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dear tessa,
I read you article that you sent to the boca raton newsletter. it was a godsend. my doctor and I have been arguing for months over a right muscle relaxant for me. the magnesium works great and the manganese seems to help too. so thanks a lot for taking the time to write to us here in the usa.
do you have anyway ideas on helping the post-polio fatigue that sets in around 2-3pm.?
I live in new mexico which is a high desert which I am told is a lot like western austrlia.
thanks a lot,
theresa
Hi Theresa
We have a website www.upnaway.com/~poliowa If you don't get it on that web address, I do a google search on - poliowa - and then look for that website in what comes up. There are a lot of others starting to mention our website on theirs now so we are no longer the only one when you do a search.
On our website is a lot of the research on simple solutions that I have been doing. In particular look for the research paper I have done on "carnitine".
We have been doing blood levels through our children's hospital since 1996 on this and many of our WA polios are doing well on daily supplemental carnitine.
You find carnitine in the diet mainly in red meat - the redder the more carnitine. Avocado is the only fruit or vegetable source. (You need to eat 1-3 whole avocados a day.) The amount in milk and fish is negligible and that in chicken is one tenth of that in mutton or beef. With meat you need to have at least half the plate meat and half vegetables and then may still not get enough carnitine so need to take a supplement.
Carnitine is an amino acid (ie protein) and transport the energy part of meat and other proteins into the cell to enable energy to be produced. It is available as a supplement and there is a page on our website telling you how to work out the dose of carnitine or magnesium by trial and error. With both carnitine and magnesium (and Vitamin C) you get diarrhoea if you have too much.
So extra carnitine is likely to fix the fatigue problem.
If some of your fatigue is coming from your thyroid not working well then painting your skin with iodine allows your body to absorb iodine and so helps the thyroid make more thyroxine which then helps with fatigue. When you paint a large area (like the size of a money note) if it disappears before 24 hours then your levels are low. Keep painting daily until the yellow patch stays longer than 24 hours. After you stop, recheck every couple of weeks in case you need more again.
Vitamin B12 is another one. Look at the white moons on your thumbnails. If they are less than one third of the way up the thumbnail your B12 is getting low. Some people don't have any white moons left. If very low or absent you need B12 injections to raise your levels - taking tablets won't work. A nurse can give it and we can just buy the injections at the chemist here. I don't know the situation where you are. B12 injections also work for bursitis, heel or other spurs, shingles, Alzheimer's and poor memory. I usually give a double injection (2 X 1,000mcg) 3 times a week for 2 weeks by which time they are usually better. It is perfectly safe to have that much as the body will just get rid of what it doesn't need. Our doctor checked with the manufacturers of B12 and was surprised. Doctors are reluctant to give it more frequently than one a month!
I did a 2-page article on "the many faces of fatigue" in our March 2008 newsletter. Have a look for it on our website.
Hope this helps.
Tessa Jupp RN
Polio Clinic WA
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