Pre-Diagnosis Treatments- Part 2

As with part 1 of pre-diagnosis treatments, these are primarily epic fails and I encourage you to laugh at my pain.

Vitamin C Flush

A vitamin C flush is where you drink a mixture of powdered vitamin C and water every 15 minutes until lava comes out of your rear end. You can expect this mayhem to carry on for the next 12-24 hours. The functional medicine practitioner recommended that I do this. Whoever started this masochistic practice claims that you can calibrate how much vitamin C you need daily by calculating 75% of the amount it took you to get sick as a dog. According to this calibration I needed 24g of vitamin C per day. For a reference point, the daily recommended limit is 2g. I am not a doctor, but every aspect of this practice defies logic.

Coffee Enema

If you ever consider trying this, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE. I had all the supplies ready to go and couldn’t bring myself to do it. Shoving things up my bum is where I draw the line. I couldn’t justify how this could heal me in any way, shape, or form. I was told this is another method of “detoxification”. The enema supposedly flushes things out of your liver through some direct access to your colon. It seems to me like you would rupture something, introduce bacteria, etc.

Does anyone remember the South Park episode where they would shove food up their butts and poop out their mouths because they were told it was healthier? If it was ridiculous enough to make a South Park episode out of, then it probably shouldn’t be part of a health care routine.

Monolaurin

This is the exception in this list of fails. During a cross country season in college I came down with what was suspected to be mono. I developed post-viral fatigue. One day I woke up and went from running a five minute mile to suddenly struggling to run a 10 minute mile. I also had some minor brain fog. I remember having to take a lot more notes and spending more time studying than usual. Monolaurin helped me immensely. I started seeing improvement after 1-2 weeks on it and recovered after a few months.

Preliminary evidence demonstrates monolaurin as an effective antimicrobial. Monolaurin has also been shown to decrease some inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines are signaling molecules used in the immune system and some are found in higher concentrations in the brains of ME patients.

I revisited monolaurin after getting POTS and ME and it did not help me this time. Monolaurin is rated as “generally regarded as safe” by the FDA and does not bear many serious side effects. If you suspect there is some microbial component to your chronic illness, it may be worth talking to your doctor about trying Monolaurin.

Epsom Salt Baths

Epsom salt baths are another method of “detoxification”. I did this for months and it did not help. The baths are relaxing, but I wouldn’t recommend laying in hot water to a POTS patient. The hot water will cause your blood vessels to dilate and will exacerbate blood pooling in your limbs.

Infrared Sauna

The functional medicine practitioner recommended that I do this to “detox”. Sitting in a sauna is literally one of the worst things a POTS patient can do. It lowers fluid levels through sweating and dilates blood vessels due to the warm environment. The only good thing that came out of the infrared sauna was that I watched a lot of Jane the Virgin. Equipo de Michael para siempre (team Michael forever).

Adrenal Cortex Supplement

Adrenal supplements are usually made of the tissue of a cow’s adrenal cortex. Pretty nasty, right? Consuming this is supposed to support your own adrenal glands. I call bull (get it?). It used to be said back in the day “you have to drink milk to make milk”. It makes me chuckle that people believed that. Oh wait, I did too, except swap out milk for adrenal cortex.

Hydrocortisone

When the adrenal cortex supplement didn’t help, the functional medicine practitioner prescribed low dose hydrocortisone to “give my adrenal glands support”. Well, it didn’t support the adrenals but it did support me in getting acne and becoming like Bon Qui Qui here.

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)

LDN (not to be confused with LLN), is an immune system modulator that there is a growing body of research on in its application with autoimmune diseases and nearly every “itis” there is. Even western medical doctors are becoming intrigued by LDN. One of the doctors I saw at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester was interested to know about my experience with LDN because it is on their radar.

The functional medicine practitioner prescribed the LDN to me. I had a panic attack when I bumped up to the 2^nd dosage level of it. The LDN was the only new thing I was using at the time, so the panic attack was definitely attributed to the drug. I promptly went off the LDN because the only change I saw in the month I was on it was the panic attack. Hard pass.

To see what I am currently doing to treat my POTS and ME visit the current treatments page.

What “desperate times call for desperate measures” treatments have you tried? Share below so we can all get a good laugh!

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.