Mental fog with CFS is a major challenge and can often result in failure to maintain a protocol, pushing beyond your current CFS “envelope”. In my last post there were several herbs and spices that helped the brain (neuroprotectors).  In this post, I will add a list of similar items not in the last list and which are not probiotics (a future post)

• Piracetam and all of the other Racetams
• Alpha-Lipoic Acid
• D-Ribose
• Flushing Niacin and other vasodilators.
  • L-arginine
• Fish Oil [2015]

With the earlier Neem and Tulsi being my additional favorites.

AntiCoagulants

Anticoagulants improve blood flow and thus reduce mental fog. They also tend to increase penetration of antibacteria and antivirals (in some cases 10x more concentration for some antibiotics)

• serrapeptase
• nattokinease
• lumbrokinease
• bromelain
• heparin (prescription)
• Licorice
• Coenzyme Q10

Many of the top list are also anticoagulants.

My wife gave me a book for Christmas,  Danish Cookbooks: Domesticity and National Identity, 1616-1901 (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies). As you may have guessed, I’m of Danish descent. One thing that I found unexpected was that the use of spices and herbs greatly decreased from the earliest 1616 cook book until the middle 1800’s. Spices were heavily used to control unhealthy bacteria on food before refrigeration became common. Spices appear to have significant health benefits,

“They found that people who ate spicy foods one or two days per week had a 10% reduced risk of overall mortality, compared to those who had a spicy meal less often than once per week. Eating spicy food more than two days per week was only linked to a slight additional increase: Those who ate spicy foods three to five times and six to seven times per week all had a 14% reduced risk of dying.” [Forbes]

The following is a list of spices and herbs which have antibacterial and/or antiviral characteristics which appears to impact the bad bacteria a lot more than good bacteria. The list is not exhaustive, just the ones that I so far found via pubmed.

• Turmeric
  
• Olive Leaf Extract
  
• Ashwagandha
• Boswellia
• Neem
• Tulsi
• Artemisia
• Salvia officinalis (common sage)
• Cinnamon
• Cumin
• Japanese Knotweed

Many of these are also neuroprotectors! That is help with brain fog!

There are also at least one “backup” – which hammers both good and bad, for example Haritaki.

As a FYI: I know someone that suffers a mild herx from taking a second cup of tulsi tea in a day. One cup is fine, the second one is what triggers the herx. If you are fragile or overwhelmed by the response, consider teas as a starting point.

Dosage:

My rule of thumb is to make my own “OO” capsules from bulk (often organic) powder. A “OO” capsule is typically 4-500 mg. The cost is typically around $20/lb (454 gm) which equates to some 900 capsules. Each one acts against different bacteria which translates into some likely causing die-off/herx and other with no apparent impact.

My typical pattern is 1 on the first 2 days, if no issues, move to 2 for 2 days, then 4 for 2 days and 8 for 2+ more days. Easing the dosage if significant / discomforting herxing starts. I usually take them 1 hr before bed because they tend to result in a bit of sleepiness.

When you add the next one is really a matter of personal choice, I tend to wait until I get up to 4 capsules before adding another spice/herb. I avoid staying on any herb for more than 14 days, that’s the typical length of an antibiotic prescription. Either it has done its work or it has not. Time to move on to the next.

As always, consult with your knowledgable medical professional to insure there are not risks from any of the above before starting.

Diet Shift

The food you eat impacts the gut bacteria. The question naturally arises – what should you eat?  This actually depends on your ancestry – particularly your female ancestry.  Why? Our gut bacteria evolved with us and thus by the food that we eat. Why female line? The female lines is the probable source of the gut bacteria that you were populated with.

For myself, it is northern Europe, above the “wheat line”. The wheat line is the line where traditional (not modern hybrid winter wheats) would not reliably grow north of. This means that rye and barley are a historic stable; rice and wheat are not. Wheat was imported as a luxury grain.

“In the Nordic countries, bread was the main part of a meal until the late 18th century. Four different bread regions can be found in the Nordic area in the late 19th century. In the south, soft rye bread dominated. Further north came crisp bread, usually baked with rye, then thin and crispy barley bread. In the far north, soft barley loaves dominated.” Wikipedia

Identifying what cuisine that your gut bacteria has lived upon for hundreds or thousands of years can be a challenge because there tend to be romanticization and casting of modern diets unto the past. Some visual examples:

For meat consumption,

• 1909 was 10+40+48 = 98 lbs/year
• 2007 , the US was up to 271 lbs/day [source]

For myself, it’s 100% rye bread for breakfast with butter, lots of legumes and salad, one or two eggs and 2-4 oz of meat only. Needless to say, no sugar — however a beer is fine!

Bottom Line: Try to feed your gut bacteria what it has grown to expect through generations! There is likely no magic diet for CFS.

A reader asked:

“Hi Ken. How would you recommend proceeding if I can’t find a doctor willing to prescribe the Jadin Protocol or anything close to it. Do you think healing is possible with only OTC supplements and herbs? If so, where and how should I start. This is a lot of info to dissect and interpret and my brain fog is at all time crippling levels.”

Back story

I know the problem of finding a doctor willing to prescribe antibiotics very well. During my last relapse, I persuaded my MD to prescribe, but she had to run it by her department head so said absolutely no — it is not the recognized standard of care. Fortunately, where I live, naturopaths have prescribing authority so it was a matter of finding one who was willing to prescribe antibiotics for chronic lyme. I came to a working compromise with one — she was willing to prescribe long term antibiotics that would be used for chronic lyme that fitted Jadin’s protocol. On the flip side, I was willing to do various batteries of tests for chronic lyme – one of them was a “positive” (but it would also be positive for re-activated Epstein-Barr – very common with CFS) which covered her backside for prescribing antibiotics. This odd ball situation is likely rare in most of the world, I was lucky.

The greatest improvement in a short period was actually not from the antibiotics but from herbs I identified by which bacteria they inhibited and which ones they did not:

• Tulsi
• Neem

Answer to the question

In my opinion, it is possible with OTC (actually, OTI – over the internet, often the items will not be found in local stores but will be found online).

The basic medical chest consists of:

• Antibacterial and antivirals
• Potenators (allows better penetration of the above into tissue) which also tend to be fibrinolytics (breaks down coagulation products)
• Anti-biofilms (biofilms protect bacteria by encasing bacteria with a film and dead cells, making them hard to kill)
• Probiotics

I will enumerate the elements of each in my next post. For the moment, I will actually give what I am doing as a prophyltic (protection) against relapse. I am in remission, not cure. My bacteria could get out of control again so I need to insure that I occasionally do a prevention cycle:

At bed time for 2 weeks:

• 2 capsule of prescript assist
• 2 capsules of Align
• 2 capsules of Culturelle
• 2 Capsules of L.Reuteri with Fish Oil
• 2 capules of a “colon health” probiotic (just bifodobacteria in it)

Side effects noticed: became a light sleeper, waking for a short while every 2 hrs. A lot more dreams than usual.

In the morning for 4 weeks (the “OO” mean that I made my own capsule from bulk spice/herb – typically $20 / 500 gm and often organic!!)

• 2 “00” capsules of Piracetam
• 2 “00” capsules of Neem
• 2 “00” capsules of Japanese Knotweed Rhizome – Polygonum cuspidatum
• 2 capsules of Alpha Lipotic Acid (ALA)
• 20000 IU of Vitamin D3

At 2 weeks, I change my evening pills for 2 weeks

• 2 “OO” capsules of Olive Leaf
• 2 “OO” capsules of Cumin
• 2 “OO” capsules of Aswanghanda
• 2 “OO” capsules of “Tulsi”
• and also have some Japanese desert, Natto — which is where nattokinease comes from!
  • warning: Natto is an acquired taste…

Side effects: Sleep hard (sleep in), some night sweats

At 4 weeks, I will usually ebb off (so resistant bacteria are not encourage too take over)

On another cycle, I would switch in turmeric, wormwood, serrapetase, bromelain, EDTA, NAC etc.

When the issue comes to remission, then it is a slow ramp up on them, one at a time until you are likely around 8 “00” capsules and any herxing stopped before going on to the next. More on that tomorrow…

I am by academic training a mathematician and accustomed to working logically after axioms to derive theorems.  That same mind is applied to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and autoimmune conditions. The axioms or facts, are actual PubMed studies, ideally with real CFS patients. PubMed studies appear to be full of contradictory results for many simple models, yet, I believe that there appears to be a model that appears in full agreement with almost all of the studies.

Note: “Effort Syndrome” appears to be an old name for CFS in some circles,s ee [Why did the entity of effort syndrome disappear] 1997.

This is a statement of what my model is, which will revised(typically tuned) as more facts come:

CFS (and likely IBS and FM) is a case of mild to severe Lactic Acidosis. Lactic acid is typically produced exercising.

• Loss of capacity to recover from acidosis on repeat exercise in chronic fatigue syndrome: a case-control study.[2012]
• Increased d-lactic Acid intestinal bacteria in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. [2009] [Full text]
• “CFS simulations exhibited an increased acidosis and lactate accumulation consistent with experimental observations.” [2015]
• Is chronic fatigue syndrome synonymous with effort syndrome? [1990]

The associated change of pH has been attempted with various breathing techniques (I did Hale’s breathing during one onset of CFS, it was popular for a while) with some reduction of symptoms. By altering of pH alone by breathing is unlikely to address the root cause.

• Hyperventilation and chronic fatigue syndrome. [1995]
• The grey area of effort syndrome and hyperventilation: from Thomas Lewis to today. [1993]

The cause of this lactic acidosis appears to be a shift of gut bacteria  [2009] [1998] 2001] (see my earlier posts for more references). Gut bacteria is well known to shift due to stress, viral infections, bacterial infections, and even immunizations. In general, the shift returns to normal in > 99% of the cases, but 0.1 – 5.0% do not within 6 months (depending on infections), with roughly 50% of these returning in the next 6 months (with decreasing odds after that). The low incidence of the gut bacteria being stuck in a dysfunction often falls in the experimental error rate of studies and thus “no evidence”.

Lab results: With a shift of bacteria, the ability for bacteria to extract and process food is altered. In short, increases and decreases of amino acids, vitamins, minerals can all be explained by this — including contradictory results because the shift of bacteria will not be identical for all CFS patients.

Treatment of lactic acidosis

This is where the pain begins, a successful treatment is described in this pubmed article [2013], unfortunately the probiotics described are not available in the US. Additionally, the high dosages of antibiotics are unlikely to be acceptable to MDs for a CFS diagnosis.

• Fasting reduces the food to the bacteria, and can improve symptoms temporarily [2002]

A better understanding of lactic-acidosis can be obtained here [2015].

• “Type A lactic acidosis—due to hypoperfusion and hypoxia—occurs when there is a mismatch between oxygen delivery and consumption, with resultant anaerobic glycolysis.”
  • Ding ding ding!  SPECT scans shows hypoperfusion in CFS patients. Coagulation (Hemex Lab research) causes hypoxia!
  • Hyperbaric oxygen for CFS do show symptom improvement in many [2003] [2013]

A significant (but not 100%) remission rate has been reported using antibiotic regimes (Prof. Garth Nicolson, Cecile Jadin MD, Phillipe Bottero, MD … see here. I did notes up on some of them a few years ago), with those regimes that use multiple antibiotics in rotation having the best success rates. Everyone knows that “antibiotics kills gut bacteria” — more accurately, “antibiotics kills selected gut bacteria strains”. These corollary are also very true:

• “Many herbs and spices kills selected gut bacteria strains”.
• “All probiotics kills selected gut bacteria strains”.
• “Many antivirals kills selected gut bacteria strains”.
  • “Commensal microbes are often required to control viral infection by facilitating host immune defenses”[2014]
  • “these findings reveal the fundamental importance of commensal microbiota in viral infections.”[2011]

The challenge is that you want the right ones to be killed. This typically means killing and then repopulating with suitable replacements who will hopefully become sufficiently established to kill off the bad ones.

Q: “What about  Lactobacillus acidophilus (New Latin ‘acid-loving milk-bacterium’) – almost all of my probiotics contain it!”

A: In general, all lactobacillii produce lactic acids (with exception for a few strains), lactic acidosis is TOO MUCH lactic acid. Do you really want to compound the problem. I remember reading a conference paper where one of the CFS MDs committed heresy to the alternative medicine principles and stated “I have not seen any benefits to any CFS patients from taking [common] probiotics”.

There are probiotics on the market that do not contain any Lactobacilli — those are what you need to seek out. My own preferences (and documented to help) are:

• Align – Bifidobacterium infantis 35624
• Mutaflor (E.Coli Nissle 1917)
• Prescript Assist

Killing with spices and herbs: See this earlier post for a starting point.