Your Pet Disease – Is it real?

1) Also skeptical. Probably exists in some people and in some fashion, but it may be just a useful catch-all attempt to put a name to people being in bad shape.

2) I also had my metal fillings removed, and took epsom salt baths for a few months afterward. Seemed to help a bit, but it wasn’t the cure-all I imagined it would be in my case.

3) A bit more skeptical of vaccines, though I don’t know if they cause autism. I do think researching the timing of vaccinations is valuable; my cursory understanding is that kids are receiving more vaccines at an earlier age than even twenty years ago, and their bodies may not be well-equipped for managing that. Spacing it differently could help. When I have kids, I’m sure I’ll research pretty heavily.

4) No idea, but anecdotally, almost no one I know has been impacted by it, except me, when I convinced myself that I ought to cut out the carbs to starve it out. Turns out, I just needed to eat and sleep more and take better care of myself to deal with my low energy levels.

5) I re-read Go Kaleo’s article here recently. Her point is that many of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue mirror those of starvation. Often just ensuring adequate calories and rest is enough to see those symptoms disappear.

6) Haven’t looked into them much. No thoughts really.

Great post, Thomas! Although, I thought it was gonna be about fleas, ticks and rabies.

Re #5, Adrenal Fatigue. Maybe real, but if it is, my uninformed guess it’s probably not as ubiquitous as it would seem based on internet chatter, which probably includes a lot of poor diagnosis or self-diagnosis. I wonder how much of it is old-fashioned nervous exhaustion? In other words, a systemic down-regulation to conserve energy, rather than something wrong with the little glands themselves? Just like a lot of hypothyroid symptoms don’t represent diseased glands, but an adaptive down-regulation of the hormones.

The nonspecific cure for such fatigue used to be rest, fresh air and good food and plenty of it. Old Weston Price himself had that experience after a failed practice as a young man out in the Dakotas; he came back to the family farm and lived a rustic life for a while, recovered, and moved to Cleveland to try again. This was years before his food expeditions. If I remember right from the book. Around the same time period, Teddy Roosevelt was doing a similar sort of nature cure.

Last summer/fall I was convinced I had “adrenal fatigue.” I read a couple books in the library, took some online “test yourself” quizzes, and I could check nearly every box. I mean, I certainly felt awful. On the other hand, if you’re ever been through any stressed-out times, the symptoms can be very suggestive, like a horoscope. Only a chilled-out stoner or zen monk is gonna be, “Oh, I’m nothing like that!”

I did a 4x saliva test with the naturopath mentioned in the other thread. I don’t know if the timed cortisol test is legit or totally bogus, but luckily I had normal results, so I had the confidence to put that worry out of my mind. What actually HAS helped my energy and related symptoms is eating 3 big squares, sunshine & sleeping — took time, though.

This is one of my favorite quotes from Konstantin Monastyrsky, though he was referring to the lipid hypothesis and heart disease, I think it can apply to almost all “conspiracies”:
“It’s not really a conspiracy per se, but more like a collective stupidity”.

The vaccine question can go both ways. Do we really need all these vaccines? Is there really an imminent threat of any of these diseases to people who are healthy, eating nutritious food, not overly stressed, and have access to basic sanitation?

Good topic though.

I’m definitely not trying to say vaccines are never good or helpful. There are good arguments on either side. There’s probably a good middle ground, of delayed and/or selective vaccination, as well of encouraging breastfeeding and good nutrition and minimizing stress in the mother and child. It’s definitely a minefield of a discussion to get in with someone. I think I’d rather talk politics or religion than to try to explain our decisions with vaccination.

1) In my opinion the chronic Lyme Disease epidemic is probably being way over diagnosed by LLMD’s (Lyme Literate Medical Doctor). I was diagnosed as having chronic Lyme Disease through Igenex labs and I was treated for chronic Lyme Disease and it’s various co-infections for several years and as far as I could tell the treatment didn’t help me at all.

By the way, a few years latter I took some of Matt’s advice and many of my health problems improved significantly.

2) I was also diagnosed as having mercury toxicity via Doctor’s Data labs and I did oral and IV chelation until my mercury levels were what they said were “low” and I had my mercury/silver tooth fillings removed. And as far as I could tell that didn’t make a bit of difference in how I felt.

So, I believe the mercury toxicity thing is being overhyped.

3) Well, I am bit more skeptical about the safety of vaccines but I don’t know enough about the subject to have formed much of an opinion.

4) In my experience every Tom, Dick and Harry with a chronic health problem often gets diagnosed with candida. I was also diagnosed with an overgrowth of candida and I was given various treatments and dietary suggestions as a way to treat my candida “overgrowth” and couldn’t tell that helped me to feel any better.

5) I was also diagnosed with “adrenal fatigue”. And I am not sure what to really make of it.

6) In my opinion, alternative lab testing is often great for validating what you “believe” is causing your health problems. If you think that you have chronic Lyme Disease then send your blood to Igenex….. they’ll find Lyme Disease. If you think that you have mercury toxicity then send your urine to Doctor’s Data they’ll find mercury. If you think that mycotoxins/toxic mold toxins is causing your health problems then send your urine to Real Time labs, they will find mycotoxins. Or do a VCS test.