dlp252

Well, it looks like I didn't keep much specific about treatments, but did see this from one of the links I kept:

How is H. pylori treated?

H. pylori is difficult to eradicate from the stomach because it is capable of developing resistance to commonly used antibiotics. Therefore, two or more antibiotics usually are given together with a PPI and/or bismuth containing compounds to eradicate the bacterium. (Bismuth and PPIs have anti-H. pylori effects.) Examples of combinations of medications that are effective are:

a PPI, amoxicillin (Amoxil) and clarithromycin (Biaxin)

a PPI, metronidazole (Flagyl), tetracycline and bismuth subsalicylate

These combinations of medications can be expected to cure 70%-90% of infections. However, studies have shown that resistance of H. pylori (failure of antibiotics to eradicate the bacteria) to clarithromycin is common among patients who have prior exposure to clarithromycin or other chemically similar macrolide antibiotics (such as erythromycin). Similarly, H. pylori resistance to metronidazole is common among patients who have had prior exposure to metronidazole. In these patients, doctors have to find other combinations of antibiotics to treat the H. pylori. Antibiotic resistance is another reason why antibiotics should be used carefully and judiciously for the right reasons, and indiscriminate use of antibiotics for improper reasons should be discouraged.

Some doctors may want to confirm eradication of H. pylori after treatment with a urea breath test or a stool antigen test, particularly if there have been serious complications of the infection such as perforation or bleeding in the stomach or duodenum. Endoscopic biopsies to determine eradication of the bacteria are not necessary, and blood tests are not good for determining eradication since it takes many months for the antibodies to H. pylori to decrease. The best tests for determining eradication are the breath and stool tests discussed previously. Patients who fail to eradicate H. pylori with treatment are retreated, often with a different combination of medications.

Here is the site where that came from:

Open Original Shared Link

Yeah, I had to take the Prevpac and was afraid of reaction, and while I was doing a bit of research I did see that there were some other things that they could prescribe, but that this was the most effective...sorry I don't remember what it was now. I'll check to see if I kept any links. Fortunately for me I was okay with it.

Re the titanium thing...I debated on whether to say anything about it or not, and I'm just going to make this little statement and then let it go, but the only two metals I was NEVER able to wear as jewelry (specifically earrings) are Platinum and Titanium. I got my ears pierced way back in the late 60s, and was able to wear just about any kind of metal, even the cheap stuff, silver, gold, etc. When I got married (in the late 70s), my husband bought me a nice pair of diamond earring studs set in Platinum for Christmas...I put them in and within an hour had to take them out. I could still wear cheap stuff, silver, gold. Then in the early 90s, I bought some earrings that were titanium...same thing, had to take them out within an hour, but could still wear some cheap stuff, silver and gold. Once I started getting sick, I could no longer wear the cheap stuff, then eventually couldn't wear silver and now can't wear any metal at all. So while something may be completely safe for a most people, it most certainly doesn't mean someone can't be sensitive to it. Just doesn't hurt to know that's it's possible.

I am glad you were able to go to work on Monday, despite your back being out. Thank goodness the PT could get you in so quickly! Chiropractic adjustments do wonders from what I hear! I wish I could get one. Maybe that would help me.

Rolling your spine helps, which I should begin doing again.

Goodness have you had a lot of injuries! I always was hyper. Even as young as three, I got myself into trouble. I have my scars as well. Luckily, I do not have quite as many as you do!

It was smart being careful on the treadmill at work. You do not want to overdo it. A back can only take so much! Here is something you might find helpful. I just found out more recently that if you are pear-shaped, you should avoid using stairmasters and walking on inclines, because it bulks you up instead of slimming you down. That explains a lot for me, because it appears I have been doing the wrong exercises to slim down!

Yes, this clinic is WONDERFUL about getting you in if you are sick/hurt and they take it all seriously, lol, even colds and flu. I tried to call in once to cancel my appointment because I was sick, but they wouldn't let me...they wanted me to come in anyway so the PT guys could give me a lymph massage. They're taking this latest injury seriously too...doc wants to see me tomorrow too.

I was pretty hyper as a child and in some ways I still can't sit still...I'm always moving something. I may be lazy, but my feet just can't sit still.

Interesting about the pear shape...I do tend to be pear shape although not seriosly pronounced unless I've gained a lot of weight.

Also, you asked about the neurotransmitter results...still don't have them, but while I was in the office yesterday for my PT/chiro appointment, the other doctor told me that the labs have come in, but he is in discussion with the lab over interpretation of something. Must be interesting. Leave it to me to have something totally weird. He DID say that there were some things that were off, but I won't know what they are until he gets everything straightened out.

Aw Susie - I understand completely. Take as much time as you need, but hope you will come back once in a while to just say hi!

I had 3 scopes done last year. Two of them were only a week apart, and the third was 3 months after the second one. I don't think there is any time limit on how often...while it's a fairly safe procedure, the only issues would be the issues that you'd have on any procedure whether you have one or many...sedation, risks of injury, etc. I'm pretty sensitive to the sedation, but even that wasn't a problem having them so close together.

Thanks for the info Rachel. I've copied the stuff from that link...I've been eating a lot of stuff that probably has aspergillus! It's good to see it all in one place.

I'm trying to make a list so when I go shopping Saturday I can go low oxalate AND aspergillus free.

What test did you have for aspergillus?? Was it for allergy or actual infection? If its an infection how are you treating it?? I'm assuming it was Dr. S. that tested you. My appt. with him is next week....I have my CT scan later today.

Okay, looks like it was IgG...so that's more allergy though, right? The lab was Alletess Medical and it's called a RAST & IMMUNOGLOBULINS REPORT.

These were tested:

Penicillium notatum, the IgG score was 7034, and the class (whatever the heck that means) was 4+

Aspergillus fumigatus, IgG score 4631, class 3+

Stachybotrys chartarum, IgG 3444, class 2+

There are some ranges (with the notation that they are for research only), from 0 (0-1,670) to 6+ (>9,501)

Dr. S highlighted in yellow all three of these as problems for me, but didn't say anything about treatment.

It was so busy this afternoon, every time I tried to post someone would give me a ton of work.

Rachel, I meant to ask about the B vitamins too. Do you (or anyone) else know of a way to tell if they're made in connection with aspergillus? I'm taking a liquid B complex and sublingual B-12, plus whatever is in the multivitamin. I bought all of these (including the multivitamin) from Anna or Dr. S, so they're good brands, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're safe from aspergillus I guess. I sure wish there was an easy way to tell from looking at the labels, lol.

Donna...be careful of B-vitamins...I dont know if you're taking a multi or not but alot of them come from aspergillus.

What test did you have for aspergillus?? Was it for allergy or actual infection? If its an infection how are you treating it?? I'm assuming it was Dr. S. that tested you. My appt. with him is next week....I have my CT scan later today.

Yep, it was Dr. S. He did a blood test...I'll have to go home and look at it and see exactly what was tested. It's also come up a bunch of times with Anna. ART has found unnamed infections of all kinds. So far Dr. S isn't really treating me for anything. I got the impression he didn't want to do much until the mold thing was taken care of, but I'm going to specifically ask about treatment for something next time I see him (December), lol.

Sorry, how do you guys do that "quote" thing you do?

You have to surround the portion of text with HTML code. for instance at the beginning of the part to be quote you would type

(but with no space between the e and the ], and at the end of the portion to be quoted you would type [/quote ] (again without the space between the e and the ]).

You can also hit the "quote" button at the bottom of each post...you can keep doing that for all posts you want to quote, then when you hit the main reply button at the bottom of the page, all the quoted text comes up in a window. You can then delete out any text you don't want in but leaving the bracketed quote tags. You would type in your response after the [/quote tag.

Hope that makes sense...doesn't as I'm typing it, lol.

Mine has gone up slightly since I posted here. I've been doing a lot of things to support the adrenals, and we've also found out some things which could be causing the adrenals to be fatigued and are addressing those, so I think that has helped.

(take that double meaning any way you want )

OMGosh, good thing I didn't still have that big sip of water in my mouth that I just took, because it would have been all over my computer when I read this. :lol:

Scars...two from sugery: I have that big one on my abdomen...goes across and the ones from the surgery last year which is mostly internal, but two small on the outside. I also have one on my leg that I forget about...when I was very young I ran into a metal "survey" pole...those little sort of corkscrewy kind of skinny stakes that they tie little flags to. I was running at full speed and ran right into one of them and cut my shin open. I still have the scar from that although it is mostly faded now. That's on the left side. I also have a scar on my left instep from when I fell down my dad's driveway sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. My left foot kind of ended up underneath me and I slid down his graveled walk. That's largely faded too.

I've also had a couple of severe bruises that I can remember...one time my whole knee cap was blackened (feel on a wet floor at work back in the 70s). On my right front ankle area last year when I fell off the mini trampoline after getting my foot caught in the cover...I still have discoloration from that one.

Two broken toes ...about 17-18 years ago I dropped a piece of exercise equipment on them.

Gosh, I'm a bit accident prone aren't I.

I never give myself enough time to just heal before I over do it.

...

I did talk to my doctor about all this and I'm not doing any other detox things until we are done with all the IV's. See I'm rambling...going to veg and watch a little tv now. I sure hope I'm better tomorrow. I was just getting used to feeling good.

I'm sorry you've had a setback, but believe me I think we've ALL done that here...I know I have. I'm doing it now... And, if you're like me, you'll have a few more of these episodes before you really learn, lol. My doctor told me no strength work until I get over this back thing...so yesterday I was feeling really good and decided to get on the treadmill at work so to be safe I kept the speed very slow and no incline--that's not strength, right?! Well it went well for a few minutes so I decided to speed it up a bit and increase the incline...as soon as I did that I could feel a twinge in my back. Fortunately, I heeded the message THIS TIME and put the incline back to 0 and the speed back down, but I can't tell how many times in the past I would have just ignored that twinge. I think I'm finally getting it, but it's taken a long time!

Anyone here can tell you I've overdone it with just about everything you can think of....especially foods.

Who? Rachel?! Overdoing it?

Gout and pseudogout deal with other chemicals forming painful crystals (like uric acid) -- but they also lead to kidney stones and sore joints -- most notably that base of the big toe and big thumb joints! Seems like the same process at work here.

I forgot to mention the toe pain. That has increased significant over the last few months so the point that it is very painful to walk sometimes. I hadn't thought about gout, but it could be I guess. I've been eating chocolate... I eat lots of fat too.

Rachel - interesting on the Biotin. I'm sure it's in some of the vitamins I'm taking...I'll have to go home and tally up exactly how much I'm getting.

Hey K, congratulations on cutting back on the cigs and for being a bit closer to amalgam free!

Thanks Judy, pm'd you my email address.

Carla - forgot to mention how much I like the new avatar!

thanks for your personal story too

i think these really really help us all.

were you ever tested or the 'sphincter of oddi' mentioned to you?

San is having these issues too.

learning so much from you all

thanks

judy

Thanks Judy...nope never been tested for it and don't remember the GI even mentioning it. He found it by "accident" while doing an endoscopy (checking for celiac damage). Mine was HUGE. He couldn't reach it with the equipment he was using so I had a second endoscopy a week later so he could get a biopsy. That biospy showed that my cells looked possibly pre-cancerous, but after showing it to three different pathologists they weren't sure. He put me on Prilosec for a couple of months to see if it would affect how the cells looked. So after 3 months of the Prilosec I had another endoscopy for another biopsy. I never saw the results of the last one, but he said they concluded it was not precancer. I've not had any pain that I could specifically link with that area, but I've had that burning hunger feeling that I've seen described--mine happens in the middle of the night mostly but sometimes during the day. Eating does make it feel better, but I can tell that it's not hunger.

Hi Robbin, good to see you "back"! Thanks for the link!

Thanks everyone, my back is a bit better today. I'm glad I went in for treatment yesterday though. My back was definitely out of alignment. He said my left side was definitely higher than the right (by the way, he checks this every time he sees me, so it isn't normally higher, lol). The chiropractor adjusted me, then the PT worked on the muscle for 30 minutes. They put me in traction for 10 minutes then put ice on it for another 10 minutes. The doc said to keep icing it. I can use heat, but need to follow it up with ice. They don't want me to do any strength work until this clears up.

I brought a couple of ice packs to work, since sitting seems to be the most uncomfortable...I've iced it this morning and so far it's not bad. I still can't bend or stoop well, but mostly it's better. I see the PT/doc again tomorrow.

Oh and there was some discussion about tissue growth...I had that enlarged ampulla (it's the opening in the intestine where the bile and pancreatic ducts meet and empty into the intestine) that they found last year...so the discussion on the possible connection between oxalates and tissue growth is pretty interesting to me. I don't eat a lot of oxalates normally, but I crave foods with them in it. I'm pretty sure many of my 30 or so supplements are also high in it.

Well, finally read all 12 pages that I printed off yesterday, and caught up on what was posted after that. Prolific group!

I think my diet is fairly low oxalate, but I have few high oxalate things...especially nuts, that are probably a huge problem, and I definitely have an aspergillus problem (confirmed by blood test)...I have bacterial and fungal problems and have lyme, metals toxicity and mold toxicity (all confirmed by lab testing).

So, a little background for those who don't know me.

First off, I am the Rachelville pest relocation expert, lol. I also co-own the Rachelville bead store and do shopping consultations.

I live in Northern California and see many of the same practitioners as Rachel, although I've not met Rachel in person, lol. Someday we'll meet in one of those waiting rooms. I have been doing a combination of alternative testing and traditional testing. I'm finding ART and BioSET to be invaluable and so far all they have found has been confirmed by lab testing.

With that out of the way...

I have seen my health decline over the last 12 years or so. By the time I was 12 I had 11 fillings in my teeth...even my front tooth has a filling! About 12 years ago they started to deteriorate (according to my dentist) and needed to be replaced. Every one of those (except the front) were replaced. However, most needed crowns, so gold crowns were put on over them. None of the crowns ever seemed to "fit" right, and eventually those were replaced as well. Two of them then needed root canals.

The health decline started with repeated bouts of bronchitis and tonsilitis for which I was given antibiotics and codine cough syrups.

At some point I had shingles.

Then in 2001 I had a hysterectomy for large fibroids (someone asked about that here, lol). My uterus was removed and after the surgery, my doctor told me I had SOOOO many fibroids that he stopped counting at 20.

Within a year or two of that surgery my health really took a downturn. I had a nearly constant sinus infections...no exaggeration, had them about 6 weeks apart for the next three years. I was put on augmentin 875 for 10 days plus an 8 day course of prednisone, I'd finish the course, be well for a week or so, then it would start all over and I'd be given another round of antibiotics/prednisone. Towards the end of the 3 years, I was up to 4000mg (that's not a typo) of augmentin a day plus the prednisone. Some of the courses of antibiotics were 30 days and at least 1 or 2 were for 60 days.

The one good thing that came out of that period was that my doctor figured out I had a funal issue and had me go on the candida diet. I basically only ate meat and veggies during that time. Did that twice, and each time I did that diet strictly, my sinus issues stopped. The first time I did it I was free of sinus infections for 3 full months, but eventually got bored and needing confirmation went off the diet. A few months later I went back on it (a rotation version though) and was free of sinus issues for 6 months!

You'd think that would be enough confirmation, but it wasn't. At the end of that six months, I went on a cruise...for the first week I was great at sticking to my diet, with just a little extra fruit. By the end of the second week, I was eating full slices of cake and breads and stuff. I puffed up like a blow fish, gaining 10 pounds virtually overnight, but also developed much worse gastric symtoms, and got sick. Really sick. I got strep throat, followed by an ear infection followed by a sinus infection! It didn't take long to connect it all.

I started checking into the gluten connection, which led me to this site. After going gluten/casein free, many of my symptoms went away...the biggest being the sinus infections and joint pain. Some lingering symtpoms were extremely low blood pressure, disconnected brain (feeling like my brain was floating inside my head...a sense of being off balance, but not really dizzy), itchy skin, burning skin (like a really bad sunburn, but no redness or rash or other visible signs, clothing touching it is excruitiating), stiff extremely sore neck and a few others. All the while, I started developing severe TMJ symptoms.

So all that led me to the OMG thread, and to some of Rachel's doctors, and consequently to the discovery of many of the things that have been causing all of it. So, all of my diagnoses since October of last year have been from the doctors I am seeing now. The one thing I've still been plagued with is extreme fatigue, insomnia, D, low blood pressure, sore stiff neck. One of the symptoms that went away but has returned is joint pain. My LLMD was really surprised I had never been given the courtesy of a Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue diagnosis...so he tacked those on, which in my opinion is just fine because he isn't just leaving it at that...when it comes time to treat some of this stuff, those diagnoses will be better recognized by the insurance companies.

So all this discussion of oxalates and the fungal connection is quite interesting to me, and I'm especially interested in some of the symptoms you are all seeing improvements with.

I love those heating pads! Glad you were able to get to work today. Hope the PT's can fit you in today too though. That's be really nice.

Yep, they got me in at noon, so I'll leave in about an hour.

Hello all, I'm so very interested in this topic, but haven't read the whole thread yet, lol. I'm printing it off now, and will read it and then hopefully join the discussion.

Hey Jin! Yep, I am at work and COULD probably stay all day, but I'm not going to. I've called (although had to leave a message cuz they didn't answer the phone) the PT/chiropractor's office to see if I can get in this morning. The pain is not excruciating fortunately, but it is there, and even now sitting and typing I can feel it in the low back which is usually not an issue for me. I can feel it every time I stoop or bend in any way, and sitting, or standing for too long. So, as soon as they call me I'll leave, hopefully stop for the appointment, then go home and put heat on it.

I took an epsom salt bath yesterday evening which didn't help a lot, but didn't hurt either. Spent the entire day (nearly) laying on a heating pad or warmy bag. That seemed to help more than anything.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to one and all!!!!

OMGOSH!!!! I just threw my back out! Holy heck...I was trying to straighten up the livingroom a bit and I picked up a life sized West Highland White Terrier statue to move it someplace and I guess I was angled weird, cuz I felt the sharp pain almost immediately (although sharp it was barely noticable if that makes any sense). Instead of putting the stupid thing down, which I didn't want to do because I didn't want it in that spot anymore and the pain didn't seem that bad, lol, I carried it to the new location...the whole time feeling the pain intensify. It doesn't hurt if I am absolutely still, but moving in any direction, sitting, standing, walking, bending over, stooping, etc. causes pain. Darned statue isn't even heavy...it can't be more than 10-15 pounds and that's like nothing to me, lol, especially lifting it with two hands. Heck I regularly lift more than that with one hand so it had to be the WAY I picked it up. I've had ice on it and now heat...not sure which is better, but I'm thinking heat because it seems like a spasm maybe.

[edited out stuff about Co-Q10 because stupid AOL lost my connection while I was editing it and deleted half the post! Grrrr! Sorry but I don't have the energy to redo it.]