Alpha Nutrition Diet.....No More

Well, I didn't make it through the ten days of the diet again.  Seven was as far as I got.  Yesterday I was so discouraged and worn out I just gave up and ate almost an entire box of cookies.  Boy, did it taste good after seven days of rice, water & ENF. 

I'm not really sure if the diet was helping me or not.  It seemed like it was during the first couple days but after that I'm just not sure.  It certainly didn't make anything worse.  I do recommend though, for anyone trying the diet, to mix the ENF with water not juice.  It tastes much better with juice but gave me horrible heart burn.  I wish I could report something more conclusive. 

The idea of delayed pattern food allergies still seems to make sense to me.  I do believe that all the chemicals in our food supply must be having repercussions of some kind.  The idea that the constant ingestion of these chemicals into our bodies is screwing up our immune systems makes perfect sense.  Let's face it, during millions of years of evolution, our immune systems have never encountered such a bombardment of chemicals (pesticides, preservatives, hormones) and they don't know how to process them.  They attack them, but these are not like the viruses and bacteria the immune system evolved to destroy.  It's no wonder the immune system goes crazy and starts attacking things it's not supposed to.  It's no wonder that we become allergic to foods that, in the past, we weren't really allergic to much.  I think it also accounts for why so many more people are reportedly getting autoimmune diseases.

My mom is a retired grammar school teacher, now substitute teacher.  She tells me that there are classrooms that are classified as "NO PEANUT ZONES".  This indicates that a child in the class is so allergic to peanuts that they will go into anaphylactic shock if they're even around peanuts.  This means that no child in that class can bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school, and their parents receive a notice at the beginning of the year indicating this.  I remember kids being allergic to bee stings and poison ivy but nothing like what my mom tells me about.  Does anyone else find this strange?  Why are so many children so deathly allergic to foods? 

Maybe one of these days I'll get up the will-power to try the Alpha Nutrition Diet again.  We'll see.

Alpha Nutrition Diet - Take Two

Now that I'm finally feeling a little more stable, mentally, it's time to get back to my "I'll try anything..." mode.  Researching this stuff and trying new things is the only thing that keeps me from slipping down "the black hole" of hopelessness.  Maybe I haven't fully accepted that I'm chronically ill.  I still have a feeling deep down that if I keep trying different things, I'll eventually find what's causing this and continue leading my life where I left off two years ago.  Maybe this is naive but I'm not to the stage yet where I can accept that this is how I will possibly feel for the rest of my life. 

So......I'm trying the "Alpha Nutrition Diet for Aching and Fatigue" again.  I posted about it some months ago and made it to day two, I think.  The timeline is ten days and I'm on day three this time.  I've ingested nothing but Alpha ENF, white rice, water and juice.  Surprisingly, I feel pretty good (relatively speaking of course).  My energy level seems better than normal, which, I didn't expect so early on.  It's hard to resist the few holiday treats still lingering around but it is nice not having to think about what to eat. 

The Delayed Pattern Food Allergy hypothesis did make a lot of sense to me when I read about it.  One of the things researchers think might be causing these unusual food allergies, are all the chemicals, like pesticides, that are in the food we eat.  Our immune systems go into overdrive trying to attack them then get stuck in this hypersensitive mode and begin attacking things that aren't harmful to your body.  Some theories add that this hypersensitivity is what eventually causes autoimmune disease, when your immune system starts attacking your organs.  Personally, I'm sure I've ingested enough chemicals to easily make my immune system crazy.  I don't do much cooking (to put it mildly) and I've been know to eat every meal of my day out of a box.

Well, I hope I make it to day ten this time.  Who knows, maybe it'll actually make me feel better.  I have to have the hope that it will.  For more information about the Alpha Nutrition Program here's the link:  http://www.nutramed.com/alpha/index.htm

Lower Than Low

I went to see doctor number 4 for a second appointment today.  The prognosis was so depressing that I spent most of the day after, crying.  I was finally able to sleep for an hour or so which helped my mental state a bit and allowed me to talk to my parents about the doctor visit, which I hadn't been able to do earlier in the day.

None of the medications this doctor has prescribed have helped me.  Admittedly, the doses were low but I haven't seen any real change in my condition.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I've been taking Zyflamend, which is an otc supplement for joints, for about two weeks.  I've been walking one mile per day and up until about two weeks ago the walks consumed incredible amounts of energy and effort.  It was as though I were a baby just learning to walk.  My muscles were weak, burned and didn't seem to involuntarily "know what to do".  I had to mentally direct my legs to lift and move forward which resulted in very slow, clumsy walking.  Since I've been taking Zyflamend, my walking is getting smoother and easier.  I think I'm walking a little faster and my muscles don't have nearly the weak, burning feeling they had.  It may just be a phase, but I'll keep taking the Zyflamend for the time being if I can afford the exorbitant cost ($40 for 60 capsules taken twice a day).

The doctor had also prescribed low dose Prednisone, Nuvigil, Sinemet and Lyrica which I tried one at a time.  Since they didn't seem to help me, we're moving on to the next "experiment".  I had taken high-dose Predisone over a year ago and to date, it's the only thing that has given me any of my life back and it actually made me feel almost completely well at one point.  This only lasted a week or two though, since my doctor didn't want me taking that high a dose (50mg per day) for too long.  I was so dissappointed when it wore off, though, and I was back to being as sick as I had been before taking it.  According to this doctor, this is an anomalous reaction considering my rhumatoid factors, etc. were normal.  He's guessing that I must have some inflamation somewhere in my body that's just not showing up in the blood work so, he's prescribed high-dose Prednisone again.  He wants to see if I have the same reaction and if I do, I can have a "break" for a couple months while we figure something else out.  When I asked him what he thought my diagnosis might be he mentioned Fibromyalgia, CHF and Mixed Connective Tissue Disease but added that these were all just names and probably related to some un-named auto-immune disease.  There were some other "speculative" possibilities we discussed but I just don't have the energy to go into detail about them now.  I hope to in my next post.

Since I'll be going back to California in two weeks, I probably won't see him again except for maybe an appointment via phone.  He's given the name of a doctor in the Bay area that he thinks I should see.  Since I live in Southern California I'm not sure how that would work logistically but I'm not worrying about that now.  My only goal today and tomorrow is to feel better mentally.  My depression has been so severe during the last couple weeks that I haven't been able to conjure a purpose for my existance on this planet.  The doctor prescribed Welbutrin to augment my Zoloft but I'm sure it'll be at least a couple weeks before I see any effect from it.  I'm just hanging here by a thread in the meantime.

Day 2 - 10/20/11 - Alpha Nutrition Diet for Aching and Fatigue

Still feeling about the same or worse.

Symptoms (0=mild to no discomfort 10=most severe discomfort/ pain)
10:00am
Shortness of Breath - 5
Fatigue - 7
Headache - 0
Backache - 5
Heart Murmurs - 5
Eye Pain - 2
All-Over Body Pain - 4
Sore Throat - 3

Food Log
8:30am -  1/2 cup rice cereal, 1/2 cup rice milk, 1/3 cup ENF formula
9:30am - 4 peach slices
11:00am - 1 cup broccoli & carrots, 1 cup rice
4:00pm - 1 cup rice, 1 cup broccoli & carrots
6:00pm - 1 cup rice, 1 cup broccoli & carrots
8:00pm - 1 cup rice cereal, 1 cup rice milk
9:00pm - 8 peach slices

Medications taken at bedtime:
Cymbalta: 20mg, Welbutrin: 150mg, Lorazepam: 2mg

Reprieve of Sorts

My husband has moved back to our apartment.  We discussed our problems and made some compromises.  I won't regurgitate the tiresome details. 

It's been about nine days on the lowered doses.  Now I'm taking 40mg Cymbalta, 150mg Welbutrin and 2mg Lorazepam.  I've been feeling better than average the for last three days.  Tonight I'll take 20mg of Cymbalta rather than 40mg.  The thought gives me some definite anxiety since I do not want to repeat the experience I had ten days ago, but I'm so anxious to get  this crap out of my system and anxious to start the food allergy investigation.  I'm hopeful, but hesitant.  I'm so worried that it won't change anything and I'll become more desperate and hopeless than I am even now.  As each experiment fails, I think more and more that this disease will be my lifelong rival and I begin to plan my life as a disabled person. 

My daugher, who is now ninteen and a half months old, has learned that sleeping requires closed eyes.  When my husband or I tell her to go to sleep she lays her head back and with obvious force, squints her eyes closed. She reaches a tiny hand to her eye and so gently traces her closed eyelid over and over with a pointed index finger.  She cannot see but can only feel her closed eyes and imagine how she may appear as she sleeps. 

Trying to Get Off Cymbalta?

The carb-free thing didn't work out but I'm not convinced that it isn't a diet issue that's causing my problems.  I've found some information on "delayed pattern food allergy" on the web and although I may be grasping at straws it sounds like an interesting theory to me.  I ordered a book by Dr. Gislason which explains the very involved process for discovering if you may in fact have a food allergy.  According to what I've read, it may take many months to come to any realization but if it works it's easily worth the time.

To prepare for fasting, which is the first step in the process, Dr. Gislason suggests that you rid your body of all prescription medications (as well as nicotine, caffeine & alcohol among other things).  I've been on SSRI's for about fifteen years to treat my Major Depression, so I'm a bit apprehensive about not taking them since I've experienced some severe depression in my life.  I've also had some experience with SSRI withdrawl so I know not to stop taking them abruptly.  I'm taking 60mg of Cymbalta once per day, so my plan was to take one dose every-other-day for a week or two then take one every third day, etc.  Since the medication comes in capsules, they can't be split in half.  I've used this method to wean myself off SSRIs before and have never had any problems.

Three days ago I intentionally skipped my Cymbalta dose before I went to bed, planning to take a dose the next night.  I woke up the next morning hardly able to move.  My muscles were so weak I could baredly lift my head from my pillow to drink some water.  As the day progressed I became more and more nauseated and I shivered with cold sweats.  It reminded me of my drinking days and the horrible hang-overs and alcohol poisoning I suffered all too frequently.  Unfortunately, my sickened state prevented me from realizing the source of my suffering until later in the evening.  I took a dose immediately but the damage was already done.  The next morning the withdrawl symptoms were gone.

I have NEVER experienced SSRI withdrawl symptoms that severe or sudden before.  In the past it's taken two or three days before I started to get "brain zaps" and feel dizzy or nauseated.  I admit that I was getting over a cold virus so that may have had some effect but I don't really think so.  My doctor prescribed 20mg tablets and I've been taking two of those once per day for the last two days and I haven't experienced any withdrawl as of yet.

If anyone out there is planning on quitting Cymbalta, be careful!  Also, don't let your prescription run out and think you'll just call your doctor tomorrow.  If you do, you may suffer severely for it and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Surprise Surprise

My parents left on Monday and what I feared but assumed would happened has happened.  My husband has not picked up at all from  where my mom left off - far from it.  He's behaving exactly the way he did before she came.  He's acting like a childish brat who rolls his eyes or comes up with lame adolescent excuses every time I ask him for his help with something.  I'm beginning to realize that this marriage will soon be over.  I cannot live with a man who treats me with such disrespect, especially being as sick as I am.

I just finished a carb-free "two week test" which may have indicated I f I had a carbohydrate intolerance since the symptoms are almost exactly the same as Fibromyalgia (strange how so many things are).  I didn't really see any change so I went on a monumental carb binge on the last day of the "test".  I pretty much feel the same as I did before I did the test.  I'm still intrigued though with the idea that I may have some type of food allergy or intolerance.  I've ordered a book which is a step-by-step program to test yourself for these situations.   I understand it can be a many months long process.  Maybe it's just a scam, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.  The $500 per month Cymbalta hasn't done a thing for me.  I've tried so many medications and the only one that helped was Prednisone which my doctor promptly took me off  saying that it wasn't safe to take long-term.  What a tease.  There's got to be something.  I'll let everyone know how the program is working after I start.  Wish me luck!