Tag Archives: Health

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream?

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Now that I’m sleeping five, six even seven hours at a time, rather than two or three hours, I’m starting to feel like an expert! It’s only taken me four or five years and a long list of trial and error:

  1. Recommendations from Say Goodnight to Insomnia
  2. Supplements from SHINE protocol and various doctors
  3. Hypnosis
  4. Ambien & Trazodone
  5. Brain Training
  6. Heparin injections

I still need a lot of help with my sleep but the pills usually work now and I don’t need as many. Other than the obvious difficulty of being awake at night, I would say the most challenging part was the Heparin injections which I had to administer myself. I’ve always been gung ho about doing whatever it takes to recover from CFS/FMS but when it came to teaching me to put a needle in my own flesh, I had to be pushed.  Continue reading →

A Word about Trauma, Chronic Fatigue & Fibromyalgia

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“The only time I’ve seen results this bad was with a patient who told me stories like, “My mother got me through the Holocaust and when we made it to the States she killed herself.”"

By 2008, I was being treated by a department at California Pacific Medical Center that specializes in complex cases. One of the first things they did was a neurotransmitter test and their reaction to my test results clued me in to the connection between trauma and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I looked back at my life. What could equal the Holocaust combined with a mother’s suicide? It was obvious to me that as a young child, I had experienced my parents’ divorce in a traumatic way. It wasn’t the fact that they divorced; it was the way they didn’t appear to hold anything back in using me against each other. I imagine that when I continued to do well at school (albeit a little less so), the effects of their behavior on me were too subtle to get their attention.  Continue reading →

First Came the Dream…

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The dream itself didn’t seem unusual. But I woke up that day in July 2009, really struck by it. It had an insistent quality to it like someone knocking hard on a door to get your attention.

Have you ever had a physical? In my experience, it looks like any other doctor’s appointment. The doctor asks a few questions, orders a few tests. In Hollywood movies however, they seem to involve the patient on a treadmill, hooked up by wires to monitors that are observed by a technician. My dream looked rather like a physical in a Hollywood movie.  Continue reading →

Chance, Fate & Chronic Fatigue

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The idea came to me like a whisper in my ear. I had picked up my latest Brian Weiss book at the library but was too excited to return home immediately. So I stayed and began reading.

In the middle of the quiet library afternoon, I heard, “Call Parker.”

I had already decided to try Regression Therapy after my encounter with Morgan and was looking for a suitable therapist. But I did not want to call “Parker”!  Continue reading →

Reason Departed

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His hand was literally on the handle of my front door. “Wait,” I said, feeling really silly. “I have one more question.”

“Morgan” came back into my apartment and I asked him a question I thought I’d never pose, even to myself.

It had all begun when I noticed a book sitting on a shelf in my Classical Acupuncturist‘s office and asked to borrow it. Soon I had finished reading Many Lives Many Masters and was rather obsessively borrowing Brian Weiss‘ other books from my local library.

“Uh oh,” I thought to myself. “I’ve seen this before. What’s about to happen this time?”

In 1994, I obsessively began reading books about near death experiences. “I can’t take this anymore,” my friend Aaron said, after I commented for the umpteenth time that I felt like something big was about to happen. “I think you should talk to somebody.”  Continue reading →

Epiphany on Classical Acupuncture & Chronic Fatigue

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“All this time I thought I had Chronic Fatigue,” Jackie said as a light bulb seemed to appear over her head.

I was at a new dentist this week after accepting that I wasn’t going to make it to Palo Alto, where my dentist of over ten years is located. Jackie was taking X-rays of my mouth while she asked me questions about the condition that was causing me to snack intermittently. At one point, I said something about how the fatigue wasn’t the worst part – although that’s bad enough. But it’s the difficulty recovering, including the inability to sleep though wiped out, that’s the toughest.

That was when Jackie had her moment. Like many people she struggles with her energy level but, unlike this Chronic Fatigue patient, she rests and returns to normal.  Continue reading →

Chelation Therapy & Chronic Fatigue

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Looking back on it now, I don’t know why I was so upset. It was merely another step in my recovery journey. I guess at the time it felt like my life was over…

When “Dr. Jordan” suggested testing me for heavy metals, I assumed the results would be negative. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do the test. We could cross that off the list of possibilities and move on to the next thing. By now, I knew I had Chronic Fatigue and I knew that while the pH Miracle treatment protocol had helped me tremendously, there was still a missing piece in my recovery puzzle. But finding out that the mercury, cadmium, arsenic and lead levels in my body were off the charts had not been part of my plan.  Continue reading →

One Liter, Three Scoops, Ten Drops

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The secret to a diet that allows me the most energy seems to be eating mostly vegetables, especially the green ones. Add a number of energy supplements, the most important of which is d-ribose, and presto: I am nutritionally supported for CFS/FMS recovery!

It’s such a simple idea but the execution of my diet gets complicated when you consider the fact that I’m talking seventy percent vegetables on my plate. Those are vegetables that need to be bought, washed, stored and prepared. This requires coordinating and surviving MISSION GROCERY STORE; standing long enough in the kitchen to wash, chop, blend, steam or cook them in broth; cleaning up after eating.  Continue reading →

What is Grace?

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The winds of grace are blowing perpetually; we have just to raise our sails. –Ramakrishna

I heard somewhere that if you do the work of getting 51% of the way to your goal, grace will carry you the rest of the way. Aren’t I there yet? Grace, where are you? By the way, what is grace?

After my life narrowed to trying to get out of bed, I went through a few medical doctors, then a few naturopathic doctors. Then I went for something radical and tried Dr. Young’s pH miracle protocol. I improved and thought that was the final answer. Sadly, no. Not exactly.  Continue reading →

Where Are My Boundaries?!

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“Dr. Hayden’s” other Chronic Fatigue patient was thinking of trying a clinic I also happened to be considering. The patient felt unsure about the clinic and had asked Dr. Hayden to investigate. So, in the middle of my appointment, Dr. Hayden asked me.

Wait. What?  Continue reading →