Word.

"There is no failure, only feedback. "

Coined by the NLP people.

True.

An act of Mercy

The catholic church has several well defined acts of mercy that any practioner must follow. It is not charity, it is a duty. Corporal works of mercy are those that tend to bodily needs. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) enumerates such acts -- though not this precise list :
Feed the hungry
Give drink to the thirsty
Clothe the naked
Shelter the homeless
Visit the imprisoned
Visit the sick
Bury the dead

I was thinking about the act of visiting the sick. I was sick, very sick, and occasionally still so. I had a hard time allowing people into my life when I was sick. I felt that they were doing it out of charity, and out of pity. I felt that I was not deserving of thier attention. Further, the proximity to those about whom I cared only highlighted the gulf between myself and wellness. It made me feel worse. I isolated myself.

I was thinking about these acts of mercy last night, when I realized that there is a reciprocal duty related to each. As much a person has a duty, and that duty is far older than the Bible that decribes it and echos in the insticts of every person to reach out, to help, the recipient has a duty to accept the work, the act. In this way, our society is drawn together. No debt is incurred. NO repayment is necessary excpet perhaps one's own observance of these acts.

I guess that is why I keep blogging, becuase I fluctuate between the sick and the well, and I am learning to accept help when I am sick, and glad to give it when I am well.

Rough Day

Grrr. This one is a really pisser.

Some days, it comes on crushingly. It dulls the senses. It makes me stupid. I hate that part the most. I have little idea what is going on. I can recognize, but not remember.

Will this ever end?

I get so tired.

So tired.

Charcoal

Activated charcaol.

I talked with the PTC yesterday re the end of my florastor experiment. I told them how rough die off was, and they asked if the activated charcaol helped.

huh?

Wow, I didn't read that, but they did send me literature that if the die off from the anti-fungal was severe or uncomfortable, I could take activated charcoal to remediate the discomfort.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes.

Folate may deter the onset of Alzheimer's

Research carried out in New York City has found that increased intake of folate may reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's Disease. It was also found that elevated intake of vitamins B6 and B12 did not show the same benefit.

The study was lead by Columbia University Medical Center's Dr. Jose Luchsinger. Researchers studied 965 people, aged 65 and older (average age near 76) in Manhattan. Higher levels of folate ingestion, through diet and supplements, correlated with reduced risk for Alzheimer's.
Although the researchers did not wish to assume the study was definitive, the results do confirm what has been found in previous research. It is theorized that the protection comes from folate breaking down an amino acid in the blood called homocysteine. Folate (also known as vitamin B9) is found in such foods as leafy green vegetables like spinach, citrus fruits and beans. The word folate comes from a Latin word for "foliage," since green leaves are good source of the nutrient.

The study was published in the January 2007 issue of Archives of Neurology.


Comment: The problem with this unspecific recommendaitons, is that they do not allow for bioindividuallity. For certain people, the conclusion of the study may in fact be helpful, but for others, adding folate might be a disaster. This is not borne out by the study. IMagine the entire world was made up of nothing but Szs. In that world, according the Dr. Pfeiffer's research, 45% of them would be benefitted by folate, while only 15 % would be harmed, reflecting relative percentages of histapeniac and histadelics. A study ran just on them would show that for a majority of people, folate was a magic elixer. Now, without knowing which group you were in, you ran a chance of making yourself not only not better, but perhaps worse, by taking folate. This is why I advise people who do not need them not to take vitamins or mineral supplements. This is why I advise my readers to avoid tkaing supplments until they have a reliable picture of the biomarkers they are attempting to address. If you were to ask the poeple who read this site, who are using orthomolecularism to treat a biochemical imbalance, you would find that the rate of correctly self diagnosing is embarrasingly poor. I was certain I was histadelic. Well, until I tried inositol and Ca.

So, the good news is that h'delics are already high in folate, and h'penics are addressing that need. This is interesting news, this report, but I think it needs to be unbundled. What are the mechanisms responsible for Az? etc...

Still, I wanted to pass this on to you. And my thanks to C, Z's mother, for sending it to me.

Healing the body: 101(b)(ii)

Welcome to another installment of "healing the body".

Before we begin this evening's entertainment, I would like to pause to thank you all for visiting this page. I began this page under the impression that I was shouting into the darkness. I was intending to make an on line journal, private, and just for me. I thought it would be cathartic. It was cathartic, but little did I know that I had an audience. The feedback has een wonderful, and this morning I went over 3,000 hits for the first time. Now, yahoo(!) probably does that volume in about .000042 seconds, and god knows I have seen blogs total millions a month, but this is really special to me, that someone is reading, someone cares, someone is getting something out of this. I hardly feel like it is mine anymore. Thank you to all who come here.

Ok, this is a subject near and dear to my heart. This is an indication that I am about to ramble. I will try to write this as succintly as possible, but I am rusty, and at work.

Reducing the stress load.

The body stores stress. It does not differentiate between environmental stress, physical stress, emotional/psychological stress, or nutritional stress. It stores them all the same. That means, whether you have lost your job, inhaled smog, missed a night of sleep, or eaten a pile of sugar, your body records this all in the same way. Researchers disagree how much of our total daily stress load is psychological in nature. I have seen some reports as low as 10 percent, and some as high as 40%.

One thing is for sure, there is no thing as "just stress". Stress is like a liquid being poured into your system. You can hold that stress. Think of a bucket. The stress pours in and in and in, adn you keep on drinking your mocha double late, working 16 hour shifts, eating luna bars, and doing just fine. Then the stress reaches the threshold of the bucket and it pours over in gentially pre-determined ways. For one it might be a heart mumur, for another diabetes, for someone else, hand tremours, another mental illness, maybe derpression, maybe breaking out, maybe headaches. We do not reduce the stress load, but we manage it. Drinking, anti-depressants, TV watching, deep breathing, therapy. Whatever. Eventually, it will get us. it will get us all---old age is the ultimate stressor. But how it gets you and when is coded in your genes. heart attack, cancer, MS, Parkinson's, whatever.

F.M. Alexander observed that your body stores tensions as the result of every insult. A survey, taken in 1987, reported that the average person, in this culture, was exposed to more than 1000 times as many stresses/person/day as people were exposed to 100 years ago.

The point is: there are too many things causing a "Fight or Flight" stress response for us to discharge that much "Readiness" in the usual 8 hours sleep. Each day, we wake up with a little more "Readiness" than we had when we woke up the day before. Over the years that creates a heavier and heavier burden of alertness that influences how we respond to EVERY stressor. Relative insomnia is one of the very early signs of this overload.

Dr. Stoll offers the following illustration:

If you tripped over a rock, in the middle of a field, you would feel a
stress-effect. If you tripped over the same rock, in EXACTLY the same way, at
the edge of a cliff, the near-death experience ("Ack! I almost fell over a
cliff!!") would result in a much greater stress-effect from the SAME stressor
(the trip). The same thing is true of EVERY organ system in your body. The
closer you are to the edge of your reserves, in that organ system, the more
stress-effect you will experience IN THAT ORGAN SYSTEM. Anything that produces more distance, between you and the limits of your reserves, will result in each stressor affecting you less. Remember, you did NOT fall over the cliff. The
stressors (trips) were identical. What you EXPERIENCED was the "stress effect"
and that is what is stored in the autonomic system. Dr. Hans Selye was right
about stress and its effects on human physiology--all the way back in the '50's.
We are just now starting to learn what he was telling us.

The fortunate thing is that while your body records all stresses, regardless of source, in the same way, it also discharges them all without discrimination. For example: a muscle massage will discharge emotional stress as well as physcial stress.

There are many forms of stress reduciton: sleep, masssage, hot baths, yoga, alexander techinique, rolfing, etc etc etc. However, biofeedback research over the past 20 years has demonstrated that the common denominator, which determines the effectiveness of ALL types of relaxation techniques, is that the technique must produce an Alpha or Theta rhythm in the brain. The normal awake thinking brian rhythm is called Betal, which cycles at 14-20 cps. Anthing above this rate is panic or hysteria. The lowest rhytm is reserved for sleep. It is called Delta and cycles at 2-4 cps. Theta is a state of substantial relaxation and suscpetibility, from 4-8, and Alpha is proufoundly relaxed, from 8-12 cps.

It seems that, when the brain rhythms are 4-12 cycles/second (cps), the body/mind discharges the stored readiness of "fight or flight stress-effect" 24 times faster than sleep does.

24:1. At this rate, it is possible to reduce stress faster then we accumulate it. Thus, it is possible not only to prevent additional stress loads, but to discharge stored stress loads. In our culutre, it usually takes a person 6-12 months to reduce stress loads to below threshold levels.

The good news: it doesn't appear to matter what techinique you use so long as you reliably get into a sustained alpha state. Your options include things like: Biofeedback, Meditation (all forms including Prayer), Self Hypnosis, Silva Mind Training, Autogenics, Breathing Techniques, etc. But you need to get the Relaxation Response. Herbert Benson, MD, from Harvard Medical School, has described The Relaxation Response in his book by that name.

The most effective self-help book to learn these techniques is The

Florastor and Friends

Oh my.

In what probably is best characterized as an aggressively stupid decision, I began combining my florastor with my no-fenol. The inspiration for this daft maneuver came from bottle reading. Florastor is intended to kill off yeast in the intestinal tract, the dreaded candida and his buddies. No-fenol contains a warning that if taken on an empty stomach, the enzymes were so strong that they would break down the cell walls of disbiotic yeasts in the intestinal tract and could result in die off.

I decided this sounded like a good idea.

Well, allow me to clarify. This sounded like an invitation to discomfort, combining the effects of two powerful anti-fingal anti-yeast supplements, but Florastor is not cheap, and frankly mailing of my own, er, excrement to labratories in the midwest in a box is an expereince I would rather never repeat, so I decided, if I am going to address this problem, lets address it aggressively.

So I began taking florastor and no-fenol on an empty stomach.

Woah is me. I feel...fuzzy. Like there is a peach fuzz inside me. I feel headachey, and I feel naseaous. My face is peeling, although just slightly, and my skin is red adn puffy. my energy is down considerably. I gasp for air at the top of stairs. I have been taking the combination for over a week now. Yick.

Is this a good idea? Probably depends on who you ask. But I want done with this. I want health yesterday. I want done mail ordering pro-biotics from swiss companies. I want done with the ever present wild card of yeast prolifferation. I am not even certain if I believe that candida is a real problem, but I have these bottles, and I have a low tolerance for sickness and a high tolerance for pain, so down the hatch and wish me luck.

But, dear God, I do feel dreadful.

Congratualtions

C, a long time reader and a friend of mine also being treated for histapenia, has been given the green light to decrease his Geodon even further.

For those of you who do not know, Christopher was once prescribed 120 mg a day of Geodon. Geodon is a pharmacuetical used to reduce cognitive distortion. It is considered one of the more mild medications on the market, but it is still toxic. The doctor who prescribed it thought C would need it for the rest of his life. After about a year on the PTC supplements, C has reduced all the way down to 30 mg a day. He will likely reduce even further to 20 mg by the end of the month. That is one sixth of the prescribed dose, and really only a tiny amount. He is recovering, though probably not quickly enough for him. I know that feeling.

The prescribing doctor has been hesitant to reduce the Geodon. In his experience, people like C and I do not get better. C's Mom has been insitant that the dose be reduces as it becomes painfully clear that the Geodon is more than he needs and now unhelpful. The doctor has reticently admitted that the Geodon is being overly prescribed right now. He is clearly not comfortable taking a patient off of it, but then again, he is also clearly uncomfortable prescribing someone a powerful medication when it is not needed. Ok, now here is the less PC version: The doctor immediately prescribed a powerful toxic anti-pscyh for a young man instead of investigation carefully the alternative treatments available. This, he probably did because it was standard medical training to do so, and it is important to "stabilize the patient". But then he sat on his hands for over a year while the patient and the patient's family complained about side effects and lack of efficacy. When the patient and the patient's mother, found an alternative treatment, he discouraged thier approach. when that alternative treatment was effective, he still did not research it, and discouraged its futher pursuit. When the alternative treatment proved effective, and rendered his advice at best usefless, and at worst harmful, he reluctantly has reduced the dose. His knowledge of this effective alternative approach is overmatched by the patient's mother, a public school teacher, bright, but without the beneift of medical school. I hope he sacrifices at least one evening to reading on the subject. I doubt he will. I bet that he will prescribe the same Geodon to the enxt kid who walks through his door exhibiting similar symptoms, and never mention C's success. Well, here is to C laughing at you one day doc.

C takes a supplement package not unlike mine, though with enough variation to account for biological differences and unique problems we both face.
MTPII 175
Borage oil
1 gram Acetyl-L-Carnitine
Gaba as needed
Nordic Nturals ProOmega
B-50 complex
C 2,500
Niacinamide 2 grams
Folic 6,500 mcg
200 mcg of Chromium Polynicotinate
Zinc picolinate 90 mg
Zinc citrate 20 mg
Vitamin E 300
Selenium 200
molybendum 100
B12 morning an evening, Total is 2000 mcg
B6 and P5P (not sure how much he takes)
Magnesium.

[again caveat---this is highly personalized and should not be taken by anyone who is not under the care of a prescribing doctor. Even then, you should be careful. I am going to say this every time, please do not expect this to work for you. It is a good point from which to analyze your own approach, and meant as nothing more. Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming].

He has gone from needing to leave school, and fearing for his future, to employed and back in college, earning better grades than I ever did. I think like a knee once injured, it is taking him some time to trust his recovery, but he is making great progress.

But my hearty congratulations to him, and to his mother who has dedicated herself to learning as much as she can about orthomolecular treatments. His family is great, and very supportive, and I see a good future for him. Congratulations C.

requests

By request, I am going to recount my supplements. I can not, however, do this without posting a brief caveat: Don't take what I am taking. Do not, unless your doctor recommends it, even think about it. They may be over the counter vitamins, but they are able to do what very powerful anti-pscyhs cannot. Seriously, read, think and ponder this post, but do not take this stuff unless you have independant verification that this will work for you.

This formula is the result of about 3 years of testing and tinkering. It works now, but it is not perfect. I might be hard on my body. I don't know. It is a lot of pills, and a lot of hope. I do not like this, but I have been asked by several people, so hear we go. Did I mention not to take these?

Ok.

morning:

50 mg zinc
225 mg p5p
1 g niacinamide
500 g ester C
1000 mcg biotin
1 cap Florastor
cod liver oil

around 12: 7200 mcg folate

Around 5: 7200 mcg folate

evening:

100 mg zinc
1 g niacinamide
500 g ester C
1000 mcg biotin
1 cap Florastor
DMAE
100 mg selenium
400 iu E
30 mg Mangenese


Before bed:

350 MTP II.

Ok, that is it. I wish I could reduce it. I will freely admit that I am nervous to do so. I take all supplements on an empty stomach but the MTP.

So, discuss, comment, think, whatever. This is what I take. I really wish I could have a cup of cofee in the morning like everyone else, and no pills, but this is what I need. sigh.

Pills

I take pills. At one point I counted 47 separate pills a day. It might be more now. It might be fewer. Still, it is a lot.

I take my first clutch full in the morning, when I get to the office. The niacinimide always dehydrates me so badly that I need water on hand in large quantities to prevent a headache. I take them on an empty stomach. An hour or so later, I take my folate. Again, on an empty stomach. I do not need that much water for them. I take my second round of folate in the early evening late afternoon. They seem to perk me up. I take the second large clutch before dinner. Empty stomach again. I take MTP before bed.

As I said, that is a lot of pills. When I travel, I would say a 10th of my total luggage space is reserved for pills. Keeping them all separate is hard. Why do so many manufacturers make them all white, and the same size? I used to put them into separate containers. Now, I can mix them somewhat. I can differentiate zinc and niacinamide by smell. Oh boy, that is precisely the skill I thought I would be working on at 31.

When W is around, I will always ask if she wants to join me. It makes me feel less weird, and more as if I were offering a stick of gum. I know she will never say yes, although sometimes she looks as if she thinks that is what I want. They would likely make her feel really terrible, and again, its just whistling past the graveyard anyway. I used to take them in secret, going to the rest room at a restaurant, hiding them in pockets, slipping them in when conversation is turned elsewhere. People saw. They must have. A flash of a hand and me swallowing. I was ashamed a bit.

Now, I take them in the open. I put them on the table. The greatest place to hide something is in plain site. I am sick of being embarrassed. If someone wants to ask me about them, I welcome it. No one ever does. People are like that. They would rather be polite and never know.

What do these pills mean about me? I rely on them for my sanity. That is a hard truth. It is possible I could skip a day, but not two. I have skipped two before with disastrous results. Pfeiffer speculated that many people could go without them after being symptom free for 5 years. I will cross that particular bridge when I come to it. I hate the thought that I need them. But I do. I always identified myself as someone who was independent, tough and adaptable. I didn't need much, a little sleep, water, and some food. When I was very sick I felt like I needed a lot. Silence, quiet, meditation. Clean water in abundant quantities. Pills, digestive enzymes, antifungals. Whole foods. Meat. Vegetables. No alcohol. I am not so fragile anymore. Someone will likely think that it was mental, a psychosomatic reaction. Look at the definition of psychosomatic. It is the effect of the mind on t he body, and the body on the mind. Regardless, I hardly see a difference any more. My brain is an organ like my spleen, heart or liver. It secretes thoughts, as my gall bladder secretes bile and my pancreas secretes insulin. My brain organ had problems. It was imbalances. I corrected that. My other organs also seemed to have problems. I corrected those too.

My pills. I am always taking them. I can probably swallow 20 at a time without water. The questions is, what are they to me. Are they me?

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone.

I love the New Year. I love the Newness of it. The possibility. I love celebrating a calender flip. I love the bitter disspointment of waking up January 2 and having everything as it was January 1. Life is like that. Change is subtle. Time flows onward.

This New Year was of particular importance to me. It is the end of 27 months. While the PTC estimates that full recovery from SZ takes 8-12 months, for histapenics, Abram Hoffer, and Carl Pfeiffer estimated half the time sick. Because of issues with lab protocols and specific gravity, detailed in previous posts, I did no begin my effective theraputic doses of nutrients until...27 months ago. I did the rough math some time ago, and realized that 27 months would conclude on December 23 2007. I chose the new year as my date of celebration.


Thats 81 months of mental illness at an end. 6 and 3/4 years for those of you whose math is as poor as mine. That is a long time. That was my 20s. Really, it all began when I was 22, so all told, 9 years. I subracted out the 2 years of PTC treatment which were not addressing the problem adequately.

fuck.

That is hard even to look at. It makes me want to cry. People tell me that the 20s are hard. That everyone has a hard time in them. I want to shake those people and remind them how wonderful life is. How easy they had it. My 20s were terrible. And I loved them. The brief windows opening in my illness that allowed me to peer out and connect with the world in any limited way were breathtaking. Like a high. I remember watching clouds from the concrete childeren's park in washington heights. I remember touching pine trees in Chrolottesville. I remember crying when Gilda hit her high notes at the Met in Rigolletto, and how the perfect clarity of it penetrated all the mess in my head and for a moment I was not crazy. I remember lying on a bed in an apartment in Park Slope staring up at the tin celing, and listening to the soothing hum of the fan in the humid New York summer. I remember laying on Gil's floor in an apartment in Manhattan, crying, laughing, and crying again. I remember writting poems to keep the black at bay beside the hudson. I remember how walking knee deep snow in Charlottesville, and laying on couches reading books every day when I could not stand. I remember seeing the basketball court undulating under me at the gym there, and laughing becuase I had to run up and down hills no one else saw. I remember central park, and hikes with Anne on Skyline drive.

But there is a lot I do not want to remember. I do not want to remember how awful it felt to be inside my head. How things swirled and ran fast and sideways. how thoughts moved to fast to capture and emotions crashed huge and impossibly violent inside my heart. I don't want to recall what it felt like when I wrote drafts of suicide notes in my journal, or that it seemed like a good idea, or that it still seems reasonable under those circumstances. I dont want to think about crying quietly on the phone with E---- because I could hear her, but not understand what she was saying. I dont want to think about the day I could not make it to the ballet, and was left, alone, in the dark, lying on the couch in my suit, and how I remembered then a hundred other evenings that ended that way. I don't want to recall how I wanted W to be with me, but did not want to tell her. I dont want to think about the disspointments, the pain, the haze, the loneliness. I do not want to remember sitting in fear that I would not heal fast enough for W. I do not want to remember the crushing depression, that would leave me breathless and imobile for days, each cell in my body crying out for release. I don't want to remember watchin young people in bars and on dates and in movie houses and living, while I watched and watched, and watched, from inside.

Happy New Year to me. Happy wellness. There are still variations, disperceptions, and distortions, but they are minimal. Now I have the privilege of being alive. I am grateful to feel love, and happiness, and sadness, and hurt. I am grateful to be able to get whatever I can before my body inevitable sinks again to old age and death. I will not squander it. For the last few months, I have appreciated it all. The long nights in the office, the flights, the insomnia, the frustration, the bliss of moving, the feeling of stillness. Everything.

You have no idea how lucky you are.

I wanted to celebrate. I wanted a blow out, loud music, late nights, irresponsible behavior, but my new years plans fell through. I was able to join some friends out on the cape, but they did not know what I was celebrating inside.

Anyway, this is not the end of this blog, but I am characterizing myself as well now.

Well.