Two weeks of the Mullen Protocol done today, now I get to take a break from the giant handful of pills with each meal.   For this week I’ll just be doing two capsules of Saccharomyces Boulardii a day, assuming I can tolerate it.   This is a yeast that is not a typical gut flora component and will just build up while taking it and then go away after a few days stopping but it will keep bad stuff from overgrowing while I’m not on the antibiotic herbs.   We’ll see what happens.   I am still doing my basic prokiinetic regime too with Iberogast at each meal and then at night MotilPro and 4.5mg of LDN.   I’m down to 250mg of Mag at night which seems to be plenty these days to keep things moving.   After the week break I’m onto Round 2 starting on the 12th.  I’ve still got just about 6 weeks until I re-do my SIBO test in May.

Still recovering from my nightshade experiment last weekend, argh.  My arm symptoms have gotten a bit better over the last few days but I’ve  been tired all week and even took a nap yesterday which is the first one I’ve had in a long time.   My feet are also giving me all sorts of hell again, not sure if this is related to the immune response or not but I wish it would go away.   I’m resigned to numb toes but not super-sensitive painful feet which is what I’ve been having again.  I was really bummed about missing out on chili after my venison chili caused this reaction but then, thanks to MyPaleoPal I found AIP Magic “Chili”  which was posted by ChillySue in Germany.  It looks like chili thanks to the beets though isn’t as spicy but still pretty satisfying.  I think I could probably even add some cumin and a bit of ancho chili to get it to taste closer though it wouldn’t be strict AIP at that point.   I made this with venison yesterday and it was excellent plus I found I can add beets to my acceptable vegetable list now.   Another I want to try is AIP Carrot and Sweet Potato Chili, this too looks good.   All my favorite recipes are now up on my Pinterest boards.

I found a new theory on a possible cause of my neuropathy this week from someone who sent me an email describing what they are going through with SIBO.   It turns out the high B-6 levels which may have caused the neuropathy may be caused by the bacteria in my gut.  Specifically, a mutant strain of E.coli, 0157:H7, produces a ton of B-6 which can reach toxic levels in the body.  My stool test last fall showed a very high level of E.coli bacteria so who knows if I’ve got mutants.   Evidently some of these bacteria can also cause an elevated level of B-12.    I would hope that all of the oregano, berberine, allicin and everything else I’ve taken would be knocking this stuff out but who knows.   Regardless, more testing is in order to see if we can find out what, if any, auto-immunity is behind some of this and if my B-6 levels are still high and the neuropathy is still progressing.

The other issue that still remains is my poor sleep.  Since I started wearing my goofy orange glasses at night I actually fall asleep quickly almost every night, usually within 5-10 minutes after I stop reading.  The problem is I wake up, and I mean really wake up, somewhere between 3-5 hours later and have a very hard time going back to sleep.   Most nights I do fall back asleep using either an e-book, Jeff Bridges Sleep Tapes or the BrainWave app and end up getting close to 8 hours but sometimes it takes me a while and I often wake up every hour until morning.   I’m trying to decide if this is really a bad thing or not.  The whole idea of biphasic sleep is that this is natural and that people used to always wake up in the middle of the night for an hour or two.   The other side of me thinks I’ve got a serious cortisol issue going on and that my cortisol seems to spike at 1-2 a.m. waking me up and giving me a hard time going back to sleep.   This could be from a  combination of things – adrenal issues from all this illness, the parasite I may or may not still be dealing with, or even the elevated B-6 which can cause sleep disturbances.  Again, some more testing should tell me more if this is a problem or not.  Regardless, I need to find a natural way to deal with this, I can’t be taking benzos again and I can’t be vaping up the Granddaddy Purple every night since both of those options will aggravate my SIBO.