Starting With Fibromyalgia/cfs/post Polio Syn

[Birdie]

Peata,
I ran into that Using Fatsecret. It helped me analyze, but put eating constantly on my mind. Now I've let the analysis help my overall food, but am not going back often. I can always use it again when needed. A good tool but can get in my way. :)

 

[Birdie]

So, I signed on to the Forum thinking it was about time to update my log. But, I started reading and replying a little. Turned out to distract me so not sure what I intended to update here. Will have a go at it...

Reading above, I see the comments on taping the mouth at night to prevent mouth breathing.
I still have tape by the bed and use it about half the time. I use the strip vertically and a bit to one side.
Another CO2 thing I'm still doing is the bag breathing. Peat has advised 2-3 minutes so I do about 2 with my morning exercise.
It works out with some knee sets that I do to counteract overuse of the quads. I can do both at once.

Another update, although not necessarily Peatish, is that I'm using the Low Dose Naltrexone at 3.0 ml and in the morning.
Reading back, it looks like I was trying to use it at night again...
Even with morning use and that low a dose, I sometimes get vivid dreams. But I've
always been a colorful dreamer, though not so vivid before LDN.

I think the LDN helps with recovery from muscle injury. Things that used to take 6 months are improved in days.
Thankful for that.

I am using a tiny bit of cytomel around noon when I remember. Got out of the habit with stopping for the summer.
I don't take my temps etc anymore and just symptom wise don't notice any T3 effect.
So, I'm going more on past experience with continuing to use it.
Glad to know I can do okay without it since my supply isn't endless.

 

[Birdie]

Cynomel not cytomel above...

 

[Birdie]

Tomorrow I see my GP and plan to get my rT3 and a few more blood tests done.
I'll get my Free T3 and be able to work out my rT3/Free T3 ratio then. It's been while. Can't hurt.

I am upping my vit D which has been only at 6000 IUs this winter.
I'll get the blood done on that too. I hope to see less of the easy bruising that I've had on my forearms.
I used to do large vit C doses but Peat kinda convinced me to lay off that.
However, the bruising started after I stopped the C sups.
Am gonna try the D.

 

[Birdie]

I use two Super Ks already. That hasn't stopped the bruising, so looking at the bit D now.
Am getting my C from food... Another contributor could be anemia. I developed that after giving blood a couple of years ago.
My bruising is caused by bumping into sharp, hard objects and I do that a lot especially during gardening season.

The last time I got a little knock, I treated the spot with dmso. The bruise didn't get beyond the red stage and disappeared quickly.
Maybe I'm expecting too much but I just don't like this thing where old people get bruised arms.

I know it's a bad sign for what's going on health wise...

 

[tara]

Maybe I'm expecting too much but I just don't like this thing where old people get bruised arms.

I was getting a lot of bruises for a long time. Now I just get an occasional one. Not sure if I'm just bumping myself less because I am less active, or whether all the other changes have helped. I was guessing it was the vit-K, but could have been something else.
Vit-C doesn't have to be tonnes or nothing - if it stops the bruising it might have been doing something good. Would just a little extra be enough to more quickly heal the bruising?

 

[Birdie]

Tara,
Sorry I missed your comment. Thank you for it.

Possibly so, but I don't think taking a little bit of C would speed up bruise healing. I think it works more in a preventative way for bruises.

Yes, my bruises were on the forearms from bumping into things. I haven't had one in a while, but like you not sure if I just haven't been knocking into things. Last summer, I'd jam them up pruning shrubs around here. My gloves would be not quite long enough I guess. And light weight shirts or sleeveless. Now, I have on heavier long sleeves with a long sleeved tee. Not really a test is it.

My good news is that I toppled while walking on some river rock about 2 weeks ago. Went down on my knees and hands. Only one tiny bruise resulted on the left knee and a scuff with no bruising on the right. I take this as a good indicator of my ability to withstand bruising. :)

I just learned that those smilies that move are called "Old School". Gosh, I can't read comments that have those. My brain won't tolerate em. I have to move the page to where they don't distract me. Any moving graphic does that to me if I'm trying to read nearby.

 

[charlie]

I just learned that those smilies that move are called "Old School". Gosh, I can't read comments that have those. My brain won't tolerate em. I have to move the page to where they don't distract me. Any moving graphic does that to me if I'm trying to read nearby.

@Birdie you can turn off "animation" in your browser. Not sure what browser you are using but here is a link with common browsers on how to disable it.

How to Stop Animated Images in a Browser

If that does not do it for you let me know what browser you have and I will find the correct info for you.

 

[Birdie]

@Birdie you can turn off "animation" in your browser. Not sure what browser you are using but here is a link with common browsers on how to disable it.

How to Stop Animated Images in a Browser

If that does not do it for you let me know what browser you have and I will find the correct info for you.

Oh, thank you so much Charlie.

I went to the page and saw this... "(MacOS X's Safari does not let users disable GIF animations)"..

Not sure if that applies to me. I have a MacBookAir and an iPad. They use Safari. Is that the same as MacOS X's Safari?

 

[Birdie]

My husband and I both came down with Shingles Monday night. We'd had warnings over the weekend. By Monday night we were feverish and tired and had sore itchy backs. I was pretty discouraged. Other things were not going well, so another bout with Shingles had me down. In a dull mood, I started our usual treatment .... and we were much better by today. So, we were sick for two days when most people have Shingles for around 30 days or never recover, just get worse. The rash dried up, fever is gone. Brain fog has mostly lifted.

Took me forever to figure out any probable cause. Then, I went back to my old forum posts listed under Shingles. Finally realized it was that bone broth I had made last week with our roast. Used a huge bone. Then, condensed the stock by boiling it down. It was thickly gelled. Gelatin being low in lysine relative to arginine is something we can only use in small amounts.

I've strained the stock and frozen it in smaller batches. We'll eat the meat and mushrooms with only a tiny bit of the broth/stock. Funny how you can do something and think it's the same as usual, but of course, it wasn't. I'd not used such a huge bone for one small roast. And had not boiled it down to end up with such a concentrated broth. It was so tasty, but deadly for us.

I'm still tired but happy for this up trend. So, maybe I can remember to go easy on gelatin?

 

[moss]

Hello Birdie
Sorry to hear you and your husband have come down with shingles and great this has cleared in two days. Wow! I did a search on earlier posts under Shingles and nothing came up.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to how you have come to a possible conclusion bone broth may have been the cause as I am not making the connection.
Thanks in advance

 

[Birdie]

Hello Birdie
Sorry to hear you and your husband have come down with shingles and great this has cleared in two days. Wow! I did a search on earlier posts under Shingles and nothing came up.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts as to how you have come to a possible conclusion bone broth may have been the cause as I am not making the connection.
Thanks in advance

Okay, the connection is high arginine. I am sensitive to the arginine/lysine ratio of gelatin. My bone broth was concentrated. Usually it is not. So, a more dilute broth (gelatin) would not set off a herpes zoster attack. Great Lakes gelatin lists arginine at 9.3 and lysine at 4.6. I do supplement lysine but no matter how high I went, it didn't work when I used too much gelatin.

I used the Toxinless Peat search for Shingles. I didn't go through the Forum, but Toxinless led me to the Forum posts on Shingles as I recall.

 

[Birdie]

My Sleep Report:

Whew, writing that makes me nervous. Stress from a good report and immediate doubt. Hope that's a flower.

Slept from 10:30 to 6:00 last night. No getting up to pee. No nighttime hunger with milky coffee needed.

Yesterday evening I turned off my devices, turned on music videos of orchestras playing Mozart piano concertos, got down on my yoga matt, did stretches and listen/watch ed music. For about an hour, I relaxed rather than my usual reading the news of the latest war activities and politics.

Food wise it was not that different but listing that might help at a future time, so...
We ate popcorn with cheese, butter, salt around 5pm. I had a gin and tonic. Sugar in my popcorn.

I had Greek yogurt with sugar, I think, just before the popcorn. And apple juice. Am foggy on this.
An hour before bedtime, I had milky coffee. Forgot to take a pinch of salt.

At bedtime, had the usual tiny bits of cheese. I try to keep this as small as possible while still doing the job of helping me avoid nighttime hunger. The salt, protein and fat seem to work for that. And avoiding a last dose of liquid, milk, helps delay the pee.

 

[Birdie]

I forgot to mention another factor in the sleep adventure.

Have been leaving bedroom shutters open at bottom, at foot of bed, to let in warm light from outside. We put a red light in our drive lamppost which can shine in the window. Also, turned on the nightlight in the bathroom. Warm one there too. Left bath door ajar. I had been doing this for a while, but opened the shutters more last night.

Ray had mentioned red light on the foot of the bed during sleep. I think Cliff was doing that.

And not I've been using my new humidifier since maybe mid January. I like the little gurgling sound it makes. Somehow, the blue light doesn't seem to bother me. A year ago I'm sure it would have. It also clicks occasionally. Sometimes that jolts me awake, but overall I love the thing.

 

[Elderflower j58]

Hello birdie ,when you said large vitamin c,how much were you Taking ?

 

[kaybb]

I forgot to mention another factor in the sleep adventure.

Have been leaving bedroom shutters open at bottom, at foot of bed, to let in warm light from outside. We put a red light in our drive lamppost which can shine in the window. Also, turned on the nightlight in the bathroom. Warm one there too. Left bath door ajar. I had been doing this for a while, but opened the shutters more last night.

Ray had mentioned red light on the foot of the bed during sleep. I think Cliff was doing that.

And not I've been using my new humidifier since maybe mid January. I like the little gurgling sound it makes. Somehow, the blue light doesn't seem to bother me. A year ago I'm sure it would have. It also clicks occasionally. Sometimes that jolts me awake, but overall I love the thing.

Thanks Birdie for your updates. I always learn things. Do you still have a lot of body pain from your health issues? I have fibro/migraine-vertigo and have to use pain med to function at all.
Also, I am going to leave our shutter a little open at night..

 

[Birdie]

I just wrote something in a conversation about Iron and will copy that here:

Ray has mentioned how some lab values have changed to reflect the new normals exhibited by today's population. I checked by lab books from 1986 and RP to the win. The old normals for ferritin were 10 to 120 or 150. I mainly remember the bottom normal because I was closer to it.

My ferritin was 7 before RP, but plummeted to 3 just after I gave blood. What was I thinking. Probably, I hadn't checked my values and assumed less iron would be good, so gave blood.

I didn't supplement, but ate calves liver and stopped the coffee with meat kinds of efforts. Got back up to 7. Anyway, I want to get my ferritin and an iron panel. For now, I'm gonna supplement lightly and eat more absorbable heme. I'm using a glycinate form. We'll see.

 

[Birdie]

Thanks Birdie for your updates. I always learn things. Do you still have a lot of body pain from your health issues? I have fibro/migraine-vertigo and have to use pain med to function at all.
Also, I am going to leave our shutter a little open at night..

Thank you. So glad if something helps.

Well, on pain, I don't have the migraine-vertigo part, and my pain is very improved generally.
I think I began to recover (from constant injuries) more quickly when I made LDN part of my plan.

It is always so hard to say what caused what of course. I use 2 regular aspirins at bedtime.
And this and that of the Ray protocol. Using LDN, would exclude any codeine type drugs anyway.

That said, I injure myself easily and constantly with gardening, walking,whatever.
I do recover better than I did maybe 4 years ago. Then, the slightest injury was a 6 month healing time.

I use DMSO diluted and cold packs almost every day on various parts of the body!!

 

[kaybb]

Thank you. So glad if something helps.

Well, on pain, I don't have the migraine-vertigo part, and my pain is very improved generally.
I think I began to recover (from constant injuries) more quickly when I made LDN part of my plan.

It is always so hard to say what caused what of course. I use 2 regular aspirins at bedtime.
And this and that of the Ray protocol. Using LDN, would exclude any codeine type drugs anyway.

That said, I injure myself easily and constantly with gardening, walking,whatever.
I do recover better than I did maybe 4 years ago. Then, the slightest injury was a 6 month healing time.

I use DMSO diluted and cold packs almost every day on various parts of the body!!

I am thinking trying LDN again...lower dose. I got so sick and horrible pain the first time I tried. I can use it with my pain med thank goodness, just need to start very low dose. Aspirin is helping a lot ....I am using it in pain patches.
I am interested in the DMSO. Do you use it for pain control?

 

[Birdie]

Found this little summary re: lysine from Bio-alternatives:

LYSINE POWDER
Lysine is an essential amino acid that assists in the production of antibodies, hormones, and enzymes. Crucial for proper growth and bone development in children, it also aides in calcium absorption and the maintenance of proper nitrogen levels in adults. Because lysine assists in collagen formation and tissue repair it may be particularly useful to those recovering from surgery or sports injuries. Lysine can not be manufactured by our bodies, so it is vital that sufficient amounts be consumed via diet or by supplementation.

Lysine is listed(1) as an essential element in nutritional treatment of Cardiovascular Disease, Cold Sores, Lead Poisoning and Shingles. Very Important for Canker Sores, Growth Problems, Herpesvirus Infection, Lupus and Osteoporosis. Important for Common Cold, Hysterectomy Recovery, Influenza and helpful for Bronchitis, Menopausal Problems, Obesity, Stress and Weakened Immune System.

(Bear in mind they do sell it.)