> Although it does slightly confuse me. In the end, you state that your suggestion is Vitamin C and cherries. This seems a little simplistic.
Well, if I recommended only this, it would indeed be simplistic. But I recommend it as one of many things that can work. It's another idea that just might work. Unfortunetely everybody is different and everybody has to look for himself/herself.
> Most of the time, im too tired to even bother writing messages on this forum.
Same here most of the time. It is really difficult to get yourself together enough to try to look for some answers. But that's the only way to go, we have to try. So this treatment that I come up with is only such an attempt. It worked for me and I can't promise it will work for anybody. But trying this out is important, because we can gather more information and then other people will benefit too.
I will try to describe people who in my opinion can benefit and why.
When the erythrocytes in thals break down they spill garbage which causes acidity and hyperuricemia (excess uric acid).
http://www.emedicine.com/PED/topic2229.htmOccasionally, gout due to hyperuricemia may be encountered.
In my case this hyperuricemia causes tiredness and I am completely sure of this. I am in a kind of pre-gout state where I get joint and tendon pains (inflammation apparently not that intensive as with gout), but I do not have inflammation markers in blood test (ESR, CRP), which is strange.
So people who can benefit from this treatment are people who have hyperuricemia and body acidity. This may be not your case. You may have very good kidneys which will excrete uric acid or very good metabolism, which will not produce uric acid and will deal with acidity on its own.
This treatment will not work for you then.
You may have a very healthy vegetarian diet, consisting for example of citrus fruit and you will have
already alkalized body and still be tired. This treatment will not work for you then either. BTW. What we basically do when taking citrates and vitamin C is that we simulate eating large amounts of lemons or oranges, as our old predecessors living in jungle did, so we simulate nature, but also make it easier for us to eat it - I can't imagine eating 10 lemons a day - I tried this once - results: irritated stomach and it was bad for teeth enamel.
You can measure blood uric acid so you can know already if you fall into this cathegory, but you can't measure acidity, so the easiest way to figgure it out is to see if you get better after alkalization.
The queston now is how much you should alkalize, ie. how much citrate you should take. The best way to find out is to check urine with urine strips and see if ph is around 7 (neutral). Otherwise you have to empley some trial-and-error here. You can take potassium citrate, sodium citrate, magensium citrate and citric acid. You should be aware of limits and possible side effects of all of them.
Potassium citrate - if you take it too much it may cause you heart problems, it causes hypotension and eventually heart stops with very high dose. Thats why in the US the highest possible dose of potassium in one tablet is 99 mg.
http://www.puritan.com/pages/file.asp?CID=36&CPID=1171&PID=173&searchterm=potassium%20citrate&rdcnt=1Recommended dosage is one tablet a day.
I take about 3 tablets at once, but I am used to it. If you take it without getting used to such a dose, you may have trouble with your heart. 3 tablets will do no harm if you are used to, because potassium will be very quickly excreted to urine.
Sodium citrate - If you are afraid to overdose potassium citrate, you can try sodium citrate.
It causes hypertension, so eating one half of teaspoon of sodium citrate is just like eating half of teaspoon of salt. I would recommend diet without salt then.
How do you obtain sodium citrate? You won't buy it. You have to take baking soda and citric acid and mix it in a solution (very small quantity of water like 2 table spoons), adding ingredients until bubbling stops.
Magnesium citrate - If you take supplemental magnesium, your first choice should be always magnesium citrate. Not only it provides magnesium, but also citrate ! Unfortunetely, you can't have your full dose of citrate using this, because it would be probalby too much magnesium.
Please bear in mind, that what counts here is citrate part of compound, not the metal part (potassium, sodium, magnesium). So you can't take for example potassium aspartate - there will be no effect.
Citric acid. You can also do alkalization using citric acid, however the sour taste and burning in stomach (after a month of using it) and rough tooth enamel are not what you want in the long run. I experienced this. Same thing applies to lemons and oranges.
All these citrates are for urinary problems, namely kidney stones. When you alkalize urine these stones dissolve. We use the same principle here, except we dissolve uric acid earlier in the body.
Some doctors use citrates in gout treatment as it is pointed out in usage instructions of for example Bicitra. (sodium and potassium citrate and citric acid mixed)
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-15611-Bicitra+Oral.aspx?drugid=15611&drugname=Bicitra+OralThis medication is used to make the urine less acidic. Urine that is less acidic helps the kidneys get rid of uric acid, helping to prevent gout and certain types of kidney stones (urate). This medication can also prevent and treat certain metabolic problems (acidosis) caused by kidney disease.
The other doctors do not even want to hear about using citrates. Quote from my urologist - "you do not have kidney stones, so it's better not to alkalize urine because you can develop other stones and you can get urinary bacterial infection".
To adress these concerns I must say that we should not use doses which could cause this other type of kidney stones (ie. stones which do not dissolve in alkaline solution). If you take it once in the morning, then your urine will be alkalic for the first half of day, then will be acidic.
And this is how it should really be - first you get rid of stones (chemical compounds) dissolving in alkaline urine, then you get rid of stones (chemical compounds) dissolving in acidic urine from your kidneys.
As usual, we cannot overdo and overdose and we have to use common sense here.
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Ok, now what about vitamin C?
You can benefit from it in many ways, everybody knows that. Thals will benefit because it is antioxidant, so it saves erythrocytes from breaking down.
The other benefit, about which I already wrote, is that vitamin C can mobilize uric acid from your tissues as it is kind of chelating agent. Whem it does that and you indeed have problems with uric acid, all this uric acid in the blood will only make the situation worse, especially that vitamin C increases body acidity. That was why I avoided vitamin C for a long time, because it had a bad effect on me. What you can do here - alkalize body even more to remove uric acid or stop taking vitamin C and let the alkalization you do already do its job.
After some time all the uric acid will be flushed and you should feel better. It took about a week for me.
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Cherries. Do you eat black, sour cherries? Sweet cherries are good for nothing.
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Try Gin-seng. I wouldn't feel good without it.
Puritan's iron-free green source has it, but any other multivitamin with Gin-seng will be good. Puritan's got additional benefit of being iron free.
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> I would love to hear from you and how ur treatments are going.
Generally, I'm improving. Tiredness and pains under control (ie. gone). Of course I have to rest more and get tired faster than normal people, but that can be dealt with.
Unfortunately I have a total dryness of mouth and nose and because of this I had some kind of flu,
sore throat and fever. And we have summer here...
So I increased vitamin C dose to 5000 mg (google out "vitamin C megadose") and problems with sore throat is gone, but the dryness is still there. However all people should (probably) stick with 1000 mg or less at the beginning. Megadose is for special applications, but you will google this out, if you're interested.
> I am taking folic acid, and Vit B12. Started yesterday. Dont notice anything so far
Well, I am also the most impatient patient ever. One of my doctors used to make fun of me saying: "But you know, patient must be patient". And so it took 5 years to reach the final diagnosis (which is probably not final anyway) and some kind of treatment.
You just can't expect anything good to happen after one day of taking vitamins...
And besides what about all these other supplements, that are suggested on the forum?
You can't know what your deficiencies are (it is even difficult or even impossible or very expensive to test for these), so the easiest way to approach this problem is to take all possible supplements, at least for some time - then after getting rid of your deficiencies you can hope that your body will manage on its own.
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I hope this answered many of your questions. If you have any more questons, don't hesitate to ask.
Regards
Bigg