Sports Medicines/Weightlifing Supplements 'Success'

[Cort]

This just caught my eye from another website. Has anyone tried this combination of supplements?

This something I'm experimenting on with myself right now. I've had CFS for about 6 years - formerly heavily into weight training, fitness, sports science, etc. So I'm trying various combinations of all the standard CFS and (recently) sports and bodybuilding supplements, along with various different exercise and pacing protocols, and I've been mapping my activity levels (wearing a pedometer - step counter) and symptoms, along with any changes to the protocol for over a year, in Excell.

First point is that anything you do to make your symptoms temporarily worse is setting back your recovery. I don't think CFS is a disease or illness, as such, I think it is a syndrome (serious of vicious circles) which are set in place by chronic stress: exercise, viral, emotional, etc. and probably a genetic disposition.

This is probably why it affects Type A personalities - we're more likely to push ourselves and overreach, and this can stunt our chances of recovery. The people who tend to do best are the ones who start sleeping 12 hours a day and taking it really easy as soon as the symptoms start.

Interesting observation I've made is that while pacing - (keeping exactly within your limits, so you absolutely minimize symptoms while being just active enough) - long-term, there's a gradual trend, albeit with ups and downs, of increased daily activity. And it's SLOW. And it probably represents mitochondrial repair.

I've been taking Acetyl-L-Carnitine (2g/day), CoQ10 (400mg going down to 100mg), D-Ribose (15g/day), Niacinamide (500mg/day), and Magnesium (400-500mg/day), for mitochondrial assistance... Really made a big difference - don't expect immediate energy; this is about long-term repair, so you'll need lots of rest...

Also take full range of vitamins and minerals, including high doses of B vitamins and 1mg/day B12. Sometimes taking magnesium through the skin works better at getting levels up than orally. You can buy magnesium oil, or bathe in epsom salts - or trying injections. Magnesium's VERY often low in CFS, and involved in hundreds of biochemical reactions.

The interesting thing is that whether I'm resting all day or on graded exercise programmes, the recovery trend is barely altered at all. That is unless the exercise I do provokes symptoms, in which case the recovery's often set back weeks/months.

I'm now experimenting now with sports supplements to aid muscle recovery and immune function: L-Glutamine (15g/day - repairs tissue, protein synthesis, improves immune function), BCAA's (10g/day - improves muscle recovery, blocks tryptophan uptake which directly lifts fatigue), Malic Acid (2g/day - very important for Kreb cycle, ATP/ADP recycling, etc.), and also adding L-Lysine (1-2g/day - precursor to Carnitine).

Very promising results so far. Activity trend's gone up significantly - although it's been less than a month, and knowing what I know about mitochondrial recovery, I'm deliberately trying to keep within normal activity levels, for risk of crashing.

I think the best form of exercise for CFS is short duration, moderate intensity, and varied, so you're hitting different muscles on different days.

I've not quite figured out my muscle recovery time yet, but for normal people it's usually 5-7 days - most people hit the same muscle groups more frequently and do really do themselves any favours.

Best way is to listen to your body, and graph symptoms.

The best exercise is possibly anything you can do in a 5 minute time-frame. The anaerobic system seems less affected than the aerobic system, so might be best to start with a slow, 5 minute walk, and build up speed, rather than time.

Should have a LOT of data by the time I've got myself back to normal. Which I'm well on the way to doing I think. Only 2 years ago I was too tired to breathe most the day!

 

[Cort]

His next post - making slow improvement provided he does not overdo it

Should say first off, I think my biggest discovery recently has been identifying a food intolerance I hadn't suspected. I've been really good with my diet - cutting out all the common allergens (dairy, wheat, eggs, coffee, etc.) - but hadn't considered Lectin problems.

I've lived off beans/lentils/tomatoes for years, and was certainly eating a lot of that kind of thing when I burnt out. So I cut all beans and tomatoes out about a month ago; immediately felt my body temperature up, and viral symptoms; and then had 2 weeks of bleak depression. I can't tell for sure whether the two are linked, but it could be that a Lectin sensitivity had been suppressing my immune function, and now my body's up and down as it's fighting accumulated bugs/toxins. I can suddenly drive much further, but I'm still having tired patches.

(CONSIDER ANYTHING YOU EAT REGULARLY A POTENTIAL PROBLEM - I WISH I HAD EARLIER. Could be the sole cause of things.)

On to supplements! I think these and an attitude of complete rest, as much as possible, have helped stabilise things, and begin the path to recovery:

Biocare Multivitamins (contains good high B doses)
Myhill's Multi-mineral formula
D3 (1000ug)
CoQ10 (100mg/day)
Niacinamide (500mg/day)
L-Carnitine (1g/day)
D-Ribose (varies on activity)
Folapro (1/4 tablet - part of Rich VK's methylation cycle protocol)
Folinic Acid (1/4 of a tablet - just a little top up)
VegEPA (4x omega 3 pills/day)
(and I use magnesium chloride solution - which I make myself from powdered mg chloride, which Dr Myhill supplies - occasionally. I rub it on calves and wrist. Very small amounts. Can be incredibly stimulating. The effect I get off it sort of tells me whether I'm low on magnesium, I think. As skin absorption can be the best way to get levels up)

On these, and with as much rest as physically possible each day, my daily activity levels started to climb consistently, but VERY slowly. Still, beats getting worse, and using a pedometer's much better than subjectively measuring because the improvement's so slow I'm not sure I'd often realise I was getting better without something more 'objective'.

I added the sports supplements (above) and the rate of improvement picked up immediately. I think BCAAs and L-Glutamine have done HUGE things for muscle recovery. Both are typically low in CFS. I think it took a good few months of athlete-level doses to get muscular improvements, but when walking around my upper limit would normally cause a noticeable weakness/fatigue in my knee tendons, a few months of proper supplementation and the problem's rarely there. (Still comes and goes if I'm fighting colds.)

I love weight training too.

Normally, when I'm feeling well, I'll start with some press-ups or bicep curls, and then find myself kind of burnt out with a cold or something a few days later. So I think you've got to be cautious, because tearing up muscles and then asking them to repair is probably taxing an overtaxed system, which, for me, rather than leading to immediate fatigue, tends to lead to a gradual decline during the recovery phase.

I have just started exercising biceps again, as I am feeling improvements, especially since the diet improvements, but I'm monitoring activity, muscle recovery and subjective feelings VERY tightly to make sure it's within my window.

If I'm outside my window, I'm going to go backwards, but I think once you get to the point where you can do weights, there's a lot of benefits there, not least naturally raising HGH levels.

(I'm starting off with 2 sets, manageable weight, once every 7 days, and I'll stop immediately if the trends go the wrong way.)

I do think CFS is a very recoverable condition though. I don't even call it CFS, I just say I burnt myself out. For me it's just like a VERY long rehab from some kind of long-term overtraining syndrome. Rest is certainly much more important than exercise. Rest is what stopped me getting worse and started to allow me to raise my activity levels gradually and organically. Even though it meant cutting my graded exercise/walking right out, and dramatically reducing my activity levels, the improvements became consistent, rather than sporadic and circular.

 

[Esther12]

Sounds a bit Myhill. Someone I was speaking to on-line sounded very similar to this, and also raved about Myhill's approach.

Two different people that I've spoken to who have recovered talked about graphing actometer results. I've still not tried it... not very Type A there. Both these other people spoke about 'burnout' rather than CFS, but it seems likely that there's some subsection of CFS patients with similar problems.

edit: he mention's Myhill's minerals in his second post. That sounds very Myhill!

 

[Cort]

I should really be doing that - graphing pedometer results - I know someone else who is slowly improving doing something like that.

 

[Esther12]

I just searched Amazon for 'actometer' and nothing came up! Amazon is supposed to have everything!

Does anyone know where in the UK you can buy an actometer?

 

[Mark]

Does anyone know where in the UK you can buy an actometer?

You could try to get hold of some second hand from the psychs - I believe they had a job lot of them which they decided not to use halfway through their last big study, presumably when they realised the actometers would prove that their CBT-based "improvements" didn't actually represent any increase in activity levels...

 

[xchocoholic]

So I cut all beans and tomatoes out about a month ago; immediately felt my body temperature up, and viral symptoms; and then had 2 weeks of bleak depression. I can't tell for sure whether the two are linked, but it could be that a Lectin sensitivity had been suppressing my immune function, and now my body's up and down as it's fighting accumulated bugs/toxins. I can suddenly drive much further, but I'm still having tired patches.

Hi Cort,

Just have to say that I think you're doing a Great job on this forum !!!

I suspect this is what's responsible for his improvement not all those supplements. He really won't be able to tell what's helping unless he looks at each supplement and his nutritional deficiencies individually. I may have missed something here but from what I read, he's now on the Paleo diet ... Myhill and Cordain explain why this works.

FWIW. I'm relatively new to the world of supplements but in my experience getting too much or too little of Nutrient A, B or C is counterproductive and can be dangerous. And trying to follow a protocal isn't realistic because it doesn't take into consideration what nutrients someone is getting via their diet, what their gut biology is and what their nutritional deficiencies are.

Since I started an exercise regime recently I was looking into what I might need to help with this. I bought CoQ10 only to have a bad reaction (eye pain) to it so that's out. So far, it looks like pacing, taking extra B's, Enzymatic Kreb's cycle chelates and drinking plenty of water and for me because my labs showed that I had too much mercury, some chorophyl to help me detox .. ... kow ... kow ... My muscles started recovering from any pain on their own within 24 hours a year or so ago but I can't remember if I figured out why right now ... it's been a loooong day ... for almost 20 years, my recovery time was weeks ... tc ... x

 

[glenp]

Very interesting Cort

Thank you for all that you do for us.

I find diet very difficult to figure but believe it makes a big difference.

I take 500mg acetyl-l- carnitine and 250 mg co q10 daily. I did take ribose but did not notice any effects and stopped the magsense when i had black out spell

I have had food sensitivity testing but think that some of the foods that test ok for me on the tests are not, so hard to figure, but then as my cfs doctor says- be careful of eating a specific food more then once in 4 days or you could develop an intollerence to it

glen

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi again Cort,

I was almost asleep . ... lol ... ok, I know that you're GF but I keep forgetting to ask you if you're aware of cross contamination problems ? And because you're sensitive to gluten, there's a strong possibility that other foods or chemicals are bothering you too. Most of the people I know who are sensitive to gluten or other foods, find that minute amounts of these can cause symptoms ranging from RA pain to ataxia to digestive problems to whatever ...

I've met a few who say that it isn't until the gluten, etc builds up in their bodies that they react too. Some celiacs I know can eat all those cross contaminated GF foods for awhile and then it catches up with them and they have to back off for a bit ... I'm this way with dairy. I don't react (dark circles around eyes) until I've been eating it for 3 days but then it takes 7 - 10 to undo the reaction.

I've healed quite a bit in the last 5 years so I can tolerate minute amounts of gluten without getting knocked off my feet for 3 weeks now but it still causes me to be tired for a few days to a week afterwards. Just a thought ... my body thinks it's 11 here so I'm off to bed ... tc ... x

 

[satori]

I was an athlete in a former life (wish I could be reincarnated back there right now) and used many of those things and more. I've also used many of them post-illness. You will find that what helps you is specific to your biochemistry and work out. Acetyl carnitine made me jittery, ribose did nothing, co q 10 helped a little, and magnesium malate was essential. In general, many of the typical amino acids for sports were not helpful, but glycine, taurine and NAC were. Creatine is also helpful. Pre-illness I took things like ferulic acid, vanadyl sulfate, many antioxidants (vit e etc-improved aerobic capacity), but those don't seem to have the same impact post-illlness. I've discovered through blood testing that my viral titers go through the roof post exercise and my magnesium dips even lower (makes sense that anything you sweat out needs to be replenished including B vits). I am trying to experiment with taking some type of natural anti-virals post exercise to see if that will improve things. I think it's likely that the specific causes may be slightly differnet for everyone even though the end result is the same (as with so many other aspects of this illness). If anyone else has done something similar, then I would love to hear about it.

 

[Sallysblooms]

I have taken most of those. If it weren't for my supplements, I would still not be walking. I would be in bed since I have POTS. The d ribose, Lipoic Supreme, coq10 , and others have been amazing. The Lipoic Supreme heals nerve problems in feet etc, so it is valuable for my POTS. I am so thankful for my doctor that knows about supplants and how much I need.

 

[drex13]

Looking back on my time with CFIDS, I brought myself out of my first 3 year battle by cleaning up my diet (I mostly ate The Zone, no wheat, little dairy) and a few supplements. Looking back, there was a supplement called BetaGen made by EAS that I took, which contained L-glutamine, taurine, and creatine, which I think may have really been a big help in my recovery. Unfortunately, they don't make it anymore, but I did find something similar online the other day, but I can't remember the name of it. I'll have to find it again. It may be worth a shot.

 

[knackers323]

hi Drex, if the diet worked before, have you tried it again?

 

[Sallysblooms]

I stopped gluten four months ago. I did a lot of reading about it.

 

[drex13]

No, I haven't. Why ? I don't know. I had my gallbladder out 4 years ago, and my digestive system (and everything else) has been a mess since then.

 

[ESP]

Having been a Personal Fitness Trainer before I became to ill to take care of myself I understand why someone would try this type of "treatment". But what it sounds like to me is that rest is important and becoming active leads to post exertional malaise. Sounds vaguely familiar...