JohnnyMinnesota99
Senior Member
- Messages
- 123
Hello everybody,
I hope you all are good and well, or at least you are feeling okay!
I (male, 37 years old, from Germany, work full-time as a teacher) have created this thread in order to inform you about my personal recovery and the drugs/food supplements I have taken. Hoping that my thread helps some of you and brings a little bit of courage and confidence, I will now report what's been going on in my life in the last four years as a CFS patient.
Here is a short summary of my condition: I contracted a severe infection in June 2016, did not rest enough and was not able to overcome the disease. As a result, I developed a mild form of CFS and have had problems ever since. It has always been my intuition that there is still some kind of disease in my body with my immune system constantly fighting it. It took me three years to find out that I have elevated antibody levels for Coxsackievirus B5 (neutralisation test: IgG 1:320, test at IMD Frankfurt/Oder in Germany). Our forum has been of great help for me. In fact, without you and in particular without @Hip and @Judee, I would never have found out. It's a shame that the causes of a CFS condition are still a black box to most physicians. In Germany, there are 300,000 people suffering from CFS, and there are millions of patients all across the globe... :-/ Referring to the CFS scale, I "started out" as a 6 in 2016, then became a 7 and maybe got to be a 7,5 in 2019. I am pretty sure that a substantial part of my convalescence is due to the factors time and immune system. Nevertheless, there were and are things that helped me (please see in the following).
My symptoms: After the disease and in the first 1-2 years afterwards, I did not have enough energy, often felt a sore throat and a headache, and if this wasn't enough, I was quite susceptible to infections. In the course of time, my symptoms and my condition improved, but I still wasn't able to exercise. After doing sport - that always went surprisingly well - I developed symptoms. They started 1 to 4 days after the exercise. Furthermore, my symptoms flared up regularly. Of all the activities of a teacher, speaking was most exhausting for me since it regularly lead to a headache.
Drugs: Since I was under the impression of having caught EBV, I tried valacyclovir. I tolerated the drug very well, but obviously, it didn't have any effect. My EBV IgG's were/are 1:80, elevated but still quite normal. Apart from that, I received a vitamin C infusion every now and then (7,5 grams or 15 grams), I regularly take vitamin D pills, multi-vitamin pills and live a healthy diet with a lot of vitamins. Also, I try to have a regular sleep of 7 - 9 hours.
=> In March 2020, I started taking high-dose sodium selenite (600 - 800 mcg / day), which is supposed to have an antiviral effect against CVB5. Since I felt a slight scent of garlic with time, I lowered my dose of 200 - 400 mcg per day. I can fairly say that sodium selenite helped me a lot. I still felt my flu-like symptoms after exercising, but in general I was able to live a normal life at last. My current dose is 200 - 400 mcg per day.
=> On 22 June 2020, I started taking Oxymatrine. After informing myself thoroughly about the intake, I made my decision to start a course of Oxymatrine in spite of the fact that I am a "good" candidate for autoimmune tendencies (pollen allergy with a very mild form of asthma, irritable bowel disease or CIBD (I regularly take 1,5 - 3 grams of mesalazine, )).
I have tolerated Oxymatrine well. I am on a 5-pill-dose per day. After raising the dose, I sensed a slight increase in symptoms. Moreover, I feel symptoms when I wake up in the morning: Sometimes I feel a bit of a sore throat, a bit of a headache and limb pain, too. In addition to that, I often realise that I sweated on the previous night. After an hour or so, these symptoms have normally disappeared, so I take it a good sign with my immune system working at night. So far, I haven't run a fever, though. I have taken Oxymatrine for 1.5 months now.
I can happily report that my health status has improved. It's not that I have finally reached remission, but my life has become much better than it was in the past. While my s/o and I were on holiday, we also hiked for 3 hours and made an e-bike tour of 4 hours with pauses). Yesterday, I exercised 40 minutes on my exercise bike (average pulse of approx. 100 b/min).
I have to admit that I now and then sense a slight form a limb pain and headache after the exercises, but so far I have been able to live with those symptoms quite well. It is hard to say where I find myself on the CFS scale now, but with a little bit of confidence I suppose I can say that I am a solid 8,5 with days on which I feel like a 9. This is absolutely awesome!! Of course, it is still my wish to achieve full recovery and turn into a 10, but I am more than thankful that I have been able to make progress in the past four years. If all goes to plan, I will titrate my Oxymatrine dose up to 6 pills per day at the end of the week. At the beginning of last week, I probably had a gastric flu. It normally takes me two to three days to overcome it, but this time I had trouble getting rid of diarrhoea. For that reason, I increased my mesalazine dose to 4 gr. per day and finally got things under control. Occasionally I sense gastrointestinal symptoms, but I suppose they are due to my Oxymatrine intake. Healing earth can be beneficial here, as I was to learn. Please make sure, however, to wait at least two hours before and after the intake of it since it can bind drugs and thus lower their effect. The effect is comparable with the intake of an antacid.
Problems with asthma bronchiale I have not had so far. Every once in a while, my lungs feel a bit rough and I have to cough, but it's not bad. However, I could sense an increase in allergic symptoms to pollen. This must have been due to the fact that Oxymatrine boosts the immune system. On the days without exercise and not too much stress, I feel like a normal person without any health issues. For a long time, I didn't think it's possible for me to achieve such a level!
My questions for you:
Do you think that moderate exercise is harmful to my personal recovery? Dr. Chia, with whose reports I was carefully concerned, says that patients should avoid excessive exercise during the intake of Oxymatrine in order to lower the risk of relapse. On the other hand, as I see things as a layperson, it might also be good to strengthen your cardiovascular system by exercise. This, in turn, should have a positive impact on the capacities of one's immune system as well.
=> Do you think that one or two 40-minute mild/moderate exercises per week could do harm to my recovery or even prevent the Oxymatrine from being effective? Headache and limb pain, I can get a handle on quite well, but I certainly don't want to risk the efficiency of my Oxymatrine protocol! Today, the limb pain in my back, legs and arms is moderate (I exercised yesterday), but I am feeling okay nonetheless. Being active/doing sport certainly lifts the mood and helps on an emotional level. Needless to say that CFS patients always have to be very very cautious when it comes to being active and doing sports...
=> If I reach full or almost remission one day, how shalI lower my Oxymatrine intake?
=> What could be a good maintenance dose of Oxymatrine?
Do you have any experiences or insights? I would be pleased to read your answers. Please feel free to ask me whatever you would like to know. I will always be happy to help. This forum is just great, and I would love to contribute. My medical-biochemical competence is limited, but I have gained some sort of "how to deal with"-experience in the past four years.
Best wishes to all of you!!!
Johnny Minnesota
I hope you all are good and well, or at least you are feeling okay!
I (male, 37 years old, from Germany, work full-time as a teacher) have created this thread in order to inform you about my personal recovery and the drugs/food supplements I have taken. Hoping that my thread helps some of you and brings a little bit of courage and confidence, I will now report what's been going on in my life in the last four years as a CFS patient.
Here is a short summary of my condition: I contracted a severe infection in June 2016, did not rest enough and was not able to overcome the disease. As a result, I developed a mild form of CFS and have had problems ever since. It has always been my intuition that there is still some kind of disease in my body with my immune system constantly fighting it. It took me three years to find out that I have elevated antibody levels for Coxsackievirus B5 (neutralisation test: IgG 1:320, test at IMD Frankfurt/Oder in Germany). Our forum has been of great help for me. In fact, without you and in particular without @Hip and @Judee, I would never have found out. It's a shame that the causes of a CFS condition are still a black box to most physicians. In Germany, there are 300,000 people suffering from CFS, and there are millions of patients all across the globe... :-/ Referring to the CFS scale, I "started out" as a 6 in 2016, then became a 7 and maybe got to be a 7,5 in 2019. I am pretty sure that a substantial part of my convalescence is due to the factors time and immune system. Nevertheless, there were and are things that helped me (please see in the following).
My symptoms: After the disease and in the first 1-2 years afterwards, I did not have enough energy, often felt a sore throat and a headache, and if this wasn't enough, I was quite susceptible to infections. In the course of time, my symptoms and my condition improved, but I still wasn't able to exercise. After doing sport - that always went surprisingly well - I developed symptoms. They started 1 to 4 days after the exercise. Furthermore, my symptoms flared up regularly. Of all the activities of a teacher, speaking was most exhausting for me since it regularly lead to a headache.
Drugs: Since I was under the impression of having caught EBV, I tried valacyclovir. I tolerated the drug very well, but obviously, it didn't have any effect. My EBV IgG's were/are 1:80, elevated but still quite normal. Apart from that, I received a vitamin C infusion every now and then (7,5 grams or 15 grams), I regularly take vitamin D pills, multi-vitamin pills and live a healthy diet with a lot of vitamins. Also, I try to have a regular sleep of 7 - 9 hours.
=> In March 2020, I started taking high-dose sodium selenite (600 - 800 mcg / day), which is supposed to have an antiviral effect against CVB5. Since I felt a slight scent of garlic with time, I lowered my dose of 200 - 400 mcg per day. I can fairly say that sodium selenite helped me a lot. I still felt my flu-like symptoms after exercising, but in general I was able to live a normal life at last. My current dose is 200 - 400 mcg per day.
=> On 22 June 2020, I started taking Oxymatrine. After informing myself thoroughly about the intake, I made my decision to start a course of Oxymatrine in spite of the fact that I am a "good" candidate for autoimmune tendencies (pollen allergy with a very mild form of asthma, irritable bowel disease or CIBD (I regularly take 1,5 - 3 grams of mesalazine, )).
I have tolerated Oxymatrine well. I am on a 5-pill-dose per day. After raising the dose, I sensed a slight increase in symptoms. Moreover, I feel symptoms when I wake up in the morning: Sometimes I feel a bit of a sore throat, a bit of a headache and limb pain, too. In addition to that, I often realise that I sweated on the previous night. After an hour or so, these symptoms have normally disappeared, so I take it a good sign with my immune system working at night. So far, I haven't run a fever, though. I have taken Oxymatrine for 1.5 months now.
I can happily report that my health status has improved. It's not that I have finally reached remission, but my life has become much better than it was in the past. While my s/o and I were on holiday, we also hiked for 3 hours and made an e-bike tour of 4 hours with pauses). Yesterday, I exercised 40 minutes on my exercise bike (average pulse of approx. 100 b/min).
I have to admit that I now and then sense a slight form a limb pain and headache after the exercises, but so far I have been able to live with those symptoms quite well. It is hard to say where I find myself on the CFS scale now, but with a little bit of confidence I suppose I can say that I am a solid 8,5 with days on which I feel like a 9. This is absolutely awesome!! Of course, it is still my wish to achieve full recovery and turn into a 10, but I am more than thankful that I have been able to make progress in the past four years. If all goes to plan, I will titrate my Oxymatrine dose up to 6 pills per day at the end of the week. At the beginning of last week, I probably had a gastric flu. It normally takes me two to three days to overcome it, but this time I had trouble getting rid of diarrhoea. For that reason, I increased my mesalazine dose to 4 gr. per day and finally got things under control. Occasionally I sense gastrointestinal symptoms, but I suppose they are due to my Oxymatrine intake. Healing earth can be beneficial here, as I was to learn. Please make sure, however, to wait at least two hours before and after the intake of it since it can bind drugs and thus lower their effect. The effect is comparable with the intake of an antacid.
Problems with asthma bronchiale I have not had so far. Every once in a while, my lungs feel a bit rough and I have to cough, but it's not bad. However, I could sense an increase in allergic symptoms to pollen. This must have been due to the fact that Oxymatrine boosts the immune system. On the days without exercise and not too much stress, I feel like a normal person without any health issues. For a long time, I didn't think it's possible for me to achieve such a level!
My questions for you:
Do you think that moderate exercise is harmful to my personal recovery? Dr. Chia, with whose reports I was carefully concerned, says that patients should avoid excessive exercise during the intake of Oxymatrine in order to lower the risk of relapse. On the other hand, as I see things as a layperson, it might also be good to strengthen your cardiovascular system by exercise. This, in turn, should have a positive impact on the capacities of one's immune system as well.
=> Do you think that one or two 40-minute mild/moderate exercises per week could do harm to my recovery or even prevent the Oxymatrine from being effective? Headache and limb pain, I can get a handle on quite well, but I certainly don't want to risk the efficiency of my Oxymatrine protocol! Today, the limb pain in my back, legs and arms is moderate (I exercised yesterday), but I am feeling okay nonetheless. Being active/doing sport certainly lifts the mood and helps on an emotional level. Needless to say that CFS patients always have to be very very cautious when it comes to being active and doing sports...
=> If I reach full or almost remission one day, how shalI lower my Oxymatrine intake?
=> What could be a good maintenance dose of Oxymatrine?
Do you have any experiences or insights? I would be pleased to read your answers. Please feel free to ask me whatever you would like to know. I will always be happy to help. This forum is just great, and I would love to contribute. My medical-biochemical competence is limited, but I have gained some sort of "how to deal with"-experience in the past four years.
Best wishes to all of you!!!
Johnny Minnesota
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