If you have ever read the popular book by Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, From Fatigued to Fantastic, you will see all of the medications, vitamins and supplements that he recommends CFS & Fibromyalgia patients to take. Due to the complex and many problems that ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia cause is why it requires so many supplements and medications to treat these.
Dr. Teitelbaum doesn’t recommend starting all of the medications at one time but to start a few, see if there are any reactions to the supplements, then add more gradually. I tried to follow the protocol, but it became extremely expensive and so hard to keep up with them all. I also went to the Fibro & Fatigue Centers for almost two years and there I encountered the same problem. Too many medications, too much money and too overwhelming to keep up with them all. I would use the pill boxes that the center sells that are not only divided into days but there are divided with about five or six slots per day.
Certain medications had to be taken at a certain time, others had to be taken on an empty stomach, others had to be taken either with a meal or right after a meal…I just couldn’t get it together no matter how hard I tried – and I am a very organized person. So if it is overwhelming for someone like me who thrives on organization and is very good at it, I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it is for someone who isn’t so organized.
I am not putting down Dr. Teitelbaum’s book at all. From Fatigued to Fantastic is my single most favorite book out there on ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia. It’s not his fault that these illnesses are so complex and require so many medications. I wonder if anyone is able to keep up with all of the medications, financially and otherwise.
I am going to the Fibro and Fatigue Center also and I take so many pills I don’t have room for food. It is horrible. I am $4000.00 in debt just for the Dr. vists, supplements and IVs. I can’t tell that they are helping but I keep prodding along. I took 8 weeks of IV vitamins and they didn’t help either. I am sitting on the fence about whether to stick with this or to just go back to Lyrica and conventional treatments. I was just diagnosed in April of this year so I am trying to learn as much as I can.
In response to Jane’s comment. I had a very bad outcome both financially and healthwise when I finally gave in and gave up on a Fibro & Fatigue Center, which I committed to for more than one year. I did everything they had in their protocol. I won’t say too much more as I don’t want to be accused of slandering their “corporation”, and that is what it is. I only considered going to the F & F Center when the well respected Dr. Teitelbaum was listed as their new Medical Director of the corporation, not the individual facility where I was “treated”. My first visit was met with such compassion and they were so reassuring as to their ability to vastly improve the quality of my life.
All I can say is that I am just as ill if not worse. I am not “blaming” the center for my current state of health, or lackthereof. I am just sharing my experience in a very superficial manner, which I hope you get to read.
I am an FMS sufferer. I am $11,000 in debt to the Fibro and Fatigue Centers and am absolutely no better than when I started 14 months ago. I prepaid $6000 in order to get the 20% discount on the exorbitant rate increase this year and am set to run out of visits before the money goes – in which case I lose the money. I started the program in much pain and stiffness, but then became EXTREMELY ill on the regimen, so ill that I couldn’t get out of the bed for months. After one year on the regimen, I finally told my FFC doc to take me off of almost all of the meds, hormones and supplements. Miraculously, within three weeks, my energy came back and the pain came down (to about my starting level.) I believe that it was the anti-virals that did me in but maybe I’m wrong. At this point, frankly, its the three Lortab per day from my FFC doctor plus the various meds I was on BEFORE starting the program that are keeping me going. The FFC doctor has had NO success in identifying nor treating the underlying problems which are causing my extreme pain and stiffness.
Frankly, I blame myself for the huge expense. I was desperate and liked the idea of tackling the FMS from a multi-pronged approach. I loved the online presentation and was eager to start. I had concerns though that this was a program best suited for Chronic Fatigue sufferers, not FMS sufferers. Dr. T’s earliest books were addressed to CFS sufferers. I had secret fears (and still do) that he had tacked on “Fibromyalgia” to his program as it is BIG business these days. In his book, he claims that FMS and CFS are overlapping, almost one and the same illness, but I beg to differ. I do not meet the criteria for CFS in his book. Due to my lack of success with the regimen, I have challenged my doc with my concern that the program is best suited for CFS sufferers. He remains mum on the subject.
Thank you to those of you who have submitted comments. I was feeling quite the failure. I tried to keep up with the overwhelming medication/supplementation juggling act. I tried to be the best guinea pig I could with the latest cutting edge medications. I just got tired. By God’s grace, I am down but not out. I have not given up on FFC but I’m hanging on by a thread. If this doesn’t work, I’ll find some other way. God always makes a way.