Mitochondria Malfunction - is this why I'm exhausted?

[SuzCat]

I just had a "Eureka!" moment. I have been researching possible causes of my CFS and finally found something that explains how and why my exhaustion occurs. Dr Sarah Myhill has written a book and posted it for free download from her website www.drmyhill.co.uk

I have read so many articles about CFS that detail possible causes and proposed treatment plans, but no other doctor had illustrated, step by step, just how the mitochondria in our cells make energy so that they can function. She explains it all very clearly, although it is a complex bio-chemical process. I still don't know what caused my mitochondria to malfunction in the first place, but at least now I understand what I'm doing to my body when I PUSH myself through my day. And how bad it is. And how I can make things better.

The treatments and supplements she recommends make sense to me, based on my new understanding of the creation of energy on a cellular level. It's eye-opening, and refutes all those "It's all in your head, it's psychosomatic, it's emotional, it's mind over matter, you're just being lazy.." comments. HA! Now to find someone in my locality to do the specialised bloodtests which a biochemist colleague of Dr Myhill's in England devised to test mitochondrial function.

Here's the relevant part of Dr Sarah Myhill's book:


Explanation of the Fatigue Problems in CFS Patients.

Energy to the body is supplied by mitochondria, which firstly produce NAD (nicotinamide
adenosine diphosphate) from Kreb’s citric acid cycle and this is used to power oxidative
phosphorylation which generates ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
These molecules are the “currency” of energy in the body. Almost all energy requiring processes in the body have to be “paid for” with NAD and ATP, but largely ATP. The reserves of ATP in cells are very small. At any one moment in heart muscle cells there is only enough ATP to last about ten contractions. Thus the
mitochondria have to be extremely good at re-cycling ATP to keep the cell constantly supplied with
energy.

If the cell is not very efficient at re-cycling ATP, then the cell runs out of energy very quickly and
this causes the symptoms of weakness and poor stamina. The cell literally has to “hibernate” and
wait until more ATP has been manufactured.

In producing energy, ATP (three phosphates) is converted into ADP (two phosphates) and ADP is
re-cycled back through mitochondria to produce ATP. However, if the cell is pushed (ie stressed)
when there is no ATP about, then it will start to use ADP instead. The body can create energy from
ADP to AMP (one phosphate), but the trouble is that AMP cannot be re-cycled. The only way that
ADP can be regenerated is by making from fresh ingredients, but this takes days to do. This
explains the delayed fatigue seen in chronic fatigue syndrome.

So to summarise, the basic pathology in CFS is slow re-cycling of ATP to ADP and back to ATP
again. If patients push themselves and make more energy demands, then ADP is converted to AMP
which cannot be recycled and it is this which is responsible for the delayed fatigue. This is because
it takes the body several days to make fresh ATP from new ingredients. When patients overdo things
and “hit a brick wall” this is because they have no ATP or ADP to function at all.

[PlateletGal]

BINGO !!!! Prof. Garth Nicolson (in here in MedHelp and posting often in the autoimmune diseases (expert) forum) has treatment options for 1) killing our infection ---- two-thirds of fibromyalgia and CFS patients have bacterial infections and 2) He has a lipid replacement therapy that helps with the mitochondria dysfunction.

[PlateletGal]

His treatment plans are on his website ---- http://www.immed.org

[SuzCat]

I read all of Prof. Nicolson's website, and Dr Teitelbaum's too. Maybe I missed something, but because neither of them explained how the energy-making process works, and the chemicals necessary to make it happen, the long shopping list of supplements looked alarming to me. When you can't work, investing alot of money in a treatment plan that you don't understand is a huge leap of faith.

[SuzCat]

My mistake - Prof Nicolson does explain alot, but in such high-level scientific language that the average CFS sufferer would have no idea what he's talking about. And it's all printed in a hard-to-read font, in a densely worded layout. Made my poor CFS sore eyes ache, and my brain-fog swirl.

Dr T's website has alot of information, but if he would lay out the biochemical process with simple diagrams and exlanation, step-by-step, it would inspire more trust in his treatment plan. You know, this chemical does this bit, that chemical does that bit, then this happens if you have that chemical...

There are alot of snake-oil salesmen out there. When you're desperate, a bit of transparency goes a long way.

[abreaz]

Have either of you heard of Ashok Gupta's Amygdala Retraining?  Sign up to receive the free online videos where he talks about how those wCFS feel -- because he had it & overcame it through research.  I just got the programme a couple days ago -- I'm very hopeful.  He's not a snake-oil salesman -- he would only be able to explain exactly how people w/CFS feel if he'd walked several miles in our shoes.  

Here's the link to his website:
http://www.cfsrecovery.com/html/explainCFS.asp

I never knew that other people felt like I did !!  

[abreaz]

Please see my comment above !!