Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Note: I've made some edits regarding the safety of taking vitamin D. Please read this post for further details on taking a large dose of vitamin D. SWAMP (sinuses with a mucus problem) is my hypothesis of treating sinus infections and other upper respiratory infections without antibiotics: to get rid of the bug infestation, you need to drain the swamp and activate some natural predators. You also need to restore the habitat's salinity. Who this is for: People with no access to medical care People who prefer over-the-counter medicines People who can't tolerate antibiotics, steroids and other medications Eccentrics who like to self-experiment If you have a serious respiratory illness, you can still do this, but please see a doctor as well--the sooner, the better.  My next door neighbor died of the flu; people die every day of pneumonia. If you need to save money, keep in mind that a serious case of pneumonia can put you in the hospital for several days. A sinus i

Imagine that your sinuses are a stream. When all is well, the water (or mucus) flows along. There are some bugs here and there, but not too many. If the stream becomes blocked, the water backs up, sits still, and the bugs multiply. The stream becomes a swamp. Current thinking is to annihilate the bugs with antibiotics. My idea is to drain the swamp and activate some natural predators. As I understand it, inflammation causes your sinuses to become blocked. The mucus builds up, making a habitat for bacteria overgrowth. Thus infected, white blood cells enter the mucus, making it thick and less able to be moved along. A substance that's both an anti-inflammatory and immune cell activator is vitamin D. My thinking is that it should enable the body's immune cells to kill most of the bugs and un-inflame the sinus passages to allow mucus to flow. There's clinical and observational evidence that vitamin D is helpful in preventing and fighting respiratory infections. I've

Long-time readers may recall my sinus infection that just wouldn't die. Over six months, I took antibiotics, long naps, a decongestant that gave me an allergic reaction so bad I stopped to wonder if I'd wake up the next morning . It finally ended when I came up with SWAMP and took megadoses of vitamin D, Mucinex and salt. It's February and once again, I've been fighting off a cold for a few weeks. While SWAMP consists of taking 50,000 IU of vitamin D for two days, I've had to take 40,000 IU for the past several days to keep my cough from getting worse. I'm not the only one who's taken large doses like this long term. Jeff T. Bowles, a layman, wrote and self-published a book called THE MIRACULOUS RESULTS OF EXTREMELY HIGH DOSES OF THE SUNSHINE HORMONE VITAMIN D3 MY EXPERIMENT WITH HUGE DOSES OF D3 FROM 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 IU A Day OVER A 1 YEAR PERIOD (caps in original) about his research and experiences. Bowles is a little crazy, and his problems

For our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us. - Moral Epistles, Seneca, Epistle XIII. What a year this has been: a sinus infection resistant to antibiotics, an allergic reaction to Benzonatate, my father's stroke, a migraine headache and ensuing ambulance ride, a fractured arm, broken tooth, two teeth knocked out of place, excruciating TMJ pain, oral surgery, and the real bane of my existence, adult acne. Yet it's been a good year. With the help of fellow bloggers, researchers, doctors, and writers, I've discovered and created solutions and blogged about them so that they might help other people. SWAMP (sinuses with a mucus problem). My brainchild for curing sinus infections with a huge dose of vitamin D, salt and mucus thinner. Based on integrated pest management (a method used in gardening and agriculture), t

Do people forget what it feels like to be well? I think so. While I was sick with a sinus infection, I remembered r unning around with my best friend last year , going dancing two or three times a week , and wondered how I ever had the energy to do all that. This morning, I woke up feeling healthy (even though I'm still coughing a little, and still taking Mucinex since I'm really afraid of a relapse). I got up at 6:30 (can't remember the last time I was up that early on a weekend), did some laundry, cleaned out the refrigerator, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, changed the sheets, took out the trash, bought some groceries and got to work around 10. Concentrating on my work was so much easier than it was when I was sick. (That it was Saturday helped, too.) I still have some symptoms of vitamin D toxicity. No vomiting, but I've had some momentary but severe acid reflux. I'd forgotten how painful that is. Nevertheless, I'm feeling better than I have in months

The past two days have seen a return of my TMJ problems, as severe as I had in 2007 after a car wreck. I've been trying all sorts of things to help, but the only thing so far that puts a dent in the pain is ibuprofin. The odd thing is, the site of the dental implant is tender, but feels fine. The teeth that were tender from being in braces feel fine. The agonizing pain wanders around my jaw joint, lower jaw, ear and sinus passages on my right side. It feels like a needle without anesthetic, except when the pain isn't there. I'm wondering if it could be someting a neurosurgeon described to me many years ago: tension leads to pain, which leads to spasms, which leads to tension, and so on. If that's the case, the best thing would be to take the ibuprofin at the first sign of a twinge of pain. I also feel like I'm getting a cold. Per the SWAMP protocol , I took 50,000 IU of vitamin D a few hours ago and already feel better. I took a chance having surgery so close t

Having taken megadoses of vitamin D for the past few weeks (think 10,000 to 50,000 IU per day), I now have some symptoms of vitamin D toxicity: muscle weakness, a little fatigue, and constipation. (I wondered last night why I found it so difficult to shovel a few inches of wet snow.) Overall, I feel pretty good, certainly better than when I was sick with a sinus infection and way better than when I was suffering from side effects and an allergic reaction to Benzonatate. A few people have remarked that I sound better and the pink is back in my cheeks. Without a test, it's not possible to know for certain that these symptoms are caused by too much vitamin D, but I'm going to stop taking it for now. The vitamin is stored in the fat, so it's going to be in my system for awhile, fighting any microbes left in my sinuses. Researcher Michael Holick says in The Vitamin D Solution, Most humans obtain from sun exposure their vitamin D requirements between the hours of 10:00 A.M. an

Inflamed: this is how my nasal passages felt yesterday evening after a few days of sinus congestion. Even though I was well enough that day to take part in a round table discussion on where morality comes from (where I mentioned the story of 1808, a Homo erectus who was taken care of for months or weeks through an illness ), and walk to the grocery store and back, by bedtime, I felt like I was going to drown in mucus. It was 9:30 a.m. before I could rouse myself from bed to call in sick. I already have way of dealing with sinus infections: SWAMP (sinuses with a mucus problem). I take 100,000 IU of vitamin D, Mucinex, and salt as needed. But last summer, I had such good results getting rid of gastritis with the fat fast that I've decided to add that. The fat fast (book here ) involves eating 1,000 calories per day, with 90% of the calories coming from fat. (My lack of appetite is helping me stick to it.) So far, I've eaten some dark chocolate, a cup of broth with a bit of

I recently wrote about my SWAMP hypothesis of curing a sinus (or upper respiratory) infection with Mucinex, salt and a large dose of vitamin D. In testing my hypothesis on my own infection, I may have overdosed a little on the vitamin D , so I've been doing some research on vitamin D dosing. In several studies, subjects have been given a one-time dose of 100,000 IU of vitamin D. In one of those studies, the vitamin D levels were tested every few days and graphed. The vitamin D level peaked seven days after the dose, and the measured levels in the subjects didn't even come close to being toxic. (When you look at the graphs, keep in mind that the units are in nmol/L.) The maximum level in any subject was 48.1 ng/mL (ng/mL being the usual unit of measure for vitamin D levels).(1) This is a normal level of vitamin D. In another study, subjects were given a one-time 100,000 IU dose: A single dose in winter of 2.5 mg (100 000 IU) vitamin D has previously been shown to produ

I ran a small, non-randomized, non-clinical, unscientific study where I took a megadose of vitamin D and Mucinex for a persistent sinus infection and counseled my parents to do the same if they were sick. Results: Me: My sinus infection is long gone. The treatment succeeded where a course of antibiotics failed. The vitamin D toxicity side effects (fatigue, muscle weakness and constipation) are gone as well. (See my posts on SWAMP .) Mother: She took 50,000 IU for three days when she felt a cold coming on. Then she started taking 7,000 IU per day. She didn't get sick. In addition, her fasting blood sugar, which had been around 140, started dropping. It was 98 this morning. It may not have been because of the vitamin D, but vitamin D reduces inflammation, which is part of metabolic syndrome. Father: He won't take 50,000 IU of vitamin D at one time. He's taken 10,000 IU per day and Mucinex. He's still sick.