ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID: “the first domino”. What a most interesting question! The short answer is the tissues. The long answer addresses the WHY and the HOW, and that shall be a nice weekend Twitter project.
A reader of my last threadreader, about Vaginismus and Fibromyalgia, asked, “what is the first domino”, the primary cause. This is a most interesting question because, if the primary cause is known, then the cure follows naturally.
An hallmark symptom of the ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID constellation of disorders is massive fatigue and withering body weakness. Another is cognitive disarray (confusion & anhedonia). Why?
Within the constellation of ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID, the “first domino” cannot be readily identified, & because there is not one but several dominos.
One domino is an all pervasive universal force of nature, one is genetically related & found mostly in women, & several others are accidental injuries & illnesses, “acts of God” some might say.
All these dominos consort in various combinations and permutations to manifest as the wasting illnesses of ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID, which in this essay will be collectively termed the “Wasting Illnesses”.
It is important to understand the inter- relationships of the several dominos that intermingle to generate the Wasting Illnesses because therein lies the secrets to their cure, the healing, from these devastating conditions. The various “first dominos” will be taken in turn:
THE UNIVERSAL FORCE: Gravity is the Great Imposer. All life forms survive in this all-pervading all-penetrating field. All life forms have mass & all mass constantly falls to center of the earth at 32 feet per second per second; a law of basic physics.
The challenge imposed on humans is to live their lives in face of the imposing force of Gravity. All throughout my education at Yale Medical School this force was never once mentioned among the myriad of insults that foster disease & disorder.
Yet, Gravity it is a force that is absolutely integral to development of Wasting Illnesses of ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID. This Principle is one of the main tenets of this essay.
All the Wasting Illnesses are characterized by a subtle, profound, & progressive failure of the human organism to successfully prosper within the field of Gravity, the “Great Imposer”. As Wasting Illnesses evolve, suffers become progressively weaker.
Another serious disorder of Wasting Illnesses is Depression. The simple explanation is that people with chronic pain do not experience restorative REM sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation begets depression.
Melatonin not only promotes sleep, but has been recently announced to fortify against COVID-19 infection. Melatonin is an hormone-like substance secreted by the pineal gland, which is activated by sunlight; through both the eyes and directly through the skull.
Tryptophan is a natural amino acid found in meat. It can also be found in health food stores. Tryptophan is safe and promotes sleep. Natural analgesics promote sleep. Glycerol drops containing Cannabis indica promote sleep.
GRAVITY challenges the musculoskeletal systems of the upright body tower. A tower that is structurally unsound from genetic & accidental bio-mechanical insults lacks ability to stand upright & to exercise tissue systems that generate health & wellbeing.
When human organisms become weak & sedentary they lose ability to challenge & perpetuate hormonal strength/secretion. Food selections, nutritional variations, & nutrient densities become spheres of neglect. Sunlight & life-sustaining social activities suffer absence.
When the organism becomes invalid & inactive, the Wasting Illnesses begin revealing life-threatening symptoms. Loss of locomotor capabilities begin to magnify weakened genetic components, found in predominantly female tissue variations of Hypermobility.
Hypermobility Syndromes, which disrupt healthy body part functions, have negative physiological consequences for nerves, ligaments, joints, & mast cell populations. So much said for a tissue variation intended to foster successful procreation.
When the snake gave Eve the apple this bendy metaphor was revealed (said tongue in cheek)!
Clinical scientists know that it takes only two weeks of bedrest and sedentary activity to lose significant muscle mass/strength, & the locomotor ability to successfully confront the Gravitational field.
A plethora of microbes are commonly purported to assault humans; to cause intense physical inactivity, & to induce generalized weakness. Perhaps the simple relationship of viral infections to Fibromyalgia & COVID & Wasting Illnesses is that injurious bedrest & inactivity occurs.
Wasting Illnesses have a variety of first dominos: infections, injuries, & poor nutrition. Let’s not overlook prolonged sedentary activities that attend certain elective surgeries.
Astronaughts returning from two weeks in space are not routinely shown walking away from their landing craft; because they can’t. They are immediately wheeled into rehabilitation facilities for extensive musculoskeletal physical conditioning.
HEREDITY is another first domino of the Wasting Illnesses. Hypermobility of soft tissues renders joints more lax and more greatly subject to permanent injury & loss of joint tethering integrity.
Loose joints, as they roam through greater ranges of motion, stretch hypermobile and injured ligaments into lengths that are exceedingly painful. The “Rack” of the Spanish Inquisition was infamous for extracting confessions even from those who were innocent. Better to die.
Stretched ligaments hurt. Sitting & lying relatively aborts pain, but negates confrontation with Gravity. Principle is that Wasting Illnesses beget themselves. A vicious cycle of inactivity begets additions of wasting & increasing Gravity intolerance. Pain wins & levels escalate.
It is a Principle of the human condition that each organism has built in reserves & system methods to confront injurious force. Within this system of conservation, women come up short, with delicate bodies & pelvises loosened by a life of menstrual cycles & childbirths.
Commonly, mechanical injury forces fester & explode to excite body emergency systems. Chronic injury and pain test the body’s systems of reserve. In time these reserves become depleted.
It is a feral dynamic of the human condition (after proofs of Dr. Walter Cannon) that systems of guard & alert first rev into hyperdrive (allergies) & then, after prolonged hyperdrive and burn, fade into weakness & failure: a sine wave effect.
Environmental illnesses & Allergies reflect immune systems being challenged. Generalized weakness reflects hormonal systems in exhaustion and decline to burnout via too intense & persistent physical & emotional challenges.
To my mind, the Wasting Illnesses have already traversed this territory of guardedness & immune hyperdrive; and have drastically fallen into severe physiologically depletion, ennui, & profound weakness; finding succor & minimal comforts within bedrest prisons.
Prosperity of life resides in balance, called HOMEOSTASIS. Strength of the upright body tower results from constant muscle/tendon stiffening. Soft tissue strength relates to ongoing nutrient supplementation. Homeostasis follows a mind constantly focused on fostering these efforts
Weak mechanical strength of soft tissues results in painful spasm, signaling body parts in need of rehabilitation. Pain is an hallmark of Wasting Illnesses. Untreated pain begets sedentary behavior, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of sedentary inactions & wasting.
With this knowledge of the first fallen dominos and understanding of the primarily causes of Wasting Illnesses, we can begin to discern cures. The several cures must be introduced hierarchically with rational decisions based on clinical science.
GRAVITY: it is imperative that the body tower be rehabilitated to stand upright within the gravitational field. Problem is that Wasting Illnesses forestall and fail with abrupt physical exercise; ala the failed GET trials.
Guidance for the proper method of rehabilitations comes from the polio epidemics of mid-1900’s. I was there. Water cures were widely instituted. Water negates the enemy of weak bodies: Gravity.
Wasting Illnesses return to function and strength when exercised. Land based exercises are too extreme; magnifying tissue injury & soft tissue burnout.
Atrophied, pained, & spastic soft tissues need exercise gyms within warm water that soothes, relaxes, & lengthens soft tissues; enabling range of motions that gently prod soft tissues back into action. Water massages can prepare soft tissues for these exercise efforts.
Exercise must be in a warm water environment, daily, and consist of exercises specifically dedicated to strengthening the several muscle groups that support symmetric upright postures of the body tower. Symmetric postures effectively counteract the enemy, Gravity.
Physical therapists well know which muscle groups need gentle rehabilitation of atrophic tissues that formerly supported a strong and symmetrical upright body tower.
I have long been astonished that a standard set of aqua-based exercises has not been mandated via massive national efforts to rehabilitate the “missing millions”. To my mind, this is an international disgrace! We need a Manhattan project for curing the missing millions.
PAIN CONTROL: effective exercise of pained/spastic soft tissues requires pain relief. Ancient plants long known to mankind, Opium poppy derivatives & Cannabis, relieve pain.
International bureaucratic efforts to deprive pain patients from access to natural analgesics, as they attempt to conserve their bodies, are inhumane efforts & are crimes against humanity.
Clinical scientists now know that nerve tracts have their own sets of pain nerves, called apathic nerves, that touch the nerves & alarm “pain” when the guarded nerve tracts are impinged or improperly stretched. Pain mechanisms are known. So are the herbs that relieve pain.
We now know that mast cells release histamine packets when loose ligaments (inherited) are improperly stretched or impinged; reason that people with hypermobile tissues suffer excess allergic responses & histamine illnesses.
Quercitin, a natural substance indigenous to the body, fortifies body cell walls against histamine release; found OTC (over the counter) in health food stores. Mast cell sufferers take note.
Loose ligaments, from inheritance or injury, are cause to strengthen loose joints with natural non-toxic injections of growth-enhancing stem cells; via methods of Prolotherapy; @Regenexx in the Cayman Islands.
US regulators’ intransigence to natural healing drives many wise fore-thinking doctors into off-shore legal havens. Unfortunately, many of these regulations are written by uneducated bureaucrats not as legislative mandates, but via “underground” administrative law; another story.
CURES: Wasting illnesses require holistic & rational curative therapies, which can be sorted into categories: PHYSICAL REHAB, ORTHOMOLECULAR, HORMONAL, & COGNITIVE. All can be instituted simultaneously, but PHYSICAL REHAB & HORMONAL must be graded and hierarchically organized.
PHYSICAL REHAB: must be initiated in water to use buoyancy to negate gravity, which is the enemy of those with Wasting Illnesses. Warm water loosens muscle spasm & Aquatherapy exercises can be preceded by water-based soft tissue massages.
Aquatherapy should intend to strengthen muscle groups that function to hold the body upright. These are such muscles as: all the leg muscles, the Transversus abdominis, both Inferior & Superior trapezium, Serratus, Rectus, Pectoralis, & Sternoclidomastoids.
In a water environment forceful exercise efforts are counterintuitive. For example, strengthening of the Superior trapezium muscles involves pushing a float downward. Leg muscle strength gains by merely walking around the pool. Seasoned Physical Therapists already know what to do
It is a failure of the physiotherapy community that they pay undue reverence to supposed masters of various idiosyncratic schools of thought. This is a particular failure of British & Australian schools, which might be avoided.
Current trends of Physiotherapists to incorporate Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) into their therapies is abhorrent. Physiotherapists should stay in their own lane and leave armchair psychology to trained Psychologists.
The goal of Physiotherapy is to strengthen the major muscles of upright posture for the next phase of exercise, walking on land, whereby the entire human organism will become fully exposed to the full force of the life sustaining gravitational field.
WALKING: this therapy is integral to regaining strength of the upright body tower & should initially include wheeled seated-walkers for patients to lean & sit on whenever they need a rest. All the while, patients regularly go back to swimming to maintain the gains made in water.
RUCKING: once unassisted upright walking has been conquered, then 10% of body weight is added to a rucksack (backpack). The idea is to magnify the force of gravity on the axial spine; to stiffen even more strongly muscles that support the spine & shoulder girdles.
It is no secret that US soldiers win ground wars because they have such strong backs; from extended hikes carrying loaded packs.
NECK MUSCLES: walking involves the head bobbing around. The head weighs ~10 pounds and walking alone is enough to reconstitute muscles that hold the head upright. Weak neck muscles lead to muscle tension headaches & migraines.
The secret of the head and shoulder girdles is that the muscles must be asymmetrically dynamic & similar in size. Crossed muscle syndromes are the bane of well-being and promote neural impingements & dysautonomias. Physical Therapy can fix these crossed muscle syndromes.
Beyond the phase of regaining sprightly walking, Tai Chi & gentle yoga can continue an upward curve to locomotor independence. Light weight lifting might even be tried. Intermittent massages should be well placed to maintain release of muscle spasms.
Lotions of Cannabis are famous for reducing muscle spasm and pain, but they need to be applied to warmed skin because the medicinals enter through the pores. An heating pad is effective here.
ORTHOMOLECULAR: for over 40 years doctors knowledgeable about nutrition have been aware of the dynamics of body tissue growth & development. Every few minutes, millions of white blood cells die & are replenished.
Ortho means “correct”. The idea is to supplement the body with the nutrients it needs to replace tissues that are dying & regenerating. Bone soup contains all the bio-chemical nutrients needed to replace & rebuild connective tissues. It might be eaten weekly.
The entire red blood cell population turns over every few months. Muscle cells are constantly growing or wasting in response to altered gravitational stress (exercise). All these tissue rebirths require ongoing access to adequate amounts of raw materials from which they generate.
As to diet, I challenge all those who espouse strict vegetarianism to compare the appearance of well-being in their vegetarian friends vs. the apparent vigorous appearance of carnivores. Make your own comparisons. Draw you own conclusions. I eat meat.
Zinc has over 200 metabolic functions in human body. Magnesium is a mineral absolutely required for heart & nerve functions. Most Americans do not eat 500 mg of elemental magnesium they need each day. Magnesium chelated to organic amino acids is best; Magnesium oxide ineffective.
Orthomolecular doctors understand these types of nutritional dynamics. Humans are the only animals that do not manufacture Vitamin C in their bodies. Vitamin C is critical for strong immune health. The average human needs ~1000 mg per day. The list goes on & on.
Energy depletion is a major characteristic of Wasting Illnesses. Ribose is available as a nutraceutical in many health food stores & should become a staple of bio-chemical efforts to supplement natural body stores.
Ribose is a natural endogenous biochemical that, when eaten, magnifies output of cellular packets of natural ATP molecular energy in all of use, and would likely be effective in those with Wasting Illnesses.
Everyone with Wasting Illness should go to Orthomolecular Medicine website, receive free newsletter, & seek services of a listed nearby provider. Support natural medicinals for fitness. Alternatively, seek out potent synthetic pharmaceuticals when you want to cheat imminent death
As an aside, the Orthomolecular Medicine Society recommends Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, and Selenium as potent nutrients to fortify against COVID-19 infection.
HORMONES: my model of the human organism is that it evolved and prospers within natural energy fields. Pure water comprises 70% of the body mass; a milieu for most body chemistry.
Blood has all the salts & minerals found in sea water. Sunlight is critical to generation of an hormone misnamed “Vitamin D”. Yes, Vitamin D is actually an hormone, and the gland that produces it is the skin.
My published studies in 2019 about Fibromyalgia causation reported that many suffers have Vitamin D deficiency. Study of quantified human skin production of this hormone called Vitamin D was first published in 2020! Yes, this year. It was a difficult study to do.
In this recent study of hormone Vitamin D, Hawaiian men working outdoors year around without shirts produced 6,000 units per day. Does this suggest what a therapeutic amount of Vitamin D might be? Vitamin D has become a premiere medicinal for curing COVID-19 (recent Spain study).
My estimate is that those with Wasting Illnesses would be well advised to consume 50,000 units of Vitamin D-3 weekly. As with all my recommendations herein, they should only be undertaken with oversight of a licensed physician.
My regard is that hormones are the glandular-secreted liquid blood-borne substances that the brain & neural systems induce & use as cellular messages directed at all body cells; inducing them to produce & perform the balancing acts of homeostasis (see definition above).
If I were king of the medical world, I would use natural testosterone & growth hormone, premiere hormones of generation & growth, to foster the regeneration of everyone with Wasting Illnesses. People die from these disorders. What is there to lose?
Every community hospital in the US can easily measure the effects of testosterone & growth hormone doses given. Doctors know healthy levels. Why not give measured amounts to bring all Wasting Illness sufferers back to a level found in 30 year olds. What is there to lose?
Women naturally harbor small levels of testosterone. Doctors routinely use testosterone to reassign women in their self-chosen desire to transcend to the opposite sex; very trendy. What is there to lose in giving testosterone to those women with Wasting Illnesses?
Growth hormone and testosterone are the magical chemicals that impart youth & vigor to both men & women. These substances are natural & measurable. They induce tissue growth and muscle mass. Just what those with Wasted Illnesses require. What is there to lose?
COGNITIVE: ever since Dr. Candace Pert produced her studies showing direct connections of mind & body (in the 1970’s I think) the inter-consecutiveness of mind, neural system, & immune system have been well demonstrated.
What Dr. Pert proved was that as the mind thinks so go the physiological control systems of Psychoneuroimmunology. Beware of what you think and watch. Dote on those ideas that are positive, happy, caring, and self-affirming. Steer clear of anger and violence.
Remember that there are only two basic emotions and from which all the other emotions derive, Love and Fear.
Persons with Wasting Illnesses need to use meditation, progressive relaxation training, autogenic training, biofeedback, & the cognitive fortifying sharing of support groups to activate the healing mind.
I have long regarded the “Course in Miracles” as a worthy community resource for groups of people to gather and use as a study guide for learning healthful affirmations.
CONCLUSION: Wasting Illnesses of ME/CFS/FIBROMYALGIA/LONGCOVID are devastating. Search for elusive microbes, secret biochemical defects, & magic bullet cures will continue to be fruitless.
Healing powers already reside within all human bodies. Excessive sway of Allopathic Guild’s models of disease & cure have clouded understanding of true & powerful healing pathways. Licensing practices imposed by ascendant bureaucratic bodies = draconian social system enforcements
Many persons with Wasting Illnesses have regained their health using many of the techniques discussed in this essay. Stories of their healing journeys can be viewed @cfsunravelled.
GRAVITY IS THE GREAT IMPOSER
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