Amazing Difference

[MMRocks]

You may have noticed I've been absent recently. I was dealing with my health, and I have improved so much, so I want to share with you what I did that worked.

I quit coffee.
I quit raw white sugar in coffee.
I quit nicotine.
I quit all the pharmaceuticals I was on (6). (some I had to taper)

I added lots more water.
I added powdered magnesium (CALM).
I added vitamin D.
I added vitamin C.
I added probiotic pills.

All of those things helped, each reduced the occurances, severity, and duration of seizures. I used powdered magnesium because I got no results from magnesium pills. Cashews are high in mag if you'd rather eat it.

Then I got diagnosed (blood test) low vitamin B12, aka pernicious anemia. I got a B12 shot and my seizures stopped for two days. I got another shot and my depression was totally gone. I went and cleaned the kitchen and made dinner- hadn't done that in a year. Then I went 3 weeks without a shot; it sucked. Headaches, migraines, allergies, brain fog, seizures, all came rushing back. Got my b12 in the mail and self inject now.

So now I'm taking B12 shots every other day (loading doses).
I added taking a Folic Acid pill.
I added drinking Bentonite Clay.

Bentonite Clay has calcium in it, which is needed in this whole cocktail. It's what I have right now, which turned out fortunate, because it also pulls crap out of your body that affects your b12 levels. So double bonus.

I just learned a few days ago about K2. Normally, your body makes K2 in the gut; if your gut is damaged, you won't make it. You can supplement or get from food. If your brain is seizing your gut is damaged- there's a gut/brain connection that has been proven to go in both directions by acres of scientists. So if you have seizures, your gut is not making K2. K2 is found in Kale, Goose Liver Pate, Gouda cheese, Grass Fed butter. There's pills too. Personally I bought a chunk of gouda and slice off a piece and eat it every day.

I added K2.

Adding folic acid and k2 have so far eliminated all muscle cramps and tics.

And now- with every other day shots of B12, and daily supplementations of:
Vitamin D, C, magnesium, calcium, k2, folic acid, probiotics, I'm not having any seizures. I was having over a dozen a day, now none. No headaches, I have energy, I can Think, I can control my emotions (which are pleasant), I have been sleeping better and wake up feeling rested, I have a sex drive, my anger is gone, my depression is gone. Oh and I've lost 28 pounds since starting the shots, because low b12 makes your body hold weight.

Before all this, I had trouble walking because my feet were curled up cramping; when I did walk, I was dizzy, and I walked into walls. My husband Always assisted me on the stairs. I was short of breath all the time. All gone now.

I urge you to get a blood test for B12, D, and folic acid levels. This is not hard to do, it's cheap, and it's a whole new body- one that works!!

 

[Nakamova]

What excellent news! I'm glad you've found a formula that works, and that you are feeling so much better in every way.

 

[AlohaBird]

:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:

That is sooooooooo awesome!!!!

At this moment I would like to invite all the skeptics who say that no amount of diet and lifestyle interventions will ever stop epilepsy to take a flying leap into the nearest body of cold water and wake up!

Yes I know there are cases that are caused by structural damage, etc. But on the other hand there are so many more cases where the cause is unknown. Too many people have given up on ever getting any real control or have given in to having the side effects of the meds be the price they pay for a more or less normal life.

Until someone has done what MMRocks did and taken a chance, taken that leap, they can't in all truth be saying that they have "tried everything".

Brava, MMRocks. I salute your courage.

 

[AlohaBird]

Our lists are similar:

I quit gluten.
I quit soy.
I quit cow dairy products.
I quit coffee.
I quit sugar.
I never did smoke but well done for quitting the nicotine. I quit the wine.

You quit all 6 pharmaceuticals. Yikes. I'm only on 2 with one at 50% off the Rx dose. You must have had drug interactions with your drug interactions. I'm still tapering.

I added lots more water.
I added powdered magnesium. I'm taking Mag L-Thronate. It came up in the "revisiting Magnesium " thread recently.
I added vitamin D.
I have a lot of vitamin C in my diet with grapefruit and lemon trees all over my yard.
I added probiotic pills and more probiotic foods like saurkraut and kimchee.

Dark chocolate is also high in Magnesium as are coconut water and milk.

You get b12 in the mail and self inject now? How do you go about getting this sent to you?

(loading doses). How much B12 do you take just to give me an idea.

I get a lot of Folic Acid from the Moringa capsules I take.
You added drinking Bentonite Clay. Hmmm. Interesting. I never tried that.

I added K2. I eat a lot of K2 in the form of grass fed ghee and liver.

In addition to your list I've added a turmeric supplement and an Alpha Lipoic Acid supplement (both neuroprotective)
And a Krill Oil supplement (good for the Omega 3s)

Non-pill supplements:
Moringa leaves and pods
Noni Juice
Coconut water (and everything else made from the coconut too)
Lemon grass and ginger tea (natural anti microbial)

 

[MMRocks]

It all really comes down to gut health. I was on a lot of antibiotics as a child, and probiotics were never introduced. Gut damage causes just all of this. The shots and the supplements are like a cast, a short-term helper while I heal. The real star of the show is the probiotics, once my gut is functioning I won't need the shots or supplements. Yay!

 

[MMRocks]

How do you go about getting this sent to you?

I ordered from an online site in another country.

(loading doses). How much B12 do you take just to give me an idea.

1,000 mcg every other day.

You added drinking Bentonite Clay. Hmmm. Interesting. I never tried that.

My research showed I needed Calcium. I had no calcium pills, was tired of running to the store for 'one more thing', so I looked for alternatives. I had bought the Bentonite Clay to help with Candida, detox from the sugar and nicotine. Turns out it has calcium in it too. Any calcium supplement would work though.

You must have had drug interactions with your drug interactions.

I went completely Psychotic. I don't use that word lightly, I mean the dictionary, legal, and medical description. It was very Not Fun for everyone. The psychosis is what led me to throw myself into research for 4 months to find all this, so, silver lining.

 

[AlohaBird]

It all really comes down to gut health. I was on a lot of antibiotics as a child, and probiotics were never introduced. Gut damage causes just all of this. The shots and the supplements are like a cast, a short-term helper while I heal. The real star of the show is the probiotics, once my gut is functioning I won't need the shots or supplements. Yay!

Yes, I was on antibiotics frequently as a child due to ear infections. Then I had my immune system completely wrecked with chemo eight years ago. Some post surgical infections as well during the reconstructive process.

P.S. Could you PM me with contact info on the place you ordered the B-12 shots? Are they intravenous or subcutaneous?

 

[AlohaBird]

Oh Great! i found this tidbit:

http://www.b12patch.com/blog/vitami...edications-that-cause-vitamin-b12-deficiency/

Medications that cause vitamin B12 deficiency
...................
Phenobarbital (Donnatal®, Solfoton®) -barbiturate, anticonvulsant that results in decreased levels of vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, in addition to elevated homocysteine levels. (Vitamin B12, Homocysteine, and your Heart)

Phenytoin- an antiepileptic drug.

Valproic Acid (Depakene®) – anticonvulsant used for migraine headache prevention.

I take the first and third on that list.

 

[lindsayschu2]

Congratulations!! I also found B12, B6, D, magnesium, potassium and improving gut health (which was a mess) to be HUGE in seizure control. I was low in several of those. So glad you have improved through these methods!! I would love to get off meds some day--for me though it will mean making pesky periods stop for good however (if then, time will tell, but for now they are one of my few triggers left). I'm taking way too high dose meds for my liking but at least I don't have very many seizures any more thanks to these changes. Good work on your successes!

 

[lnsiu]

This is great news.

Those vitamins are close to gluten-intolerance deficencies. Iron, folic-acid, potassium, magnesium, D, B6, B12... So that does sound like something gut related.

(I bought 1mg B12, and the first days I felt a sort of buzz in the body. Besides fish-oil, that is the only single vitamin i ever felt any significant difference with.)

I'm glad for you.

 

[AlohaBird]

I found a bunch of brands of B-12 on Amazon that come in transdermal patches about the size of a quarter that are supposed to have between 1000-5000mcg each. That might be an alternative to needle poking.

 

[masterjen]

I suggest everyone googling both sides of the story;ie. not just benefits of B 12 but also potential risks. Here is what one site says: http://www.livestrong.com/article/359556-risks-of-too-much-vitamin-b12/ Given that many AEDs are processed in the liver and that Aloha you have mentioned you have only one kidney, the concerns of excess B 12 are worth noting. And if anyone has an issue with their heart or problems with blood clotting excess B 12 may even be something to avoid.

 

[MMRocks]

I suggest everyone googling both sides of the story;ie. not just benefits of B 12 but also potential risks.

Which is fantastic for anyone with any subject. The Livestrong site is exactly like Wikipedia; well, it's not as monitored as Wikipedia.

There is no way to overdose on B12. B12 is a water soluble vitamin and what your body cannot use, is excreted. Doses as high as 10,000mg (10grammes) of hydroxocobalamin have been used to counteract cyanide poisoning. The amount you get from your doctor in one injection is 1mg. B12 Overdose– not possible. There are no known recorded cases of B12 toxicity.

From the Centers for Disease control:

Vitamin B12 is considered safe, even at levels much higher than the recommended dose. It has not been shown to be toxic or cause cancer, birth defects, or mutations. ...Administration of parenteral crystalline cobalamin has been the standard treatment protocol for decades. Few side effects have been reported, and patient acceptance is generally high. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/b12/patients.html

 

[AlohaBird]

That livestrong article sounds really scary but when you trace it back to the Drugs.com site where they are claiming to get all their info, it really doesn't sound like that at all.

Drugs.com has to report every single adverse effect that ever happened that could even possibly be correlated with a particular substance. E.g. an old guy who had already had multiple bypasses was taking B12 and died of a heart attack. Was it the B12 or would it have happened anyway?

I didn't see any data saying that there is cause for concern.

This article is from the Mayo Clinic.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/vitamin-b12/safety/HRB-20060243

It basically says it is safe as long as you are staying within the USRDA and then goes on to say that it should be "used cautiously" by a whole laundry list of people, basically anyone who has at any one time been in less than perfect health. Basic CYA advice.

That said, I don't think mega-supplementing any one thing is a good idea unless you are really sure that you do have a real deficiency in that area first. Not a deficiency diagnosis based on a vague list of symptoms such as "fatigue", one that was objectively tested first.

But like MMRocks said, in regular supplement doses it is not going to hurt.

 

[MMRocks]

Original post, mentioned I got a blood test. Ended post by urging you to get a blood test.

Livestrong is not an Article. It is an opinion column site; I could send in, and have printed, any thing in the entire world I make up. "How bacon fat restored my eyesight" and they would print it. Drugs.com is a Sales site, it is not a medical site.

From the National Institute of Health: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000569.htm

 

[masterjen]

http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/vitamin-b12/safety/hrb-20060243

Like mayo clinic better, MM?
I'm not here to argue with people who like to take mega doses of supplements; I just want to make sure anyone reading these posts looks at both sides of mega-dosing esp. when there is no known deficiency, and most importantly to consult their doctors before deciding to add supplements.

 

[AlohaBird]

Original post, mentioned I got a blood test. Ended post by urging you to get a blood test.

Exactly. Some people do jump on the bandwagon without thinking it through.

Livestrong is not an Article. It is an opinion column site; I could send in, and have printed, any thing in the entire world I make up. "How bacon fat restored my eyesight" and they would print it. Drugs.com is a Sales site, it is not a medical site.

So basically an opinion piece based on a sales site. Livestrong lost me long ago when they refused to admit that maybe "healthywholegrains" aren't really that healthy.

From the National Institute of Health: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000569.htm

:agree:

 

[MMRocks]

I just want to make sure anyone reading these posts looks at both sides of mega-dosing esp. when there is no known deficiency, and most importantly to consult their doctors before deciding to add supplements.

Again, I stated I had a blood test to verify this, and encouraged people to get blood tests. Which is All I encouraged- "I urge you to get a blood test for B12, D, and folic acid levels."

So anyone reading this post, would have already seen they should consult their doctor.

Back to benefits: besides the lack of seizures and tics, the rash I have had for several years is clearing up, my b.o. has improved, and I have an appetite

 

[AlohaBird]

I think that it is important that something not get lost in here. Some context. This is not about any one dietary deficiency or any one supplement. What MMRocks has done is a complete overhaul of her diet and lifestyle. She got rid of several toxic things, she added several beneficial things. She completely turned medical science on its head by saying, "NO. Health comes from the inside out, not from the outside in." She is taking large does of B12, the thing she needed but not forever. This is a healing phase. After that the body is perfectly capable of getting along without any help.

To that I say, "Well done."

 

[MMRocks]

Probiotics are the real star here.

The B12 was super exciting to me because it proved to me, beyond any doubt, that: A) I really wasn't crazy, B) I really was Very Ill, and C) I truly had a hope of being repaired. I felt what it was like to be a Healed Whole Human for a few hours- something I had begun to doubt was possible to ever obtain the past few years. It felt Marvelous!

The reason I need to take the B12 and K2 (and ALL the others) is because of the damage to my gut from antibiotic medications. So the gut cannot do it's job at all; the supplements are the temporary stand-ins while the probiotics come in to do theirs.

Probiotics are the good guys, and there's more than one type of them. You can ferment foods to create your own probiotics: pickles, saurkraut, kimchi, even garlic in honey. You can brew probiotic sodas, ales, lemonades. You can have a continually harvested kefir beverage. You can cultivate your own yogurt. There's also creative recipes, such as probiotic ranch dressing and fudge popsicles.

Of course there are probiotic pills, too. Probiotics are Living bacteria, and so they need to be kept refrigerated. If you are seeking pills and they are not in the fridge, move on and buy them elsewhere. Online orders of probiotics should be shipped in a cold pack.

Each of these different types of probiotics has a different 'set' of good guys. You ideally want as many of each different type as possible. You want to eat some type of probiotic DAILY, for 3 months minimum (longer if you've experienced symptoms for years).

I have compiled a list of recipes on pinterest- loads cheaper to make your own, and easy to do. There's also bone broth recipes on there, which I can talk about later.
https://www.pinterest.com/m9mason/heal-your-gut/