Chronic Fatique Syndrome Frequently Asked Questions

Important: This section is only for people who have read Action Pack 1 and have a thorough understanding of all aspects of Dr Mason Brown's treatment. The information in this section must not be used without this knowledge.

PLEASE NOTE: WE ARE ONLY ABLE TO ANSWER FAQ'S SENT IN BY PEOPLE FOLLOWING THE ACTION PACKS

1. I am having a flare up of infections and my lymph glands are swelling. What should I do?

4. What do I do if I have discomfort or pain whilst listening to the mind body cassette, meditating, or praying?

11. I have received and read through/listened to your Action Pack 1, but cannot obtain Nimodipine through my GP. Are there other ways of obtaining this drug?

12. I am following the advice from Action Pack 1, but I am starting to show signs of infection. What is happening and what should I do about it?

16. In your section on detoxification, why not tell everyone to avoid alcohol or coffee?

18. What is Leaky Gut Syndrome and how can it and Food allergies be dealt with?

19. I have developed extra nasal catarrh, sinusitis, asthma, or excess weight with fluid retention. Why is it happening and what can be done about it?

20. I began taking nimodipine 2 weeks ago. Since then I have had frequent feelings of nausea, but the recurrent headache I have had has not seemed to go away. I did think at one point that it lessened, but now it seems to be a bit worse. I have tried stopping the nimodipine for a couple of days, but this did not affect the headache. I have now restarted on a smaller dose - an 1/8 of a tablet. Previously, I tried to increase the dosage to a 1/2 but found that I had a brief moment of quickened heart beat when I woke up the next day - I interpreted this as a sign that it was too much. But was I wrong? Do you think I am taking too much or too little nimodipine, my cognitive faculties seem to be functioning quite well?

21. I no longer sleep for most of the day and night, but now only feel sleepy at about 4 or 5am. Is insomnia normal with this condition and is there anything I can do to help regulate my sleeping pattern? I listen every night to the relaxation tape in action pack 1. I am hoping my insomnia is a sign of getting better or maybe it is wishful thinking on my part.

22. I have studied all of Action Pack 1 and am taking Nimodopine, Prime Directive and L-Glutamine. I am still having very bad 'down' periods and want to know about the chemical solvents found in so many household cleaners and even toothpastes I've been told. Do you know of a company who do mail order (or are in the London region) who sell toxin free shampoos, face creams, washing up liquids etc. I was cleaning some brass with Brasso and suddenly felt very unwell as I was in an enclosed space in the kitchen and the fumes just hit me. I looked at the ingredients on the backof an ordingary Nivea dry skin cream and I hadn't realised all the things that were in it. Maybe they are not harmful to most people, but to those of us with depressed imminue systems it all looked rather forbidding. I would be most grateful for any information.

1. I am having a flare up of infections and my lymph glands are swelling. What should I do?

What you are describing is actually a sign of your further progress to recovery. You are beginning to have an immune response again. You may have had chronic infection and inflammation in your body for a long period, that was not being dealt with due to a depressed immune system, so that your body and individual organs were not able to respond to infection or inflammation.

However, whenever your body is dealing with infection, whether new or latent from the past, it is important to temporarily reduce the rate of detoxification, and also to rest more, so that your immune system can deal with it.

When the immune system at long last starts to work, you start to get aching or even inflammation in areas where the immune response occurs, as the white cells rush in to deal with the problem, for example in lymph glands, or other organs.

In the old days before antibiotics when an individual had pneumonia, if they were going to survive, they had what was called a Crisis, when their temperature went up, they sweated, they ached, and their immune system attacked and overcame the infection. On the other hand if their immune system was weakened and they could not have a proper crisis, they often died, which is why pneumonia in these days was called the old person's friend; it let them slip quietly away.

Your pituitary is starting to function again. It is also responsible for triggering sex hormone function, but, especially in women, to begin with there can be an imbalance, and that can give symptoms. Your body is starting to come out of hibernation, it is starting to feel and function again. It can temporarily be quite a shock to the system, so you must be kind to yourself, pace yourself with the resting and the detoxification, and allow your immune system to do its bit as it starts to function again.

This is an important note for your doctor: sometimes the improved circulation can reactivate bacterial infection that has been dormant in an area where the circulation was not getting to the tissues effectively. If that is the case one may temporarily need an antibiotic. The one Dr Mason Brown uses is Ciproxin 250mg One twice a day for five days. It is far better tolerated in ME patients than drugs like Augmentin, and it really penetrates the soft tissues which is essential to destroy the residual infection. Antibiotics with less penetrating power, such as amoxycillin, or erythromycin, do not clear up the infection in inflammed areas, just leaving bacteria to start up again later.

Australian doctors seem to be very aware of this problem and dealing with it is helping many people to speed up their recovery. Dr Mason Brown tries to avoid using antibiotics, but this is one area where a short five day course can make a dramatic difference, and longer term defects are avoided by the Prime Directive. (link to prime directive on the supplements page)

It is a very important principal of medical practice to check that there are no interactions between prescribed medicines, whether they are prescribed or not and herbal products, foods or even minerals. The person to ask is you pharmacist or your GP.

Remember however, if your GP looks up nimodipine, he or she is seeing it in the British context of eight tablets a day used for patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage. That dose can lower the blood pressure and interact with blood pressure medication. However, there is no problem with the lowering of blood pressure when the ME protocol is followed as the dosage used is so small.

This is because one is using a thirty-second the dose of Nimodipine used for subarachmoid haemorrhage. To put it in perspective, it is the difference between having a few sips of wine and drinking the whole bottle.

If there is poor kidney function, which can occur due to toxicity or recurrent infection in ME it is important to start with a small dose for example, one eighth or one sixteenth of a tablet every third day. This is important if the patient has been severely ill or bedridden for many years and is due to the release of trapped toxins in the brain.

All medication should be avoided during the first three months of pregnancy and it is good policy to avoid medication altogether during pregnancy if possible. This includes Nimodipine, but reproductive toxicology studies in animals with oral nimodipine have shown no teratogenic (teratogenic=potentially cancer producing) effect.

In the last seven years we have only had one person allergic to nimodipine and they were allergic to all the calcium antagonists.

There is usually no problem with the lowering of blood pressure when the ME protocol is followed as the dosage of Nimodipine used is so small. If an individual needed to work up to a larger dose of nimodipine over time, for example, four tablets a day, which is very unusual, then it would be prudent to have your GP check your blood pressure as usual.

However remember, if your GP looks up nimodipine, he or she is seeing it in the British context of eight tablets a day used for patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage. That dose can lower the blood pressure whether with or without other calcium antagonists. The usual starting dose with the ME protocol is a quarter tablet, which is one thirty-second the starting dose for subarachnoid haemorrhage treatment. To put it in perspective it is the difference between a few sips of wine and drinking a whole bottle.

If there is poor kidney function, which can be present in some patients with high blood pressure or can occur due to toxicity or recurrent infection in ME, it is important to start with a small dose, for example, one eighth or one sixteenth of a tablet every third day. This is important if the patient has been severely ill or bedridden for many years. In the last seven years we have only had one person allergic to nimodipine and they were allergic to all the calcium antagonists.

4. What do I do if I have discomfort or pain whilst listening to the mind body cassette, meditating, or praying?

When learning how to use the healing alpha state of 8 to 12 brain cycles per second there are always distractions. These can be your thoughts, especially negative emotions, such as frustration, resentment, and even anger. There can be distracting noises, the room too hot or too cold, etc. But one of the strongest distractions is pain, especially when it is chronic. In the longer term the causes of those pains, rather than just the symptoms, need to be treated.

Please remember that at any time when in the alpha state, either when listening to a cassette, or just relaxing or praying by oneself, one can move about as much as you like, rather like waking up during the night, feeling uncomfortable, moving around to a more comfortable position, and then going back to sleep again.

Medical hypnotherapy can help reduce pain greatly. Dr Mason Brown uses techniques of pain conversion to either heat or coolness, e.g. heat for stomach, coolness for forehead. You decide whether the particular area of pain or discomfort would feel better if the pain was converted to a warm or cool feeling. You then visualise as you breath in, the warmth or coolness going to the area, and as you breath out, the pain just being breathed out into the distance.

Another technique is to become aware of the area of pain and just imagine that area becoming smaller and smaller, and that you have volume control in your hand, rather like a TV remote, except instead of volume of sound, this one controls the volume of pain. All these techniques are much easier to learn than people realise.

Dr Mason Brown is a former member of council of the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis (Scotland). The society has branches throughout the United Kingdom and if you need extra help one of their members could teach you to get deeper into the alpha state and also to reduce the pain. Some of the dentists are especially good at this. Make sure when you enquire about your local branch that you say it is about pain relief for headaches, fibromyalgia, and if there is someone who sees a lot of ME patients, then so much the better.

Nutrients: If you have chronic pain it is important that you take enough Evening Primrose Oil for your prostaglandin E1 to reduce inflammation, especially if you have chronic headaches or fibromyalgia. If there is muscle spasm, increased heart rate or palpitations, or period pains, it is important that you take enough magnesium to relieve the spasm. People with bone and joint pain need enough calcium, magnesium, and zinc, and also glucosamine and chondroitin.

Dr Mason Brown never puts any pressure on GPs to prescribe nimodipine on the NHS. it is just not fair if they have a difficult local situation. However GPs, who have seen the improvement in earlier patients, are now increasingly insisting on prescribing it on the NHS. There is no greater advocate than the convert, especially once they realise the dangers of cerebral anoxia and toxicity in CFS / ME.

Dr Teitelbaum is believed to have new double-blind trial information pending, but except for the over one hundred patients that nimodipine has help restore to quality of life with Dr Mason Brown's use of nimodipine over seven years, there is the following:

Goldstein JA, Mena I (1994) Pre- and post-nimodipine brain SPECT in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Presented at American Association for CFS Research Conference, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Oct 8.

Goldstein JA, Mena I, Yunus MB. (1993) Regional cerebral blood flow by SPECT in CFS with and without firbromyalgia syndrome. Arth Rheum 39(9/suppl.): 205

Goldstein JA
Brain SPECT scans in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were done with Ismael Mena, MD, Professor of Radiology, University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. Temporal lobe hypoperfusion was found in this population. SPECT scans have been performed before and after exercise, treatment, and activation by doing calculations.

Post-exercise SPECT and post-treatment scans show worsening of baseline blood flow impairment. 5) PET Scans in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome were performed with Monte Buchsbaum, MD, and Steven Lottenberg, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. This paper was presented at the American Psychiatric Association Meeting in New Orleans, May, 1991.

Could Low Levels of Cerebrospinal Fluid Endothelin Explain the Vasoconstrictive Response to Nimodipine seen in Pre- and Post-Treatment Brain SPECT of CFS/FMS Patients? Poster presented at 3rd World Congress on Myofascial Pain and Fibromyalgia, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas, July 30, 1995.

Pazzaglia PJ, George MS, Post RM, Rubinow DR, Davis CL. (1995) Nimodipine increases CSF (cerebro-spinal fluid) somatostatin in affectively ill patients. Neuropsychopharacol 13: 75-83.

Tettenborn D, Fierus M, (1993) Clinical aspects of nimodipine treatment in brain ischaemia. In Scriabine A, Janis RA, Triggle DJ (Eds), Drugs in Development (vol 2: Ca 2+ Antagonists in the CNS, pp. 473-482). Brandford, Connecticut: Neva Press.

Extracted from BETRAYAL BY THE BRAIN: THE NEUROLOGICAL BASIS OF CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME AND RELATED NEURAL NETWORK DISORDERSBETRAYAL BY THE BRAIN: THE NEUROLOGICAL BASIS OF CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, FIBROMYALGIA SYNDROME, AND RELATED NEURAL NETWORK DISORDERSby Dr. Jay A Goldstein
(summarized by Dr. J. A Sherkey; full text available from The Haworth Medical Press 1-800-3 HAWORTH. Reprinted on the CFS Society of Victoria's web site with the kind permission from Dr Sherkey.)

People who have been ill for years can feel normal in a few minutes after taking the right medication. Patients whose symptoms do not wax and wane may have structural lesions and/or genetic dysfunctions that are not amenable to rapid remediation. These patients tend to respond poorly to the medications on the neurosomatic treatment protocol but may improve with antidepressants. The most effective medications are nimodipine, gabapentin, oxytocin, baclofen and intravenous lidocaine. A central noradrenergic deficit appears likely, perhaps accompanied by a neuropeptide Y and an oxytocin deficiency. Some of the medications do not cross the blood-brain barrier yet are still very effective. It is poorly appreciated by many clinicians how profoundly the brain can be modulated by molecules acting at the level of peripheral nerves, or autonomic ganglia. Acupuncture also has this mode of action. Most neurosomatic patients can remarkedly improved in a short time with medications that have a good risk-benefit ratio. Proof of Disability for Insurance: 1)SPECT scan - has to be done on a 'brain dedicated SPECTscanner

ME is a condition with poor circulation to the brain. This, especially if associated with dehydration can cause chronic headache, that sometimes can be severe. Also there is a varying degree of inflammation due to the toxic substances produced by nerve cells and trapped in the brain, and these can cause headaches. Also any chronic stress or negative emotions, such as frustration, resentment, and especially emotions like anger, can increase headaches and pain.

Read the extended protocol on nimodipine in your ME Action Pack 1 or sent with your prescription. You have to become your own expert in dosage as each individual is different.

Individuals with recurrent or chronic severe headaches have all the greater need for nimodipine, but if they are severely ill or have been untreated for a long time, they may need to start with a smaller dose than usual, in very few people, this may be as low a dose as an eighth or a sixteenth every third day. These are the exceptions, because the usual NHS dose of nimodipine for patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage is eight tablets a day.

If you are suffering from recurrent or chronic severe headaches it is necessary to take quite large doses of Evening Primrose Oil (see related questions) and the Ginkgo biloba. It will also be necessary to take a probiotic. The one Dr Mason Brown recommends is Prime Directive.

Remember to drink eight glasses of water daily to flush out the released toxins.

No. Not in the doses used in the ME protocol. The doses of nimodipine used in treating ME are tiny, starting at a quarter tablet or less, compared to the dose, eight tablets a day, used to treat someone with a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Look at it this way, it is the difference between having a few sips of wine as compared to drinking the whole bottle.

It is the correct use of dosage for the individual that has taken the seven years work, and those individuals who have had ME Action Pack 1, or been at ME Workshop 1 are given the full dosage protocol, which is constantly updated.

Remember that in ME there is neurally mediated hypotension with reduced circulation to the brain. This reduced brain circulation and lower blood pressure is worse in the morning, when your cortisol level will also be lower. The nimodipine also helps your pituitary circulation as well and that releases the trigger hormones for your body glands, including the adrenals, the thyroid, and sex glands.

Until the backlog of neurotoxins have been removed from the brain and your brain circulation is restored to normal, proper recovery cannot begin.

Please remember that this is only the beginning, the next stages are the whole body circulation, the removal of toxins from the body, returning the digestive tract to normal, replacing all the missing nutrients, including l-glutamine, and finally getting the physical fitness back, so that you can have quality of life with health, stamina, and balance in all the things you do.

Answer: You can be allergic to anything. However, in my experience, over the last seven years there has only been one person that was allergic to nimodipine and they had several allergies, including being allergic to all the calcium antagonists. If an individual has a known allergy to calcium antagonists, they should not take nimodipine. There are other brain circulation alternatives that are also being tried, but nimodipine has stood the test of time.

Answer: In the very small dosages used in the nimodipine protocol for ME the side effects are not usually due to the nimodipine, but due to the release of the neurotoxins. Neurotoxins are the waste products produced by brain cells that, in someone with ME, have been trapped in the brain due to the poor circulation. The side effects of the neurotoxins being released are usually tiredness, nausea, a feeling of facial flushing, or temporary increased heart rate.

Please remember that a very common cause of increased heart rate in CFS / ME is excess and inappropriate use of the Fight Flight response due to improper pacing or due to temporary viral damage to heart muscle.

If an individual has been severely ill or bed ridden for a long time, then the trapped neurotoxins will be greater and these patients should follow the sections in the protocol on starting with smaller doses, for example a sixteenth of a tablet every three days to slow the neurotoxin release.

The work of nimodipine is at least fourfold: to release the backlog of neurotoxins and waste products from the brain, to open up the brain circulation, to allow in oxygen and nutrients to enter and to help cognitions, pineal, hypothalamic, and pituitary function. Nimodipine can later be used, rather like an angina patient uses their spray, or an asthmatic their inhaler.

To begin with, the effect of nimodipine is rather like a car driver using jump leads to start a car with a flat battery. Later on the brain without its toxic load and now with enough oxygen and nutrients, starts to function spontaneously again, and at this point the dose of nimodipine may become too much and be able to be reduced. This is usually shown by facial flushing or by a headache. The patient starts the following day on a quarter tablet less of the nimodipine.

Later there will be further reductions in dose until it is only used intermittently. For example, Dr Mason Brown does not need it on holiday, but may need some if working a twelve-hour day. That was not helped by the fact that he did what he hopes you will avoid, namely after partly recovering, struggling to keep working part time for eight years in the NHS under cover of large doses of prescribed medication, which hid headaches and muscle pains, so that damage was caused. It took him eight years to relearn to write with his right hand. Please do not do that to yourselves. Learn from his mistakes.

Answer: It depends on the form that the Ginkgo Biloba comes in. The two commonest forms are as the dried leaf or as a tincture. Dr Mason Brown has used the dried leaf starting with a dose of 400 mg daily.

The more stressed an individual is or the more they have been needing to use their Fight Flight Response in an inappropriate way to keep going, the more the blood thickens. (This is described in Action Pack 1) This is made worse, for example, if fear is also present. One example of this is someone on a long haul flight with a fear of flying. They are much more likely to have an embolus develop from the micro clots as more and more platelets stick to them.

The usual dose range of the dried leaf form of Ginkgo is 400 mg one a day to one three times a day. When an individual has improved their brain circulation and is able to learn to elicit the Relaxation Response either by meditation or deep contemplative prayer, (see ME Action Pack 1 Cassette Two Mind Body Medicine) the less Ginkgo they will need.

11: I have received and read through/listened to your Action Pack 1, but cannot obtain Nimodipine through my GP. Are there other ways of obtaining this drug?

Answer: The details for obtaining a private prescription from Dr Mason Brown are in your Action Pack. See the section 'Nimodipine Prescription Form' and the 'Protocol Information' that follows it. The page numbers are on
the contents page. See also the Sections starting with Improving Blood Circulation, Dosage Protocol, Obtaining nimodipine (includes why your doctor has difficulty prescribing it on the NHS).

Please remember with the Brain Fog that we all get, it is difficult for ME patients to take in information. It is the brain fog that the Nimodipine starts to treat by removing the neurotoxins from the brain and then restoring brain and pituitary circulation. Untreated, our brains can be rather like a computer without enough electricity or like a heart without enough circulation.

12: I am following the advice from Action Pack 1, but I am starting to show signs of infection. What is happening and what should I do about it??

Answer: You are still on the healing curve. At the worst stages of your illness your immune system was so suppressed that you may not have experienced the typical symptoms of infection, so instead of showing up as they normally would like the symptom of sneezing in a cold, you might have experienced further exacerbation of your ME symptoms instead.

You will have a backlog of infections in your body, to say nothing of other concurrent new infections, that your immune system is having to start to deal with.

It is rather like when the anti-oxidant Revenol starts to offload the toxins. If you release too much or do too much you crash. It is the same here. Like when you have excess toxin release, you are at the moment having to deal with excess of infection. Pacing is of the utmost importance at this stage.

There are two main treatments for viral load. One is Olive Leaf Extract.
The other is Colloidal Silver. They work synergistically together.

Both these products can be obtained from Equilibrium. As with the Revenol if you overload you may feel over tired, or nauseous or have liver overload with even slight jaundice. If this occurs it is important to reduce the dose until the symptoms have disappeared. The viruses and any remaining bacteria have to be eradicated for your long-term stamina and quality of life.

If you have clinical evidence of chronic infection, for example of your ears, the best antibiotic is Ciproxin 250mg Tabs 1 twice a day for five to ten days. It is generally well tolerated by ME patients.

Answer: It is a very important principal of medical practice to check that there are no interactions between prescribed medicines, or for that matter medicines, herbal products, foods or even minerals. The person to ask is your pharmacist or your GP.

Remember however, if your GP looks up nimodipine, he or she is seeing it in the British context of eight tablets a day used for patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage. That dose can lower the blood pressure. There is no problem with the lowering of blood pressure when the ME protocol is followed as the dosage used is so small.

If there is poor kidney or liver function, which can occur due to toxicity or recurrent infection in ME it is important to start with a small dose, for example, one eighth or one sixteenth of a tablet every third day. This is important if the patient has been severely ill or bedridden for many years.

All medication should be avoided during the first three months of pregnancy and it is good policy to avoid medication during pregnancy if possible. This includes Nimodipine, but reproductive toxicology studies in animals with oral nimodipine have shown no negative effect on unborn babies.

In the last seven years there has been one person allergic to nimodipine that I know of, and they were allergic to all the calcium antagonists.

Answer: The perceived wisdom in the United Kingdom is that there are no neurological signs in ME. This is despite neurological signs having been noted by doctors as long as sixty-five years ago. It has been in North American (and at least one British one) textbooks since 1992, in modern books, and neurological signs in ME were first reported in 1934.

I know of several cases where British doctors have changed a patient with a long term CFS/ME diagnosis to one of MS after finding neurological signs. It is what I call "forcing into the glass slipper diagnosis". One psychiatrist said that as there were no neurological signs in CFS/ME, they did not test for them. This is a typical Catch 22.

As one of the main detrimental effects in ME is the decreased circulation, if this effects the area of the brain which controls a foot, it follows there can be such symptoms as foot drop. Another example, was a child, whose head could drop forward into a bowl of food, was said to be attention seeking. On examination I found neurological causes.

Every patient with ME has elements of decreased brain circulation. The symptoms of this depend on where the circulation defects are.

If the decreased brain circulation is in the area of the hypothalamus, temperature control can be affected. If it is at the pineal gland low melatonin levels can result. Decreased circulation at the pituitary can effect levels of any of the trigger hormones to the thyroid, the adrenals, sex glands, etc. This is why some patients have adrenal atrophy, etc. Nimodipine helps return function, but it may take six months or more.

Many other areas of the brain can also be affected by poor circulation including the cognitive areas, and literally every part of the brain.

Ideally every genuinely ill ME patient should have an exercise and or mental activity stress test with a brain circulation spectrum scan so that the precise nature of the brain circulation defect is known. This would be the equivalent of an exercise testing ECG for angina.

The nimodipine works in stages, initially relieving cerebral spasm, then slowly flushing out neurotoxins, and finally maximising brain function.

Also it has to be combined with the right dose of Ginkgo biloba for blood viscosity and enough water, eight glasses a day to flush toxins out.

Then and only then has the nimodipine paved its way to the next stages, which are the whole body beginning to come out of hibernation as the brain and nervous system work again.

Then one adds the Prime Directive, which helps the bowel to be cleansed so that it can absorb trace elements and nutrients, help kill residual candida, pathogenic bacteria, etc.

Then one puts in the nutrients, detoxifies with the antioxidants, especially in cases with organophosphate toxicity, etc.

Getting better is a journey, and in the most ill and longest ill it may take six months to several years. We know from the past that there are people out there who are still very ill after forty years if they are not treated.

So I say, nimodipine helps twenty per cent very quickly, another twenty per cent over six months, and all others to varying degrees over a period of time. It can also help over time with academic abilities, passing university finals, etc.

16. In your section on detoxification, why not tell everyone to avoid alcohol or coffee?

This would be too much of a generalisation. It depends on the individual person's electro-magnetic quantum field. Whenever any of us put into our field something that is bad for us, our general body charge reduces. I tell people to drink eight glasses of water a day. I do not think I have told anyone to drink alcohol or coffee. However, part of getting to know yourself, is
learning how to be aware of what you can or cannot take.

For example, coffee no matter how strong does not give me any palpitations or any other defects. A person living on their nerves and over using their
fight-flight should not take it. Tea is good for most people. It contains a
xanthine diuretic called theobrome. Coffee contains a xanthine diuretic
called caffeine. Both of these can help flush out toxins. Alcohol is also a
diuretic.

There are over 800 toxic substances in the average human's body fat. There
are over three thousand additives in our food. There are over 68,000
substances in world-wide production. There are all the aerosols, the home
cleansing products, personal care products, and make up. I train individual
patients to be able to detect which things they can and cannot take. I also
train them to work out precisely the exact dose of any drug or nutrient on a
daily basis. This speeds up recovery.

Alcohol contains many additives. Some people can take champagne, many cannot. Many people cannot take some white wines, others can take some red but not others.

What you can and cannot take depends on your own individual make-up. In my view, generalisations where everyone is told to avoid something are not really appropriate. We are trying to learn our own body's reactions to things.

Let's ask you a question first. How many people do you know who have moderate to severe ME who have got back to full time school, university, or work? How many people with moderate or severe ME do you know who have returned to normal intellectual function with physical fitness and stamina? And a third question: do you want to wait for up to thirty years, which is the length of time it can take some items to be recognised from abroad by journals like the BMJ? And a fourth question: if you had angina of your heart or had severe asthma, would you be happy if your doctor refused to treat your angina or your asthma? But that is what has been happening to you with your ME.

(See the book list on the website for Dr Hyde's book from the Nightingale Research Institute, and Dr Goldstein's Betrayal by the Brain, with it's 76 pages of references including on nimodipine)

Nimodipine is a drug that has been used for treating brain circulation in the United States for so many years that it is now out of patent, which means it could be produced very cheaply.

The other calcium antagonists work on the heart and are used for angina and high blood pressure. Nimodipine works on the brain and its proven action is to increase cerebral perfusion especially in poorly perfused areas, by arterial dilatation, and it has a proportionally greater effect on smaller than larger blood vessels. It also relieves areas of arterial spasm.

In this country nimodipine is only used in the massive dose of eight tablets a day for subarachnoid haemorrhage.

In the United States nimodipine has been used in the long term treatment of circulation related dementia in a dose of up to one tablet three times a day under the recommendation of the FDA.

It has been know to international medical science for ten years that the primary defect in the brain in CFS / ME is the reduced brain circulation as soon as the patient does either too much physically or mentally.

Dr Goldstein and Dr Teitelbaum have used it in CFS / ME for years. Dr Mason Brown has developed the protocol for it over seven years. It got him from 60% to 95%.

It is important that the protocol for using nimodipinewhich is contained within ME Action Pack 1, is used properly and in context with the other necessary treatments to obtain the best results.

The brain, and this includes the pineal gland, the hypothalamus, and the pituitary gland, cannot start to function properly until their circulation is restored.

Many ME patients are told they cannot produce enough cortisol, sex hormones, thyroxin, etc. This is because their pituitaries are not producing the trigger hormones to activate the other glands. the protocol has even helped children to start growing properly again.

What has been seen in practise? A bedridden patient managed to return to university, qualify and started their professional career. A patient who used to play bridge and had not been able to for five years, within three months not only rejoining their bridge club, but winning the Saturday evening competition. Many patients have found their temperature regulation mechanism working again. Others have found their reading and learning abilities greatly improved. Others have found their volition and motivation vastly improved.

What about those who have not had nimodipine? Their I.Q. can be lowered by up to forty points. They have no mental stamina. They are emotional and can even be paranoid, but the saddest thing of all is that many, due to the poor brain circulation, have lost the will to really get better. Many do not believe that they can and will give excuses for why they will not risk even trying. These individuals are sadly stuck as the critics rather than being the performers.

In our culture there have always been the critics: they told Maddison he could not make an electric light bulb, they said heavier than air flight is impossible, they put Marconi in a mental institute for saying he would send electrical signals through the air. Or, in medicine they ridiculed Harvey for saying the blood circulated, when they knew it ebbed and flowed like the tide, or poor Semmelweiss, so ridiculed for saying doctors and surgeons should wash their hands after a post-mortem before they delivered a baby or carried out an operation. Semmelweiss had a nervous breakdown as he continued to see so many die of infection.

Dr Mason Brown is never going to force anyone to get better. What each person does with their own life is up to them. All he can do is try his best to shine a light into the corners of ignorance. As Mcleod of Iona said: 'It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.'

18. What is Leaky Gut Syndrome and how can it and Food allergies be dealt with?

Leaky Gut Syndrome occurs due to a deficiency of the amino acid, lglutamine. L-glutamine is found in eggs, poultry, fish, and red meat. However, it is destroyed by cooking. This is why in Japan people obtain it by eating Sushi, though they supplement with extra glutamine as well.

The only part of the body that only uses glutamine for energy is the small intestine and if it does not get enough, over time it starts to 'perish', rather like a rubber tube. The walls of the small intestine become micro-porous allowing minute particles of undigested food into the peritoneal cavity. Antibodies are then formed here and these produce food allergies.

The answer is to temporarily avoid the particular foods you are sensitive to. If you are not sure which, go and see a good kinesiologist.

To help to reduce this 'perishing' effect on the small intestine you should also start on l-glutamine 500mg one three times a day for two months, then one twice a day for two months, then one daily, and you should find over about six months that you can gradually reintroduce some of the foods one by one. This allows you to gauge which foods cause negative effects.

Remember, people sometimes think they have wheat intolerance when it is actually a negative reaction to organophosphates in the wheat. If this is the case, organic wheat, which does not contain organophosphates, should not create negative symptoms.

19. I have developed extra nasal catarrh, sinusitis, asthma, or excess weight with fluid retention. Why is it happening and what can be done about it?

Let us look at the background first of all. Everyone in our polluted
Western world, especially when living in the larger cities or when exposed to
pesticides, etc, are building up more and more pollution in their bodies over
time. These accumulate in the tissues, especially the body fat, where over
time in women it can cause cellulite.

These pollutants may or may not seriously effect us depending on what we are genetically sensitive to. The effect can be that metabolic pathways are disturbed. This is what happens in those who are sensitive to the organophosphates in wheat.

The body tries to eliminate the pollutants as much as possible. If these pollutants cannot be removed they accumulate in tissues, initially body fat, and later in more and more potentially sensitive tissues. In the end the pollutants even go to the brain and the nervous system as happens in the most ill CFS / ME patients with potentially devastating results.

As we eat bad food, as we breathe in toxins, or rub toxic substances on our skin, so they are retained in the body sapping our energy, making us more and more tired.

The body, first of all puts them there into mucous (rhinitis, sinusitis, colds, catarrh and asthma), the skin (acne, moles, dry flakiness, and generally unhealthy looking skin), nails (cracked and broken) and hair (frizzy, lacking in life, falling out).

The bowel can try to get rid of them and this can be a partial cause of irritable bowel syndrome. Further excess produces cellulite and the body retains fluid to try to reduce the toxins, producing excess weight and sometimes a characteristic puffiness.

If the pollutants are still not able to leave the body, they just reside in the organs, creating pain, disease, premature old age with maybe the need to have a transplant, and finally death!

It is important to remember that at one level all disease is created by Energy Blockages and the Toxic Pollution which gather in them.

Firstly you should find out what you are putting in your body that is bad for you. The help of a good kinesiologist can be useful here with foods, personal care products, detergents, etc. This process has to continue for the rest of your life because forty per cent of all deaths world-wide have pollution as an important component.

Next you have to start the process of detoxification. This is described fully in ME Action Pack 2.

20. Question :I began taking nimodipine 2 weeks ago. Since then I have had frequent feelings of nausea, but the recurrent headache I have had has not seemed to go away. I did think at one point that it lessened, but now it seems to be a bit worse. I have tried stopping the nimodipine for a couple of days, but this did not affect the headache. I have now restarted on a smaller dose - an 1/8 of a tablet. Previously, I tried to increase the dosage to a 1/2 but found that I had a brief moment of quickened heart beat when I woke up the next day - I interpreted this as a sign that it was too much. But was I wrong? Do you think I am taking too much or too little nimodipine, my cognitive faculties seem to be functioning quite well?

Our protocol for Nimodipine is designed to be as safe as possible. The longest and most ill patients have to start with the smallest doses taken less
frequently and only take more when they are ready to do so.

The nimodipine opens up the brain circulation. Any organ or tissue that has not had full circulation of blood has reduced levels of oxygen and nutrients, but, as a result of the poor circulation, it also has increased levels of build up of the products of cell metabolism. In the brain these by-products are called neurotoxins.

These neurotoxins may have been building up for months or even years. As the circulation opens up they go into other parts of the brain and the body before eventually being broken down by the liver and / or excreted in the urine. In the brain they can cause headaches, in the rest of the body they cause nausea.

If you are experiencing headaches or nausea you should initially reduce the dosage of nimodipine to the dosage mentioned in Part 2 of the protocol;

2. For the most toxic patients, that is those who have had ME longer than five years or been bedridden for extended periods and especially smaller women weighing 8 stone or less and girls who have smaller livers, you may have to start on as little as a quarter tablet every third day and very rarely an eighth of a tablet every third day. A pill cutter can be used to divide the tablet. If you have started on a lower dose like an eighth of a tablet, increase your dose by an additional eighth each week provided you have not felt excessively tired.

You should also be taking the water, gingko and l-glutamine as mentioned in ME Action Pack 1.

If you continue to have headaches with the eighth of the tablet of nimodipine you can reduce the nimodipine to a sixteenth or even less every three or four days. Gradually the headaches and nausea will diminish. However, with some women the nausea is a result of too many toxins passing through a small liver. Bioforce's milk thistle extract can help to support the liver while it eliminates the toxins.

Please remember that as long as the toxins are there, they can damage the brain. Some CFS / ME patients have brain fog with the I.Q. reduced by as much as forty points.

The nimodipine is only the beginning of the recovery process. It and related measures start to provide a circulation transport system, rather like getting the road network to work in a congested city. Also in city terms it is as if there had been a refuse strike for years, and this is why it can take so long for the backlog of toxins to be removed.

Some people's expectations of the speed of recovery have been wrong. Whilst those diagnosed and treated at the beginning of their illness can even be back to full time work within three months, if you have been ill for a long time recovery is much slower. Those with CFS / ME who have been ill for considerable lengths of time can take months to properly detoxify and may have to do it very slowly.

Most of the patients I have investigated, who have not noticed an improvement, either have aspects of the illness, which are dealt with in ME Action Pack 2, or have appeared not to have followed the protocol as advised.

If they take too much for them, they release excess trapped neurotoxins from the brain and feel worse. Their total neurotoxic load can take three to six months to clear in many people and longer still in the most ill. As an approximation it takes six months for recovery for the first five years of illness, and an extra three to six months for each subsequent five years.

-Taken too big a dose of nimodipine for their level of toxicity.
-Not been drinking enough water to flush the neurotoxins out - you need eight glasses a day.
-Not taken enough l-glutamine for the brain, evening primrose oil for inflammation, etc, etc.
-Taken too much Prime Directive for their level of pathogenic bacteria and or candida.
-Have not listened to Side Two of Cassette 2 sufficiently to address mind-body aspects of the illness.

Finally, a few individuals may have, and this may be due to stress, significant events in their lives, major psychological issues and unresolved life problems.

These are outside the scope of any ME Action Pack and need the proper additional psychotherapeutic support.

I no longer sleep for most of the day and night, but now only feel sleepy at about 4 or 5am. Is insomnia normal with this condition and is there anything I can do to help regulate my sleeping pattern? I listen every night to the relaxation tape in action pack 1. I am hoping my insomnia is a sign of getting better or maybe it is wishful thinking on my part.

Sorry to hear you are not sleeping. This is very common at the stage you are at as you are not able to exercise enough yet to tire yourself out to need the sleep. Partly you will be less tired as your brain and body circulation improves. Also as you start to improve and do more one is inclined to sometimes do too much and release varying amounts of adrenaline that keeps one awake at night.

The excess adrenaline can later be used up when one is able to exercise more, but there is an in-between time before this is possible. Try and relax as much as possible for the two hours before going to bed at night. Also one can take a small dose of antidepressant if it is a real problem or a herbal or homeopathic sleep remedy.

I have studied all of Action Pack 1 and am taking Nimodopine, Prime Directive and L-Glutamine. I am still having very bad 'down' periods and want to know about the chemical solvents found in so many household cleaners and even toothpastes I've been told. Do you know of a company who do mail order (or are in the London region) who sell toxin free shampoos, face creams, washing up liquids etc. I was cleaning some brass with Brasso and suddenly felt very unwell as I was in an enclosed space in the kitchen and the fumes just hit me. I looked at the ingredients on the backof an ordingary Nivea dry skin cream and I hadn't realised all the things that were in it. Maybe they are not harmful to most people, but to those of us with depressed imminue systems it all looked rather forbidding. I would be most grateful for any information.

Answer

Neways, an american pyramid selling company, that produce the excellent antioxidant Revenol, that is used to remove toxins, and the colloidal mineral supplement, Maximol, produce a range of various personal care and other products that have to be safe to eat! Look at Neways under GOOGLE.

Also if you can find someone to teach you how to dowse (an estimated 2,500 French doctors do) you can dowse all products you buy and use. That is very helpful as we are all unique and an individual, who can take one product cannot take another. Also one can dowse and compare products to see which is best for you.

Remember all toxins taken in whether breathed, rubbed on the skin, or eaten can cause upset in the susceptible patient.