@bertiedog - I'm markedly better than I was 12 years ago, due to supplements. I remember thinking very clearly in 2007 that I had 1 or 2 "good" days a month - days where I wasn't crashed or sick or detoxing or otherwise feeling like crap for unknown reasons. It's been a long slow process with a lot of reading and self-experimentation, and muscle testing, but I can now say that I very often have a couple of good days a
week. Of course even with my good days I'm still limited to 3-1/2 - 4 hours of activity to avoid crashing, but still it's amazing to be able to feel so much better in between crashing. Afraid this will be sort of a long post!
1. BCAAs - gave me a nice chunk of my life back - my crashes now usually end after 1 day, instead of 3. They also help with energy.
2. Folate - increased energy. It also depleted potassium when I first started it, which was extremely helpful to discover because I'd had symptoms of low potassium (awful fatigue unrelated to PEM) but never knew what it was until I started folate
3. Potassium glycinate - before I started taking this would periodically have several days of feeling awful for no apparent reason. Well, I'm prone to low potassium DESPITE NORMAL BLOOD WORK (see
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...ded-in-methylation-treatmt.18670/#post-291410 ) so this has made a huge difference for me
4. Thiamine - boosted my energy. Thiamine also depleted phosphorous (refeeding syndrome), which caused severe fatigue (different than low potassium) but this was helpful to discover too. I found that I have to take a phosphorous supplement about twice a week
5. Phosphorous - low phosphorous can cause severe fatigue - taking a supplement has made a big difference for me
6. betaine HCL with pepsin - before I discovered I had low stomach acid, my digestion was not good. My gallbladder and liver were both affected. betaine HCL with pepsin plus a liver detox has made a huge difference in my digestion, which is now quite good.
7. glycine - I used to have detox symptoms a large percentage of the time. They made me feel sick and woozy, spacey, my digestion would be off. I tried Andy Cutler's protocol with no apparent benefit. A far infrared sauna wiped me out for 3 days and so on. I reacted badly to anything that had "cleansing" properties (e.g., ACV, cayenne). It's a long story but I inadvertently discovered that glycine, which I started for sleep, apparently got my detox pathways working properly. Inositol and glutamine also helped a little, but glycine was the main thing that helped. I had to start with a very low dose and work up gradually over a period of about 6 months.
8. Magnesium - for sleep - VERY important
9. Melatonin, inositol, glycine, 5-htp, lemon balm - all help with sleep
10. lecithin - improved my memory
11. liquid methylcobalamin - helps with energy
12. P-5-P (B-6) - boosted energy
13. Vitamin K2 - I think it's helping my bones. I had to stop calcium because it was interfering with sleep but started K2 and a dexa scan showed I was doing as well as if not better than 3 years ago - after being off of calcium for a couple of years
14. Andrographis - big help to my immune system - I get less sick and recover more quickly. I think it also raised my NK cell function.
Things I reacted to badly:
1. B2 - I've tried taking it several times, and don't do well with it. I do take a B complex which has some B2 I do okay with, but can't take more than that.
2. Calcium - interfered with sleep
I used muscle testing a lot in figuring all this out. e.g., when I first took glycine, it hit me like a truck with an extremely strong detox reaction. I would have had to stop it altogether, only muscle testing indicated that it was good for me, but in a very small dose. And so I kept taking it and over a period of time was able to gradually increase it until I stopped having the detox reaction altogether, and also then stopped having detox reactions in general, which was huge - I had spent a large part of my life feeling crappy from toxins, but no more.
Muscle testing helped me figure out that thiamine was causing my phosphorous to tank, so I was able to keep taking thiamine. Otherwise I would have had to stop it because of the severe fatigue which hit after a couple of days.
I could go on, but won't