May have found a sleep solution at last! L-Ornithine

Finding what works for sleep is pretty awesome. I get REM the last two years and even dreams.

"I tracked my sleep last night to find that I likely completed 4 sleep cycles!"
-can you explain how you figured this out?
-Sleep cycles? and 4 of them?
-Some smart phone sensor (seen these online)?

Thanks cppoly! I feel like dancing and I've been on the edge of tears the last few days just for feeling close to normal mentally for the first time in years.

I'm not sure if it's a combination or just the ornithine - which makes me think it's largely an ammonia problem but who knows. I'm going to stick with taking all of it for a bit and see if things stay level and then try taking things out. I'm not sure if the sleep will stay good as I had a brief period once before but any period of remission is cause for celebration.

For the longest time I'd been trying one thing at a time and thanks to Astro's comments on a recent sleep thread about the cocktail of things he'd taken at once I've been willing to try a number of things at once. So thanks again for your earlier comments Astro.

It's all very unscientific lol but I've used an older fitbit to track sleep occasionally (when I want to see if anything has changed). All it tracks is when I'm restless so there's no way for me to know if I'm actually completing a sleep cycle (which in theory takes around 90 minutes although that gets shorter as we age) or not, but at least it gives me something to compare with and I feel more functional.

I've read up on all of the various sleep tracking options before and frankly none of them seem all that accurate or meaningful so I'm content to stick with my low-tech option.

When my kids were babies and I nursed them I remember really noticing the difference between periods when they would wake every 2 hours in the night (tiring but fine since my sleep quickly synchronized to theirs) and my second who woke every 45 minutes for a while which was enough to completely destroy my mental and physical state.

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Bulls eye rash August 2013
Started treating with Buhner herbs July 2017
Treating Borellia, Babesia and Bartonella as of November 2017

I'm keen to hear if it helps you sebreg. I'm only taking it at night. From one article I read it suggested to take 2 pills the first night, 4 the next, and then 6 (of 500 mg) to see which dose works best. I've been taking it only a week. I'm currently taking 6 along with 3g of Glycine only at night. It doesn't make me drowsy so it's not 'time sensitive' if you know what I mean in the way that melatonin is. I suspect that 2 would be sufficient but I haven't tracked my sleep at that dose yet.

Also FWLIW - after trying everything for sleep, a lot of what I've been reading about sleep has been focused on different amino-acids. I've been mostly vegetarian most of my life and I'm starting to feel like some of my symptoms have been due to some kind of nutritional deficiency (after all magnesium and manganese made an incredible difference to me early on in treatment). I'm trying to focus on adding more collagen and whey protein to my diet as well as flirting with full-on meat (not easy for me!). I don't know whether it's a nutrient thing for me or just the ammonia aspect or just a fluke. lol.

I've also been taking lion's mane along with another tincture combo with ginkgo, bacopa (spell check keeps changing that to bacon - lol I think a bacon tincture would be popular), rosemary and ginseng, for neural repair. That's long been another theory I've been chasing for why my sleep is so bad. I feel more coherent (less memory issues and word searching) so I don't know if that's a part of the picture for me as well.

Post Edited (sandyfeet) : 8/24/2018 9:58:04 AM (GMT-6)

Thanks Sandyfeet! That's helpful to hear how you dose it. And I'll keep you posted. I also have glycine which I haven't tried, I'll probably introduce that one as well. The herxes are super strong, I'm having to take several day breaks from killing agents to recover.

But I'm hoping if I can keep doing a lot of detoxing it will help increase my margins and help me recover more quickly. I'm experimenting and adding in new things.

With the herxing I'm usually able to manage symptom flare the first 3-5 days but then all of a sudden I get sharp increase in air hunger, anxiety, and insomnia. The air hunger is absolutely suffocating, and when it gets bad it sharply increases my anxiety, bit of a vicious loop. It's super uncomfortable. I just try to listen to my body, when it gets that bad I have to take a break. It's not ideal, but it's the only way I can manage these therapies, and I really do want to try to stick with this protocol because it is very effective. I feel like I've exhausted a lot of treatment options, so finding something super effective like this makes me want to find a way to make it work, even if I have to improvise.

That's interesting about the diet too. I think this stuff can take a lot of trial and error, each of us may require different things and respond differently. For a long time I found being vegan helpful (and avoiding refined sugars, processed foods, dairy). As I've felt better I've opened it up to fish and eggs, especially this last year as I've started doing heavier power-lifting (not that meat is necessary but it's frankly just more convenient), but I still try to eat a mostly plant-based diet.

Anyhow, thank you for sharing your experience and insights!

sandyfeet said...

Air hunger is awful! It was a major symptom for me last winter and again a few months ago. It feels like drowning to me and the strangest thing is that it usually strikes when I’m not even doing anything. It’s hard not to panic! I generally don’t herx as far as I can tell except possibly bouts of stronger than usual fatigue - I guess I should count myself lucky.

!

Air hunger was weird and kind of scary out in the sticks. I will remember three instances it happened pretty bad; hiking, summer biking and winter fatbiking (almost fell over 3 miles in the woods). Didnt know what was going on, heart attack was at the back of my mind.

thank you for posting it i have tried it the last two nights and i have noticed an improvement - my brain is feeling alot calmer - and it is helping to go off to sleep only getting about 4 hours though at the moment two days in just wondering how much people take and what time do people take it?

I’m glad it’s helping you too TAD4207. It still seems to be helping and I’m in my second week now. I tried lowering the dose but I still seem to need 3g (6 pills).

I still wake feeling a little groggy, but I think that’s because I’ve been so sleep deprived for so long. Hope you can continue to improve your sleep.

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Bulls eye rash August 2013
Started treating with Buhner herbs July 2017
Treating Borellia, Babesia and Bartonella as of November 2017

I have a hyper reaction to lots of different sleep aids - valerian in particular makes me stay awake tapping my foot for hours. From what I read it can take several nights to normalize and the suggestion was to try 1g, 2g, and 3g to see what works best. Maybe a lower dose? I’m taking mine with glycine and that seems to matter for me as I dropped it a couple of times and didn’t sleep as well.

I’m happy with the sleep I’m getting at the moment but it feels fragile if you know what I mean. It can still be easily disturbed.

I have tried practically everything out there TAD so just keep experimenting. You may need a combination of many things (I’m still using magnesium, black cherry juice, and b12 as methylcolabamin (not sure I spelled that right).

Good luck!

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Bulls eye rash August 2013
Started treating with Buhner herbs July 2017
Treating Borellia, Babesia and Bartonella as of November 2017

Thanks for the update! I'm glad that even though you are getting detox issues with the isatis, sometimes these responses can help give greater clarity and information as to what is going on with our bodies. This can make it easier to figure out treatment strategies.

I need to remember to keep taking the ornithine, I have been spotty with it.

I'm noticing that my insomnia is directly linked to hitting high toxin thresholds as I treat babesia. I'm usually fine for a while, herxing but not critical and then there is some tripwire I hit after toxins build up to a certain level with cumulative treatment that sends symptoms to nuclear level (specifically air hunger, insomnia, anxiety, sweats).

I'm currently trying to integrate epsom salt baths. They spike my symptoms for about 1-2 hours after I take them, which makes me think they are moving toxins and having some effect. I think if I do them more consistently that response will stabilize or diminish, this response is likely due to the fact that my body is pretty toxic, and even moreso because I'm killing babesia pretty aggressively (for me).

I was just looking up zeolite the other day, I had been considering it but there were some things about it that made me hesitate, I think one has to be careful with additives or metals in that stuff?

Nice, so you have had strong responses to crypto before? With the baths, I think we all respond differently! I was surprised to have such a response tbh. And it is probably a testament to high toxic load in my body, amplified from strong killing.

What pathogens do you think isatis is helping target? it seems this herb also raises immune function. I have some laying around here, may have to reexplore taking it at some point.

Insomnia used to be a core symptom for me. In fact it's in hindsight as I've gotten better and improved a lot of symptoms that I can get better tell what was going on. When I herx now I can see what my main symptoms really are because they pop up so clearly, and the main ones that dovetail together with my babesia herx are insomnia, air hunger, anxiety, sweats, headaches. This leads me to think the babesia affects my autonomic nervous system and that's why the symptoms seem to wax wane so closely together.

Other ideas for you: diamataceous earth. I don't hear about that one too often but it seems like it can be a good binder.

I noticed a few posts here in reference to air hunger. of all the symptoms I have, that one never goes away and I have had it for over 30 years. does anyone know what causes it and found anything that helps. If I could just get relief from that one symptom I would be satisfied.

sebreg, thanks for those links