Visit with Dr.

[Guest guest]

Visit with Dr. , DO, October 6, 2008 by a Carnes

This appointment was fascinating and complex. I will try to summarize key

points that were covered.

I watched a videotape (30 min.) prior to seeing Dr. . It started off

with a psychological concept that fms is triggered by childhood issues, but

is more commonly seen in women than men because women needed to be able to

survive, thus the physical ability to shut down the immune system and

hibernate. This section of the tape was followed by an excellent discussion

of how infections play a role in this disruption and how to treat the

disruption and the infections.

I told Dr. after shaking hands and getting his cold (a good sign that

my immune system currently isn't too far into overdrive) that I didn't like

his video. He immediately agreed and said that the first half needed to be

deleted and all of it revised. Good thing!

Next we realized we had a lot of common friends, in particular Dr.

Flechas, Dr. Teitelbaum and Rich VanKonynenburg, PhD. It turns out Dr.

is using pieces of treatment from all of the above plus Dr.

Stratton. It was a pleasant surprise to realize that might take me

back to things that worked for me in 1995, but combine them with antibiotics

too.

Without belaboring all the pieces of my personal puzzle of illness I will

just summarize the treatment approach we agreed upon for starters.

First we will run new lab tests for reverse T3 since I don't know if the

Armor thyroid I am currently taking is not usable. I am thinking that this

might mean eventually taking timed released T3 instead of Armor. I still

have the problem of the warble in my vocal cords which seems to be related

to the high dose of Armor thyroid, but if I discontinue the Armor the

thyroid hormone levels drop through the cellar.

has no idea why 1200 mg of kelp caused my adam's apple to ache. He

thinks I MIGHT be allergic to something in kelp. The pain went away when I

stopped the kelp.

We will test for IgG c. pneumonia. This is the only test available to me

since I only have insurance for LabCorp. Also test for m. pneumonia and

HHV6.

Another potential issue in my case, always overlooked by other doctors has

been my slightly high ferritin levels. My mother was the same. Dr. is

concerned that I may have a genetic problem with hemocromatosis. I will have

lab tests run for this.

diagnosed at least 11 tender points. I started screaming that he was

not to put that absurd label of fibromyalgia in my file. When I got sick in

1995 I had no tender points. Now I have probably 95, not 11. Basically if

you press on any fatty tissue, knees, hips, back, neck IT ALL HURTS. So

forget the stupid, meaningless " f " word.

Okay, treatment. Rich V. will be happy to know I agreed to start on Folapro,

Hydroxy B12 and 400 iu of Vitamin E. I will not be taking vitamin D until I

get a new 25 D level test result.

I am also taking nitroglycerin, very low dose at bedtime and will ramp up

until I can tolerate a patch.

After about 4 weeks of this I will begin the Stratton protocol of

antibiotics. Maybe we will rethink some of the supplements or add to them

when the lab results come back.

I am hopeful. I am also impressed with Dr. . It was worth the trip, I

think, and Yosemite was beautiful with new snow on the mountains.