[I] left the Mayo Clinic in 2007 a little relieved, a little angry and very poor. Now, I know exactly why I was angry after watching the series of videos below (more about that later). Unfortunately, my anger at being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue prevented me from doing my own research – I was fed up and I just retreated to my cave for five years to try to heal with diet and lifestyle improvements. That was a big mistake because it appears that a number of researchers have figured out chronic fatigue. If you’ve got fatigue, I can’t recommend the late Richard van Konynenburg’s video enough. Find some quiet time and watch all 3 parts.
I’m already a believer because I’m in the process of titrating up folate and methyl B12 (reached 2.4 mg folate and 3 mg B12 yesterday). The improvement I’m feeling has had me thinking about bypassing the titration and just chewing up a whole bottle of the stuff! By no means am I cured, but am feeling tantalizing improvements.
In Part I, I got a good appreciation for the extent of chronic fatigue syndrome – it’s worldwide and sufferers number in the millions. Richard clearly understands what it’s like to have CFS even though he never experienced it. The biochemistry is the main event in Part I and it goes very deep:
You’ll see there is a lot of overlap with my last post on understanding methylation. But, Dr. Lynch’s presentation is very different from Richard van Konynenburg’s and you want to see them both. In Part II, you’ll start to hear about treatment protocols for CFS.
In Part III, you’ll hear about the clinical study and specific case reviews… it’s fascinating.
Here are Richard’s comments about the Mayo Clinic (starts at about 57 minutes):
I guess this is being recorded so I have to be careful what I say. I’ll just tell you that over the past 15 years I’ve been on the patient Internet groups for chronic fatigue syndrome and I’ve heard from a lot of people some of whom have gone to Mayo and the report pretty much from every one, is that Mayo runs a whole lot of wonderful tests, they send you to various specialists and they all say “It’s normal and what you need to do is see our psychiatrist” and they send them over there and prescribe them an antidepressant. Okay — and that’s what Mayo does for chronic fatigue syndrome. And I think that’s still true.
Well, that is precisely what they did to me in 2007 — years and years after Andy Cutler had published AI, and who knows how long after methylation treatments were being pioneered by Dr. Yasko, Konynenburg and others. I’ll never forget the psychiatrist using his leading questions on me, pushing me to admit that my physical problems might derive from depression. I’ll never forget the look of derision when I told him that anyone with my physical limitations would feel some depression, especially at the thought that I might be dying considering the downward spiral I was in.
Check out the crap recommendations about cognitive behavioral therapy still on Wikipedia’s CFS page. They’re on the same level with Mayo Clinic.
So exactly what improvements am I feeling?
Because I’ve also radically changed my diet while chelating and taking lots of supplements including iodine, I can’t pin the improvements precisely on B-12 and folate but, I have felt little bursts of additional energy on the days I’ve increased my dosage.
Yesterday, for example, I had a two-hour meeting after lunch and never felt like I was suffocating or jittery from energy debt. I never lost my train of thought irretrievably. I kind of stayed cool and collected mentally. Then, because I ran into a traffic jam on the way home ended up having to pick up the kids at school. So, I was out for three hours in situations that I consider high energy drains. Typically, I can always muscle through those on adrenaline fumes.
When I got home I lay down for a nap and I actually drifted to sleep. When I’m running on adrenaline, I’m unable to rest and recover. so it seems something different happened yesterday. Later in the early evening, I was outside with neighbors and family and played a little bit of backyard soccer and still felt okay afterwards. had no trouble relaxing or falling asleep at bedtime. In other words, I had an active day and stayed out of the red zone. That’s kind of remarkable. On the other hand, had the meeting been three hours long I don’t know what would’ve happened.
It’s still too early for me to say what’s going on!
What I know for certain is I’m angry, or let’s say ‘trying hard not to be angry’ at the Mayo Clinic doctors and all the others I’ve seen over the last 12 years. At the same time, I’m terribly excited about helping my wife heal with the new knowledge I’ve absorbed this week.