Posted by Larry Hoover on June 3, 2003, at 8:16:26
In reply to Larry/John, Zinc/Selenium/Vitamin C questions, posted by McPac on June 2, 2003, at 22:24:11
> I went on to the website of the Pfeiffer Institute and found one thing very interesting. The mention of choline and inoistol as potentially harmful for two types of depression
>
> >>>>Pfeiffer has me on inositol (hard to say the effect though)
>
> and if you are of the Pyroluri subtype omega 3's might be harmful. I get very spaced on cod liver oil.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>This is VERY interesting to me!!! I have noticed that ever since I started taking fish oil that I have been in 'space' so much that I should be an astronaut! This REALLY makes me wonder....Lar, have you come across anything regarding fish oil causing spaciness/"brain fog"?Seems far better than anxiety, non? It could be a temporary dampening of some neurotransmitter effects, or it could be long term. Rather than worrying about that result (which seems pretty anti-stress), I'd be looking to sharpen my thinking....NADH, TMG, DLPA do it for me.
> > If a person takes zinc do you have to be careful of copper depletion?
>
> Yes. Zinc blocks copper uptake. Zinc for five days, copper for two, would absolutely cover it. But, with the high number of homes with copper pipes, I don't know whether supplemental copper is necessary. I'll come back to you on that.
>
> >>>>>>>>>Lar, I tested VERY high for copper (ceruloplasmin levels....33% free copper, whereas Pfeiffer told me that they like to see it under 10% in people). When I looked up Copper Toxicity on-line and read the effects of it, I have to say that it was DEAD-ON as to so many of my problems. I was zinc deficient also.That goes together, absolutely. Zinc supply is really the controlling variable. I really don't think low copper can be a problem, unless you never take a zinc holiday.
>Anyway, I've been on Zinc supp's daily for about 6 months now (85 mg/day) with NO copper supplementation (NO copper supp's but I get it in food obviously)
Make sure you get retested when you go back to Pfeiffer.
> If there is a Pfeiffer-style place around, I couldn't afford it. I'm my own Pfeiffer, I guess.
>
> >>>>>>John/Lar---Pfeiffer has a 'charitable fund' and someone can get a LARGE portion of their initial visit paid for IF FUNDS ARE AVAILABLE and IF you qualify, fwiw....you may be able to go there for cheaper than you thinkTravel and accomodation cost alone make it prohibitive.
> Fingers crossed on the anti-crash program.
>
> >>>>>>>Lar, is the 'crashing' you get strictly exhaustion/fatigue? or is it more depression? Take care!This requires a little explaining. I was first diagnosed with chronic fatigue in 1990. I was so bad, I couldn't walk to the mailbox at the end of the drive (65 feet), without resting along the way.
When I had my massive depressive thing hit in 1996, all the symptoms I experienced were (reasonably, I guess) attributed to depression. Massive fatigue, low tolerance for exertion, blah blah. For years, that was a big part of my struggle, and we never found meds that helped with all my symptoms, or that I could even tolerate. (St. John's wort was really cool for a while, but that's another story.)
Because the meds didn't solve my problems, I started looking at nutrition. I already knew there was something amiss there.....I hypothesized a sub-clinical malabsorption syndrome as a major factor in my health problems.
Over time, I pretty much stabilized my mood with nutritional support. But the fatigue/low exertion threshold was still a problem. So, this wasn't really a part of the depression after all, but a comorbid syndrome. And CFS seems to cover it. Now, CFS can remit and relapse. And the symptoms don't have to be exactly the same with each relapse. It serves as a good model for treatment considerations, in any case. The problem with CFS is the excessive fatigue "rebound" following exertion.
One of the treatment models I use includes a metaphorical "fingers of the hand" exertion/rest schedule. For each period of exertion (the finger), you need an equivalent period of rest (the space between the fingers). It may seem counter-intuitive to promote exertion at all, given the rebound phenomenon, but the desire is to increase tolerance to exertion over an extended time course.
So, when I first thought myself able to try some work, I managed one or two or three days scattered over a one month period. Later, I tried two or three consecutive days, and scattered singles. Later, a full week. My rest periods were sometimes quite lengthy, particularly if I had over-estimated my tolerance. I came up with a ratio: for every day I worked past my tolerance for work, I required an extra ten days rest. So, I had to be careful.
For the last year and a half, I've been doing a one month on, one month off pattern, but I seldom fill up the entire month on. The last two work periods, I did fill it up. 60-70 hour weeks, four weeks straight. And with the NADH no collapse.
My symptoms during the crash are massive fatigue, apathy, cognitive decline, poor memory, headaches, irritability, some mood decline. It's a gradual fall, each day worse than the previous one, over perhaps twenty days, then a much more rapid recovery rate, over a week. That pattern has existed for a very long time. To have a new pattern appear makes me cautiously optimistic.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:230511
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030530/msgs/231037.html