Optic Neuritis and possible cause for MS

[jimmylegs]

good luck getting the tests done!

I was just thinking.. can you remind me re the units used for your daughter's magnesium test? I said they looked good based on a units assumption that might be wrong.

here are some magnesium targets with units from the summary post:

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ]magnesium: aim for .95-1.1 mmol/L. (or 2.3-2.7 mg/dL). this is conservative. studies have proposed higher optimal levels eg 1.6 mmol/L or 4.0 mg/dL.
'normal' range in SI units is only 0.70-1.10 mmol/L. I've seen normal range given as 0.65-1.05 mmol/L locally, so even worse. the test is just 'serum magnesium'. [/quote]

[Celeste485]

The magnesium is in mg/dL. It is 2.1 (considered in range) and the range is 1.5-2.5mg/dL. While I am at it I will ask the doctor to do magnesium test as well.
My daughter was fine yesterday but this morning she said she is still not feeling 100% but close. I worry that this may be a relapse but I don't want to scare her because she is already under tremendous stress and I don't want to add to it. How long a relapse like this lasts? And could there be a new lesion there? She was healing so well and now this.

[jimmylegs]

ok the range for magnesium is notoriously bad for including levels at which deficiency symptoms may be felt.

in mmol/L the 'normal' range is often given as 0.70-1.10 and that is bad enough.

the range given by your lab 1.5-2.5 mg/dl converts to roughly 0.60-1.00 mmol/L so that is even worse.

please note what I quoted below magnesium: aim for .95-1.1 mmol/L. (or 2.3-2.7 mg/dL). this is conservative. studies have proposed higher optimal levels eg 1.6 mmol/L or 4.0 mg/dL.

it has been established in research that stress contributes to magnesium depletion. just working to maximize her magnesium intake and levels should help your daughter cope.

I don't know exactly what your daughter is going through and can't guess how long it might last. i hope you can get her a good boost of magnesium and zinc and that she starts to feel better ASAP!

[Celeste485]

Well, the mystery is over. The doctor said, my daughter doesn’t have a problem with the antibiotic because the sinus symptoms have nothing to do with the antibiotics or congested liver. She thinks my daughter is eating too much vit. A, no tests will be ordered for that, just to stop eating too much vit. A foods. There will be no liver or kidney test, not necessary. Magnesium and Zinc levels were good so they won’t be ordered either and she couldn’t understand why the other doctor ordered Vitamin D because vitamin D was also good on the last test. So, I won’t comment because I am afraid to say something inappropriate. I need to chill.

[jimmylegs]

good old doctors :S

well if you are in the states and have the resources, you can order a requisition for yourself thru life extension

http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements ... -Tests.htm

they offer serum zinc and serum magnesium. just make sure you pick the right ones from the list:

http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements ... -Test.html $20
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements ... -Test.html $40

looks pretty affordable.

so vit A, they say huh? refresh my memory re the vit A foods in your daughter's diet?

[Celeste485]

Thanks for the info but I found that a lab nearby and their own tests are not that expensive so I am going to pay for them out of my pocket and then I am going to file a claim with my insurance. If they pay, good, if they don’t... next time I am going to the hospital and they’ll do all the tests there free of charge. Ordering all the stuff and sending it back, paying extra fees it’s not going to be much cheaper, so just getting the test done here will work just as fine and it will be easy.
But it will have to wait because last night I went to the store and bought oysters and fed them to my daughter because I couldn’t wait any longer. The best way to do these tests is where she is having some weird symptoms. When she starts getting sick I immediately start giving her more vitamins so the levels are never going to show the real picture. The tests have to be taken when she starts getting sick, then I can go again and re-test it later.
What she had could have been her immune system sending signals that she is low on vitamins. Or that the antibiotics left her vulnerable. The wobbliness went away entirely and I don’t know what it was. I wrote everything in the journal because if she has new lesions showing on her next MRI, and no new symptoms, I’ll know the antibiotics have something to do with it. If she has no new lesions, it was something else.
Her vitamin A foods are just normal foods. Carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, spinach, fish, beef/chicken liver, fruits but the only supplement she takes that has vitamin A is cod liver oil that provides 2700IU of vitamin A. The doctor doesn’t know what she is talking about, she doesn’t know my daughter’s diet, she doesn’t know how much supplements she takes and without testing how does she know if the vitamin A level is high?
This woman did not test my daughter’s vitamin D level after I complained about her fingernails and how weak they are. I was already forcing my daughter to drink milk to get the calcium and vitamin D, only I didn’t know that the milk and cereals were not enough. My daughter’s fat consumption was also very low and I had no idea that fat is also needed in building bones or fingernails. I’ve learned all of the above after she was diagnosed with MS. I didn’t have any idea that the doctors and preventative medicine actually don’t prevent any illnesses. In fact I knew very little about medicine and illnesses until now. And it doesn’t matter what I learn because nobody is listening to me. My daughter’s doctor still doesn’t know and doesn’t get it why vitamin D should be tested but she is on the front line between the patient and the disease. I don’t think I have to tell you who/what is winning?

[jimmylegs]

whatever plan you can use to get the info, is all good. I don't like it when patients get doc-blocked. I would love to hear how your doc came up with this vit A idea without info on the diet or anything. bizarre. maybe she just figured you would listen if she mentioned a nutrient.

glad you got some oysters into your girl, and that she is feeling better

be careful about assigning things to the use abx when they might not be the fundamental thing driving changes in status or condition.

don't you think it's the best thing about exposure to disease overall, how much you can learn from it? I loves me my silver lining

[THX1138]

please note what I quoted below magnesium: aim for .95-1.1 mmol/L. (or 2.3-2.7 mg/dL). this is conservative. studies have proposed higher optimal levels eg 1.6 mmol/L or 4.0 mg/dL.

Wow - 4.0mg/dL!

Jl would you post links to the source(s) of the proposal for 1.6 mmol/L or 4.0 mg/dL ?

THX1138

[jimmylegs]

I will find it eventually! don't have time to scour the files right now.

I did find these interesting tidbits for the time being

Unsuspected Morbid Hypermagnesemia in Elderly Patients
http://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/168469
"severe hypermagnesemia (serum Mg ≧ 6.0 mg/dl)"

and a 4.0 level, specifically in a therapeutic treatment setting though

Prospective evaluation of parenteral magnesium sulfate in the treatment of patients with reentrant AV supraventricular tachycardia
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 0305800213
"The serum magnesium concentration increased from (mean±astandard deviation) 1.9±0.2 mg/dl to 4.0±0.6 mg/dl (p=0.0001)."

[Celeste485]

Oh my God, we are wrong, we are all wrong, so wrong about MS.
When my daughter had H-Pylori her nose was running a lot. Like a sinus infection. At that time I don’t remember her taking any antibiotics but her nose was running a lot.
A couple of years ago she had ingrown toenail infection and also antibiotic treatment, and also some sinus problem, and she was coughing a lot. It stopped around the time the toenail was removed.
Now she has ingrown toenail infection, took antibiotics and had runny nose and wobbling . I wonder if the runny nose comes back.
Assuming it is the toe infection that causes the runny nose and not the antibiotic, why would this happen? What the nose has to do with toe infection? Is this normal? Could attack on the myelin be happening at the same time?
What if the lesions are happening at the same time a person has another infection, bacterial or viral? People who take vitamin D don’t get sick, they don’t get infections, their MS is light. If you count how many times you were sick, you will find corresponding lesions on the brain, is that it? But why?

[NHE]

People who take vitamin D don’t get sick, they don’t get infections, their MS is light.

Really? That's news to me.

[Celeste485]

Let me tell you how MS happens. Or how about I pick a different example, emphysema. You smoke, you quit, you cough phlegm, you go to the doctor, the doctor orders scan of your lungs, the ct scan is showing your lungs healing, you go home happy then one day the unthinkable happens...you get some viral infection, you have fever, cough, doctor says it’s the flu. After all the symptoms end you still experience cough, the doctor orders another scan and you get the news. You have emphysema!!! “How could this happen?”, you say, “I just had a ct scan and my lungs were good”.
Exactly, how did it happened? It happened during your viral infection. Because the lungs were the weakest link at that time! That’s how ms, lupus, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis happen. They all happen during viral or bacterial or both infections. And whatever your weakest part of the body is, that’s what gets attacked. It’s like having a pact with the devil, the devil wants to destroy you, your body is giving him the weakest part of your body to keep the rest of you alive.
Why did you get emphysema after you quit smoking and your neighbor who still smokes is healthy? Maybe because the neighbor is a construction worker, he gets a lot of vitamin D, and you are in the office without even one tiny window? Of course his lungs are not good but he has more vitamin D and therefore his lungs don't get damaged because his little vitamin D with a little machete is fighting the ugly virus until it goes away. Your vitamin D lasts only 3 days, the following 3 days the virus had a ball in your lungs.
Or maybe your neighbor lives by the ocean and eats a lot of fish. Not fish oil but vitamin d in the fish. That’s what keeps him healthy.
Did anyone ever tell you, your first thought is always right? It’s true in my case. Anyone who read my posts know my first theory was acid and now I stand by it. During an infection the body becomes acidic maybe because of the medicines, foods you eat. Because of the virus, your body becomes weaker, mores sensitive, you maybe not absorbing enough vitamins. To keep you alive it has to clean your blood and keep it at the precise ph level, everything else is less important. Somewhere somehow maybe through inefficient communication the cells attack the myelin or there is something attaching to the myelin that has to be destroyed.
Again if you read my posts I mentioned that I stopped giving my daughter Omeprazole that I believed in so much because she is doing so well and her cough was gone so I thought she doesn’t need it, now we know that was a sleeper mode. The sleeper made me think everything is good, I let go of my guard and now all this happened.
Here is something interesting: Last week my daughter fingernail broke off. She told me something is happening with that fingernail. Since I checked all the other fingernails and they were okay, I just ignored this one. Yesterday I asked my daughter why she thinks her fingernail broke and she told me, this is her weakest fingernail, she uses it a lot and it’s constantly being abused. It’s the finger in her right hand, the pointing finger. My daughter has no idea that she helped solve the mystery of her own illness. Because this is how it all happens.
And I am hoping now that since my daughter lost her fingernail prior to the wobbling, that maybe this prevented her from getting another lesion, or she got much smaller lesion because the devil was happy with her little fingernail.

[Celeste485]

Jimmy, I need your help...again.
My daughter’s tests results came back. Her Vitamin D is 64, it was 49 before, the range is (30-100) but her Ferritin is 5 the range is (10-143). She has anemia. I asked the doctor to do Ferritin because they did CBC test at the hospital and she said it was normal but I wanted to cut fructose from her diet because I believe she may have metabolic disease and if she does then liver will be part of it and too much fructose is not good for the liver. Also, juices have a lot of sugar so I wanted her to stop drinking juices. She doesn’t drink a lot of them but even the Naked juice has a lot of sugar in it.
Anyway, I bought her iron supplement, is chelated and it has 29mg – 161% of iron so the doctor said she should take 2 pills/day. I want to give her 1 pill/day with vitamin C to start, and nothing that prevents iron absorption like calcium or tea. If she tolerates it well then I could give her the second pill then. I made adjustment to her diet too, I am giving her iron rich foods with vegetables and vitamin c separately from everything else.
What I am wondering if I should maybe buy her a different supplement and give her 3 pills/day, like 100% - 3 x day instead of 161% - 2 x day. Tell me all.
I just wanted to add that she was getting a lot of iron in her diet, so her diet was not deficient in iron. There must be something with the absorption.

[Celeste485]

Never mind, I think I am going to kill that stupid doctor once and for all. I am reading about the iron and what do I find? Information that my stupid doctor doesn’t have. Here is what it says: All bacteria depends on iron to live and multiply. During bacterial infection the immune system initiates a process known as iron withholding. The liver produces hepcidin in response to the inflammation and at the same time can increase non-bacterial inflammation like in auto-immune disease or cancer.
And my daughter has ingrown toenail and bacterial infection, so we’ll be really lucky if she doesn’t get another attack now. And I mean very lucky.
How can a doctor not know this? And this is standard practice. When I go to the doctor’s office all they hear is the first word, if you call with fever they hear fever but if the fever has a pain, they don’t hear it. It’s all about fever.
I’ll keep you posted.

[jimmylegs]

deficient is deficient and it should be corrected. your body won't be working hard to sequester iron that isn't there. and bacteria won't be throwing any parties using absent iron either.

it is NOT WISE to correct an iron deficiency with just iron, when and if a concurrent zinc deficiency exists.

adding iron alone drives zinc down. adding zinc alone drives iron down. adding them zinc and iron together allows both to improve slowly.

ensure foods that are rich in both zinc and iron. make sure that you balance intakes of iron and zinc and ensure that both are tested.

a third metal to consider in the balance is copper. supplementing zinc without balancing copper can drive copper levels down. for that reason, ensure that your zinc supplement contains some copper citrate or similar. the ratio should be 50 parts zinc to 2-3 parts copper.

serum targets:
zinc 18-19 umol/L
copper 17-18 umol/L
serum ferritin 80-100

if your vit d3 measurement is in ng/dl then being in the 60s sounds fine.

let me know when you get your hands on those levels. would be very smart to get this data so that you are not flying blind as you work to address your daughter's issues.