After several years of barely making it along with my CFIDS, many years ago, my mother sent me an aricle about a man who had been disabled for years with CFIDS. I've forgotten now how he got onto this, but it was all about the imbalance between L-Lysine and another aminio acid.

For instance, when you pig out on peanut butter, a can of cahews or similar nut binges, someone with CFIDS (at least people like him and like me) have the overload of this other amino acid either deplenished or just overwhelmed in amount .... and the symptoms would creep in almost immediately.

As to the nuts (especially) or heavy regular amounts of other high level foods, thru these many years, I have often had a relapse, then started thinking back and suddenly realized what triggered it.

For many years, I took a large quantity of L-Lysine prophalactically. But with years of journaling and charting, I discovered what it was that triggered CFIDS relapses (those not related to foods). EVERY LAST TIME I would be rejected by someone who meant something to me, I would crash and burn, with low-grade fever coming on within 72 hours or less.

Over the years, therapy helped me understand the traumatic roots of those feelings of abandonment, to see things in different ways, to not take things as deeply in -- learned to accept and let go, and taught me not to overvalue relationships that should never meant that much to me to begin with. But learning to let go -- that was the biggie.

But when something pops up on me, it can still lay me low.

But recently, in the past six months, I had experienced a great deal of rejection from my children -- and as all you moms know, having an adult child do that to you stings like a nest of scorpions. And this time, I didn't get the fevers, but I got outbreaks of every last quiescent viral infection I harbour in my body. And finally I went and bought myself a new supply of Lysine. And I was finally getting a bit of handle on it,

but since my sister's death two weeks ago, I've once again begun a low-grade fever... and viral breakouts are starting again .... So it is pretty obvious I need to really up the dose. And they are SO terrible to swallow - likely to catch in my esophagus. I need to find a source that provides them rounded and maybe lightly coated.

Does anyone know where I can find such meds that don't cost an arm and leg?

Teri