Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - An All Natural, Scientific Approach, To Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) Recovery

There is NO test for Chronic Fatigue Synrome (CFS). The diagnosis is based on exclusion and your history: unexplained fatigue for at least 6 months along with cognitive dysfunction which would include the inability to think clearly, concentration or memory problems.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is simply a "label" that doesn't tell you what to do about it. In essence the diagnosis is given when a doctor cannot figure out what the underlying dysfunction is. Your fatigued, your brain is not functionig like it used to, and you get told, "we don't know wny this is happening, you must have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."

What most doctors fail to understand about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is:

The immune system in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Sufferers is ABNORMAL. The immune system is over-active. In fact, many people are suffering with Chronic Fatigue symptoms developed it after some kind of infection--whether they know it or not.

And as the months go by without the proper treatment, the immune system becomes terribly imbalanced..like a teeter totter with someone only on one side. The two sides of the teeter totter in your immune system is called your T-Helper 1 (TH-1) and T-Helper 2 (TH-2) system. Your TH-1 system is your immediate attack team, responding immediately to any foreign invaders. If an attack becomes prolonged your TH-2 system becomes activated to assist your TH-1 system to locate the invaders, making them more efficient at fighting.

The key to eliminating the fatigue and cognitive dysfunction in Chronic Fatigue sufferers is to heal both the immune system and the brain AT THE SAME TIME.

To do this we must:

• Calm and balance the immune system
• Remove triggers that are activating the immune system
• Strengthen the weak areas of the brain with appropriate fuel and stimulation

Sounds too easy right? Everyone has already failed. Figureatively speaking you have been around the block more than once and they have all said the same thing, "There is no known treatment that is effective for Chronic Fatigue sufferers."

There are three main reasons why traditional medical care has nothing to offer victims of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:

1. Our healthcare insurance model in well suited to deal with acute problems like broken bones, traumas, and illnesses that have a straight forward diagnosis and treatment. It is ill-suited to help those with chronic conditions. Once a condition becomes chronic patients get "thrown from the train," so to speak, left with "untreatable labels" that gives all future doctors the right to say, "there is nothing that can be done." 
2. In the mainstream medical system there is no treatment for viral immune conditions. The only treatment ever offered is radical treatment like interferon therapy, given only to the most chronic hepatitis patients. Even in these cases it is elective since the therapy has been known to drive people to suicide.
3. There is "no separation of systems" in our body, yet we have created a hierarchy of specialists who look at individual body systems as if they function in isolation. Most doctors learn the body in chapters so they get a false idea that the body is a bunch of compartments. Unfortanately, many health problems aren't neat and discrete. Too many doctors have blinders on. They lose sight of the big picture -- how the immune system, the hormone system, the nervous system, digestive system, and others -- are ALL tied together. You have to look at ALL of them at once.

To truly get to the root cause of your fatigue we must take a comprehensive neurologic, immune, and metabolic look at you. We must open up the hood and see what is really going on inside of your body. That can only be done with very specific lab panels and a comprehensive functional neurological exam.

We always conduct a comprehensive brain and nervous system exam. It is critical to determine with specificity what parts of your brain are malfunctioning. Next we have to "dissect" you immune system with some very specific lab panels that measure the Lymphocyte (immune cells) subpopulations and the cytokines (proteins that the immune system uses to communicate) that influence immune reactions. We also must run tests to assess the health of your adrenal glands, your blood sugar delivery system, your digestive system, and oxygen delivery systems.

Some of the specific laboratory panels we look at include:

1. Adrenal Stress Index (ASI):  Your adrenal glands are your “stress” organs. This means that they react to stress.  If you have been or are currently under stress, this test is a must!
   IF YOU SUFFER FROM INSOMNIA, THIS TEST WILL MEASURE YOUR CORTISOL LEVELS.  When your body’s cortisol levels are abnormal, you will suffer from insomnia. Insomnia will perpetuate the fatigue process. Cortisol levels can be corrected via specific nutritional protocols thereby curing your insomnia. 
2. Autoimmune Testing - We may test to see if you have an autoimmune disease.  An autoimmune disease is where your immune system attacks a particular area of the body. We test for specific tissue antibodies to determine if you suffer from an autoimmune condition.  We can check for gluten antibodies, tissue antibodies such as myelin (fatty sheath around the nerves) antibodies, cerebellar (back part of the brain controlling balance, coordinated movement, and spinal muscles) antibodies etc.

The most important part of autoimmune diagnosis and workup is not the specific tissue being attacked. The most important thing is to figure out exactly where the immune system is malfunctioning. We do specific immune panels that are not run in the traditional medical model. By dissecting the immune system we can employ very specific natural strategies to calm and balance the immune system. People travel from all over to seek our expertise in autoimmune disease natural management.

1. H. Pylori Testing: We can run a test for H. Pylori bacteria to determine any problems related to the gut function. This is a common infection that only produces stomach irritation in about 1/3 of those infected allowing systemic inflammation to spread all over your body like wildfire with no indication that it is coming from the gut until we test for it.
2. Neurotransmitters: We test for decreased brain neurotransmitters.  Neurotransmitters are vital for proper brain function.  Decreased neurotransmitters play a role in many chronic conditions. You cannot stimulate neurological pathways if they produce the proper neurotransmitter output. Ignore this common and crucial key and clinical failure is likely.
3. Hormone Testing:  We check hormone panels to determine if the patient suffers from low testosterone in males or low estrogen/progesterone levels in females. Symptoms related to decreased hormone levels may include depression, fatigue, mental fogginess, mood swings, hot flashes, sweating attacks, weight gain, and decreased physical stamina. Hormone balance in crucial for proper brain function and proper brain function is crucial for proper hormone balance. Remember all your body's systems work in orchestration. We don't put blinders on and get too focused on just one aspect. That is what everyone else does, and that is why most doctors fail with chronic conditions.  
4. Inflammation: We test for inflammation in your system by testing homocysteine levels and C-Reactive Protein (C-RP).  Many patients suffering from chronic health conditions suffer from inflammatory processes.  Just about every chronic patient that I have treated suffers from some form of chronic inflammatory process.
5. Viral Panels - We are going to look at the viral infections in your body and how well your body is fighting them. We are going to monitor our progress by looking at something called Viral PCR which will tell us your "viral load." As we make progress your viral load will decrease until the virus is effectively eradicated.

Those are a sampling of some of the types of testing we do. We employ the best laboratories from all over the country. Once we have run the necessary tests to determine exactly what is wrong, we can successfully treat you via proper neurological and all natural nutritional protocols. 

The foundation of our Chronic Fatigue Recovery Program lies in this truth:

Every Cell In Your Body, Especially Your Brain and Nervous System, Need Two Things To Survive:

• Fuel - in the form of oxygen and glucose
• Activation - nerve cells need proper stimulation, or else they degenerate and die.

Let me tell you how important fuel is, especially balanced blood sugar and Oxygen, for ANYONE who suffers from a chronic illness.

BALANCED BLOOD SUGAR: Glucose comes from the foods you eat. Your brain must have enough glucose – but does not like blood sugar swings. Over-eating of sugar and high carbohydrate foods is epidemic. This leads to massive blood sugar swings with hypoglycemia (excessively low) as one extreme and diabetes as the other. Your brain cannot work properly that way…but we can help this. 

OXYGEN: After about age 20, YOU LOSE YOUR ABILITY TO USE OXYGEN by 1% per year! So, for example, at age 47 you've lost 27% of your capacity. Oxygen is like gasoline in the gas tank of your car. As you get older, having enough oxygen becomes crucial. If you don't have any gas in the car, you are not going anywhere. One focus of our recovery program is to increase your oxygen so your brain can do its job.  Without oxygen available for your brain and nervous system, most likely, no treatment will work!

As powerful as oxygen is for healing your body, it's not enough to do the job. Fuel is not enough by itself. Your brain must be stimulated to stay healthy, work correctly and create healing and balance. Here are just a few of the powerful brain activations we use in our highly successful Chronic Fatigue Recovery Program to give sufferers just like you the relief you desperately want:

Unilateral Joint Stimulation: The right brain controls the left side of the body, and the left brain controls the right side. If there is a decrease of firing or impulses in one side of the brain, I ONLY WANT TO STIMULATE THE JOINTS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Don't worry....I WILL ONLY USE VERY LIGHT INSTRUMENT ACTIVATION SO YOU WILL NOT GET WORSE!  Have you ever had a massage, a chiropractic manipulation, or physical therapy and felt worse afterward? It is because the treatment was TOO MUCH for your nervous system.  It over-stimulated you and you crashed.....Get ready for another $5 term.... it Exceeded Metabolic Capacity (EMC).

Auditory Stimulation: listening to sound in one ear will stimulate the opposite side of the brain and increase impulses. Different sounds (frequencies, tones, pitches) affect the right and left sides of the brain differently. We use professionally, specially composed music that specifically activates ones side of the brain. We use right brain music if your right side is weak, or left brain music if your left side is weak.

Olfactory Stimulation: Your sense of smell is special. Your sight, sound, taste, and touch all travel through a sensory area of your brain called the thalamus. SMELL GOES DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN - there's no middle man. Smells are powerful brain stimulations. I'm sure you've experienced this.....the smell of homemade cookies baking in the oven brings fond memories of your childhood flooding back....makes your mouth water. Or on the other hand, just a whiff of spoiled milk makes your stomach turn. Smells you like stimulate the left side of the brain. Smells you don't like stimulate the right side of the brain.

Calorics: A small amount of warm water in the ear will stimulate the semi­circular canals in your inner ear. They send massive signals through the vestibular nerve in a chain reaction to several important brain areas: the cerebellum....the cortex....then down to the lower brainstem (pontomedullary region). Remember, it's your lower brainstem and cortex that slow down the over-firing upper brainstem (mesencephalon). Caloric stimulation is also fantastic for treating dizziness.

Now, these are just a few of the treatments that I may use to help your brain increase its firing. There are literally over one hundred ways we have to specifically activate and stimulate the brain. The key to the success of Boydston Brain Based Rehab is to be extremely specific in diagnosing the weak brain areas and applying activations or stimulations to those specific weakened areas. Other treatments we use involve eye movements, gross motor activities, light therapy, cognitive activities, puzzles, etc. The list is HUGE, and specific to each individual's needs.

The main thing you have to understand is that we stimulate the brain by using the receptors on the outside of the body that are wired and connected to the various areas of your brain. So if we find weakened areas in your right parietal lobe then we are going to use receptors that are wired to the parietal lobe.  It is complex. Everything we do is non-invasive, non-drug, and promotes proper function in the brain. The brain has an amazing ability to adapt, change, and rewire if we give the proper fuel and activation. We can make the weak area strong again.

But it is not just as simple as stimulating weakened areas. We have to consider how much stimulation the brain can handle. We have to consider things like blood sugar delivery, oxygen delivery, neurotransmitter deficiencies, stress physiology, etc. For some people we have to make a series of nutritional changes before we can provide any stimulation. For some people we have to work really slowly. Too much stimulation for a neuron is called exceeding metabolic capacity, and if we do too much we can cause your symptoms to flare. Luckily we have ways to monitor fatigue and are very careful not to exceed your metabolic capacity.

Now I have talked about dealing with the cognitive aspects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but remember I said just a few minutes ago if we are going to have ANY success with Chronic Fatigue then we must treat the brain AND the immune system at the SAME TIME.

For some Chronic Fatigue sufferer's their immune system has become dysregulated and continues to run on hyperdrive despite no active infection being present. Others continue to fight viral infections and their immune system no longer has the proper metabolic machinery to wage a proper fight. All of the bodies resources get shunted into fighting a war it has no chance at winning on it's own.

When we are specific with our immune testing and followup testing we can know exactly what is going on "behind the curtain" and use very specific natural protocols to strengthen, regulate, and balance the immune system. When done in unison with Brain Based Rehabiliatin we have great success when others have failed or just threw their hands in the air and gave up.

My guess is that you have not had a doctor who is as thorough in his or her evaluation nor have you had a doctor who actually understands you the way that I do. You need a doctor who actually looks at all the underlying mechanisms creating dysfunction, a doctor who is NOT going to shove prescription medications down your throat, that rob you of your personality, making you feel like a zombie, numb to the world.

If you are "tired of being tired" and want a chance to finally feel normal again then call our office at 559-297-9218 to schedule an appointment.