In a ISEAI presentation, Dr. Mary Ackerley talks about how environmental stressors such as mold, pathogens and toxins can trigger neuroinflammation and produce the symptoms found in ME/CFS, FM and similar diseases.
Mary Ackerley MD is not your ordinary summa cum laude MD from Harvard. She’s certainly not your standard board-certified psychiatrist. In fact, it’s hard to know how to describe her. Perhaps the best way to describe her is as a curious, inventive, pioneer willing to transcend traditional boundaries if it serves her patients.
Mary Ackerley is not your ordinary Harvard and Johns Hopkins trained psychiatrist
This Harvard and Johns Hopkins-trained psychiatrist usually eschews the use of SSRIs, instead concentrating on attacking the fatigue, pain, depression, etc. using integrative medicine. That means supplements galore, cleaning up one’s environment, if necessary, but also behavioral techniques such as Annie Hopper’s Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS).
Ackerley is the President of the newly formed “The International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness” (ISEAI), and a leader in the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) field. In “Brain on Fire: The Role of Toxic Mold in Triggering Psychiatric Symptoms“, in 2014, she wrote about the patient who changed her approach to disease. Having grown up on the east coast, this now famous mold specialist had utterly dismissed mold at first. Every basement, she knew of, after all, reeked of mold.
But after a longtime patient showed up disheveled, confused and disoriented following a home renovation that uncovered mold, Ackerley decided to give mold medicine a try. Prescribing her cholestryramine, she was astounded to see her patient return back into the office several weeks later composed and back to her old self again.
Brain on Fire: Assessment and Treatment of Environmentally Produced Neuroinflammation
Ackerley spoke at ISEAI’s first international conference in Tucson last spring. ISEAI is a non-profit committed to raising awareness about the “environmental causes of inflammatory illnesses”.
Those illnesses include any that a biotoxin such as mold, or pathogens like Lyme disease and Epstein-Barr virus, or toxins such as pesticides, heavy metals, etc. can cause. They include chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) and CIRS. ISEAI is not saying all cases of ME/CFS have an environmental origin but they would assert that many do.
She was there to inform doctors how to diagnose and treat people with environmentally acquired neuroinflammation. (The video is not available unless you join ISEAI and get access to it for $50.)
Ackerley is the President of ISEAI – A new organization dedicated to informing the public about environmentally induced inflammation
A classically trained psychiatrist who believes that many people with inflammatory issues have been misdiagnosed, Ackerley first focused on the neuropsychiatric issues she so often sees.
I found it refreshing to watch someone dig into an area which is often understandably swept under the rug in our efforts to establish ME/CFS/FM as biological illnesses. I’m the first to say, though, that I was not same the person after coming down with ME/CFS/FM decades ago.
The kind of calm, emotionally stable, clear thinking person I was prior to ME/CFS virtually disappeared – replaced by an anxious, sometimes irritable and angry, ADHD-ish person subject to mood swings. I fought against all of that and my work with Landmark Education definitely took the edges off for me, but the fact is that I lost a kind of grounding that I’d had.
So when Ackerley stated that about 100% of her patients have anxiety, I, with my difficulty relaxing, was on board. When she talked about “mold rage”, I got it. When she referred to “crippling OCD”, I could at least relate. When she stated that adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) were common, I couldn’t relate, but knowing about ACE’s and their impact on inflammatory disorders, I could understand.
Her slide showing some of the cognitive and psychiatric symptoms found in her patient population rang a bell:
- the poor assimilation of new information
- the problems with memory and focus
- the anxiety and fearfulness
- the mood swings, irritability, rage and impulsivity
- the extreme reactivity to new environments and to commonly tolerated treatments.
Asserting that the major causes of mood disorders are inflammation and infection, Ackerley, a psychiatrist, said she believes that at some point “we’re going to look back a psychiatry and see how primitive it was”.
She also provided some clues for detecting CIRS patients.
- Because most psychiatric illnesses show up in a patients’ mid-20’s, any doctor who finds panic attacks, for instance, in someone in their 60’s – without a history of mental illness – should think environmental illness.
- No family history of mental illness – suspect environmental toxins.
- Bad or paradoxical reactions to medications – suspect environmental illness and neuroinflammation.
Many things from infections to mycotoxins, inflammation, autoimmune processes, mast cell activation, traumatic brain injury and concussions can get this process started. Once the microglia get started, it’s basically a brain-based immune process.
NeuroQuant to the Rescue
Ackerley’s big goal was to get doctors to use NeuroQuant to assess their patients. Despite their kind of new agey name, NeuroQuants are, thankfully, commonly used in the medical field – to assess the progression of diseases like Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.
NeuroQuant is a software program that’s used on top of an MRI to assess brain atrophy. Shoemaker and Ackerley use it to assess parts of the brain that have become enlarged as well. Shoemaker’s 2014 study found both atrophy and enlargement in different areas of the brain in people occupying water-damaged (moldy) buildings (WDB’s).
Ackerley uses NeuroQuants for a number of reasons, including to show doctors that the symptoms doctors assess as psychiatric are often due to toxicity in the brain. NeuroQuants also help her refute insurers’ and legal claims that patients are malingering. One wonders why they’re not used more in disability cases in ME/CFS.
The most important reason Ackerley uses NeuroQuants, though, is that they give her an indication where limbic system retraining can help. Ackerley’s pioneering didn’t stop at getting that environmental illnesses often cause symptoms mistaken as psychiatric in nature – she also embraces Annie Hopper’s Dynamic Neural Retraining System approach to environmental illness and encourages her patients to try it. Hopper suffered from severe chemical sensitivities at one point.
Ackerley wasn’t completely focused on environmental illnesses, though. She believes that traumatic brain injuries (concussion, blow to the head, car accident) are much more common than believed and produce the same kind of neuroinflammation. She referenced a former female soccer player with clear evidence of it (from heading the soccer ball). Remarkably, 50% of people with TBI may go on to develop psychiatric symptoms.
The Ring Of Suffering
A chief problem Ackerley finds EI (environmental illness) patients face is an unbalanced brain. In a healthy brain, the prefrontal cortex – the seat of “executive functioning” (the reasoning and planning center of the brain) – reins in the often fear-based limbic system. Ackerley’s NeuroQuant scans, though, often show a double whammy in EI: prefrontal atrophy – sometimes tremendous prefrontal atrophy – combined with a jacked up limbic system.
The “ring of suffering” has been highlighted in numerous FM and ME/CFS studies
Ackerley focused on the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain most closely linked with chronic pain. The connection between the anterior and posterior cingulate – the roadway between the frontal lobes and the limbic system – has been called the “ring of suffering” as problems with it have been associated with fatigue, depression, emotional dysregulation, chronic pain and anxiety, and fibromyalgia.
Ackerley pointed to three PET scan studies in ME/CFS, fibromyalgia and Lyme disease – as well as Younger’s ME/CFS thermography study – which have all highlighted the cingulate cortex.
Calling the amygdala the fire alarm of the brain, Ackerley related the story of one patient with a highly upregulated amygdala. She was trying to calm down using Annie Hopper’s DNRS program. (The main problem with the DNRS has, apparently, been getting patients to incorporate it into their daily routine.)
Trying to demonstrate the impact an enlarged amygdala was having on her, Ackerley told her every time a little mosquito goes by, her amygdala goes bananas. She chose the wrong metaphor for this patient, though, who turned to her and said, “Don’t you know mosquitos carry Lyme, too”.
Totally wrapped up in the potential danger from mosquitos, the patient entirely missed the irony – but that’s what a hopped-up amygdala does. It sees danger everywhere. Because so many sensations pass through the amygdala, virtually everything (foods, scents, supplements, toxins) can produce a fear response in a deranged amygdala.
The Gist
- Mary Ackerley, a Harvard and Johns Hopkins-trained psychiatrist turned to integrative medicine as she grew to believe that inflammatory issues produced by mold and other environmental toxins or infections were causing neuropsychiatric symptoms in many of her patients.
- She believes that many things from infections to mycotoxins, inflammation, autoimmune processes, mast cell activation, traumatic brain injury and concussions can produce symptoms that psychiatrists mistake as psychiatric.
- She uses an MRI software program called NeuroQuant to assess brain functioning, prove the illness is not psychiatric in nature and provide evidence to insurers.
- Organs associated with the limbic system in the brain are often enlarged or swollen in her patients.
- Atrophy in the prefrontal cortex often leads to an imbalance which results in the fear-based limbic system taking over.
- The memory center of the brain – the hippocampus – helps to lock in the danger response as the negative memories build up and come to dominate.
- Once activated, the “door to the limbic system” – the thalamus – heightens one’s sense of sensations such as light, sound, smell, etc.
- The brain then can conceivably perceive danger at every level – from smells, sounds, lights, etc.
- Studies show that the “ring of suffering” – the anterior and posterior cingulate – which transmits signals from the prefrontal cortex to the limbic system is dysregulated in ME/CFS, FM and Lyme disease.
- Mold-activated mast cells in the thalamus, hypothalamus and perhaps other areas of the brain trigger microglial activation and inflammation.
Getting “Neuroinflamed”
Ackerley then demonstrated in greater detail how neuroinflammation works. First, the HPA axis triggers an increase in glucocorticoids (cortisol) and catecholamines (norepinephrine/epinephrine), which send the sympathetic nervous system into a fight/flight or freeze (see Porges) response. At the same time that’s happening, the SNS’s (sympathetic nervous system) minder – the parasympathetic nervous system (vagus nerve) – takes a dive, causing the rest and digest system to punk out (bye bye sleep and hello gut issues). All that sets off immune dysfunction and oxidative stress.
The final piece of the puzzle is the “decreased cortical inhibition” which prevents the prefrontal cortex from coming in and telling the rest of your brain that “that mosquito really isn’t a big problem”. Without the prefrontal cortex bringing some sanity to the situation, that amygdala’s fear-based loop just goes on and on – stressing the system and yourself out more and more.
Although Ackerley didn’t mention it, our brains, even when healthy, are programmed to soak up fearful stuff. (This is why fear-based political campaigns are so effective ). This fear first response is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation to our brutal beginnings when predators did indeed lurk around every corner.
The seat of memory – the hippocampus – also plays a crucial role. Ackerley didn’t mention this either but my understanding is that our brain’s assess every situation by referring back to past similar situations. We don’t assess or figure out everything newly; instead, we use the past to inform us about the present.
As the negative experiences pile up, we more and more use them to assess the present – solidifying the fear-based loop further. (Anne Hopper’s technique requires that patients revisit positive past experiences again and again in order to resolidify them in our brain and take us out of that danger loop.)
That puts the thalamus – the “back door” to the limbic system and a chief repository of mast cells – on high alert, amplifying any sensations (smells, sounds, foods, drugs, touch, body sensations) in a misguided effort to protect us. (Ackerley’s NeuroQuants often show an enlarged thalamus.)
The Limbic Hypothesis
This is by no means a new hypothesis – it’s just better fleshed out now. Back in 1993, Dr. Jay Goldstein in his book, “The Chronic fatigue syndromes: The Limbic Hypothesis”, proposed damage to the limbic system lay at the heart of ME/CFS. Dr. Paul Cheney amplified Goldstein’s focus in the “deep brain” – the limbic system (and now we would add the brainstem to that) –in his review of the book”
“Dr. Goldstein’s new book takes us to a place few people know well, and describes a plausible mechanism of injury to the deep brain which could explain every symptom seen in [patients with] chronic fatigue syndrome”
Goldstein described the book as a “promising foundation for future research” and here we are 26 years later, with brain scans validating Goldstein’s emphasis, and continuing to focus on the limbic system.
Treatment Takeaways
Warning that removing a person from mold exposure will not always be sufficient to return them to health and that remaining in a moldy environment will limit treatment effectiveness, Ackerley turned to a long, long list of possible treatments.
Besides Hopper’s DNRS which she mentioned earlier she starts everyone on:
- Low dose naltrexone (LDN), PEA and Luteolin.
Sleep
Because 90% of brain detoxification occurs during sleep, you have to get people sleeping. Restorative sleep can greatly improve neuroinflammation.
- Sleep hygiene
- Re-establishing proper circadian rhythm
- Protein/fat snack before bedtime (for hypoglycemics)
- Calm Mg, B6, niacinamide (breaks down glutamate)
- Melatonin – may help BBB issues
- Bioidentical progesterone – 100-200 mg; peri and post-menopausal
- 5-HTTP, Valerian (anxiety reducer)
- Kavinace PM (1-2)
- CBD oil, edibles
- Sleep study to rule out sleep apnea
- Trazodone – 25 – 200 mg
- Remeron – in normal and underweight patients.
Treating Neuroinflammation
- Fish oil (usually 4 grams)
- Low carb, keto, paleo-type diet – intermittent fasting
- Hormones to normalize pregnenolone, progesterone, estrogen, DHEA, estradiol, estriol, testosterone, thyroid including free T3, cortisol
- Glutathione
- NAC
- Phosphoditycholine
- Citicholine Cognizin – very useful for ADD and traumatic brain injury.
Mast Cell Treatments
- Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA) – PPAR agonist. mast cell stabilizer, neuropathic pain, retinopathies – takes 2-4 weeks to show effects
- Luteolin – flavinoid, inhibits microglial activation, increases neuronal survival, helps with attention, decreases brain fog.
Others
- Cytoquel
- Vaso-active-intestinal-peptide (VIP) – tries in everyone, available at 4 compounding pharmacies, used as intranasal spray, normal dosage 50 mcg/ml; if lipase elevation occurs – stop; if fatty liver occurs treat with diet, GI Cleanse, if dysphoria occurs reduce dosage by 1/2 to 1/10th and then increase slowly. Can take 6-12 months to reach proper dosage.
- Craniosacral therapy – helps to dump toxins, patients like it.
Swollen Brains and Mast Cells
Ackerley can’t diagnose mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) solely through NeuroQuant because BBB (blood-brain barrier) permeability – a major potential factor in neuroinflammation – can be affected by multiple factors including traumatic brain injury, collagen disorders such as EDS, mast cell activation, (Jarred Younger is doing an ME/CFS BBB study right now) and APOE 4 status.
The NeuroQuant can help, though. Having mast cell-heavy brain areas (thalamus, hypothalamus, cerebellum, (perhaps amygdala)) get lit up, however, provides a clue. (Mast cells stimulate the microglia (neuroinflammation), weaken the blood-brain barrier, and release pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TGF-B).
Mold triggers mast cells, which leads to more blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysregulation, plus neuroinflammation and microglial activation.
The good news about the NeuroQuants is that they are usually paid for by insurers. She can get an MRI and NeuroQuant done in Tucson, if I got it right, for $350 (???).
Conclusion
In her ISEAI presentation, Mary Ackerley MD provided a compelling introduction to how environmental factors and pathogens can produce neuroinflammation and many, if not all, of the symptoms in ME/CFS/FM and similar diseases. She believes that many of the symptoms perceived as psychiatric can result from toxic exposures from mold, chemicals as well as infections.
A hyped up limbic system and weakened prefrontal cortex gives the fear-based processes of the limbic system free rein thus strengthening parts of the brain that heighten pain and other sensations. Mast cells in certain parts of the brain trigger more microglial activation thus heightening pain sensitization, etc.
Stating that sleep is essential, Ackerley provided numerous treatment recommendations including the Dynamic Neural Retraining System, and many supplements to combat to help with sleep and tamp down neuroinflammation and mast cell activation. She tries LDN, luteolin, PEA and VIP on everyone (see Treatment Takeways section.
- Check out a blog on one of them – Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA)- A Medical Food for Fibromyalgia (and ME/CFS?)
- Coming up shortly – an ME/CFS DNRS Success Story
- Dr. Ackerley’s Practice
- Support the ISEAI’s work – Become an ISEAI member
HR’s Fundraising Drive Breaks New Ground
Whoa – as we enter the last week of the drive, 272 donors have gifted Health Rising with just over $30K.
From Mary Ackerley’s approach to mast cells to brain and spinal issues to Hopper’s DNRS approach; if people with ME/CFS/FM are benefiting from something we’re going to check it out. If that kind of extensive, unbiased coverage supports you, please support us during the last week of our drive 🙂
CIRS and Lyme were a big piece of my puzzle and being able to see a Functional doc (Dr. Jennifer Smith) who was trained in it and Lyme, was most beneficial to me. Also having MCAS doesn’t help things. I’ve had two Neuroquant MRI and both were different from the beginning treatment to later in treatment. It’s still a work in progress. But there are improvements.
Definitely worth looking into.
Can I ask what treatment you have tried for the Lyme?
How do I get in contact with this Doctor? I’m dying and no one will help me. I keep telling my doctors I’m not crazy my prefrontal cortex and limbic system have been damaged due to environmental toxins and abuse and improper medication and I’m withering away while being picked apart like Mr. Potato head. I need help.
What ended up happening?? What did u have?
The psychiatric manifestations of Tick Borne disease is either overlooked or ignored.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30149626
What’s PEA? What’s VIP? (Where’s the “treatment takeaways” section alluded above?)
OMG – I forgot to put both the Gist and the Treatment Takeaways sections in. An ME/CFS moment, for sure, as I was wiped out. PEA, by the way, is very interesting. We did a blog on it some time back. This is the first time I have heard of it since then.
I encourage everyone to read Dr. Jill Carnahans blogs on Lyme. mold and mast cell activation. she is a member of a group Dr. Ackerley has formed to tackle these issues through education programs for physicians!
PEA is mentioned in the comment below. I also don’t see the Tx Takeaways section or a mention of what VIP is.
There should be a box called “Treatment Takeaways” on the right bottom half of the blog (???) VIP is vasoactive intestinal peptide.
This is the PEA my doc has me using. It also has Lutolin in it. Both help pain and MCAS (mast cell Activation Syndrome). I can only use this one in the morning as it gives me energy. I did get just PEA without Lutolin for night. I have been able to get off my pain and MCAS medicines (mostly, still occasionally need). But doing a new thing for MCAS right now too.
Mirica® – Pea (Palmitoylethanolamide) and Luteolin – Natural Pain Relief – Anti-Inflammatory Supplement – 60 ct https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07365MZLY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_J8OcEbX5WQPWG
I could NOT take VIP. It isn’t recommended until one is sure MARCONS are cleared. But it does help brain inflammation and we tried it any way. Was not good for me.
Issie
I was treated by Dr. Ackerley several years ago for mold illness and went on a strict regimen of the Shoemaker protocol. My honest takeaway was that it was snake oil. I’m not saying mold sensitivity isn’t real, because in my experience it’s very real and I’ve had terrible crashes and illness due to it (my initial onset of illness was surely caused in part due to a water damaged home with mold and sewage), but the use of cholestyramine for months on end with insane dosages, nasal antibiotics, and VIP and countless blood tests for unusual bio-markers most doctors have never heard of left me sicker and more frustrated than ever. I confess that my experiences may be the exception and that Dr. Ackerley and Dr. Shoemaker may be pioneers in a field of medicine that years from now we’ll be grateful for, but from my perspective as a patient who endured being so sick while taking copious amounts of random supplements, “off-label” medications and Parkinson’s medication (VIP), as well as having to pay for every little thing (oh you want information? You’ll have to pay for access to the lecture or pay for a membership for the website), the whole treatment ended up seeming ridiculous, i.e. snake oil.
I’m not the kind of person who leaves a lot of comments or gives advice regarding treatments for CFS because I am not a doctor and only have my personal experiences; however, my time on the Shoemaker protocol was so negative that I really encourage people to research it and see whether or not they are willing to spend so much money and endure grueling medication regimens for a protocol that is based on what seems like very little research (I can’t find any research about CIRS that isn’t in some way related to Ritchie Shoemaker or one of his “certified” physicians. Where is the unbiased, peer reviewed research? It may be out there, I might be totally wrong)
This protocol put me in a position where I was seeing multiple doctors who were literally giving me completely opposite advice, some telling me the Shoemaker protocol was actually detrimental to my health. It’s an awful feeling to be an extremely ill patient who has to essentially choose which doctor to listen to. It’s an impossible position, really.
Again, I may be totally in the wrong and I hope that I am.
CIRS/CFS, biotoxin illness, EI ….whatever name you give it is real. Really disabling. Real misunderstood and really complex. I did not do the Shoemaker protocol – but I did take Cholestrymine for a bit. It made my hair fall out— it ALSO was a game changer in relieving some symptoms. Lots of supplements, lots of tests and LOTS of money later my HMO dr diagnosis me w/CFS. Same thing…. BUT he told me to get prepared for disability and had ZERO treatment options. CIRS protocol gave me some level of quality of life back. Still toxic still detoxing…. EVERYTHING in this article rings true for me.
Please tell me how you got better
John, I wasn’t able to do the Shoemaker protocol as it should have been. I couldnt tolerate the medicines. Near none of them. But, we were able to address my mold exposure and get me better. There are other ways to tackle it and I’m glad I had a Shoemaker trained doc, but also one trained in Functional medicine that we could work in other ideas to benefit me. I don’t feel it was my whole piece to the puzzle. But I do feel it contributed.
Dr. Ackerly is no longer associated with Shoemaker and now has a different approach, from what I’ve been told. I don’t think they are doing all the testing now as before.
Lyme and virus has been another good direction for me too.
My opinion is the only treatment that works for us is avoidance and you don’t need any type of health care practitioner to tell you this.
So why waste valuable resources on them when you could possibly put those same resources into better housing.
Or take it one level higher and find some type of alternative to housing which after 23 years seems to be the only thing that (somewhat) works for me.
For me it’s the difference between bed ridden and somewhat able to manage my household and take care of my basic needs.
What I can’t do is maintain a job, my household, have a social life, and hobbies. Those days seem to be gone forever.
And I still have violent episodes of PEM when I try to exceed these limits.
We really need to support those who are trying to bring the rest of the medical community onboard. David Tuller with his advocacy, and Open Medicine with their research would be my favorite, maybe Dr Lipkin whom I’ve not heard much from lately.
Not that Cort and many others aren’t doing a lot towards this end.
It’s just until we take away from those that try to dismiss CFS as psychological we will never get support from the NIH and CDC which is what we need.
We need solid evidence that CFS is a physiological illness!
Otherwise more will get sick and there will only be small pocket’s of people who have somewhat been able to get relief from this scourge.
Thanks for sharing your experience John. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. You point to two dilemma’s – how to decide what to try given the conflicting opinions and different approaches – and when to stop?
I don’t think Shoemaker and Ackerley are providing snake oil – people do get helped by their approach. I’ve seen quite a few doctors over the past several decades and I can honestly say that none of them have moved the needle on my illness significantly. Most had no effect at all. I do know that each of them have helped some people – sometimes dramatically – but they did nothing for me.
This is a tough nut to crack and we as patients with limited resources have a difficult task in deciding what to spend them on.
I hope your next effort goes better!
Have you healed from your illness
I’m also very sick and think it’s Mold
I am wondering how long ago you worked with her, and possibly why things didn’t go so well for you is the issue of mast cell activation. We worked with several functional medical doctors and my husband didn’t feel any improvement physically or mentally. in fact, in some ways he was worse! It was only when Dr. Ackerley in a skype call with her suggested Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. This was in October of 2017. I couldn’t get our functional physician to listen to me or focus on it….only finally a year later, thanks to Dr. Lawrence Afrin at the Mastocytosis Society that we found a physician that understands mast cell with lyme and mold.
Please tell me how you got better
John please tell me how you got better
I think you have a point so my question is what helped you detox from mold and how are you doing now? The fact is though his protocol has not been well researched, they will never want to research treatments for mold toxicity because then people will get better and companies will make zero profit as is for a gazillion other ailments
Hi Guys ! I would like to inform you briefly about the status of the BCG trial in Europe. Sorry for my English, I had 3 minutes to draft it.
Treatment purpose: inhibition of neuroinflammation, bolstering TH1 immune profile, containing autoimmune profile of CFS
Treatment was approved by the National Institute of Medicine in my home country. Treatment schedule in accordance with Staphypan treatment schedule created by Prof. Carl-Gerhardt Gottfries (Sweden): weekly administration of vaccine beginning from 1/10th dose up until 1 dose on week 10. Thereafter 1 dose every month.
BCG shall be administered intracutanously. It shall be done by a trained professional first. Then, someone else can do that. In my case it is a family member. Difficult to dilute the vaccine, because the regulat dose is 0.1 ml. You have to dilute that to 0.01 ml first.
Treatment started on 19 December. On day one, red spot developed. It went up to 3 cm on day 3, then it disappeared.
2nd treatment occured on December 26. The redness (which is indicative of immune reaction) is less pronounced (only 1 cm). At the same time, right limph node somewhat swollen.
What symptoms are concerned, first low fever, diarrhea etc. Nothing serious. Symptoms fluctuate. However, there is a definite improvement in digestion, cognition and energy level. Too early to tell but I know my sysmptoms very well. Tomorrow will be week 3, 1/3rd dose of a vaccine.
I will keep you posted.
Take care !
Adam
Our first experience of BCG- good luck with it and please report back. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrMfGT0vg4I&fbclid=IwAR1lsWVvLPJc-Tw8P5WtRgVYMCLNfRuKCyngUSi_63jo4cC73cd0tPW1nEY
This type of information is the category I’ve been trying to share/push on this forum since I recently joined, yet it seems as though many dont realize the severity/impact of these issues, and its affecting nearly all of us.
The shoemaker protocol isnt as finite as one may think, and seems to have already become outdated, as it is true the HLA-DR antigens play a role in toxin elimination, but several other factors have to be taken into consideration as well. The drug Shoemaker uses is responsible for some relief, if any at all, depending on the individual case.
If someone is mold toxic, elimination from the source is obviously the number one priority, but Spirochetes, EMF, and Heavy Metal body burden adds to the symptoms Tenfold. In addition, occlusal imbalance/dental caviations/airway size as well makes it so the body will never simply let up from the symptoms/imbalances, especially as it relates to chronic fatigue/FM, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxCQFWUQpSU&list=PLFzEqX8_7ECp3PwCjiEOiCqi6g4GyImwC&index=2
Great video I just came across.
Happy new year to everyone.
I can relate to so many of the issues discussed in this article about Dr Mary Ackerley’s approach – though I don’t believe my issues stem from problems with mould – apart from triggering my relatively recently acquired asthma.
However I can stack up a load of factors I think have contributed to my health becoming so unbalanced. I would have been through a number of Adverse Childhood Experiences, sustained a number of concussions (was unconscious for three hours, after falling from a height when I was about two, fell off my bike at speed aged about six – no helmet – and fell off loads of ponies/horses).
At seventeen I became unwell with Glandular Fever/Mononucleosis/Epstein Barr within a month or so of my dad dying from a brain tumour. Though I did rest and got over it, I think the virus became re-activated if I became run down, throughout my twenties and thirties – leading to a sore throat, swollen glands and tiredness.
However I was fairly healthy until in 2007, when I went through an extremely stressful six months or so and then had a nasty flu. Something changed in me after that, which took me years to figure out. Eventually I worked out that some carbohydrates were a problem for me and in particular, fructose. Over the years I then started having an issue with dairy but I was still able to eat nuts, which gave me energy.
I don’t know exactly why my health took a downturn in 2016. I wonder whether it was a combination of increasing stress levels and changes in hormones? Anyway what happened was that I couldn’t eat the nuts anymore. I actually couldn’t find enough food to eat and I was losing weight. To someone who has struggled with her weight all my adult life, this was a new one on me!
To add to my woes I started bleeding (profusely at times) and had to take progesterone until a few months later a fibroid was found and removed. However I had developed an infection and needed IV antibiotics and two more doses to clear it. A month later I developed the worst flu/cough I’ve ever had. I’ve never sweated so much or been ill for so long. I was solidly unwell for about three weeks, my temperature was recorded by the doctor at 41c, and it took me about three months to feel clear of the illness.
However I was left with a brain that could now be set off by certain foods and that literally felt like an electric heater that was hot and red. That was Spring 2017. I was already stressed – lone parent, unwell, not much money etc but my anxiety levels skyrocketed even further. I was very aware that my mental health was being very severely affected, if my brain became inflamed. I was totally wired anyway but this was different to anything I had ever experienced.
By trial and error I found that Ibubrofen helped bring down the inflammation in my brain, until later I became intolerant to it. I had a Mirena coil inserted in my uterus (progesterone) which may have settled my hormone issue and stopped the bleeding, which had started up again. I now eat a very low carb diet with lots of kale, spinach, fatty meat, beef liver, mackerel and eggs. I can now eat some seeds – linseeds, hemp and chia, olive oil and coconut oil. I take lots of supplements. I don’t take any medications, from the doctor, apart from an asthma inhaler.
However before my current improvement, I was going downhill because I just couldn’t find food that I could eat, that didn’t have severe side effects. I was surviving at that time on chocolate – but it was putting my blood pressure up, giving me headaches and I would occasionally feel faint. I knew I was wired and not sleeping well but I didn’t realise what a detrimental effect this was having on me. I’d come across Dan Neuffer and his CFS Unravelled and watched the videos.
I decided that I had to give it a go and see if I could reduce my stress levels and sleep better. I wasn’t overly convinced but I didn’t have any other options, so I really focussed on calming down etc despite my circumstances being essentially extremely anxiety provoking.
I slept much better and noticed the difference in my body immediately. That was April 2019. Since then I’ve continued to sleep better. It’s like before and after – I sort of broke some sort of vicious circle. I was able to add more food to my dwindling diet (the mackerel, seeds and oils) and ditch the chocolate. My brain function is definitely improving, I’m less tired and my mental health is stabilising again.
I think my body is far smarter than I am. What I am trying to do is support my system as best as I can – listening and noticing how my body reacts to things. So for me and my system, I believe diet (what I eat and what I leave out), restorative sleep, relaxation and supplements have been key for me to make the improvements that I have experienced more recently.
An interesting facet to my improvement that I need to deal with, is that I have struggled so much on my own and no one really sees that. I have had some truly terrifying reactions to food, medications and the sporadic internal bleeding wasn’t great either. However it’s largely unacknowledged, dismissed, disparaged etc. Nobody really understands how unwell I’ve been – but I don’t want that to hold me back. I’ll have to work on this…
Advanced Vodder Manual Lymphatic Drainage also has specific techniques that are very successful to reduce brain inflammation and help facilitate brain detoxification including working on the soft palate and along the spinal cord down the back where the “lymphatic like” vessels of the brain drain.
The problem with EM is inflammation in the brain. This inflammation must be found either by a puncture of the cerebrospinal fluid or a pet scan with a tracer. We have known that inflammation is the problem for a long time, but we have not been working on the subject.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30416112?fbclid=IwAR10J_tfIeu_CC7Fp1dBm8PNHUnqngLgdyXk3ZjLvoC7icMfnLeik8dshj0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24665088?fbclid=IwAR3Zfh89GW8duh1Vl3yOzeCrHFDn88NroPUvFG0qkTXFig5-OCmSxqFcvYc
https://ammes.org/tag/pet-scan/?fbclid=IwAR07MDJa6usMOYfnvHsXrztWxFHHLuQcHLhjWFjSDpa06oe5DLLef3zMxH4
And another independent article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19487152?fbclid=IwAR3o0uLPui52RrUVQ8C1J7fsynJGmWvApCz1z97pcg55FaNNyDmsbqWrm_8
Mr. Johnson, I think these information should be taken in consideration.
So mamy peope are suffering and the medical community is ignoring us
These supplements are costly and many have to choose between treating and eating. I joined a buying club that is designed for those suffering from chronic illness. I am able to save alot and afford supplements . http://Www.healthbuyerclub.com check it out