On the Way.

The past ten days I started feeling better. I am now confident to say: this thing is working. The Copper shedding is getting less, the symptoms are getting less. I have more energy but less of the high-pitched maniacal sort.

pic by David Ritter

I am hoping the robust health I’ve already achieved underneath the CFS-like symtoms the Copper induces will start shining trough now.

I can have larger doses of the Zinc now, up to 15 mg per day. Essential is that I have some Methyl-B12 and folinic acid with every meal. And vit.D3 to get the day started. And Progesteron cream to aid the Methylation Cycle, not just to balance my hormones.

With the folinic acid I noticed my body has an active craving for it, as soon as I hold the pill in my hand. It took a while for me to decide if this is the legitimate feeling of “want that! need that!” or the more addictional craving like “want that! WANT that!“.
The last one should not be fed. Each and every food or substance that induces that feeling inside me is bad for the system: sugar, rancid oils in chips/crisps, E261, fast food, food additives, drugs and nicotine (I presume)

pic by Alison Taylor

It is a wonderous feeling, to have your body actively indicating it wants something badly. I had it with the food supplement Lithium, years ago. I have it with Demeter products such as full cream butter versus commercial foods. I have it with unpasteurized cheese (“Boerenkaas”) versus most cheeses available at the shops. I have it with the one sunsoaked blackberry in the hedge versus the little waterballoons sold at the shops. But that last one is probably dictated by my mind, with me being in the field with the bees and the dragon flies and all that.
The other ones can be checked with a double blind experiment. And they have.

pic by Enrica Bressan

Other substances that my body needs do not give that reaction. The progesteron cream for example. As soon as I apply it my body relaxed. But up front, without touching it, there’s no indication it benefits from it. Weird.

Anyway. The Folinic acid.
I checked online what other people take as doses. I checked only with people who have the same DNA mutations as I do.
They vary from 800 mcg to 3,2 mg to temporarily doses of 7,5 mcg.
Up untill now I was careful not to exceed 1,2 mg but now I will up the doses to (not more than) 3,2 mg. In small nibbles through the day, whenever my body needs it to process food. It’s half time is six hours so that’s breakfast, brunch, late lunch and (small) supper at 16 hour. Brunch being the main meal and meals getting smaller after that. No meal bigger in volume than one fist. To stop insuline from happening.

A volume bigger than this will trigger insuline, even if it’s just a sugarfree salade.

My research was on the forums of 23andme.com and on the forums of ME site of forums.phoenixrising.me
Here are the people who find their way through the same wild lands of pioneering medicine as I am.

As I felt a bit better I did two things: I took a week long holiday in Ireland and I drove 500 km in my own car on a Summersday.

pic by Alan Witikoski awitikoski

The holiday was nice but an attack on the system. My bile stopped flowing (I have no idea why) so I had minimal uptake of nutriënts and minimal shedding of toxins for ten days. Only four days after returning to the cabin my bowelmovements started to look nice and dark again and my body felt better.
During the holiday, my hydrocortison kept me going. Which is a risky means to an end.

There were lovely moments in Ireland, staying with my aunt in a cabin of her own. Us having meals together at the table, with real crockery, the lovely chatting,  us laughing at her chickens. It was great!

pic by Michael & Christa Richert

Once home I was on my own again at my cabin, still on a high from the travelling. It is evigorating, don’t you find? Being part of the global community. Looking at other parts of the world, renewing your eyes for your own part.

That’s in part why I grabbed my car and made a big tour through the Netherlands. I went to all the provinces in the North. I had my car equipped with supplies: salted water; gingerbuttercake; a few grapes; lavendel oil; a lazy chair and crochet projects and a book and a sketch book to have rests whenever I felt like it.
It felt great! Being on the road, going wherever I wanted to go, seeing landscapes change, see other people driving and being free. Wasting petrol because sometimes you can just go and waste petrol because you LIVE.

I saw a stork on a lamp post. I felt such freedom and independence. I still do.

 

 

Now I am back home again, in the cabin. And, with my somewhat clearer mind, I have started working again, on one of my five jobs: designer. Or illustrator, to be more precise. I’ll show you if I got some actual things. Right now it’s in that precious state of nursing and not talking too much about it lest it withers before it came alive.

pic by Jean-Paul Brouard