Day Three and Counting

Well into day three of my post swim crash.  Still doing pretty damn bad but I had to travel Monday to get my IV and see my CFS doc and then travel today to see my regular doc so no lumping around the house for me.  This is also prolonging this crash.  Ugh!

However, I have some good news and a new action plan from my docs.

News:
My cholesterol plummeted since it was last done in January.  The only thing that has changed is that I'm cooking more which means I've been eating higher quality ingredients and roughly 90% Paleo.  During the winter I was too sick to cook a lot of the time so we were eating out more.  I was still eating mostly Paleo but the ingredients were crap.  Now it is pastured meats, pastured eggs, raw milk/cheese, grass fed cream, saturated fats from pastured animals, organic fruits/veg/nuts.  Very few carbs and those are from organic Non-GMO Project items: rice, beans, potatoes or a slice of toast.  My doc was shocked.  I just told him that when I feel better I can cook better.   Apparently that is enough to lower my cholesterol numbers.

The stool test came back with mostly good news.  Only two not so bad things found.  First the good news; no SIBO, no C. diff. no H. pylorii.  They did find I was low on Bifida bacteria (one of the good ones) and genetic remnants of a protozoa or parasite probably picked up from eating something with poo on it.  Considering I eat veg right off the farm this isn't a huge surprise to me.  Also they don't treat it unless I have obvious symptoms of a parasitic infection like bloating, pain and other nasties.  Since I don't have that, we are ignoring this for now.

My urine test showed some yeast/fungal overgrowth but not by a huge amount.  I added more fermented foods to my diet but haven't been retested.  This doesn't really surprise me since I've had this fungal tinea skin infection going for almost the entire four years I've had CFS.  I did discover that a homemade concoction of 1 part coconut oil to 1 part beef tallow to a drop or two of tea tree oil works way better to control the rash than the $300 tube of cream I got from the dermatologist.  WOOT!!

Plan Part One:
Since I do so well on antibiotics (for no reason the docs can figure out), I'm starting Xifaxin today.  There is great debate in the CFS community regarding this drug and if you do a search on the Phoenix Rising site you'll find all sorts of lengthy discussions about it.  To my non medical mind (i.e. I could be COMPLETELY wrong on this), I think I'm rearranging my gut bacterial population and this is affecting my CFS.  I blast my system with antibiotics.  Then blast it with as many probiotics as I can handle.  Effectively changing my gut microbiome.  A few weeks later things settle out to a new higher baseline of activity/ability for me.  This is all a HUGE guess on my part though.  No matter what the why is it works so I'm sticking with it.

Plan Part Two:
When the antibiotics are done, start eating all of my fermented and cultured foods: kefir, yogurt, pickles, sauerkraut, beets, kvass, and anything else I manage to make in the meantime.  Also take Bifida bacteria in pill form along with S. Boullardii and fermented cod liver oil.

Plan Part Three:
Start LDN (low dose naltrexone).   I have a compounding pharmacy making up 1.5mg pills for me so I can start it in two weeks.

I'm beginning to feel like a walking bioreactor or at least a couch sloth being used for experimentation.
Time will tell what works and what doesn't.  Wish I had a more clear idea if this is all worth it or if I am just pissing in the wind or worse doing actual damage to my body.  Ugh.