(Warning: another boring health post, recorded here in the hope that it might be of use to others)
Of all the numerous and weird symptoms that I have endured these last few years, none has had a greater impact on my quality of life than the chronic fatigue. When doctors ask me which one symptom that I would prioritise them curing, then fatigue would be it.
The neurologist who diagnosed my poisoning by strong antibiotics – the fluoroquinolone antibiotics – explained to me that the fluoroquinolones permanently damaged the mitochondria in each cell.
Simply put, the mitochondria is the “powerhouse of each cell” in the body. You certainly don’t want that damaging. What befuddles me is that there seems to be very little research on the mitochondria despite its central role throughout the body. Why is this? So much remains unknown about the body. My guess is that over the next decade the mitochondria will become follow the gut as the area of medicine that the everyday person will become far more aware of. I may stand to benefit from this likely zeitgesit.
Fortunately for me, I have been working with an excellent nutritional therapist, Jessica Barfield of Enjoy Nutrition. After extensive research, Jessica recommended that I try some new (and very expensive) supplements aimed at enhancing the damaged element of the mitochondria. The pills are https://www.researchednutritionals.com/product/atp-fuel-optimized-energy-for-serious-mitochondrial-needs-gmo-free/.
Frankly, as with all other supplements I have taken – and there’s been dozens – I didn’t expect any improvement. However, within a week the fatigue was reduced by 80%. Of course, I wonder if this is simply the placebo effect in operation, or perhaps just coincidence. I’ll never know, but I will keep taking them. Good pills!
And as is all too common to chronic illness sufferers, the ups are usually followed by a down. And so it was for me again.
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Recently, with another delightful but low-level infection rumbling away, on advice from the consultant, the GP prescribed me with light-touch antibiotics for 6 weeks – trimethoprim. I’ve had lots of this antibiotic before without any dramas.
With no expectation of side-effects, I commenced the course. Within one day – so after only two tablets – my family noticed that I developed three round, red blotches on my face. Immediately, I stopped taking them, and reported the impact to the GP. I then filed a Yellow Card – which is a report about the side effects of a given medication. Another set of bad pills?
(Incidentally, the nobody-can-believe-she-made-the-Cabinet, Nadine-Dorries, answered a question about Yellow Card reports in relation to fluoroquinolone antibiotics here.)
What this means is that there’s even fewer antibiotics I can turn to when – as will inevitably happen – another infection strikes. And with so few antibiotics to turn to, there must be the risk that I develop resistance to these. Such is life.
