ask2266

I am on week 3 of earthing. I am still feeling a complete remission of my adrenal fatigue. Yesterday, however, I really pushed myself too far, I think, on the dysautonomia side of things.

I was working on a budget all day with spreadsheets and also filling out numerous insurance forms. (I swear that they make those as difficult as possible, so you don't have the energy to complete the dumb things). At about 5 o'clock, I realized that I had not eaten anything but a banana with almond butter all day, and I had had no hydration. I drank a kombucha tea and stupidly continued working until 9pm. At 9 pm, I had another banana with almond butter and drank about 12 ounces of water. Then, I went to bed.

I felt fine all day, so I was being really stupid about not taking care of myself. I didn't have any dizziness or palps or low blood sugar during the day. However, when I started to fall asleep, I did get dizzy. I was able to fall asleep without sitting up or drinking water or taking salt, but I did feel the dizziness.

Apparently, just because I'm feeling better doesn't mean I can abuse my body and not expect dysautonomia to rear it's head.

I have had ZERO luck with mainstream doctors. I have have been to tens and tens of them to no avail. I find that they lack any inquisitiveness, and if they don't know what it is off the top of their head, they just shrug their shoulders. My best doctors have been holistic doctors (there are many who are M.D.s). They will do tons of tests and try to track down what is wrong.

Of course, the problem with them though is that a lot do not take insurance because insurance prohibits them from spending enough time with their patients.

Celery sticks (or fruit if you can tolerate it) with almond butter.

Are you going to the facility in Portland, Oregon that does them? I read about that place on the scdlifestyle dot com website. That's where I would probably go, but it costs $2000-$5000. My husband is starting a business right now, so we don't have the cash to do that right now.

I have heard of people doing home made ones, but I just can't get over the ick factor of doing it myself. It's one of the last experimental treatments that I haven't tried, so knowing me, I'll get one sooner or later.

And as to the candida, I'll add that I think candida is a symptom not a cause. Of course, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be treated; it just means I think that candida comes after the failure of the immune system, not before.

My CFIDS doctor who is a virologist (formerly a fellow at Stanford and works with the CDC to study viruses in chronic fatigue like diseases and autism) says that herpes viruses can imbed in your autonomic nervous system. Anyone who has had the following: HSV-1, HSV-2, Chicken Pox, Mono, HHV-6, CMV, Parvovirus-- these viruses never go away once you catch them, and they live in your nervous system. They also hide on B lymphocytes in your immune system.

Interestingly, although my CFIDS was in remission last year, my viral levels were through the roof when I developed dysautonomia. I had just had them checked at the time. I know that I have brought my viral levels down since then with monolaurin. How much, I'm not sure.

Perhaps, because I brought the viral levels down that enabled me to get rid of the dysautonomia with the earthing sheet?? Maybe if the viruses were still high, it wouldn't have gone away. Sorry...just thinking out loud here.

Do you think you would still have an e-coli infection? Or that it triggered everything? I believe that my Sjogren's was triggered by an infection with Parvovirus. I think my immune system, in reacting to that, went rogue and autoimmune. Of course, I have also read that Sjogren's is closely linked with celiac, so I think that infection and diet contributed

Of course, I believe that ALL of my problems are related to the gut. I don't think I got a robust microflora from my mom, even though I was vaginally delivered. Then, I was on antibiotics for so much of my youth that I think I really damaged my bacterial colony.

Because of this deficient gut, I have had immune system meltdown my entire life. Shoot, I cheated on paleo last week and had wheat, and I broke out in dermatitis herpeteformis all over my body today (even though I test negative for celiac). Great, so now I'm celiac, too!

My big quest in the next 5 years is to heal my gut. I've done paleo for about 6 months, but I am thinking of trying the GAPS diet. There are several moms on the autism boards who say that the GAPS diet will heal the gut. I'm also thinking of getting a fecal transplant. Now, there's some desperation!

I have been trying to do paleo for some time now, and all I do is cook. It's exhausting. It's really unfair that sick people can't eat convenience food, because we are the ones who need the convenience!!

ask2266

41

I could not eat AT ALL when my POTS was at its worst. I got to where I was living on vanilla yogurt, because it was the only thing that I could put in my mouth. I went down to 95 pounds for awhile.

What was annoying is I had friends that would say, "I wish I couldn't eat," and I wanted to tell them that it can be a matter of life and death, so quit joking about it. When I went on Remeron for sleep, it increased my apptetite, so it was a life saver.

I have always had anxiety, even before all my health problems. I never had panic attacks or anything like that, but I would get stressed out about stuff very easily. I would freak out in traffic and get frustrated with my husband very easily. I feel like I never handled stress well.

After my recent experience with earthing, I now believe that my anxiety has always been caused by maladaptive and malfunctioning adrenal glands. My anxiety has vanished since I started earthing 2 weeks ago. Before this, I always assumed that my anxiety was part of my personality, but now I think my body was physically sick and that is what created the anxiety, similarly to people who are not anxious but feel that anxiety feeling from POTs.

Bebe:

I am sorry you are feeling so poorly. You deserve to be able to complain and to cry. I hope you will at least allow yourself that.

I don't like any of my doctors either. I have been to about 15 different ones in my town for my various conditions. When I told one of my rheumatologists about my chronic fatigue syndrome, he dictated into his notes (I heard him do this) as "quote chornic fatigue syndrome end quote," like it wasn't a real illness and/or I didn't really have it. This is after I had gone out to California to see a chronic fatigue specialist at Stanford who had confirmed my diagnosis. It's such a long battle to find someone, and sick people have such little energy to fight a battle.

Well, I just wanted you to know that I am sending hugs your way.

ask2266

Relax86-

I am glad you are giving it a try. I live in Georgia and have no affiliation with earthing. I am a patient, just like you, and I have been sick for a long time. The only reason I even put the cost of the product in my post was so that people would see that it is cheap compared to what we all spend on everything else for our health. I used to get IVS every week that were $200 a piece, so this is cheap by comparison. I am more of the mindset like you-- mainstream medicine offered nothing for me, so I took matters into my own hands.

May I ask, what are you still struggling with if your POTS is in remission?

Thanks again for reaching out!

Someone has to fund research studies. To be published, the study's authors must prove their results. There is no way to fudge a published research study.

I find it interesting that we all take medications made by pharmaceutical companies. All of the studies on these drugs are funded solely by the drug companies, and yet we accept these drugs as being proven to work by science.

However, when a treatment is based on a more natural approach, we are concerned about conflicts of interest. I say we because I myself was extremely skeptical about this too, until it worked for me.

I posted this in another CFIDS/POTS forum, and I had someone respond to me with some interesting published research articles.

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov+earthing|grounding

Here is his/her post to me:

Thanks for posting your account and experiences of earthing, ask2266. Certainly seems like a spectacular improvement in health.

Very interesting that earthing (grounding) your body appeared to improve/cure your postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

There are quite a few studies on PubMed on the physiological effects of earthing the human body. Some relevant excerpts from these studies I have quoted below.

In particular, note that studies have shown earthing can improve the functioning of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and shift the balance of the ANS toward away from the sympathetic nervous system ("fight or flight"), and towards the parasympathetic nervous system ("rest and digest"). This I would think most likely explains your improvements in POTS symptoms.

And check out the study below that says "earthing during sleep reduces night-time levels of cortisol and resynchronizes cortisol hormone secretion more in alignment with the natural 24-hour circadian rhythm profile."


➤ Earthing (grounding) the human body reduces blood viscosity — a major factor in cardiovascular disease (2013).

➤ Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons (2012).

➤ The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress (2004).

➤ Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes (2011).

➤ Emotional Stress, Heart Rate Variability, Grounding, and Improved Autonomic Tone: Clinical Applications.

Kayjay:

Well, you said that you have a Vitamin D deficiency, so I assumed that you weren't outside much. Sorry for my confusion, and sorry that earthing didn't work for you.

Earthing is FREE.

But being barefoot in your house won't do anything because wood is not a conductor. Also, I don't think that being barefoot outside for one hour will do anything because I have sat outside in my front yard with my neighbors daily for the last few years, and I never had such a dramatic effect as now when I was grounded for 8-9 hours per day.

All someone needs to do to duplicate my experience is to spend 8 hours per day barefoot or sitting on the ground for 3 days straight. Labor Day Weekend might be a good time to try this. I bet if someone gives it 3 days at 8 hours per day, they will notice a difference. What do you have to lose if its FREE????

Glad you are having success with this treatment. Sounds interesting. Please keep us posted as I hope it continues to serve you well.

Did you do Rutuximab for your cfids? Just curious.

Thanks for bringing another treatment option to our attention.

I took Valcyte, which acts similarly to Rituximab. It destroys the B lymphocytes. It's antiviral for people with AIDS. I am a lucky cfids patient because I only have viruses (EBV, parvo and HHV-6). My understanding is that it is much easier to get cfids patients with only viruses into remission than cfids patients with bacterial infections.

As to all the naysayers, there have been placebo controlled studies that are published in medical journals about earthing. In the studies, they plug the controls into fake earthing sheets, and the placebo group reports significantly less improvement than those earthing (15% v. 85%) . In one such study, cortisol as measured by saliva tests normalized in in 10 out of 12 participants using an earthing sheet, with all 12 reporting easier and deeper sleep.

Have you ever heard of Ignaz Semmelweis? He discovered the germ theory of disease in 1847 and proposed that people wash their hands. He was laughed out of medicine and died in shame in an asylum after losing his right to practice medicine at his hospital. Twenty years later, Louis Pasteur is credited with the discovery, and even he met resistance. So I wouldn't jump to any conclusions about anything. We all know less than we think about health, life and this earth. Most PhDs in physics will say that the benefit of the degree is in learning that we don't know anything, which leaves many paths open for research.

I can't be 100% sure that it's not placebo effect. Although I will note that if I was going to get placebo effect, I think it would be more likely that I gotten it on a treatment that I was actually taking to help with dysautonomia instead of something that I bought to help with pain. Also, I would think I would have gotten a placebo result on one of the many other treatments that I tried for dysautonomia before this.

And I didn't measure my blood pressure or heart rates before. I am only going by how I feel.

How many hours per day are you earthing/grounding? I sit outside on a daily basis also (I live in a neighborhood where all the neighbors sit outside after school and talk), but I never had a result like this until I was grounded for 9 hours at a time.

My tachycardia is gone. i never had major issues with blood pooling.

It's hard for me to believe, and I am the one actually experiencing it! I've gone in 2 weeks (that's how long I've used it) from being sick to feeling healthier than I ever have in my life!

It sounds like such woo woo that I would be embarrassed to tell people, but I feel compelled to because it has been SO DRAMATIC, and I want others to try it.

Hi- I am a new member to this forum. I have read it a lot in the past year but never joined because I thought I had nothing to say. Finally, I have something to add to the discussion.

I believe that earthing (also known as grounding) has cured my dysautonomia. I saw one other person on this forum who tried it and had the same result. I haven’t found any posts by other dysautonomia folks who have tried it. Because this is the type of post that might generate lots of questions, I decided to post my story to preempt some of the questions. If you don’t want to read my history, skip down to “EARTHING” in all caps and start reading there. I am happy to answer any questions though. I know this will be a controversial post, and I don’t want to give false hope. I only want to tell you my story and have you judge for yourself. I am not in any way affiliated with earthing products. I am a disabled mom.

MY STORY

For the past ten years, I have steadily transformed from a healthy, thirty-year-old attorney to a sickly forty-something-year-old on disability. All of my illnesses have involved inflammation, my immune system and my adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are the glands that help your body respond to stress. When under stress, the adrenals release cortisol and adrenaline which down-regulate your immune system. The adrenals glands also regulate your ability to sleep. Finally, and most importantly to people on this forum, the adrenal glands produce aldosterone which regulates blood pressure and salt and potassium in the blood.

In 2002, I was practicing law as a new attorney, loving the fast pace of my job. Most of all, I loved the stress; it made me feel important. You might say I was a bit of a perfectionist, and stress was like a drug to me. That year, I developed Sjogren’s Syndome. I was told that my immune system was attacking my body and creating inflammation. It was devastating at onset but over time I got it fairly under control. I kept working as hard as I ever had.

In 2003, I developed chronic hives. My doctors told me it was caused by all of the inflammation in my body. It was excruciating to break out in hives all day every day. I finally was only able to get the hives under control after a year by taking Plaquenil, an immune-modulating drug. I continued to work.

In 2006, with my son in daycare bringing home every cold, and while I worked full-time, I developed whooping cough and a month later an extremely rare flesh-eating pneumonia. Within a day of catching this, I turned septic and was in a narcotically induced coma for 2 weeks. The doctors told my husband that my encephalitis and lung damage were so bad that I would likely be a vegetable if I ever awoke. Miraculously, I woke up with all of my mental faculties intact. I was left with scarring in my lungs called bronchiectasis.

In denial about the gravity of my illness, I returned to work as a full-time attorney after 8 weeks. Within 3 weeks of returning to work, I developed chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (“cfids”). My adrenals were exhausted from managing my immune system through such a serious illness, and their failure caused my whole body to shut down. I couldn’t sleep no matter how many Ambiens I took. I couldn’t eat. I felt wired all the time due to a resurgence of Epstein Barr Virus. I had always had anxiety and angers issues, because ironically, although I craved stress in my life, I didn’t handle stress well. With the cfids and adrenal problems, my anxiety went through the roof. I also began getting recurrent pneumonias due to the lung scarring and because my immune system was down-regulated from the cfids. This was when I had to go on disability. My body had given out. I was bedridden.

In 2010, I tried an experimental treatment, a chemotherapy antiviral drug, and got my cfids in remission. Of course, the minute I got it into remission, I tried to reengage in some form of living. I started exercising and volunteering at my son’s school. Through all this, I still got pneumonias on a semi-monthly basis and started having difficulty sleeping through the night as my adrenals struggled to keep up. Even the little stress caused by volunteering was enough to take me down.

Then, in 2012, I developed dysautonomia (i.e. POTS or mitral valve prolapse syndrome—every doctor I see calls it something different). I suddenly became very sensitive to exercise. Sometimes I threw up after exerting myself. I started having dizziness if I didn’t drink water and take salt at timed intervals throughout the day. At bedtime, I had to sleep sitting up because I had such bad bed spins. I had adrenaline surges and low blood sugar where I would almost faint. I would feel really sick if I got hot. The nausea became so bad that I couldn’t eat. I also developed adrenal fatigue again. No matter how well I slept at night, I could not get up in the morning. I slept until noon. I felt low energy, depressed. My hair started falling out again. I was absolutely miserable.

During this round of disability, I decided that I was going to cure the dysautonomia like I had “cured” the cfids. I started researching like crazy and trying every treatment that I could get my hands on. I wanted to get better naturally, but I was desperate. The dysautonomia was the worst of all the diseases I had faced, because I felt nauseous all the time. It’s no way to live as you all know. I did graded exercise and acupuncture and Chinese herbs and hormones (pregnenolone & dhea) and diet and supplements. I got all sorts of blood tests, nutrition evaluations and food allergy testing. I did colon hydrotherapy and coffee enemas and Thai massage. I spent so much money it was ridiculous. The doctors had no suggestions beyond what I was already doing, and nothing worked. Finally, after a year, I gave up on ever curing the dysautonomia. I had become so obsessed with feeling better that my stress levels were at an all-time high. I was anxious and always angry at my husband; it’s hard not to be a miserable person when you are miserable.

Around this time, I started getting neck pain. I would get cricks that wouldn’t go away, and my having to sleep sitting up all the time compounded the pain. It was debilitating, so I started researching pain relief and stumbled upon earthing.

EARTHING

Earthing (also known as grounding) is the concept that our bodies need the electromagnetic energy of the earth for optimum health as much as we need water, plants, rocks (minerals), air and sunlight. The earth gives off electrons that our body readily absorbs, which brings us to the same electrical frequency as the earth. We have become cut off from these electrons in our modern life by wearing shoes with plastic and rubber soles and by living in houses made of wood; these materials are not conductors, so the earth’s electrons cannot pass through. In order to “earth,” you can walk barefoot on the ground. There are also grounding sheets and pads that you can order; you plug them into the third hole of your outlet. (They give you a tester to test your outlet to make sure it’s safe before you plug).

The science of how these electrons improve health is not 100% understood. We know that free radicals are positively charged and that they do their damage to bacteria, viruses and human tissue by seeking electrons, so one theory of the benefits of earthing is that electrons may act as antioxidants. However, some of the other benefits of earthing are not easy to understand. It makes sense in some ways though because we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years walking barefoot and sleeping on the surface of the earth. Also, there are double-blind placebo studies published in scientific journals showing earthing regulates cortisol and adrenal gland functioning, reduces pain, aids sleeping, thins the blood, and enhances a sense of well-being.

Earthing & Me

I bought the earthing sheet for my neck pain, and I plugged it in with the expectation that my pain might improve after about 6 weeks of sleeping on it. My husband thought I was daffy and refused to sleep on the thing. Luckily, I had bought the half sheet, so I could put it on my side of the bed and not have to listen to his complaining. When I lay down on the sheet, I immediately got tingling and burning shock sensations in a big scar on the side of my leg. “That’s weird,” I thought. It was a little uncomfortable but it subsided after about 15 minutes. Once I finished reading, I went to sleep.

On the first night, I had an intense herxheimer reaction (also known as die-off). This is something that often happens to people with cfids who have lots of viruses or bacteria built up in their body when their immune system or a drug they are taking is killing the pathogens. When I get die-off, it’s my Epstein Barr virus dying. Since it resides in your nervous system, my nervous system gets inflamed, and I can’t sleep. So on my first night on the sheet, I slept horribly.

When I got up the next day, I was shocked. I had never had die-off before from anything but potent antiviral drugs. I immediately began googling “die off and earthing,” and I found many people with lyme disease and cfids who had experienced die-off when using the sheet. I figured that it must be the blood thinning properties of earthing, because Coumadin is often used in treating cfids because people’s blood gets very clumpy, and thinning the blood exposes pathogens. I was impressed and excited that I had found something to help keep my viral blood levels down.

During this time, I had been continuing with my dysautonomia routine—water and salt all day at timed intervals. I had noted to myself, “Wow, you are getting really good at measuring just the right amount of salt to prevent dizziness.” Little did I know.

Then, on the fourth evening, we went on a church retreat to some cabins in the wilderness. We drove at night to get there. Right around bedtime I realized I had forgotten my salt! Panic!! My husband walked around the entire camp trying to find me salt to no avail. I decided to tough it out and vowed to drive to find salt in the morning. That night, I had no dizziness, no nausea, and I slept like a rock. I was shocked, but I didn’t trust it, so I found and took salt the next day.

Once we got home, and I had the convenience of being able to let myself feel sick, I decided I was going to test whether I needed salt and water anymore. One day, I purposely got extremely dehydrated and had no salt, and I felt fine all day and slept like a rock that night. The next day, the same. The next day, the same, and every day since. I have no nausea, no dizziness, no low blood sugar. I feel 100% normal.

After a few nights of earthing, there were other things I noticed as well.

(1) My adrenal fatigue appeared to disappear. Even though I hadn’t slept well those first nights due to die-off, I woke up with energy, and I could get out of bed without dragging until noon. I felt more energized sleeping 4 hours with earthing than I did when I slept 12 hours normally. I felt like I had returned to the land of the living.

(2) My anxiety and anger lifted. I feel lighter, happier, more peaceful, less stressed. My husband has noticed a change in my moods and my energy. I feel like I have found something that has been missing all of my life.

My conclusions: Most of the diseases that I have had involved stress and the adrenal glands, and stress is what made me so sick with every disease I’ve ever had. We know earthing regulates your cortisol, which is why people sleep better when they earth. Perhaps, earthing does this by regulating your hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis which would explain why I feel the healthiest I have ever felt in my life and why my dysautonomia and adrenal fatigue were miraculously cured after a few nights of sleeping on the sheet.

I want to share this news with others in the hopes that others can heal and feel as good as I do.I don’t know if this will work for others, but if it works for just one other person I will be so happy. The half sheets are $139 at www.earthing.com, which is about the cost of a couple of supplements or prescriptions. You can read up on the research online as well.

If you decided on your own to try it and have success (and I am not telling anyone what to do, so please do not construe this as medical advice), please post it on this thread.

Joyfully yours,

Ashley