Wow, it's been forever...

Well, it's been a busy year.

Sadly, I've only been doing one thing the whole year. It's been an education in frustration, disappointment, betrayal, and despair. But at least I've learned something.

Meanwhile, my health has been changing, almost unnoticed amid the stress and sadness.

So last I was here, I was experimenting with acetyl-l-carnitine, and had been treated for a long standing, hard to kill, fungal infection in my intestines.

I was being treated at a clinic that specializes in fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

Well, that clinic changed their billing process, with the end result of me having to stop being treated by them.

That meant that, after I ran through the prescriptions they'd given me for T3 and cortisol, I was going to be SOL. When I asked them what they could do, I mean, they simply dropped me in the middle of treatment, how was I going to remain on the, according to them, life saving meds they had me on? They essentially shrugged their shoulders and told me I'd have to figure something out- that it wasn't their problem.

Proving to me that they honestly were just in it for the money. And it made me doubt their treatments, if they thought it no big deal to drop me with nowhere else to go.

Be that as it may, I did still have two months of prescriptions left at the compounding pharmacy. So I called them, told them about my situation-- and lo and behold, they had a master nurse practitioner on staff who could dispense my prescription meds. She would need to have me do some blood and saliva tests, and fill out about fifteen pages of paperwork, so she could be sure of why and how she should treat me.

I purchased and did the tests.

And boy, am I glad I did. All this time I had really wanted to know for sure what was going on with my cortisol levels (the fibro doctor sort of guessed, but seemed reluctant to really schedule the tests necessary to know). But this nurse practitioner flat out, as a matter of course, ordered the tests. So I got a chance to see on paper my real cortisol levels through the day.

And guess what? I am basically flat-line on cortisol, except for a strange rise and fall pretty late at night (which is odd, but apparently not unheard of for exhausted folk). This, combined with the blood tests for many of the hormones created by the adrenal glands proves what I had always known-- I have Adrenal Exhaustion. Not a little insufficient, not a little fatigue, exhausted. This condition, if it gets worse, turns into failure-- which is called Addison's Disease, and can be life threatening, or at least debilitating.

So what can be done about it? Well, a careful sodium balance is critical because of the lack of aldosterone. I also have to protect my eyes because they don't block light as they should (aldosterone again). Body temperature is an issue because, as often is the case, hypothyroidism is also a problem for me. My body needs huge amounts of amino acids, both because the adrenals use them to create hormones, and because my mitochondria are suffering, due to the adrenal/thyroid problems.

In addition, the adrenal glands require extra vitamins that adrenal exhaustion/hypothyroidism cause to be too low for some reason (there are theories, but the bottom line is I need extra).

Also, possibly unique to my situation, but I doubt it, I have some serious malnourishment issues. Basically my digestive system doesn't work (I don't know how long that's been happening, or exactly how bad because I don't have time to look into it right now).

This means that I need to take large doses of hydrochloric acid, digestive enzymes, and probably ox bile (I haven't gotten those yet, but it is looking like that is something else I'm missing). This means my stomach isn't creating acid like it should, my intestines (and pancreas) are not creating enzymes, and my panceas, gallbladder, and liver are not creating the bile I need to digest food correctly.

I have found that taking large doses of hydrochloric acid for every meal has made the biggest difference in my overall well-being that may well eclipse the improvements made by taking T3 and Cortisol, which were life changing when I started them.

So now I am taking:

4000 UI vitamin D
650 MG acetyl-l-carnitine
500 mg l-lysine
Multivitamin (good quality)
Selenium
Chromium
activated B6 and B5 (turns out I can't process those on my own without it being preprocessed, makes a big difference)
1/2 Iodoral (iodine-- it doesn't seem to be making a difference, but it is rumored that I must increase my vitamin A to see the difference, so that might be a work in progress)
1000 mg esterized vitamin C
Co-Q 10
Omega-3
Magnesium (200mg AM, 200 PM)

Also I am still taking 50mg of T3 and 25mg of Cortisol daily (sometimes more cortisol if the day has been very stressful)

I also take at least 4 (sometimes 6) 650mg HCl with Pepsin capsules per meal, and 2 digestmore enzyme pills per meal. (doing without the enzymes is not a good thing) I will be starting the ox bile as soon as they arrive (they're being shipped).

I have noticed a significant increase in my endurance, strength, concentration, clear-headedness, emotional stability, tolerance to stress, physical recovery from severe stress, ability to keep myself warm as well as tolerance to cool temperatures, ability to tolerate bright light and indirect light better, less migraines, less blindspots, less pain and stiffness, ability to sleep normal hours (both time of day and duration- 8 hours is now fine for me, as opposed to 10, although I do still nap). I can also tolerate standing in one position, or typing for many more hours than I could before.

Although, strangely, it seems my TMJ symptoms are actually getting worse on this regime, rather than better. I don't know why.

In addition to the continued T3 and cortisol, I was prescribed two hormone creams to help my body cope with the adrenal exhaustion-- progesterone and dhea.

I've had bad, bad experiences with dhea and pregnenolone, so I was reluctant to do the dhea, and I must admit that I am using less than half of what was prescribed. But the progesterone was something I knew I needed a long time ago. So I was very happy to see the nurse prescribing it.

The progesterone is administered in a cream twice a day. It makes a big difference as well- increasing my energy levels, but not in a jittery way. The dhea just seems to make my eyelids sweat (gross I know, but seriously, that seems to be the only consistent difference it makes).

Despite the incredible, endless stress I am under due to the work I am currently doing (in the worst sort of environment; alone, completely isolated at my house, never seeing the people making my life hell, dealing with impossible deadlines, threats and bullying, managing people not quite qualified for what they are now doing that wasn't planned for initially, and responsible, in the end, for all things good and bad in the product, no matter what the others do or do not do)-- I am feeling better than I have in practically a decade.

As soon as this job is done (it should have been done in June to give you an idea of how long I've been waiting and how much this job is interrupting my life), I plan to start working out at a local gym, and going back to teaching. That should increase the quality of my life physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially.

So that's the update. Thanks for reading. : )