After my complete diagnoses, I started a regimen of anti-bacterials, anti-fungals, and numerous other pills. The first goal was to kill, or at least beat back the latent infections. I was told that I might experience the yeast die-off effect, which is your body's reaction as the anti-fungals begin to attack the yeast. If they were working, I would probably start to feel worse. Boy, did I! within four days, I was sick as a dog--room spinning toilet clutching nausea. This went on for about a month.
After the first two weeks, I started my intravenous vitamin supplements-three hours a day, twice a week, sitting with other patients in a room full of lazy-boy recliners, all of us hooked up to IVs, all looking pretty weak and sick. You signed an agreement saying you wouldn't ask anyone what was wrong with them, but week after week sitting with many of the same people, we started to talk. The diagnoses were all over the place. There were quite a few cancer patients that were seeking out ways to help their immune system through the debilitating phases of chemotherapy and radiation. There were people with all kinds of auto-immune issues, multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre, Chron's, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis. There were people with Lyme disease. We all had two things in common, we were quite ill, and the conventional medical system had failed us. Occasionally someone who was further along in the healing process would be there, and offer us all encouragement. I try and do that now when I go back for periodic IVs, as I had to do this year when I had my first major relapse since getting well.
Between the anti-fungals and the IVs, I was totally wiped out. Add to that continued physical therapy for short term pain management, and getting well was a full time job--and an expensive one at that. Other than the pharmaceuticals, nothing was covered by insurance. I was beyond my employer-capped physical therapy treatments. The IVs weren't covered. But at least I felt like I was doing something logical to attack a specific set of issues.
I'm not sure I can pinpoint exactly when this happened, but I'd say between six weeks and two months of these two therapies, I started to feel better. The first thing I noticed was that my mind was a bit clearer. I could actually string a sentence together. Then I noticed that my afternoon exhaustion "naps" were a bit shorter.
In addition, I was on a wide variety of medications, some prescription, some homeopathic, many of which I still take today. They include pills to manage the pain and the over-reactive nervous system, supplements to help rebuild my immune system, and extra vitamins and minerals because I will probably never absorb as many as I should through food due to the multiple years of strain on my digestive system. I had daily what I call my "Heath Ledger cocktail", which included a six or seven prescription medications. Anyone checking the literature would never mix these prescriptions together, and the automatic warning labels at the pharmacy kept getting longer, but they were the right mixture for me. (I later learned that the average number of prescriptions Fibro patients that have found relief take is seven.) I also take many supplements, including Vitamins B, D, magnesium, probiotics, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting. My only issue with suppplements is that you need to take so many, and the pills are usually large. At my peak, I was taking 25 pills/tablets, twice a day. I still take around 15 pills/tablets twice a day, and probably always will, though I try and getting off the prescription medications periodically. If I start feeling worse, I add them back.
Ah Sleep! Something that alluded me for four years. If anyone has ever dealt with chronic insomnia, I feel for you. To this day, what I cherish the most is a good night's sleep, which is still hard. The reason; in Fibromyalgia patients the sympathetic nervous system always is engaged, and you never enter REM sleep, thus sleep is light, you are easily wakened, and you wake up feeling exhausted. But guess what! Our moms were right! You need a good night sleep to get better. Once I gave in to my aversion of trying sleeping pills and started taking a time release formula that helped me stop waking every 90 minutes, I started to sleep, and the healing came faster.
The next phase was diet overhaul. Now let me begin by saying most people would have categorized me as a healthy eater before. No junk foods, lots of vegetables, generally good moderation. But the anti-fungal diet was in a class by itself. No sugar (not even fruit sugars), no gluten or any starch except quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat, and no dairy. What did I eat, you might ask. Not much. I lost a lot of weight, fast. That extra 25 pounds came off in a month, the same way I put it on. But the main reason for the diet had nothing to do with weight; it was to kill the yeast. Basically, the antifungal medications can knock the yeast back, but the slightest bit of fertilizer (ie anything that converts to sugar) will start the yeast regrowth. Trying to get rid of candida is kind of like killing weeds. You yank them out and they grow right back. But, ultimately, if you deprive them of sun and water for long enough, they will die.
This particular diet is called the Body Ecology Diet(http://www.bodyecology.com/), and though its difficult to sustain for most normal people, I highly advise it if you have been suffering from chronic disease for a period of time. It starves the bad stuff while encouraging your immune system to repair with lots of foods that provide immune system support. I was able to stick with it for about four months. Five days after starting this regimen, I experienced another really big level of improvement. Never before did I really understand the link between food and disease (a topic for a later column) until I saw how my health improved staying strictly on this diet. This blog is already too long to tell you the potions I made, my exercise regimens, my nutritional daily supplements, and the amazing machine that helps titrate my medicines, but I followed the instructions rigorously, and I continued to improve. I had to get over my aversions to taking any medications, and I had to relearn everything I had been taught about food and diet. It took me about 9 months to get about 50% well. It took me another six months to get to 90% well, where I remain today.
If anyone is still with me, my point in telling you all of this is that getting well is a process and a total commitment. You need to find the right caregiver, and realize that chronic illness doesn't happen in a month, and you won't get well in a month. But you can get better! I will always have Fibromyalgia and probably candida as well, but I can manage it. Its two years and three months since I started my get well routine, and I am running this company, I am a busy mother of two children, and I have energy again. I know what to do when I have flare-ups, as they're called, and how to recognize when I'm overdoing things. I have a healthier diet and exercise regimen than I ever had before I got sick, and that has to be good for the long run.
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