I have been continuing to run through the summer and I lose a lot of water. Which, is a polite way to say I sweat a lot.

I was finding that I needed an electrolyte drink after each run. However, my personal preference is to not consume artificial sweeteners, flavors, etc. on the regular. So, I was on the hunt to find an electrolyte drink that still works as well, tastes good, and has more simple ingredients. I could not find any fully pre-made solutions that I was satisfied with, so I decided to make my own concoctions.

Base Electrolyte Solution

You can mix your own oral rehydration solution (ORS) using the WHO’s recommendation. I have been using Hi-Lyte for the base since it’s similar electrolyte-wise and then you just add sugar with the drink you use. I have been using the regular liquid version of it.

Recipes

These two drinks are tasty and effective for me. I used drinks that have some sugar as it helps electrolytes absorb better, but not an exorbitant amount of it.

Watermelon water

I add 1 teaspoon of the Hi-Lyte solution to an 8 oz. glass of watermelon water. I found this at Target.

The watermelon water is super tasty! Then, the Hi-Lyte solution adds a bit of saltiness, so it ends up tasting like salty watermelon. Watermelon water also contains some electrolytes on its own.

Organic strawberry lemonade

I found this juice at Target as well. It is freaking delicious and reminds me of Fruit by the Foot or a Fruit Roll-up. It gave me some 90’s kid nostalgia. I dilute the juice to half since it is more sugary. Luckily, it is still tasty and flavorful that way. So, I mix 4. oz of water with 4 oz. of the juice and a teaspoon of Hi-Lyte.

These two drinks have been working well for me to rehydrate after runs. What are you favorite ways to rehydrate after exercise?

I was recently talking to a friend/fellow Potsie about pacing and it inspired me to write about the nuanced criteria that I use nowadays. Pacing is managing activities in a way that prevents flare in symptoms or post-exertional malaise. It can be a challenging strategy and it has taken me a lot of trial and error to “nail it”.

To read more about the basics, the “why”, and other tips about pacing, check out my post on Working Within Your Energy Envelope.

Below I will explain how I handle the two fatiguing sensations I get- fatigue with “gassed muscles” and fatigue with achiness. This may or may not resonate with you as everyone’s POTS and ME is different. Therefore, take this for what it is worth.

How I handle fatigue with gassed muscles

My POTS or ME, whichever one it is, manifests in causing a “gassed muscle” feeling. It feels like very little oxygen is getting to my tissues or like I have perpetually run a 400m race. As I have improved overall, this symptom has improved. Mestinon and massage therapy have also helped. Side note- I am planning to wean off of Mestinon soon per my doctor’s recommendation and I feel mostly optimistic about it, but part of me is worried that the gassed muscle feeling will get worse. But, I digress…

Here is a sample of what a gassed muscle day is like: Wake up. Walk to the bathroom. Get “booty lock” from said excursion. Whisper “crap” to myself. Attempt yoga. Struggle through about 20 minutes until my muscles fail. Spend the rest of the time in Child’s Pose. Walk my son to school. Did the school get farther away overnight? You get the point. Everything is 10x harder than usual. At some point in the evening, I wave the white flag and collapse in a heap.

I typically push through gassed muscle days. There comes a point where my muscles will fail, and then I back off that particular activity. However, pushing through gassed muscle days does not cause me to crash. Don’t get me wrong, it feels terrible in the immediate, but I typically do not have long-term set backs or crashes.

How I handle fatigue with achiness

I do not have fibromyalgia or joint pain. When I start to crash, though, I get this sensation of a vague achiness. It feels like the aches that come with a fever. When I used to take my temperature, I noticed that I would typically have a low-grade fever accompany this feeling.

This sensation is an SOS saying “STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING IMMEDIATELY AND REST!”. If I try to push through this feeling, I will pay for it and get worse. Earlier in my illness journey, this could mean crashing for weeks. Pinpointing this cue was monumental to my recovery.

Resting

Rest is an extremely difficult thing to balance. Too much or too little rest can have the same negative consequences on my body. I want to reiterate that my experiences may not translate, particularly if you have severe ME.

I find that for my brand of POTS and ME, I should not rest too much. Particularly sitting with my legs bent or tucked up close to my body for too long. I will get pre-syncopal when I stand and feel “stagnant” for a while afterwards. However, resting the proper amount is key. I cannot go through a whole day without some rest. If I change positions regularly (ex. sitting, lying, varied surfaces etc.), I feel better after the period of rest.

When resting, I also consider mental activity. Sometimes, while I rest, I can do something like write this blog, pay bills, plan meals for the week etc. Other times, I need to mentally check out. During those times, I will take a short nap or watch mindless television. If I have fatigue with achiness, I always mentally check out to spare myself a crash.

Sharking

Bear with me, here. This may be total BS, but I heard that if sharks stop swimming, they will die because of how the water moves through their gills to get oxygen. With POTS and ME, there are times where you know that no matter what, when you stop, you are going to be done for the day. When I push through that, I call it “sharking”. I shark sparingly. I do it when I need to finish a task, like cooking dinner. I do not recommend sharking when you are first getting the hang of pacing as you are more likely to cross that threshold to a crash. However, further down the line, you may find that you are able to shark through the occasional task.

What pacing tips have you learned that work for you?

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Statements on this site are not meant to be taken as medical advice. These statements reflect my personal experiences having mild-ish post-viral POTS and ME. Due to the wide spectrum of these diseases, comorbidities, and everyone being different, your experiences may be very different than mine.

Note: If you post a comment, this site does NOT have a feature to notify you of responses to your comment. I have not found a good solution for that yet. However, I usually respond to every comment in a timely manner, so be sure to check back.

Over the last several months I have been continuing to get stronger and feel better. I believe the largest factor at play is that: I haven’t gotten sick.

If you follow the blog you probably noticed that I was ALWAYS SICK in 2019. I could merely look at a school building and get sick. In the times of COVID-19, our family has been very cautious. Since COVID, I haven’t gotten sick (except for one stomach bug/foodborne illness situation). It is amazing how much more “steady” I feel. When I was frequently sick, it felt like I was constantly doing this dance of three steps forward, two steps back, and symptoms were more unpredictable. Now, I mostly know what to expect and have been experiencing a gradual improvement of symptoms.

Moving forward

Obviously, I look forward to things going back to normal. However, this experience has caused me to consider how can I stay healthy post-COVID. I would like to find a balance where I’m not sick all the time, but am still exposed to things in a healthy way.

I wonder what this balance looks like. I think I will continue to wear a mask in riskier indoor places during cold/flu season after COVID. Other than that and basic/obvious things like handwashing, I don’t know what else to do. I will definitely not continue to social distance (once it is safe to stop, of course). Get ready, friends. Once we have the green light, I will be all up in your grill.

COVID-19 vaccination

I will get the COVID-19 vaccination when it is available to me. This is how I weighed the decision for my circumstances: I know I will have a horrible flare if I get COVID-19. However, I may or may not get a flare from the vaccine. Also, it seems most experts think the vaccine is worth the potential risk. So, it makes sense for me to get the vaccine. I also feel a sense of duty to get it because I can receive it safely and it will likely contribute to protecting others. Please understand that these are the considerations I have for myself. Each person has a different set of circumstances to consider.

Update- I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccination on 4/6/21. It is 4/16 today and I am not certain if I experienced side effects. I had some additional achiness and minor headaches last week (within the first 5-7 days of the vaccination), but I was also overdoing it. So, who knows. I take that as a win, because if I have to wonder, then it wasn’t that bad. I am encouraged and feel more confident going into my second dose (which I receive in early May). I will update this after I receive the second dose.

Update- I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccination on 5/4/21. The symptoms started about 4 hours after I received the vaccination and it was a doozy. I had: a 100.8 fever, muscle pain, headache, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and chills. The good news is that in less than 36 hours, the fever broke and the worst symptoms subsided. The nausea, fatigue, and dizziness stuck around for a couple days (on and off). After that, some extra “gassed muscle” fatigue stuck around for about 2.5 weeks total. It is 5/23, I no longer have any side-effects from the vaccination. I’d call that a win as I would gladly choose to go through this knowing I minimize my own risk and that of those around me of COVID-19.

Cort at Health Rising compiled a very interesting and useful poll for those considering the COVID-19 vaccine that have ME/CFS. Keep in mind that a decent chunk that have ME/CFS also have orthostatic intolerance. So, I feel like this poll is relevant for POTS patients too. The poll notes how severe side effects were, how long they lasted, and is broken down by each vaccine.

Herbs and food to boost immunity

I would like to look into natural ways to build up the immune system and/or viral remedies. When I took Bac-T (an herbal tincture) a few years ago, I noticed that the duration of viruses was significantly shorter. That gets me thinking about trying that or something similar again when I pick up a virus. There is a lot of crap out there that I do NOT want to get sucked into, so I will be very discerning.

I also have a curiosity about herbs and food for immunity because of Nicole Apelian. She was a contestant on seasons 2 and 5 of Alone, is an herbalist, has progressive MS, and is a total BA. It was fascinating to watch her forage on the show as she would explain what the various plants were and their benefits. I would love to learn more about foods and herbs that I could incorporate to improve my health and immunity.

As a side note, I would not last a single day on Alone. Aside from having none of the necessary skills, I do NOT play around with wild animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but they smell my fear from a mile away and therefore come after me. I just know that one of these days the bold squirrels in my town are going to mob me like this.

What do you stay healthy? I would love to know what you all do!

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for the Giveaway of POTS/chronic illness items– it runs through March 31st, 2021.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Statements on this site are not meant to be taken as medical advice. These statements reflect my personal experiences having mild-ish post-viral POTS and ME. Due to the wide spectrum of these diseases, comorbidities, and everyone being different, your experiences may be very different than mine.

Note: If you post a comment, this site does NOT have a feature to notify you of responses to your comment. I have not found a good solution for that yet. However, I usually respond to every comment in a timely manner, so be sure to check back.

I have been working with the Gupta Program to varying degrees for a little over 6 months (and doing the full retraining for a little over 2 months). It is hard to tell if it made an impact. I am a little better than I was when I began. However, I have tinkered with other treatments and lifestyle changes since then. I have also been on a gradual upward trajectory since spring of 2020. My instincts tell me that most, if not all, of my improvement lately is due to the fact that I have stayed healthy and avoided setbacks for nearly a year.

Due to not experiencing any significant changes that I can confidently attribute to the Gupta Program and the downsides that I will discuss below, I will be discontinuing the program.

Note- To be clear, I did not give the program to full trial that it recommends, which is doing the full program for a minimum of 6 months. So, my experience is not complete, and therefore my opinion would not be complete either. Also, I did the program back in 2020, and I don’t know how different it is now. Please take these things into consideration as you read my thoughts.

Why quit?

The Gupta Program when done properly is quite the time commitment. It takes over an hour each day. If the program works for you, it is time well spent. But, without seeing noticeable improvement, it was a huge drag for me. I dreaded the retraining aspect. Changing up the language helped me push through at some points, but it quickly came back to being boring and ritualistic. The Gupta Program group says this negative attitude about the retraining indicates “resistance”. I took that to heart to check myself, but I truly think I don’t like it and it isn’t for me.

Thoughts about the program

What I like

• The lifestyle recommendations
• Some specific insights- I can’t get into specifics with this or the lifestyle recommendations out of respect to the program.
• A twice per day meditation practice

What I don’t like

• The main retraining, as I discussed above.
• Some parts of the program delve deeper into psychology-its approach did not resonate with me.
• The Gupta Program affirms that the illness is not psychosomatic, but it would sometimes come off differently in practice. I don’t think everyone would find this to be true, though. We all interpret things, especially nuanced concepts like those in the Gupta Program, differently.

This is just my opinion and personal experience, so take it for what it is worth.

Other thoughts

Prior to doing the Gupta Program, I was consistently using relaxation techniques (ex. meditation, deep breathing, etc.) and cognitive behavioral strategies (see my post on Mind Tricks). I wonder if the program was redundant to the work I had already done. I also wonder if I did not see much benefit because I have already recovered a lot. There could also be user error. Or, it just wasn’t effective for me. Who knows?

Final Thoughts

Although the Gupta Program wasn’t for me, I am glad that I tried it. All along the way in my healing journey I have had hits and misses. I would never find the hits if I didn’t go through a lot of misses. And by a lot, I mean A LOT (you can check out my Pre-Diagnosis Treatments- Part 1 and Pre-Diagnosis Treatments- Part 2 posts for a taste and hopefully a good laugh).

Many people have had success with the Gupta Program and other neural retraining programs and I do not doubt their experiences. The program’s effectiveness, as with all things, depends on the individual.

Have you tried a neural retraining program like the Gupta program? How did it work for you?

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Statements on this site are not meant to be taken as medical advice. These statements reflect my personal experiences having mild-ish post-viral POTS and ME. Due to the wide spectrum of these diseases, comorbidities, and everyone being different, your experiences may be very different than mine.

Note: If you post a comment, this site does NOT have a feature to notify you of responses to your comment. I have not found a good solution for that yet. However, I usually respond to every comment in a timely manner, so be sure to check back.

I am beginning The Gupta Program. I briefly discussed this during my post on What I’d Like to Try in the Future. With the current situation of COVID-19, I thought the next thing I try should be at home. Enter The Gupta Program.

Note- I am not affiliated with The Gupta Program or any of the other brain retraining programs that I mention.

My hope is to provide you with realistic and balanced information, so I will shift back and forth on the topic as I discuss the positives and criticisms. I understand many people have been hurt by false promises or overinflated claims of all kinds, so I hope to steer clear of that.

What is The Gupta Program?

The Gupta Program is a brain retraining course for use in reducing the symptoms of certain chronic conditions. Instructional videos via the internet are used to teach the techniques.

Success of the program

There are personal testimonies that discuss some people experiencing remission or significant improvement. Scientifically, those are not reliable, but they can be useful for motivational purposes if you are doing the program. Personal testimonies may be truthful, but everyone is different. Just because it is true doesn’t mean it is relevant.

There is a clinical audit of The Gupta Program boasting impressive statistics such as, “two-thirds of our clients reached an 80-100% recovery within one year”. However, there are significant limitations to these claims. To quote the journal article itself, “No control group or placebo group was used, and future studies would need to incorporate this. No standardized tools were used, and randomized collection was not employed. Researcher bias, and the effects of researcher/practitioner enthusiasm, were significant confounding factors, as were participants’ possible use of concurrent therapies. Sample bias was significant in that those completing the programme may have shown more motivation and commitment.” So, take the audit for what it is worth: preliminary work that demonstrates that it is worth doing a well-designed clinical trial to actually see the effects of the Gupta Program.

How does it work?

One of the prevalent theories of certain chronic illnesses such as ME and fibromyalgia is that they are caused by the nervous system being in a constant state of fight-or-flight (sympathetic state). This is also called central sensitization. I have discussed this in my posts on Vagus Nerve Stimulation, Massage Therapy, Mestinon, Meditation, Deep Breathing, and indirectly/loosely in Mind Tricks. This overactivity of the nervous system is typically triggered by a pathogen (ex. bacterial or viral infection), toxic exposure, accident/injury, or other sort of trauma. These chronic illnesses such as ME/CFS, POTS, fibromyalgia, MCS, etc. are real physical illnesses.

Neural retraining, or brain rewiring, works upon the understanding of neuroplasticity, or that our brains can change. We can address these physical diseases via our brains where the root cause is thought to lie. Through the modalities of neural retraining, such as meditation and neuro- linguistic programming, we can teach our brains and nervous systems to function in the proper way. Now, not all forms of these chronic illnesses have their root cause in the brain or in central sensitization. For example. some people have POTS because they have the genetic connective tissue disease Ehlers-Danlos. So, what I’m saying is a NOT blanket statement.

To learn more about how brain retraining works and addresses certain chronic conditions, you can sign up for The Gupta Program’s free trial. When you do that, you have access to the first few sessions which teach the “how and why” of it all.

Does this mean my illness is “all in my head”?

No, not at all. These are real physical illnesses with real physical symptoms. This method treats them through the brain. It’s neurological, not psychological. Think of it as akin to the therapy a stroke victim must do to retrain their brains and bodies after a stroke.

What conditions can it address?

• ME/CFS
• Fibromyalgia
• Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS)
• Mold or electrical sensitivities
• Pain syndromes
• POTS
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Food sensitivities
• A few other related conditions

Again, this doesn’t mean that it can be impactful for all forms of these conditions. Otherwise, everyone who did The Gupta Program would be better, and that isn’t the case.

This sounds like a scam.

I hear ya. If you have had chronic illness for a while you have learned to become skeptical, and rightfully so. There’s a lot of garbage out there and it’s easy to get sucked into it because we are eager to get well.

I feel pretty confident that this isn’t garbage, though, because The Gupta Program operates on the same theory that the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN holds for ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, and related illnesses. As I am learning the techniques and lifestyle recommendations in the program, it reminds a lot of what I learned from the Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia clinic at Mayo. But, the Gupta Program is more detailed and comprehensive than the clinic at Mayo.

So, to sum it up, I don’t think it’s a scam, but its effectiveness will vary from person to person. I think The Gupta Program could be more cautious with their claims in this regard. This principle of “your mileage may vary” goes along with everything. For example, Mestinon is the pharmaceutical that works the best for me. For others, it’s useless and they prefer Florinef, etc.

What does it look like

The program is comprised of lifestyle changes, meditation, and brain retraining exercises. The lifestyle changes are actually specific and useful. That was a pleasant surprise as usually advice in that realm is eye roll inducing.

I think I will end up spending a little over an hour (broken up through the day) on the training. Some of the parts fit into the routine I already have, which is nice.

Initial thoughts

I am impressed with this program so far. There is a lot of information and Ashok (the creator) explains things very clearly. It gets a little “fluffy” or “cheesy” at times. However, I approach it with humor and it turns out fine because humor is therapeutic for me. It’s not the kind of cheesiness that turns me off, but rather the kind that makes me chuckle to myself. I feel optimistic that this will be useful for me in where I am at.

As I write this I still have a few courses to finish up. I have begun to implement some parts of the program but am holding off on starting the main retraining exercises until I finish the courses.

Cost

The program usually costs $350, but there is currently a promotion due to COVID-19 making it $300. There is a money back guarantee and and free trial including the first three sessions (where you learn the theory). Although it is not cheap, I think the value is good for all of the advice and tools you receive.

Other brain retraining programs

There are other brain retraining programs such as the Dynamic Neural Retraining System and ANS Rewire. I believe that DNRS is the most popular. They all accomplish the same thing. I recommend listening to samples of them through YouTube or their websites and see which resonates better with you.

Currently, I am doing fairly well at 65-70%. I will update on my progress with this program when it feels appropriate. However, if you have questions, feel free to reach out.

Have you tried a brain retraining program? How did it work for you?

To see my final thoughts after 6 months of using the program to varying degrees you can check out my post- Gupta Program Final Thoughts.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Statements on this site are not meant to be taken as medical advice. These statements reflect my personal experiences having mild-ish post-viral POTS and ME. Due to the wide spectrum of these diseases, comorbidities, and everyone being different, your experiences may be very different than mine.

Note: If you post a comment, this site does NOT have a feature to notify you of responses to your comment. I have not found a good solution for that yet. However, I usually respond to every comment in a timely manner, so be sure to check back.