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Old 07-02-2010, 02:02 PM #1
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SecretAgentMan SecretAgentMan is offline
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Default My continuing experience with adult onset food allergies and potential recovery

First off I want to apologize because this will be a long post. Although not everybody’s symptoms may be explained by the scenario I am about to describe, based on what I am reading in your posts it sounds like a many of you could quite possibly be experiencing what I am. I will describe and explain my experience and particular solution to the best of my abilities here.

My background and original symptoms:

I started experiencing random fasciculations or muscle twitching throughout my body in late December of 2009 during a visit to my in-law’s for Christmas. I started to freak out when the twitching continued on and seemed to get worse. It started with tiny random muscular twitches usually in a limb. It happened once every hour or half hour but slowly got worse over a few weeks to a point where it happened every few minutes or seconds 24/7. Any muscle was fair game. It could be a finger, a muscle in my thigh, buttocks or even an eyelid. I would occasionally get muscle spasms as well. Around this same time, I began to experience incredible anxiety. At first I attributed it to the twitching symptoms because I was genuinely worried about what was happening to me.

I saw my family practitioner and after several tests, a brain CT scan, and a neurologist referral and examination, MS and ALS were ruled out. I was told it was benign and probably was stress related. I’ve never been one to handle stress well. I was diagnosed with IBS in college and was always told that this was due to stress. Lately I had been having more IBS flare ups, so the stress explanation fit in my mind. In an effort to deal with the stress I saw a hypnotherapist.

The hypnotherapist taught me some relaxation and meditation techniques that really did seem to work. The twitching severity greatly decreased when I used these techniques, but never 100% subsided. Furthermore, the anxiety and twitching always returned sometimes very quickly. The hypnotherapist also recommended I try an herbal supplement called Valerian Root. It’s an herb that helps calm your nerves and relieve anxiety but does not make you drowsy. I found that taking two capsules before bed helped me fall asleep much faster since it relieved the anxiety. I always had trouble because my mind would race and twitches while I was relaxing would cause limbs to jerk (like a falling dream) and snap me awake as I was just falling asleep.

The relaxation techniques and Valerian Root definitely made the symptoms more tolerable, but it still wasn’t a solution. I wanted answers. I was scared to death that this was going to be the rest of my life. This is when my mother, who is big into homeopathy, suggested I see a homeopathic doctor to see what they have to say. I figured it couldn’t hurt and made an appointment with a homeopathic doctor I found in the area through a web search.

My experience with the homeopathic doctor:

In my very first appointment the doctor reviewed my symptoms and right off the bat suggested that I avoid wheat and gluten containing products in my diet as it was possible my body was reacting to a food I was eating. I thought that this was pretty absurd. What in the world would a food I eat have to do with neurological symptoms? He also suggested I up my dosage of Valerian Root and to take it 3 times a day, morning, noon and night.

When I left, I followed his advice on the Valerian Root, as it was helping me calm down at night, but I didn’t adjust my diet. I took more Valerian for about a month and indeed, during that month I did feel somewhat better, but the twitching never left 100%. After the first month I had a follow up appointment and began to wean my dosage on the Valerian. Although it’s a natural herb and there are no side effects, it’s still not recommended to take it intensively. Unfortunately the twitching started to get worse again.

At this point I decided to take his advice on the diet. I cut all wheat and gluten out of my diet. It took a few days for my system to clear, but the twitching nearly completely subsided! Furthermore the anxiety subsided as well. It had been so long since I could relax and watch television without my mind racing and having the urge to get up and pace (without taking Valerian Root that is). I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in months I felt normal!

Unfortunately my normalcy was short lived. I’d say it was about two weeks and I began to have anxiety and twitching come back into my life. I went back to the doctor and he recommended I take dairy products out. Taking him more seriously this time, I followed his advice and sure enough, my symptoms began to clear again. I began to supplement my dairy products with soy based milk and vegetable oil based butters, etc. But this time it was less than two weeks before the symptoms returned. Catching on, I decided to cut soy out and they cleared again. I realized that I was becoming sensitive to foods that I had never been sensitive to in my life. For some reason the list of foods I had to avoid was growing, and quickly…

Dealing with ever increasing food sensitivities:

I really started to wonder just what the heck was going on. I’ve been able to link my symptoms to a reaction my body was having to certain foods I was eating, but that list was growing. In my research on food sensitivities, I read that people can either react within 30 minutes of eating a certain food, or they could have a delayed reaction up to 72 hours later. I consider myself lucky (in a twisted way) because I started feeling twitching or anxiety within about an hour of eating something I was sensitive to. This made it easy for me to rule certain foods out. Unfortunately it would take up to 48 hours for the symptoms to subside again. This is why I was twitching 24/7 since December of 2009 because my body never had a chance to clear itself. My original food sensitivity, wheat, is in just about everything I ate.

In doing research on food sensitivities I was alarmed. I found forums, similar to this one, where people had been dealing with increasing sensitivities for years. One man told his story about how he had originally been 250 lbs and played football in college. He was down to 110 lbs because he was darn near sensitive or allergic to everything he ate. This was scary! Finally I found a web forum where someone made a reference to something called Leaky Gut Syndrome and I decided to do more research.

Leaky Gut Syndrome:

As most of you probably know, the human small and large intestines contain bacteria that are helpful in our digestion process. As most of you also know, antibiotics do not discriminate which bacteria they kill when taken. Well, your intestinal bacteria are on the front line when you do take antibiotics because they live where your body absorbs the antibiotics into your blood stream. Over the course of your life, every time you take antibiotics you negatively affect the balance of helpful bacteria in your digestive tract. Over the passage of time, a non-helpful and invasive fungus called Candida will begin to populate and overtake the good bacteria within your intestines.

Candida left unchecked will over time weaken the intestinal walls and allow itself and undigested proteins to absorb into your blood stream. Your intestines are also the primary source of your body’s immune system. When your body sees undigested proteins it creates antibodies to attack them. The next time your body sees that food, it proactively attacks and learns to attack each subsequent time you eat it. Thus you have the creation of new food sensitivities in adulthood.

The Candida that gets into your blood stream can spread to other areas of your body wreaking havoc where it goes. Candida has been linked to IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), arthritis, fatigue, enlarged prostates and ED in men, increased yeast infections in women, food sensitivities, chemical sensitivities, environmental sensitivities, psychological disorders such as depression, weight gain, auto immune disorders and much more. Basically your body’s natural defenses get overrun and various symptoms begin to pop up depending on where you are most affected and how your body tries to deal with it.

Signs you may have Leaky Gut Syndrome:

There are several tests that homeopathic doctors can use to determine if someone has Leaky Gut Syndrome. One test I was told about involves you swallowing two sugar cubes. One should pass through a healthy digestive tract and the other should not. There are stool tests and blood tests as well. My homeopathic doctor was able to determine I am suffering from Leaky Gut Syndrome because of several ‘tells.’ The fact that I have IBS was one clue. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is an early sign that there is an imbalance in your digestive tract. My blood protein levels were high (indicative that proteins are being absorbed through the intestine walls unfiltered). My liver area was tender, which is indicative of an overtaxed natural detoxification system. Your liver is your body’s primary way of detoxifying your blood and a leaky gut will overload it. You can feel your liver area by pressing on your right upper abdomen area just under the rib cage. When she pressed in that area and asked if it was tender I really noticed it. Based on how tender it felt, I was actually amazed I had never noticed it before. Between these clues and the fact that I was experiencing an increase in adult onset food sensitivities, she knew right away I had ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome.’

What to do about Leaky Gut Syndrome:

The internet is full of diets and information. Some of the information is contradictory, so it can be a little confusing. I can only tell you about the program that I decided to try out after much research. My mom read a book called ‘Lifeforce’ by Dr. Jeffery McCombs. It’s about 100 pages and a quick read. I highly recommend it. His website is pretty informative. His book does not go into details about the food sensitivities, but I’d recommend reading it still as it goes into the intricate details about how Candida affects your body and why. The Candida is the key to addressing the sensitivities, which is the key to the twitching. I read several reviews online and the positive comments far outweighed the negatives, so I decided to give it a shot.

His plan consists of 4 parts. Those four parts involve adopting a temporary special diet, taking a series of herbal supplements, drinking lots of water and sweating to assist your body in detoxifying. Basically he wants you to eat meat (any except pork), fish, eggs, fruits (except oranges) and vegetables. He wants you to avoid processed foods, wheat, dairy, sugars (includes fructose corn syrup and honey) vinegars, soda, fruit juices, alcohol and anything else not in the ‘yes foods’ group. The diet is simple, but there is one key aspect missing in his book for people like us who most likely have food sensitivities.

If you have food sensitivities, I have learned from other sources that you absolutely need to rotate your diet. This means that once you eat a food, any food, you cannot have that particular item again until 4 days later. The reason being that when your intestines absorb undigested proteins, your body produces antibodies to seek out and attack that protein. Antibodies last in your blood for up to 72 hours. If you avoid repeating any foods for 4 days (96 hours), your body never learns to proactively seek out and attack food proteins that you currently aren’t sensitive to. I’ve been on a rotating diet for over a month and have not developed any new food sensitivities. Alleluia!

The herbal supplements in his plan are designed to eliminate the Candida in your body over the first two months. The second two months the supplements are designed to repopulate your intestines with good bacteria or as they’re called ‘gut flora.’

The sweating is intended to relieve your body’s natural detoxification system, or the liver and kidneys. In leaky gut, your systems are already overtaxed as it is. When you begin killing off the Candida, you put a further strain on your body. As explained in the book, your body can detoxify itself by sweating through your skin. Apparently the sweat has to be a product of your body’s core temperature increasing so an exercise induced sweat will not accomplish the same goal. You need either a sauna or hot bath induced sweat. He recommends sweating for 10 to 15 minutes, so your bath will take more like 20 to 25 minutes. Once you start to sweat at your brow, you will know when to begin the countdown. Just be careful to not make your bath too hot!

Sweating is kind of a nuisance in the plan, but it’s crucial. Killing off the Candida is so taxing to your body that if you do not aid your liver and kidneys by sweating he writes that many people begin to experience cold or flu like symptoms, i.e. sore throat, fever, nausea, etc. Internet postings by people in the reviews testified to this as well. On the bright side, it’s a pretty good indicator that it’s working. I decided not to test this though, so I’ve been soaking in the bath most evenings.

For water he recommends you drink a quart of filtered water for every 50 lbs of body weight you have. For example if you weigh 150 lbs, you should drink 3 quarts of water per day. In his diet plan he recommends you stick to water or unsweetened tea and coffee (unless caffeine is on your list of things to avoid). No soda, alcohol, fruit juices or sports drinks. The sugar fuels the Candida.

The plan is supposed to last 16 weeks or approximately 4 months. At the end of this 4 month period, your leaky gut should be well on its way to healing. From what I have read leaky guts take 6 months to a year to heal. The McCombs Plan is specifically to address the Candida. In addition to the supplements you take for his plan, you should also take L-Glutamine which will assist your intestine lining in its healing process.

In regards to the diet, you will also need to avoid any foods you find that you are sensitive to (obviously). For instance, while I didn’t know that what I had was even food related, I became sensitive to tomatoes in addition to wheat, soy, dairy and caffeine. Although tomatoes are listed as OK in his diet, I have to avoid them as well. Sugars are particularly important to avoid as the Candida feeds off of them. Although the diet has its drawbacks, the benefits far outweigh the cons. I miss having pizza, Macaroni and Cheese or even having a dinner roll with my steak. I’m far happier that I’m feeling so much better now though. In a way the diet is a blessing because it has forced me to expand my horizons. I’m eating things like lamb, bison and trying new types of fish that are just delicious. My wife and I used to eat either beef or chicken for dinner and a sandwich for lunch. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s not a bad diet. Despite all the meat I’ve been eating, I’ve already lost 10 lbs.

Leaky gut is now in check, now what? :

Once the leaky gut is healed completely, testing by your homeopathic doctor should be able to conclude that it is safe to begin trying to reintroduce foods you were once sensitive to. There are several methods to desensitize your body to foods which once set off a reaction by your body. One method is the passage of time. After waiting enough time without having eaten a particular type of food, your body will lose its memory to attack it. The method I’ve read about is that you wait 6 months and try just a small sample of that food. If you are OK, wait a few days and try a little more. Continue slowly working it back into your diet. If you try a little and react negatively, you need to wait another 6 months and repeat. In time you should be able to eat all the foods you once enjoyed. My homeopathic doctor also has several methods to desensitize you. One technique we are trying now.

She gave me a small bottle of alcohol based solution that has trace amounts of wheat and other gluten containing grains in it. I take the dropper and place 7 drops under my tongue 2 times a day on an empty stomach. This supposedly desensitizes your body more quickly to the substance which you are reacting to. The logic behind it is that your body sees trace amounts of that food item every day and it’s so little that it gets used to seeing it and not reacting. By the time you add it back into your diet slowly, your body doesn’t react to larger amounts either.

There are other techniques that she has at her disposal, but I’m not quite there yet, so I can’t tell you the details about how they work at this time.

What I would recommend:

Try taking the most likely culprit foods out of your diet for a week and see how you feel. Gluten, wheat, dairy and soy are staples in the American diet. They’re in nearly every processed food you can think of and our bodies will react to the foods we most commonly eat. I’d also recommend going to a rotational diet to avoid any new sensitivities. Make sure you rotate not just the major foods you eat, but cooking oils (olive, canola, coconut, etc) you use and seasonings you use. I became sensitive to pepper because I used it in every meat I prepared. If you’re sensitive to any of these foods, you should know in a few days. Once your symptoms clear up, start adding things back in. If you eat something you are sensitive to, hopefully you’ll know quickly like I did. Also keep a food journal to keep track of what you eat or snack on and when. This will help you immensely in knowing what you can eat and when.

I’d also recommend trying a homeopathic doctor. I was once a skeptic about them but now I’m a true believer. I can only speculate as to why the conventional medical community continues to over prescribe antibiotics and independently treats the problems or symptoms caused by the Candida it unleashes. For example Dr. McCombs talks about how a majority of his patience come to him already having been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Disorder. When they use his plan, they clear up very quickly and feel better than they had in years.

You could speculate it’s just pure ignorance on the part of the conventional medical community or you could make conspiratorial assumptions such as hypothesizing that big pharmaceutical companies are making too much money off of the drugs they create to treat the endless problems caused by Candida. You have to admit there are a lot of commercials these days for anti-depression drugs, anxiety and mood disorders, etc. Who knows? All I know is that I’ve been on a Candida treatment program for a little over a month now and I’m feeling so much better than I have in a long time. Not just the twitching is gone, but the anxiety is subsiding and I seem to have so much more energy. I also fall asleep easier at night.

Synopsis:

I found that my twitching was being caused by a food sensitivity (originally to wheat and gluten). My ever increasing list of food sensitivities was being caused by ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome.’ The Leaky Gut Syndrome was caused by an over abundance of Candida in my body and particularly in my digestive tract. The Candida was caused by the antibiotics I had taken over my life. By no means did I take a lot of antibiotics either. I had an ear infection or two as a kid and occasional infections every couple of years. The damage was cumulative and took a lot of time to reach the stage where I was reacting to foods and twitching.

The key to fixing the twitching starts with getting rid of the Candida. While you get rid of the Candida with herbal supplements you can also take supplements like L-Glutamine to help repair your intestinal lining, i.e. fix the ‘leaky gut.’ Once the Leaky Gut Syndrome is taken care of you can work with your homeopathic doctor to remedy your food, chemical or environmental sensitivities. All in all this treatment averages a year, but you should begin feeling better within a week’s time. Just stick to your diet and overall Candida termination plan! Don’t forget to adopt a rotational diet!

In conclusion:

I’m sorry this posting is so long, but I wanted to give as much detail and information about my experience and the research I have done. It’s taken me quite some time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, especially since my homeopathic doctor didn’t even connect the dots right away between my twitching and Leaky Gut Syndrome. I know how scary and frustrating it is to have this crazy symptoms going on and to only have doctors question your sanity or laugh at you. It’s a real problem and it was impacting my life in such negative ways. Fortunately for me it’s a real problem with a real solution. I’ve still got a long way to go, but it brings me such peace to know that one day I will be able to enjoy a pizza and a beer again, twitch free. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know. I want to help as many people going through what I went through (and sort of still am). Thank you and good luck.
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Old 05-20-2012, 11:18 PM #2
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dear secretagentman,

Your story is a mirror image of mine. I have been diagnosed with C Diff inflammation of the colon 2yrs ago, and was given 5 courses of different ABs, with telast o being Vncomycin for therapy resistant CDiff.
I wnt to have fecal transplants in Sydney at 5 occasions to change the flora of the large intestines, initiallyit worked but the symptoms came back:
- altered stools, intermittent soft and diarrhoea
- fatigue, lack of energy
- blurred vision
- lack of concentration, apparent during reading
The stool tests were all negative for Cdiff ir any other pathogen, so were all the biochemical tests, CT scans and MRI of abdomen and pelvis, nor any signs on X-thorax.

The symptoms now are continuous twitching, fasciculations of lower legs and upper quadriceps. It also aggravates upon lying down.
I found a clear connection with food intake, gluten, wheat, sugars and recently added to the list nuts. Although I had a history of lactose intolerance, I have never been allergic or reactive to the other ingredients.

In two days I undergo neurological tests and EMG to see whether it could be related to MS and ALS, however my gut feeling tells me that the underlying problem is the composition fo the intestina flora.
I am medically qualified, so understanding of the core ssymptoms make it easier but also more difficult as one tends to project all severe diseases to oneselves which increases some anxiety.

From your story, it becomes clear that a Candida infect may be very likely, giving rise to the intermittent nature of the symptoms. Weeks good, weeks bad. Odd enough is that the stools have been clear of pathogens on a nmber of occasions. However, the systmeic involvement due to Candida makes perfect sense.

Your story gave me great insight in the direction to look for. If the neurlogical examination proves negative, I shall look for remedies (Nystatin) and herbals to rebalance the flora by eliminating Candida.

Thanks you so much! ph7ph
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Old 06-11-2013, 12:04 PM #3
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Hi SecretAgentMan and Ph7ph,

SecretAgentMan, I realize that according to the date you posted this, it has now been almost 3 years. How has your recovery gone? Are you back to a normal diet, or do you still have some sensitivities?

Here's my story:
My problems also started shortly after taking heavy antibiotics! Fall 2012 I all of a sudden had massive chest pain and multiple other symptoms that sounded exactly like a heart attack:radiating pain down my left arm, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pressure, difficulty breathing, etc. Only problem was, I knew I was too young for that and had no history of such. But I went to see my Doc. Discovered a massive ulcer that had caused my esophagus to spasm - very painful and DOES mimic heart attack symptoms to a "T"! Docs can't tell it apart unless they do an EKG. Anyway, he put me on PPIs (proton pump inhibitors which you're only supposed to be on for no more than 6 weeks due to the serious side effects that result:neurological problems, digestive problems, etc). I didn't know this until things got really bad 8 weeks into taking the PPIs. I still had chest pain, but it was different. And my face broke out in this weird dry, peeling rash accompanied with the biggest worst canker sores I had ever seen. I've never had canker sores up until I started having stomach problems. Found some info online saying that a certain bacteria (Helicobacter Pylori) causes many of the symptoms I was having. This bacteria had spread throughout my body - my entire digestive system, chest cavity, mouth, and face, and even developed so many food sensitivities that all I could eat was most fruits, and SOME vegetables. Everything else was a no no. If I ate the foods I was sensitive to, I'd get severe stomach pains, nausea, bloating, burping, flatulance, diarrhea, constipation, chemical sensitivities (can't use bleach or any other cleaners except a little 409 to sanitize my counters once a week - otherwise I just use white vinegar), light sensitivity, mild anxiety, difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and falling back asleep, severe fatigue, increased migraines, twitching all over my body, smell sensitivities, yeast infections, UITs, hormone imbalances, irregular and vicious menstruation that affects my blood pressure, etc! The list goes OOOOON! I am just WAY too young for this! It amazes me that power and functions of the body and how one little thing can send the systems out of whack, and scary at the same time.

My doc put me on a quadruple treatment of HEAVY antibiotics to get rid of this horrible bacteria - it's a super-bacteria. Was on them for 14 days. Things seemed to improve for a while and weened off all the meds he had me on. Knowing my digestive system had just been stripped of ALL bacteria including the good ones, I started taking a LOT of probiotics to help replenish my digestive system with good bacteria. Things seemed to be going well. Then a couple months later, I again started developing massive amounts of food sensitivities to foods I never had problems with, adding in a lot more fruits and veggies that I couldn't have anymore. I feel like I'm back to square one all over again. Though I've had a feeling that my sensitivities are all traced back to having very small amounts of good bacteria in my digestive system. It makes sense too because little infants when they first start eating solids have food sensitivities like crazy - that's why they break out in so many rashed on their little bums. They've never had these foods, and they don't have enough good bacteria to aid them in this new shocking food!

I have found also that I have to rotate my foods or I end up not being able to eat them for months. I can only have eggs 2-3 times a week, bread once a week, rice 3-4 times a week, dairy and meats only once a week and sometimes only once every other week unless it's beef, then I can only have it once a month. I still can't take my potassium or magnesium supplements. Fatty recipes (like cheese or "cream of soup" based) I cannot have unless I want to be awake moaning all night long and feel like I got hit by a truck the next 3-7 days. I can't eat anything that's processed without paying a price. And the only cooking oil I've found that I can handle is olive oil. Canola and veggy oil turn me inside out with pain. I've found I even have to rotate the probiotics that I take or they start irritating my stomach. I usually rotate between yogurt, Kefir, and 2 different forms of acidophilus.

It has only been 7 months since I took those heavy antibiotics AND changed my diet. I can see some improvement, though I feel like it's going to take forever to recover. I've had two other friends with the same problems. Took them 3-4 years to fully recover, though one friend still has the food sensitivities. Cheers to antibiotics - a blessing and a curse!!!
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Old 10-17-2013, 02:45 PM #4
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Hello all, I am sorry for being absent from this forum for so long. If anyone ever has any questions for me feel free to PM or e-mail because I don't come back here often to check on these old posts.

Just to give a quick update I am 100% recovered now and have been for quite some time. I still firmly believe that leaky gut syndrome played a huge roll in the neurological problems I experienced. I had to stick to a modified diet for many months while I recovered and healed. I also had to embrace some alternative medicine techniques that I never would have considered previously. I have no regrets though because they really did work for me.

Thanks to techniques rooted in acupuncture that eliminate allergies, I am now healed and back on the very foods that I had to avoid. For a healthy gut and a properly functioning immune system, gluten and dairy are no problem. In my previous condition, I could not have gotten better without avoiding them. Funny how the body works that way. Anyway, I'm doing great and enjoying life to the fullest, if not more so now than before.

I also incorporate meditation into my daily routine because I truly do see the strong body, mind, spirit connection in our physical health and our mental and emotional health. I handle stress much better now and go with the flow in life rather than constantly fighting the current. It's amazing the difference it has made in my everyday life. I hope everyone here will consider at least looking into the positive health benefits of a daily meditation. There is quite a bit of actual scientific research that backs the benefits up.

Again, if anyone has questions please send a PM or e-mail through the site. I will likely not see any replies because I do not come here often. Thank you and take care!
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Old 12-20-2013, 06:03 PM #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan View Post
Hello all, I am sorry for being absent from this forum for so long. If anyone ever has any questions for me feel free to PM or e-mail because I don't come back here often to check on these old posts.

Just to give a quick update I am 100% recovered now and have been for quite some time. I still firmly believe that leaky gut syndrome played a huge roll in the neurological problems I experienced. I had to stick to a modified diet for many months while I recovered and healed. I also had to embrace some alternative medicine techniques that I never would have considered previously. I have no regrets though because they really did work for me.

Thanks to techniques rooted in acupuncture that eliminate allergies, I am now healed and back on the very foods that I had to avoid. For a healthy gut and a properly functioning immune system, gluten and dairy are no problem. In my previous condition, I could not have gotten better without avoiding them. Funny how the body works that way. Anyway, I'm doing great and enjoying life to the fullest, if not more so now than before.

I also incorporate meditation into my daily routine because I truly do see the strong body, mind, spirit connection in our physical health and our mental and emotional health. I handle stress much better now and go with the flow in life rather than constantly fighting the current. It's amazing the difference it has made in my everyday life. I hope everyone here will consider at least looking into the positive health benefits of a daily meditation. There is quite a bit of actual scientific research that backs the benefits up.

Again, if anyone has questions please send a PM or e-mail through the site. I will likely not see any replies because I do not come here often. Thank you and take care!
Hi SecretAgentMan, thank you so much for your long post. I actually found it because I was googling all the same symptoms after I found out I have some issues going on in my intestinal tract. I literally am currently experiencing everything you experienced except my food sensitivities are after 48 hours. I finally figured out why after a lot of trial and error. I am going crazy with all this twitching in my muscles. I can't believe how horrible I feel. I was wondering if you would possibly help me via email setting up the program I need to follow. I am really lost right now and I think someone who has "been there done that" could really help me, I know if anyone knows how I feel right now you do. I tried to find you email on your profile but I could not.

Thanks so much
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Old 01-22-2014, 03:30 PM #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan View Post
Hello all, I am sorry for being absent from this forum for so long. If anyone ever has any questions for me feel free to PM or e-mail because I don't come back here often to check on these old posts.

Just to give a quick update I am 100% recovered now and have been for quite some time. I still firmly believe that leaky gut syndrome played a huge roll in the neurological problems I experienced. I had to stick to a modified diet for many months while I recovered and healed. I also had to embrace some alternative medicine techniques that I never would have considered previously. I have no regrets though because they really did work for me.

Thanks to techniques rooted in acupuncture that eliminate allergies, I am now healed and back on the very foods that I had to avoid. For a healthy gut and a properly functioning immune system, gluten and dairy are no problem. In my previous condition, I could not have gotten better without avoiding them. Funny how the body works that way. Anyway, I'm doing great and enjoying life to the fullest, if not more so now than before.

I also incorporate meditation into my daily routine because I truly do see the strong body, mind, spirit connection in our physical health and our mental and emotional health. I handle stress much better now and go with the flow in life rather than constantly fighting the current. It's amazing the difference it has made in my everyday life. I hope everyone here will consider at least looking into the positive health benefits of a daily meditation. There is quite a bit of actual scientific research that backs the benefits up.

Again, if anyone has questions please send a PM or e-mail through the site. I will likely not see any replies because I do not come here often. Thank you and take care!
I would like to know what other treatments you had to heal the leaky gut besides diet.
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Old 04-29-2014, 12:18 PM #7
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Attention My issues are exactly the same!

Hi,

I went through a course of lufenuron, and I'm pretty sure it killed off a ton of the candida, because I had crazy die-off and slowly started to feel better. This was like a two-month process. I even developed a staph infection in my throat, which I successfully treated naturally without antibiotics.

A lot of other weird stuff happened inbetween, and I started to get certain weaknesses as things balanced out. In the past month or so, I have been getting the twitches where I, exactly as you described, get them in random muscles or as I'm dozing off to fall asleep, get zapped awake. It is I swear exactly the same thing. Even before I read your post, I knew that it was caused by leaky gut, and I'd been taking L-glutamine, limiting dairy and egg whites, but it just kept happening.

The only thing I didn't do was a food rotation diet. I need some details on how to do this. Do I need to rotate my fats and supplements too? Does krill oil count? I'm so annoyed and confused. I really just feel like not eating, but I work out, and I need food to restore my muscles. What do I do?!

I wanted to PM you, but I just got an account here, and they won't let me. I really hope you get this!

Thanks,
Rob


Quote:
Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan View Post
First off I want to apologize because this will be a long post. Although not everybody’s symptoms may be explained by the scenario I am about to describe, based on what I am reading in your posts it sounds like a many of you could quite possibly be experiencing what I am. I will describe and explain my experience and particular solution to the best of my abilities here.

My background and original symptoms:

I started experiencing random fasciculations or muscle twitching throughout my body in late December of 2009 during a visit to my in-law’s for Christmas. I started to freak out when the twitching continued on and seemed to get worse. It started with tiny random muscular twitches usually in a limb. It happened once every hour or half hour but slowly got worse over a few weeks to a point where it happened every few minutes or seconds 24/7. Any muscle was fair game. It could be a finger, a muscle in my thigh, buttocks or even an eyelid. I would occasionally get muscle spasms as well. Around this same time, I began to experience incredible anxiety. At first I attributed it to the twitching symptoms because I was genuinely worried about what was happening to me.

I saw my family practitioner and after several tests, a brain CT scan, and a neurologist referral and examination, MS and ALS were ruled out. I was told it was benign and probably was stress related. I’ve never been one to handle stress well. I was diagnosed with IBS in college and was always told that this was due to stress. Lately I had been having more IBS flare ups, so the stress explanation fit in my mind. In an effort to deal with the stress I saw a hypnotherapist.

The hypnotherapist taught me some relaxation and meditation techniques that really did seem to work. The twitching severity greatly decreased when I used these techniques, but never 100% subsided. Furthermore, the anxiety and twitching always returned sometimes very quickly. The hypnotherapist also recommended I try an herbal supplement called Valerian Root. It’s an herb that helps calm your nerves and relieve anxiety but does not make you drowsy. I found that taking two capsules before bed helped me fall asleep much faster since it relieved the anxiety. I always had trouble because my mind would race and twitches while I was relaxing would cause limbs to jerk (like a falling dream) and snap me awake as I was just falling asleep.

The relaxation techniques and Valerian Root definitely made the symptoms more tolerable, but it still wasn’t a solution. I wanted answers. I was scared to death that this was going to be the rest of my life. This is when my mother, who is big into homeopathy, suggested I see a homeopathic doctor to see what they have to say. I figured it couldn’t hurt and made an appointment with a homeopathic doctor I found in the area through a web search.

My experience with the homeopathic doctor:

In my very first appointment the doctor reviewed my symptoms and right off the bat suggested that I avoid wheat and gluten containing products in my diet as it was possible my body was reacting to a food I was eating. I thought that this was pretty absurd. What in the world would a food I eat have to do with neurological symptoms? He also suggested I up my dosage of Valerian Root and to take it 3 times a day, morning, noon and night.

When I left, I followed his advice on the Valerian Root, as it was helping me calm down at night, but I didn’t adjust my diet. I took more Valerian for about a month and indeed, during that month I did feel somewhat better, but the twitching never left 100%. After the first month I had a follow up appointment and began to wean my dosage on the Valerian. Although it’s a natural herb and there are no side effects, it’s still not recommended to take it intensively. Unfortunately the twitching started to get worse again.

At this point I decided to take his advice on the diet. I cut all wheat and gluten out of my diet. It took a few days for my system to clear, but the twitching nearly completely subsided! Furthermore the anxiety subsided as well. It had been so long since I could relax and watch television without my mind racing and having the urge to get up and pace (without taking Valerian Root that is). I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in months I felt normal!

Unfortunately my normalcy was short lived. I’d say it was about two weeks and I began to have anxiety and twitching come back into my life. I went back to the doctor and he recommended I take dairy products out. Taking him more seriously this time, I followed his advice and sure enough, my symptoms began to clear again. I began to supplement my dairy products with soy based milk and vegetable oil based butters, etc. But this time it was less than two weeks before the symptoms returned. Catching on, I decided to cut soy out and they cleared again. I realized that I was becoming sensitive to foods that I had never been sensitive to in my life. For some reason the list of foods I had to avoid was growing, and quickly…

Dealing with ever increasing food sensitivities:

I really started to wonder just what the heck was going on. I’ve been able to link my symptoms to a reaction my body was having to certain foods I was eating, but that list was growing. In my research on food sensitivities, I read that people can either react within 30 minutes of eating a certain food, or they could have a delayed reaction up to 72 hours later. I consider myself lucky (in a twisted way) because I started feeling twitching or anxiety within about an hour of eating something I was sensitive to. This made it easy for me to rule certain foods out. Unfortunately it would take up to 48 hours for the symptoms to subside again. This is why I was twitching 24/7 since December of 2009 because my body never had a chance to clear itself. My original food sensitivity, wheat, is in just about everything I ate.

In doing research on food sensitivities I was alarmed. I found forums, similar to this one, where people had been dealing with increasing sensitivities for years. One man told his story about how he had originally been 250 lbs and played football in college. He was down to 110 lbs because he was darn near sensitive or allergic to everything he ate. This was scary! Finally I found a web forum where someone made a reference to something called Leaky Gut Syndrome and I decided to do more research.

Leaky Gut Syndrome:

As most of you probably know, the human small and large intestines contain bacteria that are helpful in our digestion process. As most of you also know, antibiotics do not discriminate which bacteria they kill when taken. Well, your intestinal bacteria are on the front line when you do take antibiotics because they live where your body absorbs the antibiotics into your blood stream. Over the course of your life, every time you take antibiotics you negatively affect the balance of helpful bacteria in your digestive tract. Over the passage of time, a non-helpful and invasive fungus called Candida will begin to populate and overtake the good bacteria within your intestines.

Candida left unchecked will over time weaken the intestinal walls and allow itself and undigested proteins to absorb into your blood stream. Your intestines are also the primary source of your body’s immune system. When your body sees undigested proteins it creates antibodies to attack them. The next time your body sees that food, it proactively attacks and learns to attack each subsequent time you eat it. Thus you have the creation of new food sensitivities in adulthood.

The Candida that gets into your blood stream can spread to other areas of your body wreaking havoc where it goes. Candida has been linked to IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), arthritis, fatigue, enlarged prostates and ED in men, increased yeast infections in women, food sensitivities, chemical sensitivities, environmental sensitivities, psychological disorders such as depression, weight gain, auto immune disorders and much more. Basically your body’s natural defenses get overrun and various symptoms begin to pop up depending on where you are most affected and how your body tries to deal with it.

Signs you may have Leaky Gut Syndrome:

There are several tests that homeopathic doctors can use to determine if someone has Leaky Gut Syndrome. One test I was told about involves you swallowing two sugar cubes. One should pass through a healthy digestive tract and the other should not. There are stool tests and blood tests as well. My homeopathic doctor was able to determine I am suffering from Leaky Gut Syndrome because of several ‘tells.’ The fact that I have IBS was one clue. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is an early sign that there is an imbalance in your digestive tract. My blood protein levels were high (indicative that proteins are being absorbed through the intestine walls unfiltered). My liver area was tender, which is indicative of an overtaxed natural detoxification system. Your liver is your body’s primary way of detoxifying your blood and a leaky gut will overload it. You can feel your liver area by pressing on your right upper abdomen area just under the rib cage. When she pressed in that area and asked if it was tender I really noticed it. Based on how tender it felt, I was actually amazed I had never noticed it before. Between these clues and the fact that I was experiencing an increase in adult onset food sensitivities, she knew right away I had ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome.’

What to do about Leaky Gut Syndrome:

The internet is full of diets and information. Some of the information is contradictory, so it can be a little confusing. I can only tell you about the program that I decided to try out after much research. My mom read a book called ‘Lifeforce’ by Dr. Jeffery McCombs. It’s about 100 pages and a quick read. I highly recommend it. His website is pretty informative. His book does not go into details about the food sensitivities, but I’d recommend reading it still as it goes into the intricate details about how Candida affects your body and why. The Candida is the key to addressing the sensitivities, which is the key to the twitching. I read several reviews online and the positive comments far outweighed the negatives, so I decided to give it a shot.

His plan consists of 4 parts. Those four parts involve adopting a temporary special diet, taking a series of herbal supplements, drinking lots of water and sweating to assist your body in detoxifying. Basically he wants you to eat meat (any except pork), fish, eggs, fruits (except oranges) and vegetables. He wants you to avoid processed foods, wheat, dairy, sugars (includes fructose corn syrup and honey) vinegars, soda, fruit juices, alcohol and anything else not in the ‘yes foods’ group. The diet is simple, but there is one key aspect missing in his book for people like us who most likely have food sensitivities.

If you have food sensitivities, I have learned from other sources that you absolutely need to rotate your diet. This means that once you eat a food, any food, you cannot have that particular item again until 4 days later. The reason being that when your intestines absorb undigested proteins, your body produces antibodies to seek out and attack that protein. Antibodies last in your blood for up to 72 hours. If you avoid repeating any foods for 4 days (96 hours), your body never learns to proactively seek out and attack food proteins that you currently aren’t sensitive to. I’ve been on a rotating diet for over a month and have not developed any new food sensitivities. Alleluia!

The herbal supplements in his plan are designed to eliminate the Candida in your body over the first two months. The second two months the supplements are designed to repopulate your intestines with good bacteria or as they’re called ‘gut flora.’

The sweating is intended to relieve your body’s natural detoxification system, or the liver and kidneys. In leaky gut, your systems are already overtaxed as it is. When you begin killing off the Candida, you put a further strain on your body. As explained in the book, your body can detoxify itself by sweating through your skin. Apparently the sweat has to be a product of your body’s core temperature increasing so an exercise induced sweat will not accomplish the same goal. You need either a sauna or hot bath induced sweat. He recommends sweating for 10 to 15 minutes, so your bath will take more like 20 to 25 minutes. Once you start to sweat at your brow, you will know when to begin the countdown. Just be careful to not make your bath too hot!

Sweating is kind of a nuisance in the plan, but it’s crucial. Killing off the Candida is so taxing to your body that if you do not aid your liver and kidneys by sweating he writes that many people begin to experience cold or flu like symptoms, i.e. sore throat, fever, nausea, etc. Internet postings by people in the reviews testified to this as well. On the bright side, it’s a pretty good indicator that it’s working. I decided not to test this though, so I’ve been soaking in the bath most evenings.

For water he recommends you drink a quart of filtered water for every 50 lbs of body weight you have. For example if you weigh 150 lbs, you should drink 3 quarts of water per day. In his diet plan he recommends you stick to water or unsweetened tea and coffee (unless caffeine is on your list of things to avoid). No soda, alcohol, fruit juices or sports drinks. The sugar fuels the Candida.

The plan is supposed to last 16 weeks or approximately 4 months. At the end of this 4 month period, your leaky gut should be well on its way to healing. From what I have read leaky guts take 6 months to a year to heal. The McCombs Plan is specifically to address the Candida. In addition to the supplements you take for his plan, you should also take L-Glutamine which will assist your intestine lining in its healing process.

In regards to the diet, you will also need to avoid any foods you find that you are sensitive to (obviously). For instance, while I didn’t know that what I had was even food related, I became sensitive to tomatoes in addition to wheat, soy, dairy and caffeine. Although tomatoes are listed as OK in his diet, I have to avoid them as well. Sugars are particularly important to avoid as the Candida feeds off of them. Although the diet has its drawbacks, the benefits far outweigh the cons. I miss having pizza, Macaroni and Cheese or even having a dinner roll with my steak. I’m far happier that I’m feeling so much better now though. In a way the diet is a blessing because it has forced me to expand my horizons. I’m eating things like lamb, bison and trying new types of fish that are just delicious. My wife and I used to eat either beef or chicken for dinner and a sandwich for lunch. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s not a bad diet. Despite all the meat I’ve been eating, I’ve already lost 10 lbs.

Leaky gut is now in check, now what? :

Once the leaky gut is healed completely, testing by your homeopathic doctor should be able to conclude that it is safe to begin trying to reintroduce foods you were once sensitive to. There are several methods to desensitize your body to foods which once set off a reaction by your body. One method is the passage of time. After waiting enough time without having eaten a particular type of food, your body will lose its memory to attack it. The method I’ve read about is that you wait 6 months and try just a small sample of that food. If you are OK, wait a few days and try a little more. Continue slowly working it back into your diet. If you try a little and react negatively, you need to wait another 6 months and repeat. In time you should be able to eat all the foods you once enjoyed. My homeopathic doctor also has several methods to desensitize you. One technique we are trying now.

She gave me a small bottle of alcohol based solution that has trace amounts of wheat and other gluten containing grains in it. I take the dropper and place 7 drops under my tongue 2 times a day on an empty stomach. This supposedly desensitizes your body more quickly to the substance which you are reacting to. The logic behind it is that your body sees trace amounts of that food item every day and it’s so little that it gets used to seeing it and not reacting. By the time you add it back into your diet slowly, your body doesn’t react to larger amounts either.

There are other techniques that she has at her disposal, but I’m not quite there yet, so I can’t tell you the details about how they work at this time.

What I would recommend:

Try taking the most likely culprit foods out of your diet for a week and see how you feel. Gluten, wheat, dairy and soy are staples in the American diet. They’re in nearly every processed food you can think of and our bodies will react to the foods we most commonly eat. I’d also recommend going to a rotational diet to avoid any new sensitivities. Make sure you rotate not just the major foods you eat, but cooking oils (olive, canola, coconut, etc) you use and seasonings you use. I became sensitive to pepper because I used it in every meat I prepared. If you’re sensitive to any of these foods, you should know in a few days. Once your symptoms clear up, start adding things back in. If you eat something you are sensitive to, hopefully you’ll know quickly like I did. Also keep a food journal to keep track of what you eat or snack on and when. This will help you immensely in knowing what you can eat and when.

I’d also recommend trying a homeopathic doctor. I was once a skeptic about them but now I’m a true believer. I can only speculate as to why the conventional medical community continues to over prescribe antibiotics and independently treats the problems or symptoms caused by the Candida it unleashes. For example Dr. McCombs talks about how a majority of his patience come to him already having been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Disorder. When they use his plan, they clear up very quickly and feel better than they had in years.

You could speculate it’s just pure ignorance on the part of the conventional medical community or you could make conspiratorial assumptions such as hypothesizing that big pharmaceutical companies are making too much money off of the drugs they create to treat the endless problems caused by Candida. You have to admit there are a lot of commercials these days for anti-depression drugs, anxiety and mood disorders, etc. Who knows? All I know is that I’ve been on a Candida treatment program for a little over a month now and I’m feeling so much better than I have in a long time. Not just the twitching is gone, but the anxiety is subsiding and I seem to have so much more energy. I also fall asleep easier at night.

Synopsis:

I found that my twitching was being caused by a food sensitivity (originally to wheat and gluten). My ever increasing list of food sensitivities was being caused by ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome.’ The Leaky Gut Syndrome was caused by an over abundance of Candida in my body and particularly in my digestive tract. The Candida was caused by the antibiotics I had taken over my life. By no means did I take a lot of antibiotics either. I had an ear infection or two as a kid and occasional infections every couple of years. The damage was cumulative and took a lot of time to reach the stage where I was reacting to foods and twitching.

The key to fixing the twitching starts with getting rid of the Candida. While you get rid of the Candida with herbal supplements you can also take supplements like L-Glutamine to help repair your intestinal lining, i.e. fix the ‘leaky gut.’ Once the Leaky Gut Syndrome is taken care of you can work with your homeopathic doctor to remedy your food, chemical or environmental sensitivities. All in all this treatment averages a year, but you should begin feeling better within a week’s time. Just stick to your diet and overall Candida termination plan! Don’t forget to adopt a rotational diet!

In conclusion:

I’m sorry this posting is so long, but I wanted to give as much detail and information about my experience and the research I have done. It’s taken me quite some time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, especially since my homeopathic doctor didn’t even connect the dots right away between my twitching and Leaky Gut Syndrome. I know how scary and frustrating it is to have this crazy symptoms going on and to only have doctors question your sanity or laugh at you. It’s a real problem and it was impacting my life in such negative ways. Fortunately for me it’s a real problem with a real solution. I’ve still got a long way to go, but it brings me such peace to know that one day I will be able to enjoy a pizza and a beer again, twitch free. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know. I want to help as many people going through what I went through (and sort of still am). Thank you and good luck.
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Old 04-30-2014, 10:19 AM #8
RGBREC RGBREC is offline
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Default Any luck?

Hi,

Did you have any luck getting in contact with SecretAgentMan or in treating your muscular fasciculations through treating leaky gut?

Thanks,
Rob

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Originally Posted by Msudawg89 View Post
I would like to know what other treatments you had to heal the leaky gut besides diet.
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