[I] can’t ever recall taking a nap after breakfast before yesterday. Sure, I’ve done it after having insomnia but last night I slept and still needed a nap after breakfast. I also took a nap after lunch and still felt like I had been run over until about 7:00 PM.
Here’s what happened – I had planned to increase my ALA dose this round by 25 mg and at the last minute decided to increase by only one quarter tablet or 12.5 mg up to 62.5 mg. That’s what I did on Monday my first day of the round. It was a holiday but still harder than I expected and I was very glad I chose the smaller increase.
We had some visitors and I really struggled through that. Ever try to pretend you don’t have the flu? It’s kind of like that.
Tuesday morning I inadvertently used half tablets instead of quarter tablets and ended up boosting my ALA to 75 mg. When I noticed the error, I thought, “no problem, I always adapt pretty quickly, I’ll keep going with 75!” and I did adapt, Tuesday was mostly better than Monday. I felt reasonably well until a half an hour before the end of each dose period. The last half-hour got harder and harder until I was crashing hard during those last half-hours in the afternoon on Wednesday.
Then came yesterday, my first day off-round and I was flattened like never before. So I’m thinking of increasing my Isocort from 8 pellets to 10. Can’t decide whether to do that Monday through Thursday or every day of the week. I’m leaning towards every day… your thoughts?
For a while, before chelation, I used to use 10 pellets on weekends only (because they are more active for me) and it worked well. So my general impression is that it’s okay to vary adrenal support with activity/stress level.
Yesterday I also started carnitine (tartrate) which I’m very excited about. I think it gave me a little boost which I felt clearly in the evening after my fatigue storm had passed. also discovered that my wife was feeling unusually cold and a little jittery a day after I increased her iodine. She has Hashimoto’s thyroiditis so I did some research in the iodine crisis book and online and realized that I had misunderstood the selenium issue. She needed more, not less, so I increased her to 400 mcg yesterday and 600 mcg today and decreased the iodine. in a few days, will try increasing the iodine again back to 12.5 mg.
Also lowered her B12’s. I think she got jittery because she switched from under the tongue to upper lip which gives an enormous increase in melt time.
Here are my notes from the round:
Round 11 – 50 mg DMSA, 75 mg ALA every three hours, total chelation days to date: 28.5
- Monday, May 27: new brand of ALA (Source Naturals), started with 62.5 mg ALA . Hard day, my body knows whenever I increase the dosage even when it is a measly 12.5 mg! feeling slow and thick, pressure in the head as if I were about to get a headache.
- Tuesday, May 28: Accidentally increased to 75 mg ALA, so I will stick with it. Feeling better than yesterday even though I increased the dose. maybe this is a good trick for dose increases? Still slow mentally, difficult to work.
- Wednesday, May 29: Hard day, hard crashes in the afternoon and early evening before each dose.
- Thursday, May 30 (first day off-round): Crushing fatigue, slow thinking. Naps after breakfast and lunch. Increased cortisol to 10 pellets. Started carnitine at 125 mg after first nap at 9 AM.
I am done with my round now. Or almost, one dose left in two hours. Then I will SLEEP :).Here are the notes, if you are interested:
26 May 2013 2012
On round, 200 mg ALA
Day 1. Really nothing to report. Feel normal. Only thing is a bit of this nice, warm feeling but not as strong as last round. Also a bit cold feet.
Day 2. Very good, so far! No meaningful sfx, I feel totally normal. Also, I got some really concentrated work done (wrote a long report). Later in day, I get that mild, warm feeling. Really great round, so far!
Day 3. Still an easy ride but some feelings of irritation and short temper today. Light pounding feeling also today. Also have had some muscle twitching the past few days. Mainly outside of left hand but also some in other muscles. Stools, BP and pulse all fine. Temp at 37.0 and I get this light warm feeling on and off.
Day 4. My sleep cycle is now very messed up and I have been up to 3 am the last few days. It does not feel like an sfx (i.e. high cortisol) but more just like an effect of the 3 hour dosing. But otherwise, it is still a walk in the park and I will keep going.
As a general observation, I have felt some of the familiar psychological sfxs, i.e. procrastination and confusion, over the past few days. But they are much, much milder.
Day 5. Still fine, but I am now feeling some irritation and a bit of the “to much coffee” feeling. It is still mild, but it is there. Also some muscle twitching, still mainly on the outside of the left hand. Pulse, bp, temp and stools all fine.
Day 6. Getting very short tempered combined with more of the irritation and the “to much coffee” feeling. Not so nice anymore and I will stop the round after today.
“Not so nice anymore”
got a laugh out of this as I have felt that a few times where the round is going well at some point and then later ‘not so nice anymore’!
so nice to read your blow-by-blow, because it highlights how chaotic chelation is, even when it’s going well. we need a lot of reassurance amidst the craziness. interesting that you get that too much coffee feeling with ALA only and I think it is the DMSA that does it for me.
I would guess that the procrastination is a side effect of confusion and not a primary effect. that’s how I sense it anyway. I procrastinate because my mind is slightly paralyzed with confusion and slowness. It doesn’t make any sense to try to do anything in that state.
You make it sound like an odd thing to take a nap after breakfast…… It has happenend many times to me since I started the Cutler program. As a matter of fact, one of the first things I wrote after starting supplements, i.e. before any chelation was:
“Very tired, sleep 12-14 hours. But feel better than in a long time when awake. Very sudden onset of tiredness, i.e all of a sudden feel that I have to sleep.”
This can really happen at any time during the day and has been the case on and off since then. And it is a strong feeling, i.e. it is almost impossible not to sleep right then. This is one of the reasons why I really prefer to stay at home during round…..In addition, as we talked about before, B12 used to act as a sleeping pill for me.
On the plus side, my sleep cycle has improved a great deal. It used to be that I had big difficulties falling asleep at night and then would be like the walking dead in the morning. Now I often fall asleep at 10-11 pm, sleep very deep and then wakes up with lots of energy at 5-6 am. Of course, that all gets messed up during rounds….
As a side note, I was thinking about our different reactions to B12. One possible reason is that I came at it mainly looking to fix my peripheral neuropathy and that I don’t think that I ever had real CF, even if my energy levels were far from perfect. This may explain both why I went for higher doses and why our reactions were quite different. Who knows, but it may be possible. Or what do you think?
wow, super interesting – “Very sudden onset of tiredness, i.e all of a sudden feel that I have to sleep.”
I’ve been experiencing this also, feeling pretty good for a few hours in the morning and then absolutely have to take a nap after lunch… sometimes it happens later in the day too, and now I know it can happen after breakfast also! Thanks for sharing, makes me feel like I may still be on the right track. I got a little doubtful after such a hard week.
I think you’re right about our different reactions and chronic fatigue. it is really dominant for me. just the sleep interruption during rounds is enough to cause a tremendous crash on my first day off-round and my lack of exercise tolerance makes this whole process really really slow. a long conversation has for years been enough to wipe me out on any given day. I’m hoping at some point my sleep quality will improve enough that I will experience geometric improvements.
hoping the B12 program will do that…
today I added an extra day with fish oil and took it at 6 AM (earlier than usual). I know I shouldn’t but I like to try adding something new almost every day to feel like I’m making progress. fingers crossed! I also switched to carnitine fumarate from tartrate because it arrived yesterday afternoon. took it at 6 AM along with the fish oil and other b12s and fell back asleep. I could feel little jolts of energy waking me a few times but I still fell back asleep anyway.