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Part 6: What is Chronic Fatigue? Maladaptive stress responses and what this does to your life.

Once the body becomes chronically ill, stress is no longer JUST stress. Rather, we become kindled to respond to all stressors with heightened responses.  Lowering our reception of dopamine, inflaming tissues throughout our body, disarming the immune system, weakening the gut, increasing the propensity to food allergies and allergies to all chemical triggers.

There is no wonder once we become this ill we then learn obsessive avoidance patterns to help prevent the condition from worsening.  This state or learned avoidance plagues the sufferer with fear of what may happen should they encounter triggers from one moment to the next. This avoidance tends to be very isolating, but it goes way beyond that because it is our reptilian brain that is engaged with a heightened sense of perspective on Life and Death.

From the non-CFS perspective, others can see that our avoidance behaviours to food, people, chemicals, situations, further trains the brain to have more of a reaction to these things, trains the brain to believe there is more than out there to be afraid of.

Spotting avoidance behaviour is not always enough to turning learned patterns around.  Because when we are threatened by our environment, leading us to experience states of severe lack of safety within our own body, then every potential trigger becomes a threat.

Common thoughts could be .. Am I dying? or ..What’s going to happen to me?

States of mind which require mid-wife through the trauma that has set in.

For this to occur there are many therapies which fall under the remit of brain re-training.  Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), CBT, EMDR, Meditation, and others are designed to address subscripts which although not conscious, actually dominate 99% of choices, behaviours, patterns.

 

Therapies which compliment nutritional therapy in the reversal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Emotional Freedom Technique / The Lightning Process / Dynamic Neural Retraining / Family Constellations / Neuro-Linguistic Programming / Breath-work

There are different entry points into psycho-emotional traumas, and so not all therapies work in all cases.

Traumas that have lasting effects in our cells and therefore health are Childhood Traumas – even from the experience of our mother’s womb, Trauma of Stigma and illness itself, Inter-generational Trauma which is passed down from one generation to the next.  If our grandparents were in a concentration camp for instance.  This is the power of the fear response and in particular where Family Constellations can be of great help.  Emotional trauma in general benefits from Breath-work.

We know that when deep trauma is present, inter-generational, then emotional trauma of this magnitude actually imprints on the microbiome of the mother, and then the microbiome is then passed on to the child.  Trauma becoming epigenetically inherited.

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Part 5: What is Chronic Fatigue? The Nervous System, Re-Wired for Stress

There is a vicious cycle within Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, where-by long-term chronic stress can be the main determiner to our stress thresh-hold in the long-term.

This is neuro-plasticity, meaning changeable.  Simply put our nervous systems are capable of forming new pathways for better or for worse.  Neuroplasticity means our brains respond to stimulation, which over time, literally changes the structure of the brain to grow new neuro-pathways causing physiological changes and therefore new responses to dealing with new stressors. Through neuroimaging, it is possible to visibly see these changes, as an increase and a lengthening of neuron dendrites.  Literally building new neural pathways which are wired for stress!

LIMBIC KINDLING & MCS

This is a model of neuroplasticity is also known as ‘Limbic Kindling’, the kindling of our nervous system and brain to respond to chemicals.  Chemicals are saturated into our homes and personal care regimes.  Everything from upholstery, hair dyes, cosmetics car fumes, etc and other toxins such as heavy metals from our soil, water and therefore in our food.

Multiple stressors from multiple sources including environmental toxicity have the power to kindle our brain to act on its own as if it were experiencing the stress when it is not!  Acute infections can also kindle the brain to the same effect.

This over-stimulation is of the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis and ultimately lowers our threshold to environmental pollutants so that less chemical or other trigger stimulants are required to activate a chronic stress response.  An assembly for hypersensitivity and reactivity has then occurred.

LOW DOPAMINE

As the brain becomes affected we can observe changes that affect the physiology of the body.  For instance, we frequently observe the correlation of lowered dopamine typical of CFS sufferers.

Low dopamine reduces Basal Ganglia typically responsible for;

  • Movement changes, such as involuntary or slowed movements
  • Muscle tone
  • Problems finding words

REST, DIGEST, DETOXIFY

Where there is chronic overstimulation of the Sympathetic Nervous System, this is also known to down-regulate the Parasympathetic Nervous System which other-wise engages the rest, digest and detoxifies states of well-being.

The Vagus Nerve, (otherwise known as the nerve of compassion) is governed by the Parasympathetic Nervous System, which induces states of resting, gratitude, happiness, stillness, peace.  This is a profoundly anti-inflammatory state of being.  Good Vagus nerve activity can be induced by deep breathing, where the out-breath is twice as long as the in-breath.  

Benefits of good Vagus Nerve activity

  • Regeneration of the organs and cells by activating stem cells.

  • Thickens the brain, which normally shrinks with age.

  • Boosts the immune function. Modulates the nervous system.

  • Reduces depression

  • And lastly Improves the quality of life! 

LYMPHATIC DRAINAGE

Kindling’s effect on the Sympathetic nervous system also affects lymphatic drainage as lymphatic circulation is rhythmically pumper by the SNS.  Lymphatics cannot rely upon the heart to pump fluids around the body, only a series of valves and SNS regulate this important clearance pathway.

Changes to the lymphatic system can also lead to oxidative stress and cardiomyopathy.  

FURTHER DAMAGE

Intestinal Permeability

Chronic nervous system stress, kindled is known to increase intestinal permeability and therefore opportunistic infections to translocate across the intestinal mucosal lining.

Pyrroluria and Porphyria

Stress causes Pyrols in the urine.  Pyrols leach B6, Manganese and Zinc from our system. Heam is made from Pyrols, so are P450 enzymes (phase 1 detoxification). Therefore where there are high Pyrols there may also correlate low P450 enzymes.  Reduced P450 enzymes mean reduced liver detoxification, leading to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and toxicity.  

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Genie in the Genes

When I discovered that it was a DNA transcription error that inhibited a key …

Detoxification enzyme to function within my liver,band therefore to hold onto some of the most deadly toxins known to man, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.  Finding out the cause for one’s lifelong struggle with health could be akin to experiencing a divine effigy at the point of no return. If only I had known before the onset of Benign Fasciculation Syndrome 2 years ago, or Chronic Fatigue 20 years ago!!!  But still … better to learn these things late than never! And so with a firm commitment to the belief that everything is reversible, including irreversible conditions such as BFS I will now work with the new information in hand to my advantage.

This blog is all about how our genetic heritage could be the underpinning factor within your complex or unexplained illnesses … Benign Fasciculation is virtually unheard of even within medical circles.

So with the disease paradigm of complex health issues; Chronic Fatigue, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Fibromyalgia, PTSD, Gulf War Syndrome all fast on the rise.. we need to go beyond looking for single nutrient deficiencies or resorting to any linear thinking.

These complex disease states present multiple symptoms that cannot be commonly explained by mainstream medicine, but instead, due to their complexity require a complex adaptive approach in terms of understanding and treatment.

Thus far, these conditions have bewildered mainstream medicine for over two decades, acknowledge.  And as we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of cases of those affected, colleagues, loved one, family and friends, concern over finding both reason and cure becomes all the impending.  Stress is well understood from a systems biology approach and linked to be one major causative factor between the spectrum of complex disease states.

However, it is a newly emerging science known as Epigenetics that acknowledges our genetic predispositions and heritage. And it is this exciting field of expertise that explains DNA transcription errors and role to underpin areas of compromised health.

What this means is that the genes we carry significantly affect our health.  As in how robust we are, or susceptibility to various chronic diseases.  Then we have Nutritional Genomics, which explores the relationship between your diet and your genes with far-reaching potential in preventing diet-related diseases.

So what can you do?  What did I do? Get tested!

My advice to clients who have one or more complex health condition is to get tested.  Since genes do play central role in a number of metabolic processes being key factors in the onset of chronic disease.  You only need to complete this test once and the information given will benefit you for life.  What’s more, you could also note emerging patterns between yourself and any children and get them tested too.

Available test-kits:

DNA oestrogenDNA sport

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