mitochondria damage in the brain

[Martial]

Martial-

First off, Thats AWESOME that you're already feeling better. I'm sure this signifies that perfect health is on the not so distant horizon for you. I'm real happy to hear it, man. And I greatly appreciate all the help, I fancy myself a fairly intelligent person as well and stubborn as hell, tho not always sure if that works in my favor!

In terms of my reduced brain function after PEM, it was just a kick in the face when they happened. The first was after taking a long drive to see a doctor, the next day I woke up and was massively more dissociated and there was a very eerie silence in my brain. I just felt much more spaced out and my memory had declined as well. Just an overwhelming..... nothingness. Second was after a short walk, I don't know how to really describe it but even while i was walking I could feel more "depth" of life fading away, like layers of my being were going down, leaving me with a much greater feeling of emptiness. The third and worst was when I first traveled to NYC to see Dr Enlander. It didn't hit me until about 4 days later but I woke up in the middle of the night extremely revved up; nerve pain, sweating, shaking, loud tinnitus, heart pounding- but at the same time I could just feel parts of my brain going down. I could feel my very ability to feel existence, being, time and ability to process thoughts diminishing. This went on for about 3-4 hours until it began to calm down, however I was left with the deficits. This was the one that really brought me into psychosis because I now have a lot of trouble keeping grasp on the very little reality left that my brain can feel.

I have never recovered from any of these instances. It almost feels like my brain doesn't have the power to access certain parts anymore.

One thing i will mention tho that is interesting is that when this first started for me I had more classic brain fog symptoms- cognitive problems, speech problems, math problems etc.. Then, the first major setback I had (after that long drive), instantaneously almost all of my cognitive deficits went away and got replaced by this lack of presence, dissociation and hollowed feeling. Its like the hypoperfusion just moved to a different part of my brain. That's the only thing I can think of.

The first 6 months or so of this illness it was almost exclusively brain problems but now those have slowed down and the physical symptoms have been increasing- fatigue, muscle weakness, nausea, POTS, OI. To the best of my knowledge I didn't have OI before a couple months ago but I have been told that I may have but just couldn't feel it. Either way, it sucks more than anything in life has ever sucked before. My parents constantly ask me to explain what's going on in my brain to them and the only response I can give them is just "my brain is so, so far gone"

Thanks for all those links, too. In regards to diet I haven't eaten sugar or any flour for the better part of a decade. I also am heavy on the coconut products and ferment my own coconut kefir. I sure hope this can get rid of the Candida and allow my diet to do some good for once. My doc is going to put me on lipid therapy soon to treat the cell membrane damage so I'm hoping that will reap some benefit. Then maybe things will start working correctly again.

So I guess I'm not quite sure- is brain dysfunction due to hypoperfusion from some sort of blood reduction or is it hypometabolism due to mitochondria damage? Or both?

Thank you Jeff! It is definitely a huge part of thanks to Fred and his protocol, as well ad Dr. Buhner, and Dr. Jernigan.. I also had a lot of unconscious emotional discords, and pains come up since getting sick and I believe probably got me sick in the first place, I had the lyme for a while but really severe emotional stress seemed to stop my immune system just enough for the infection to really take hold.. Obviously I feel like I need to work a lot of that out before I get really fully better again...

Interesting to see what you noted, I know your diet has always been perfect and that will defnitely serve you well for sure. The lipid therapy will also help to repair the cell membrane damage as well, it is not as if they are permanently damaged anyways. The body is more then capable of healing itself and restoring normal functions so long as it is given what it needs.

I wouldn't think too much or introspect on the brain issues either, once you get proper blood flow to the brain again this stuff should be corrected.. You maybe had the POTS/OI before but being bed ridden or not doing as much physical activity made it less noticable? Also extended bed rest/de conditioning can make pre existing POT/S worse. Obviously it makes sense as to where the POT/S was started as well..

I think the Diamox would be really promising of a therapy alongside the lipid replacement, and I would definitely also suggest the enzymes I mentioned.. they don't have any adverse effects and are very useful especially in your situation!

Fred's methylation protocol would be another excellent addition, this will help your bodies natural de tox mechanisms, and strengthen the immune system to better be equipped in killing whatever pathogens could be involved. So long as you follow the protocol correctly and pay attention not to trigger paradoxical folate deficiency and low potassium you would benefit greatly.

I don't know if the brain issues stem from hypo perfusion, or hypo metabolism due to cell membrane damage or both but since you are working on correcting both then at least this is all that matters! It is hard to say but I can promise that it will repair itself once everything is correctly put into place!

I experienced similar feelings of intense emptiness, and the like. Sometimes with brain issues our consciousness can seem to come back into its natural state, similar to when you are in dreamless deep sleep and are most present, without any sense perceptions or pleasure/pain cycles of the mind; just pure awareness.. Also similar to being unborn or an infant that has not constructed a strong sense of self yet. You are definitely not in psychosis either or you would not be here writing, and co hearing perfect intellect and self awareness, Psychosis is a much different issue then dissociation.

It may FEEL like you are distant or far gone so to speak, but usually it is the opposite, you are just far away from the old way of perception through the brain and analyzing, judging, and mentally constructing a false sense of reality. Also it is obvious you are now in touch with what is absolutely real because if this wasn't the case and the ego state was absolute reality you would be comotose or dead. Keep in mind too a lot of what you are feeling could be from severe sleep deprivation as well, that would put a strong spell of dissociation into even the most healthy of individuals.

Regardless once you get the perfusion again and correct the cell membrane damage things will just sort of fall into place for you, though I never got testing to know what it was specifically with me on a cellular level I also had brain issues, and the like from inflammation/hypoperfusion from the lyme disease. It tends to just kind of correct itself with time and proper treatment and eventually just spontaneously or slowly correct itself.

I am confident you will recover pretty quickly with all the treatment you are doing now and catching everything early bud!

Did they ever run an IgeneX test by the way? I am curious if that could be the source of your problems, if it is something like then you would really need to focus on correcting the infection fully to keep a full recovery..

Also remind me again have you ever had amalgam fillings, eaten a lot of ocean fish, or had a previous serious exposure to any heavy metals?

 

[Aerose91]

Thank you Jeff! It is definitely a huge part of thanks to Fred and his protocol, as well ad Dr. Buhner, and Dr. Jernigan.. I also had a lot of unconscious emotional discords, and pains come up since getting sick and I believe probably got me sick in the first place, I had the lyme for a while but really severe emotional stress seemed to stop my immune system just enough for the infection to really take hold.. Obviously I feel like I need to work a lot of that out before I get really fully better again...

Interesting to see what you noted, I know your diet has always been perfect and that will defnitely serve you well for sure. The lipid therapy will also help to repair the cell membrane damage as well, it is not as if they are permanently damaged anyways. The body is more then capable of healing itself and restoring normal functions so long as it is given what it needs.

I wouldn't think too much or introspect on the brain issues either, once you get proper blood flow to the brain again this stuff should be corrected.. You maybe had the POTS/OI before but being bed ridden or not doing as much physical activity made it less noticable? Also extended bed rest/de conditioning can make pre existing POT/S worse. Obviously it makes sense as to where the POT/S was started as well..

I think the Diamox would be really promising of a therapy alongside the lipid replacement, and I would definitely also suggest the enzymes I mentioned.. they don't have any adverse effects and are very useful especially in your situation!

Fred's methylation protocol would be another excellent addition, this will help your bodies natural de tox mechanisms, and strengthen the immune system to better be equipped in killing whatever pathogens could be involved. So long as you follow the protocol correctly and pay attention not to trigger paradoxical folate deficiency and low potassium you would benefit greatly.

I don't know if the brain issues stem from hypo perfusion, or hypo metabolism due to cell membrane damage or both but since you are working on correcting both then at least this is all that matters! It is hard to say but I can promise that it will repair itself once everything is correctly put into place!

I experienced similar feelings of intense emptiness, and the like. Sometimes with brain issues our consciousness can seem to come back into its natural state, similar to when you are in dreamless deep sleep and are most present, without any sense perceptions or pleasure/pain cycles of the mind; just pure awareness.. Also similar to being unborn or an infant that has not constructed a strong sense of self yet. You are definitely not in psychosis either or you would not be here writing, and co hearing perfect intellect and self awareness, Psychosis is a much different issue then dissociation.

It may FEEL like you are distant or far gone so to speak, but usually it is the opposite, you are just far away from the old way of perception through the brain and analyzing, judging, and mentally constructing a false sense of reality. Also it is obvious you are now in touch with what is absolutely real because if this wasn't the case and the ego state was absolute reality you would be comotose or dead. Keep in mind too a lot of what you are feeling could be from severe sleep deprivation as well, that would put a strong spell of dissociation into even the most healthy of individuals.

Regardless once you get the perfusion again and correct the cell membrane damage things will just sort of fall into place for you, though I never got testing to know what it was specifically with me on a cellular level I also had brain issues, and the like from inflammation/hypoperfusion from the lyme disease. It tends to just kind of correct itself with time and proper treatment and eventually just spontaneously or slowly correct itself.

I am confident you will recover pretty quickly with all the treatment you are doing now and catching everything early bud!

Did they ever run an IgeneX test by the way? I am curious if that could be the source of your problems, if it is something like then you would really need to focus on correcting the infection fully to keep a full recovery..

Also remind me again have you ever had amalgam fillings, eaten a lot of ocean fish, or had a previous serious exposure to any heavy metals?

Thx bro,

Yeah it must be awesome to start seeing some progress and know that normal life is right around the corner again.

I know I have to do lipid replacement and I know my gut is messed up bad and I have methylation problems, but I'm honestly not sure what order things need to be done. My doctor has been great but I don't know how well versed he is in methylation and etc.. I'm contacting a clinic for functional medicine in NY this week to see if I can get a doctor to walk me through this stuff specifically. I can figure some things out on my own but at this point I'd rather have someone who's done it before as a coach.

I have heard many places that the best chance of recovery from ME comes within the first 3 years and to a lesser extend 5. Since I'm 1 year in I want to get balls to the wall and make as much progress as possible.

I still haven't had the IgeniX test because my doctor was swaying away from it last time given my insomnia and dysautonomia. I do, however, still want to get it to cover all my bases. The only thing I have seen that describes my mental symptoms is Lyme or babesia, I really hope it's one of those instead of ME. I'm still going to prod my doctor for it but if he doesn't go for it I'll have to look elsewhere. I don't have the $ or anything but I've even been looking up stem cell treatments for this- anything to help my chances while I'm still young in this disease.

Per the psychosis- I'm not in it all the time but if I overexert or get sick or have bad anxiety I will fall into it. When those times happen I'm sure not posting! You know about that I'm sure. Lets say, if normal function is a 100 and psychosis is anything below 20, my brain hangs out around 25-30, occasionally dipping under the 20 mark. I also have the mental and mood instability that you mentioned

Per the rest of the mental sx's, all I know is that they stabilize (don't get better but just stop getting worse) if I rest a lot and they continuously get worse if I expend energy. PEM has been a huge part of this illness for me, without it i would be about 30-40% better right now. Honestly, if my brain were ok and not this far gone, I would only consider myself moderately ill. Lately physical sx's have been coming on more and the PEM is always there but still can't hold a candle to the psychological stuff.

Yeah I have a few amalgam fillings but eat fish no more than once a week and have been like that for a few years. I've had metal testing done and all of them were higher than I'd like but still within acceptable range. The only.one that came back high was lead, not sure where the exposure came from though. My doc put me on liquid zeolite for it because he said it's gentle and shouldn't cause any problems which it hasn't.

I actually have to travel to see Dr Enlander tomm so I'm going to tell him he needs to pick things up a bit. Unfortunately when it comes to going any distance further than a block or two I have to break out the wheelchair- would he nice to toss that aside some day.

Anyway, again, really happy for your progress so far man and I hope it only speeds up. How r u doing mentally-wise these days? Stabilizing out at all?

 

[Martial]

Thx bro,

Yeah it must be awesome to start seeing some progress and know that normal life is right around the corner again.

I know I have to do lipid replacement and I know my gut is messed up bad and I have methylation problems, but I'm honestly not sure what order things need to be done. My doctor has been great but I don't know how well versed he is in methylation and etc.. I'm contacting a clinic for functional medicine in NY this week to see if I can get a doctor to walk me through this stuff specifically. I can figure some things out on my own but at this point I'd rather have someone who's done it before as a coach.

I have heard many places that the best chance of recovery from ME comes within the first 3 years and to a lesser extend 5. Since I'm 1 year in I want to get balls to the wall and make as much progress as possible.

I still haven't had the IgeniX test because my doctor was swaying away from it last time given my insomnia and dysautonomia. I do, however, still want to get it to cover all my bases. The only thing I have seen that describes my mental symptoms is Lyme or babesia, I really hope it's one of those instead of ME. I'm still going to prod my doctor for it but if he doesn't go for it I'll have to look elsewhere. I don't have the $ or anything but I've even been looking up stem cell treatments for this- anything to help my chances while I'm still young in this disease.

Per the psychosis- I'm not in it all the time but if I overexert or get sick or have bad anxiety I will fall into it. When those times happen I'm sure not posting! You know about that I'm sure. Lets say, if normal function is a 100 and psychosis is anything below 20, my brain hangs out around 25-30, occasionally dipping under the 20 mark. I also have the mental and mood instability that you mentioned

Per the rest of the mental sx's, all I know is that they stabilize (don't get better but just stop getting worse) if I rest a lot and they continuously get worse if I expend energy. PEM has been a huge part of this illness for me, without it i would be about 30-40% better right now. Honestly, if my brain were ok and not this far gone, I would only consider myself moderately ill. Lately physical sx's have been coming on more and the PEM is always there but still can't hold a candle to the psychological stuff.

Yeah I have a few amalgam fillings but eat fish no more than once a week and have been like that for a few years. I've had metal testing done and all of them were higher than I'd like but still within acceptable range. The only.one that came back high was lead, not sure where the exposure came from though. My doc put me on liquid zeolite for it because he said it's gentle and shouldn't cause any problems which it hasn't.

I actually have to travel to see Dr Enlander tomm so I'm going to tell him he needs to pick things up a bit. Unfortunately when it comes to going any distance further than a block or two I have to break out the wheelchair- would he nice to toss that aside some day.

Anyway, again, really happy for your progress so far man and I hope it only speeds up. How r u doing mentally-wise these days? Stabilizing out at all?

Yeah man seems like it! I am definitely getting there!

Hmm interesting I did not know all that though I doubt there is any set time that says it can't be reversible, many people have M.E. for decades and can sometimes have complete spontanious remission and be 100% normal again completely randomly, so even after a set time period there is ALWAYS HOPE!

Definitely do what you can to get the test, that is crazy to dissuade you from getting it based on his own hunches. No part of M.E. is known to actually cause brain inflammation like lyme though hypoperfusion can happen due to POT/S. If you go to the IgeneX website there is even a form you can sign with your doctor for possible reimbursement for the test; If you are lucky enough they will even do the test for free and waive the fee. You just need to fill out the form, get the doctor to sign it and send it in to them.

The thing is you don't even know if you have true M.E. or if it is maybe something different as well, PEM is not unique to CFS alone, many other things can cause this including mold mycotoxins, amalgam illness, certain bio toxin poisonings, lyme, parasites, cyano bacteria, dino flaggelates, etc... PEM is your bodies system response of self preservation, slowing down certain productions of the body to protect against harm or damage from over exertion.. It is unique to humans as animals do not have this kind of response and if they are infected with something they will just running with activity until their system eventually shuts down and then death.

Yes I am very familiar with all the psychological and cognitive stuff, my experiences have been very similar in that regard! I know what you mean about the tipping point too lol, sometimes I was just staring off into space completely comotose and then a few hours later I would feel fine and as smart as einstein.. It was really up and down with no real structure, mine being due to ammonia from the dying bacteria of lyme, though I always de tox and take support to not let it build up too much, there is a lot of bacteria in my brain though and this is what causes the issue...

I would try and schedule something with a biological dentist and get the amalgams removed as soon as you can, being more sensitive in your state right now would make you more susceptible to the issues of mercury from the fillings.. This would be a huge relief from your body and also help to prevent any other issues with your brain, in fact I would say it is even more important then anything else you could do right now! Mercury fillings also interfere with the CSF levels of cobalt and supplementing methyl b12 will help to get the b12 into your brain where as before it may have been blocked from the mercury.

Relevant article.

http://www.whale.to/w/b12.html

Make sure you see someone who KNOWS what they are doing! You don't want them to do it incorrectly and poison both yourself and the dentist in the process. If it is done incorrectly the level of mercury from getting it removed that is released is MUCH higher then what naturally is leaked from your teeth. If it is done correctly though this is a HUGE burden off your body!


Also some speculation on the net believes people to think that methyl b12 would methylate mercury into its more toxic form but this is not how it works, methyl b12 is not a methyl donor of inorganic materials like mercury. In fact most studies show methyl b12 protects the body and helps to shuttle toxic levels of mercury and other heavy metals back out of the body.

You will toss that wheelchair out someday soon enough man! Also hopefully even hitting up the gym again and living your full life!

As far as my mental symptoms they are very well, not much issues from the lyme toxins. I still have some unrelated things I am working through though and it has been challenging in its own ways. In a sense it felt like I have been dealing with all these shadows or the darker parts of my psyche to really let it all go and burn out the old limitations I used to have by going through this illness, It is also related to my spiritual practices and the massive pain bodies it had dug up within my psyche as well lol..

It is not good or bad though, just unconscious beliefs and patterns that are burning themselves out
All is well, in fact more well then could ever be possibly imagined. Everything is already taking care of itself without any effort even necessary it seems..

Wishing you the best in your recovery as well man!