt it best to continue. Ive started and stopped about three times now.
The most recent time was about three weeks ago, the same time I also temporarily stopped doing the Rife frequencies. I quit because I was becoming concerned by some really significant and difficult neurological problems I was experiencing. My cognitive function worsened; my vertigo and Orthostatic Intolerance (OI) worsened; the synaptic function in my brain felt like it was going haywire; my sleep was more disturbed; and more. I thought most of these symptoms were a result of the Lyme bacteria dieoff and subsequent release of neurotoxins, but Im not so sure now, based on my experiences (below), that that was the entire story.
These difficult neurological symptoms reminded me of the documentary Under Our Skin where a woman with Lyme began antibiotic treatment, and it reached a point where she was having seizures or seizure-like symptoms. I dont feel I reached that point, but I did have to wonder how close I might be coming to what might technically be seizure activity.
Anyway, I've felt like I've been in sort of a holding pattern for the past three weeks or so since I wrote my last fairly long (and perhaps convoluted) post about some of these difficulties. It felt like I was stuck and didnt look like I was going to break out any time soon. So I began to be extra vigilant for something that might help me break through this down cycle.
This something presented itself this past week, when I drove by a sign I had not seen before; acupuncture for $15. I went in, discussed my situation, and made an appointment for Wednesday (two days ago). We did a number of points, and I was on the table for about 30 minutes. It felt somewhat difficult for me to integrate some of the energy shifts, but I felt I did so fairly well by the time I reached the last five minutes.
That night (Wednesday), I actually looked forward to going to sleep, something thats not usually the case as it's often not easy for me to do. It just generally takes a lot of work to get my system calmed down enough to sleep. I felt fairly confident I would have a better than normal sleep; I had had a better than normal evening.
Well, I woke up around 2:30, and realized I was not going to get back to sleep. I got up after only 4 hours sleep, and started my normal morning stuff, feeling fairly normal. As the day wore on however, I began to feel worse and worse, experiencing horrible anxiety, depression, balance problems, and more. The other neurological problems that had been bothering me all became much worse as well.
By Thursday evening, a dull headache that had been building, became much worse than normal, and I began to experience what felt like shooting pains going through my brain. In a bit of desperation, I took a tylenol 3 (which has a bit of codeine) and hoped for the best.
It helped; I was able to sleep nine hours, and I woke Friday morning (today) feeling more calmed down than I have during the last three weeks. As I got started on my day, I quickly noticed that the major neurological symptoms I had been experiencing for the past three weeks were way better. And I noticed my physical energy was better as well.
I went in for another acupuncture session this afternoon (Friday). This time I very quickly began to integrate the energy shifts, and was able to go into a deep relaxation. I was told some of the wirey energy he noticed in my pulses had definitely smooth out, and my heart and lung pulses were much stronger.
An interesting thing about my kidney pulses: He told me they were much stronger than the average person (he said he wished his were as strong). When I asked him today if this meant my adrenal function was probably very strong as well, he said it did (from an oriental perspective).
It wasnt until then I realized that I had almost forgotten to take my noon dose of Cortef (bio-identical cortisol), and then decided to take a slightly lesser amount than normal. I then was late on my afternoon dose, even wondering whether I should skip it altogether. I suspect my adrenal insufficiency is a result of my HPA dysfunction (which I had always felt was likely, and which the acupuncture may already be affecting), and not related to weakness in my kidneys and adrenals.
A point to make: There are so many reports of people trying various therapies and failing (as Joey pointed out earlier, many doing Rife often fail to improve their Lyme condition). Im of the strong belief that a reason for a lot of these failures is because supportive therapies that may be critical are not done at the same time.
Based on past experience, I think I could easily have been stuck in this recent down cycle for a long time, but feel Im now pulling out of it in an encouragingly strong way (at this time). I hope it continues; theres never any guarantees. One thing I'm encouraged by is how I was able to go from an absolutely miserable situation to a much stronger one in a relatively short period of time (roughly 24 hours). It seems to reflect what the acupuncturist told me; that I have a good amount of "chi" to work with.
This recent experience is more confirming of something Ive long suspected; a big part of my health problems have to do with a disruption of my electrical system (perhaps somewhat analogous to what Cheney has described as ME patients "blowing a fuse"). Addressing this with acupuncture feels like it may have a lot of benefit for me, so I plan to continue doing these treatments 2x/week for a while. At $15 per session, I feel fortunate to have made this discovery.
Best to All,
Wayne
