Fibromyalgia and Exam stress

[Guest guest]

suggest to support her with some calming and anxiety modulating herbs like lemon

balm and valerian everyday until the exam. start with lemon balm tea in the

morning and valerian before retiring and adjust the doses according to her

reaction. try to convince her that she needs resting. more rest before the

exam,more success..good sleep needed.holy basil may be tried or low dose

Siberian ginseng. these will modulate her stress response.no studying the day

before the exam,just relaxing,resting and enjoying herself.

bw and good luck.

Nil

Re: Fibromyalgia and Exam stress

you are wanting a quick fix for a LONG term problem. If you

" cheat " and give her HC before testing she may not be ABLE to get off it

to do that testing which is SO necessary. I would encourage her to ty

rto gget through these exams wiht some GOOD support meds such as Celtic

[Guest guest]

I messed up! For some reason last night when reading e-mails and typing this

reply, I was thinking of oxycontin (which is a powerful pain medicine and is

VERY addictive) instead of oxtocin which is a natural hormone produced by

the body. I'm sure the fact that my typing kind of mushed the two spellings

didn't help anything. Weren't we just discussing dyslexia here? Sigh....I

apologize for any resulting confusion.

Cherie

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you

learn.--C.S.

<snip>You seem like someone who really researches things, but I would be

remiss if I didn't point out that oxictoyn is very addictive so please be

careful with it. I used to work with a man who was addicted to it and he

ended up losing his job, his wife and everything. Another friend of mine's

daughter in law is currently addicted and is ruining her life along with her

husband and children. So I always remind people to be careful even if they

already know it. :-)<snip>

No virus found in this outgoing message.

Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.11/1244 - Release Date: 1/25/2008

7:44 PM

[Guest guest]

,

The use of Ultram along Naltrexone would really concern me. The naltrexone

would

concern me over many years worth of usage also even at a low dose, due to the

liver

problems associated with it. The Ultram is definitely going to have an effect

on her liver

and also lethargy even though it may help with pain. All these drugs are going

to have an

effect on her liver and her metabolism which in turn effects her energy level.

http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/tramadol_ad.htm

Provigil also has the possibility of causing a potentially fatal skin disease

known as

s- Syndrome. This disease is also known as Toxic Epidermal

Necrolysis and

it usually comes from adverse reactions to medication. People who suffer from

this

disease could be in extreme pain and experience anxiety. s- can

have an

affect on a person of any age, but it seems to appear more in older men and

women, but

this is possibly because this is the generation that tends to take medication

linked with the

disease.

There is info relating to this same syndrome for Ultram.

Ultram, Naltrexone, Provigil, Cytomel, Oxytocin, besides these, is she taking

any other

prescription meds? How about OTC meds? What other supplements? Has she ever

tried

glutathione?

Linn

>

> Nil and others who are being so helpful,

>

> The only " psychiatirc drug " would be provigil, which she was given because

> of her sleep disorder that was diagnosed last year. She is on is cytomel,

> one 5mcg tablet in the morning and one at night. Her doctor's assistant

> had increased it to 10 mcgs in the morning and 10 mcgs at night for about

> four weeks before all this started, but then the doctor himself got worried

> that the cytomel was what caused the slide, so he wanted it reduced to 10 a

> day, split between morning and night. That is where it has been for about

> a week.

>

> He just this week put her on the new pain medications ultram and

> lyrica. She also takes low dose naltrexone, which she has been on for

> several years to boost her immune system, which has been where she has had

> problems in the past. I certainly need to talk to that doctor about the

> combination of the ultram and the low-dose naltrexone....

>

> We also started her about a week ago on nasal oxytocin after consulting

> with several physicians who have experience with it and after finding the

> article that says it tends low in FM and that when it is low, the results

> can be exactly what we've seen happening in Grace. Grace is quite convinced

> the oxytocin is helping her, and noticed the difference right away, but she

> is not certain anything else is helping.

>

[Guest guest]

Linn,

I'm very familiar with s- syndrome and no, this hasn't been a

problem for my daughter.

She gets 3 mg naltrexone at night transdermally and has had this for

several years but earlier at about half that dose. The point is to

encourage more endogenous opioid production which helps the immune

response. I think if we were going to see a problem with it, that would

have shown up by now! We took her off it for about six months, and she did

get sick more often, so we put her back on. A normal dose of naltrexone is

50 mgs. Liver issues are a problem with large doses. Naltrexone is an

opioid agonist, but low doses timed at a particular time at night trick the

body into making more endogenous opioids.

If you'd like to know more about low dose naltrexone, see

here: http://www.lowdosenaltrexone.org/ Grace's doctor who prescribed

this is running a trial of low-dose naltrexone in a huge study of children

with AIDS in Africa.

I did discuss the ultram with two of her doctors and they agree that we

should take her off ultram and see if she does fine and the doctor who put

her on the Lyrica is fine about discontinuing that, too. He was just

pretty enthusiastic about it because of the response of one of his patients

who called it life-changing. Grace was not happy with how she has had

intermittent feelings of weakness, and she thinks it is the drugs, and

maybe it is, but it also might be this aggravated FM. I wish it was easier

to tell. She does not have chronic fatigue, though. That really doesn't

match.

The point of trying the ultram and lyrica was to get her over this crisis,

and hopefully we are there. She has only had seven pills of ultram

total. She only had four Lyrica. We are hoping that the effect of the

naltrexone will be sufficient to help her body deal with pain whether it is

perceived consciously or not. What concerned me is hearing that the pain

while sleeping is enough to disrupt the deep sleep and regulation of hormones.

The only other prescription med is an antihistamine. We have two different

ones, because her new doctor as of a year ago (who is supposed to know

chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia well) suggested a new antihistamine to

replace the old one thinking it would cause less drowsiness She only

takes this when she has allergy problems. Of course, they are not taken at

the same time, but she has used one or the other. She seems to think

Zyrtec works the best.

The provigil we only use on " study days " so she was off of it all last

summer and is usually off on the weekend. For the longest time, we only

used 50 mgs, but were encouraged to try 100 mg. I really don't think she

can tell the difference in the dose.

Linn, I don't really believe in medical approaches too much because of my

reading hundreds and hundreds of medical articles and multiple thousands of

abstracts. (I have twenty file cabinet drawers full of papers I've gathered

and read over the last dozen years.) I'm more for basic science

research. To me it makes much more sense to figure out what is broken and

have the intervention fall in line with what is broken by using something

normal to the body to help.. That's why we are doing the oxytocin.

I've also been doing scholarly research in the last year on an endogenous

peptide that may be important to protecting sleep when you are under

stress. There was a huge surge of research on this peptide in the eighties

after it was discovered, and Grace's sleep doctor actually conducted a

study on it back then which was never published. The interest that ws hot

suddenly stopped completely in the US, and I thought that odd because there

was never a single negative study so I went and tracked down the old

researchers who were still in the US and even some abroad to find out what

happened. That's actually how I found my daughter's sleep doctor....and I

also recruited the doctor doing the intake on Grace's sleep issues who

began sharing my interest in seeing if this peptide could be relevant to

autism and looking at sleep issues in autism, which is a big but unexplored

field for which she is perfectly equipped.

Anyway, I ended up locating the Russian researchers who are still working

on this peptide (most of the newer articles are Russian and they are very

few and far between). I met these scientists last year in Oslo along with

some Norwegian doctors and a psychologist who does brain mapping and shared

my interest, and we had a research pow-wow. I found out that the research

in America was quashed because it was felt this product would compete with

some other sleep medicines that already had years of investment behind

them, so the company with the other products about to be put on the market

bought the patent in the US for using the peptide, and then completely

squashed the research. (Don't you love these American priorities?) The

research has continued in Russia, but it has been isolated and underfunded

and people in the US must have assumed it dropped out of favor for

legitmate reasons, or felt there was no reason to keep studying it if

somebody else would make the money from any discoveries! Anyway, the young

people doing this research in the eighties are now senior, but I am still

trying to figure out how to get this investigated again and properly

APPLIED and to see if it could help children and adults with autism and

many other conditions. The clinical studies were amazing.

Yes, we've tried glutathione. Nothing dramatic there except one time her

previous doctor (when she had the flu and couldn't get over it) gave her IV

glutathione and vitamin C and it was a complete disaster. We won't do that

again. It might have been a problem with the vitamin C converting to

oxalate, which it will.

I studied the sulfur system in graduate school. It had to be learned

through independent study, for biologists and doctors don't know too much

about this system, but now they do where I went to school as they had to

put up with me! That was my field for a decade before I found the low

oxalate diet to be so much more effective in fixing things! But, I still

have a yahoogroup called sulfurstories where people share good and bad

things about reactions to sulfur supplements and foods and the archives are

jammed full of research and personal observations from listmates. It has a

little more than a thousand members, and is about to celebrate its fifth

birthday, but the traffic has slowed down since I've gotten so

diversified! Anyway, I've lectured all around the world on the sulfur

system and sulfur's role in neurodevelopment and its relevance to autism

with a particular focus on sulfate. Sulfurstories isn't an autism list,

though, but it is for everybody with any reason to try a sulfur

supplement. That is really where I started meeting people with chronic

fatigue, and they saw parallels in my daughter's issues even though

clinically, it didn't match that well.

I hope that got to all your questions! If you are interested,

sulfurstories can be found at: sulfurstories @ yahoogroups.com. (The

spaces are there to keep some mail servers from chopping off the

address.) The old discussions on there are much richer and more relevant

than current threads....

Thanks so much for your thoughts, Linn!

At 11:36 AM 1/26/2008, you wrote:

>,

>

>The use of Ultram along Naltrexone would really concern me. The naltrexone

>would

>concern me over many years worth of usage also even at a low dose, due to

>the liver

>problems associated with it. The Ultram is definitely going to have an

>effect on her liver

>and also lethargy even though it may help with pain. All these drugs are

>going to have an

>effect on her liver and her metabolism which in turn effects her energy

>level.

>

><http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/tramadol_ad.htm>http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/ge\

neric/tramadol_ad.htm

>

>

>Provigil also has the possibility of causing a potentially fatal skin

>disease known as

>s- Syndrome. This disease is also known as Toxic Epidermal

>Necrolysis and

>it usually comes from adverse reactions to medication. People who suffer

>from this

>disease could be in extreme pain and experience anxiety. s-

>can have an

>affect on a person of any age, but it seems to appear more in older men

>and women, but

>this is possibly because this is the generation that tends to take

>medication linked with the

>disease.

>

>There is info relating to this same syndrome for Ultram.

>

>Ultram, Naltrexone, Provigil, Cytomel, Oxytocin, besides these, is she

>taking any other

>prescription meds? How about OTC meds? What other supplements? Has she

>ever tried

>glutathione?

>

>Linn

>

>

> >

> > Nil and others who are being so helpful,

> >

> > The only " psychiatirc drug " would be provigil, which she was given because

> > of her sleep disorder that was diagnosed last year. She is on is cytomel,

> > one 5mcg tablet in the morning and one at night. Her doctor's assistant

> > had increased it to 10 mcgs in the morning and 10 mcgs at night for about

> > four weeks before all this started, but then the doctor himself got

> worried

> > that the cytomel was what caused the slide, so he wanted it reduced to

> 10 a

> > day, split between morning and night. That is where it has been for about

> > a week.

> >

> > He just this week put her on the new pain medications ultram and

> > lyrica. She also takes low dose naltrexone, which she has been on for

> > several years to boost her immune system, which has been where she has had

> > problems in the past. I certainly need to talk to that doctor about the

> > combination of the ultram and the low-dose naltrexone....

> >

> > We also started her about a week ago on nasal oxytocin after consulting

> > with several physicians who have experience with it and after finding the

> > article that says it tends low in FM and that when it is low, the results

> > can be exactly what we've seen happening in Grace. Grace is quite

> convinced

> > the oxytocin is helping her, and noticed the difference right away, but

> she

> > is not certain anything else is helping.

> >

>

>

--

Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.

Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.8/1196 - Release Date: 12/25/2007

12:18 PM

[Guest guest]

Cherie,

I got to thinking about what you wrote and thought you might have gotten it

mixed up with that or oxycodone. No harm done!

There isn't a lot of experience with oxytocin outside of pregnancy, but now

there is some experience with autism. Our doctors use compounding

pharmacists for such things as the gut is so messed up in autism that we

use a lot of transdermal and transnasal formulations.

I had an interesting conversation with the doctor who prescribed the

oxytocin for my daughter yesterday. My daugher recently got a very cute

hairdo, and she lost some weight since summertime, and has a Barbie figure

now, but suddenly, the boys are coming out of the woodwork! Yesterday at

school, someone who has dated some friends of hers was really paying her a

lot of attention completely out of the blue ... and last week a childhood

friend who saw her recently called and asked her for a date, and another

friend informed her that a third boy had been talking about her, and this

on the face of her already having a new boyfriend. Such interest has not

happened to her before. The doctor says she just expects my daughter is

acting more social which you might expect from oxytocin but it is

definitely NOT because she encouraged any of this. All of these things

were huge surprises.

Something else happened yesterday, though. She had a terrible

disappointment in that her boyfriend renigged on taking her to the school

dance today because he couldn't find a tux, and she was in a really bad

mood, and I think her blood sugar was also low but she was getting really

demanding and critical and all sorts of negatives, and I just

thought....why should I wait to give her the oxytocin at bedtime? We

started eating dinner and at the same time I gave her oxytocin but in five

minutes she had a complete emotional turnaround and I was suddenly a nice

mommy.

Do you suppose this means some of the mother/daughter conflicts that happen

with teenagers happens because of a low oxytocin that may happen at this

age? It is a shock when a previously warm relationship gets challenged by

teenagerhood... I know that when a girl is with her sweetie, even just

their smiles and ordinary attention will stir up oxytocin. I do remember

that the year she had a wonderful boyfriend a few years ago was one of MY

happiest years and a really good year for mother/daughter things and a good

year for her health, although that is when we first realized how shortened

sleep was bad for her. Oxytocin must be powerful stuff! Maybe part of

what drives courtship in teenagers is a low basal level that means you need

to be around the opposite sex to get this " social hormone " revved

up! Maybe it is not all testosterone!

This also has gotten me to wondering if maybe instead of all the

psychiatric drugs we dole out, that this might be a better first approach

to psychiatric issues since it IS what the body expects and it does

modulate a lot of other neurochemistry and it would probably be excellent

for sociopaths. Maybe we should figure out better what depresses its

endogenous production....I have had some theories about that expressed

through the years...

I will have to look up if anyone has found there is a negative to getting

too much oxytocin, or any other downside that I haven't found! (Not that I

am going to go over the prescribed dose...this is just my curiosity talking..)

Thanks for being careful to correct the misidentity!

At 10:51 AM 1/26/2008, you wrote:

>I messed up! For some reason last night when reading e-mails and typing this

>reply, I was thinking of oxycontin (which is a powerful pain medicine and is

>VERY addictive) instead of oxtocin which is a natural hormone produced by

>the body. I'm sure the fact that my typing kind of mushed the two spellings

>didn't help anything. Weren't we just discussing dyslexia here? Sigh....I

>apologize for any resulting confusion.

>

>Cherie

>

> Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you

>learn.--C.S.

>

>

>

> <snip>You seem like someone who really researches things, but I would be

>remiss if I didn't point out that oxictoyn is very addictive so please be

>careful with it. I used to work with a man who was addicted to it and he

>ended up losing his job, his wife and everything. Another friend of mine's

>daughter in law is currently addicted and is ruining her life along with her

>husband and children. So I always remind people to be careful even if they

>already know it. :-)<snip>

>

>

>No virus found in this outgoing message.

>Checked by AVG Free Edition.

>Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.11/1244 - Release Date: 1/25/2008

>7:44 PM

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Listmates,

I have a tale to tell.

When I was in eighth grade, I went through a time of plummetting

grades. It was bad enough that I was sent to my first grade teacher for

her to jump on me and tell me I was not " working to capacity " . I had

noticed my grades falling, but had no idea what had happened, but that

visitation hurt my morale. It was kind of a blip. My grades eventually

got better through no effort on anyone's part. The next year I came down

with a terrible blood disease that was treated with cortisone. Suddenly I

was making A plusses on everything. My body fell apart at the same

time. I got Cushing's syndrome and had hair growing in exotic places and a

face completely covered in acne, and I gained thirty pounds so fast that it

broke down my skin in a lot of places leaving striae everywhere. When I

the cortisone was stopped, the academic magic left me and I was back to my

usual A's and B's.

Could this give some clues to what is happening with my daughter? I

certainly never had symptoms suggestive of fibromyalgia, but I never had an

explanation for what happened to my grades.

I totally surprised everyone later when I took my advanced placement exams

but for that week was on a low carb diet with grapefruit. I passed all

those exams, doing better than all my classmates who were the academic stars.

In college, my freshman year my family fell apart and I was very

stressed. My grades were awful. By the time I graduated, I was making all A's.

Did my daughter get some abnormal stress chemistry from me?

I make up a supplement drink at night and I take the same thing I fix for

my daughter. I basically started over in my choices of what to put in it

recently, basing this on studies I found in the literature on

fibromyalgia. What has been remarkable is that I feel great! I think I'm

losing needed weight without trying.

These are things to ponder!

--

Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.

Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.8/1196 - Release Date: 12/25/2007

12:18 PM

[Guest guest]

It is a stimulant.

Cherie

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you

learn.--C.S.

>

> Good God - that's what I wondered - does Provigil screw with the

> pit and HPA somehow?

>

>

>

No virus found in this outgoing message.

Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.11/1244 - Release Date: 1/25/2008

7:44 PM

[Guest guest]

Interesting line of thought. Maybe I should get some to let my daughter use

through her teen years....

Cherie

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you

learn.--C.S.

>

> Do you suppose this means some of the mother/daughter conflicts

> that happen

> with teenagers happens because of a low oxytocin that may happen at this

> age? It is a shock when a previously warm relationship gets

> challenged by

> teenagerhood... I know that when a girl is with her sweetie, even just

> their smiles and ordinary attention will stir up oxytocin. I do remember

> that the year she had a wonderful boyfriend a few years ago was one of MY

> happiest years and a really good year for mother/daughter things

> and a good

> year for her health, although that is when we first realized how

> shortened

> sleep was bad for her. Oxytocin must be powerful stuff! Maybe part of

> what drives courtship in teenagers is a low basal level that

> means you need

> to be around the opposite sex to get this " social hormone " revved

> up! Maybe it is not all testosterone!

>

> This also has gotten me to wondering if maybe instead of all the

> psychiatric drugs we dole out, that this might be a better first approach

> to psychiatric issues since it IS what the body expects and it does

> modulate a lot of other neurochemistry and it would probably be excellent

> for sociopaths. Maybe we should figure out better what depresses its

> endogenous production....I have had some theories about that expressed

> through the years...

>

> I will have to look up if anyone has found there is a negative to getting

> too much oxytocin, or any other downside that I haven't found!

> (Not that I

> am going to go over the prescribed dose...this is just my

> curiosity talking..)

>

> Thanks for being careful to correct the misidentity!

>

>

>

>

>

No virus found in this outgoing message.

Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.11/1244 - Release Date: 1/25/2008

7:44 PM

[Guest guest]

I Need to know, Is this okay to stimulate our hypothalamus? I take

Provigil 4 timees per week, and caffine, My Dr said I like flying

high!!!! I dont know if that was good, bad or just a funny...

Thanks for the help

> >

> > Good God - that's what I wondered - does Provigil screw with the

> > pit and HPA somehow?

> >

> > > I'm still working on the caffine! ;-)

>

> I've been taking Provigil on an " as needed " basis for about three

> years and based upon what my neurologist said I think the answer to

> your question above would be a yes.

>

> He prescribed it to me to stimulate the hypothalamus.

>

> I only use it on really down days when I have to work regardless of

> sick or not. I'm needing it less recently.

>

> I think Provigil isnt as bad as ritalin though. Provigil doesn't

> speed up my heart rate like ritalin did.

>

> I'm a COFFEE ROASTER so please don't knock my caffine! lol

>

> Mark

>