I bring you tidings of joy!

Sorry to have been gone so long on this, but I've since had several bad neurological symptoms (not too much vertigo) and, guess what, I've cleared two additional botched root canals.

I'll be back posting, but I'm amazed at how three teeth can have multiple botched root canals. Two are now pulled, and the third will be looked at carefully on my next visit.

I still think that it's the combination of viral infections, and bacterial/fungal biofilms is what damages the vestibular nerve. Endotoxin from the biofilms damage the inner ear, viruses then enter and damage the nerve.

 

I will repeat that the best supplement I have taken for vertigo is the CBD/Hemp oil. Unlike valium/meclazine, a few drops of hemp oil under the tongue, and staying quiet, will stop a vertigo attack in 5-10 minutes, and without any of the drowsiness of the valium/meclazine. Then I'm able to get up and get on with my day.

 

And finally, I'm seeing a new regular & holistic doctor. One of my neurological problems is disrupted sleep cycles, and she gave me some Magnesium Glycinate, taken before bedtime. I've been sleeping much better since I've started taking in. You might want to ask your doctor about it if you have poor sleep.

 

Why actually, I'm not doing too bad, thanks for asking

I'm more convinced now that this disease is due to a combination of poor gut health and chronic dental and/or sinus infections, most likely accompanied with rampant systemic yeast infections.

Other insights:
I believe that the vertigo is, at least partly, a function of poor gut health. I don't think I've ever had many vertigo attacks where I didn't get a funny feeling in my gut just before the spins.

Systemic yeast is extremely aggressive. I believe that much of the brain fog and cognitive dysfunction is due to an overabundance of yeast. There are many different species of Candida, (not just albicans), and lots of other non-Candida yeasts that are nasty.

If you have any yellow on your tongue, or you have cracked heels, or you have frequent UTIs that don't respond to antibiotics, or funky toenails, you've got systemic yeast.

I've had a number of treatments that have helped and I'll go over those in the next day or two.

In the meantime, I have a question to ask, so I'll start a thread for it

 

BTW - here is what I'm dealing with from the dental aspect.

The dental profession is good if you brush your teeth regularly and get any cavities filled quickly.

However, if your dental care wasn't good for a period of time, dental infections can spread beyond the teeth. The problem is, dentists rarely think about this. As one dentist told me, "we don't look at the root of the teeth, that's the endodontist's job".

That's fine, but who goes to an endodontist unless sent there by a dentist?

Long story short, I had crappy dental care in my teen and young adult years, and when I finally got a job with dental insurance I saw a dentist to get my teeth taken care of.

They did a couple of root canals, but they failed to consider that the infection might have escaped the tooth. So for 40+ years, I had dental infections spreading throughout my head. These are multi-species bacterial biofilms with some very nasty gram-negative spirochete bacteria, such as Treponema denticola (brother to syphillis) and others. The gram-negative bacteria produce the LPS (endotoxin) that the previously posted research papers claim damage the ear and allow viruses to attack the vestibular nerve, leading to tinnitus and hearing loss.

In fact, it's possible to get these infections without ever having a cavity. If your mouth was exceptionally dirty and you either wore braces, or if you had a serious mouth injury, the bacteria can enter through the little gap created when the tooth moves.

The other big problem is that no dentists are able to read the damned images, not even the 3-d cone beam images. I had what was arguably the best dental radiologist in NC take 3D cone beam images, and could only find one of what would eventually be four. The endodontist found one when I pointed it out, but missed two more. The two general dentists (one I was seeing, the other was an acquaintance) couldn't find any of them.

Essentially, unless you have a very "woke" dentist, those dental images are worthless for this type of infection. General dentists aren't trained to even look for them, and apparently neither are endodontists or dental radiologists.

Microbiology and Treatment of Acute Apical Abscesses
https://cmr.asm.org/content/26/2/255
Acute apical abscess is the most common form of dental abscess and is caused by infection of the root canal of the tooth. It is usually localized intraorally, but in some cases the apical abscess may spread and result in severe complications or even mortality. The reasons why dental root canal infections can become symptomatic and evolve to severe spreading and sometimes life-threatening abscesses remain elusive.

Treponema denticola in disseminating endodontic infections
Treponema denticola in disseminating endodontic infections - PubMed
The results indicate that T. denticola has high pathogenicity, including dissemination to distant organs, further substantiating its potential importance in oral and linked systemic conditions.

Molecular and immunological evidence of oral Treponema in the human brain and their association with Alzheimer's disease
Molecular and immunological evidence of oral Treponema in the human brain and their association with Alzheimer's disease - PubMed
"These findings suggest that oral Treponema may infect the brain via branches of the trigeminal nerve."
(and there's your trigeminal nerve connection)

========================

The thing is not to get hung up on a specific germ or yeast, there are plenty of bacteria and yeasts that are virulent and disease causing. Treponema denticola and Candida albicans are the poster children, but they've got plenty of cousins.

Additionally, because these are part of biofilm colonies, no sane amount of traditional antibiotics will touch them. The biofilm protects them.

 

The skin on my face looks normal, except when I'm having folliculitis. But much of my skin has been taken over by bacterial biofilms.

As I said, no amount of oral or IV abx will touch them unless you take enough to kill you. The bacteria sit inside an envelope of EPS tissue, which blocks access to antibiotic molecules and protects the bacteria. Additionally, the EPS is seen as 'self' by the immune system, so the bacterial biofilm is protected against the immune system too.

So the bacteria sit there and eat glucose and crap out neurotoxins, LPS (endotoxin). The endotoxin then raises generally system inflammation, as well as directly harming human cells.

Click here to see a gross picture of my face
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YuKd1tTspvQ7QfT3A

As I said, my face looks normal, from the outside...

Note that almost all of my hair folicles are clogged with biofilm/eps, and I've removed large areas of diseased tissue. You can see where previous pockets of diseased tissue were removed, and note how they lead directly to my left ear (my affected ear). They spread on the right too, but not quite as far.

These eruptions occur because I'm taking anti-biofilm supplements (metallic nanoparticles and essential oils) which are able to penetrate the biofilm and the disease causing bacteria.

In 2017 my heart arrhythmia (PVCs) got so bad I couldn't walk but about ten steps without resting. Trip to the ER found nothing, and I had already connected the PVCs to the dental infections, so I went back to my general dentist and asked him to double check on the tooth infection, and this time he found one.

Tip: Heart arrhythmia can be caused by the stealth dental biofilms spreading

Long story short, four apical (outside the tooth) infections. Pulling the teeth won't help because the infection has already escaped the mouth. Abx don't help.

Unfortunately there are no easy fixes. If you leave it alone, you slowly slide downhill as the biofilm grows and continues pumping out toxins. If you treat it, you get a lot of unpleasant side effects. When I couldn't walk but ten steps, I decided I needed to treat it, even if the effects are sometimes severe.

TO BE CLEAR:
Modern medicine focuses on stopping the symptoms, but not the disease. Prednisone makes you feel better fast, but it does nothing to stop the underlying causes.

By treating my biofilms, I'm inviting my immune system to attack the biofilm. Which means areas will get red, swollen, painful, etc, etc. But you can't treat to ease the pain, as the "cure" is to let your immune system eliminate the biofilm.

FWIW, I've cured 95% of my gout and arthritis, but it took a while and hurt like a SOB. The other 5% is permanent and you have to keep treating it our it comes back quick.

 

The other risk factor is diseased gut. Like with the dental, if your gut is diseased, stuff leaks into the rest of the body. As I mentioned, my belief is that the gut is most linked to vertigo.

Diseased pancreases, for instance, often have oral or gut bacteria.

The gut lining and contents is one large biofilm. In ideal situations, you'll have nothing but good species. But when the ones get in, they cause disease, again with LPS damaging the gut lining tissue.

Fortunately, this one is easier to fix now than ever before. In the past, you would have to find a doctor who would prescribe enough abx and anti-fungals to nuke the gut, then you could re-populate the gut.

Now, however, there are prebiotic products on the market that contain macrophages that will attack and kill the bad gut species without harming the good gut species. It's like a targeted gut antibiotic, it doesn't harm the good gut bugs, it's cheap and readily available.

When people ask, I recommend these prebiotics and probiotics.

(I can't get the links to show up - just go to amazon and search)
""
Dr Tobias Prebiotics -
These contain the macrophages that attack bad gut bacteria, it also contains Short Chain Fatty Acids (SCFA) that feed good gut bacteria, but starve bad gut bacteria

Dr Tobias Deep Immune -
""
This contains some of the prebiotics as above, but also contains spore based probiotics. Being spore-based means the probiotics will better survive the gut journey and will have a better chance to colonize the gut.

My suggestion is to start by taking both, and after a month or two, move to just the Deep Immune.

==========

At the time I started using Dr Tobias, they were the only macrophage and spore based product on the market. They should work the same, but Dr Tobias is the one I'm familiar with.

If you combine these with a low carb diet, you'll be on the way to curing your gut.

Note that low carb does NOT mean low cal. Eat all the bacon, steak, hamburger, fish, pork, chicken, and vegetables and fiber you can, lay off the candy, excessive bread, etc etc.

Eating several slices of bacon in the morning helps you get over not having the cocopuffs.

 

Other things to check:
Vitamin B12/Folate - This had nothing to do with MM per se, just overall feeling better. There is a gene that prevents some people from absorbing normal amounts of B12/Folate.

MTHFR Mutation Test: MedlinePlus Medical Test

medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/mthfr-mutation-test/

It's called the MTHFR gene (I like to call it the MotherFR gene). It prevents you from being able to normally process folate, so you have to take a special form of folate.

The special form of folate made a big difference in my energy and well being.

 

Hey Ivan, it is possible it's not dental for you, but chronic sinus or ear infections as a child is another way bacterial biofilms can get you. It's possible that just a bad gut could leak enough bacteria into your body to cause problems in your ear, but it's easier to buy into if you've got infection right by the ear.

I'm checking on the studies I had posted saying that LPS, a potent bacterial-produced toxin, could damage the tissue in the inner ear, allowing a virus to attack the nerve.

What the studies say is that your immune system can fight off a viral attack on your vestibular system, if the virus is all there is. But if you have a nearby bacterial biofilm colony, say a dental or sinus infection, the LPS given off by the biofilm damages the lining of the inner ear. Once the inner ear lining is damaged, virus can then invade the inner ear and attack the vestibular nerve, so yes my MM theory for tinitus/hearing loss requires at least one bacterial biofilm, plus a virus.

LPS is a signaling protein that disease-causing bacteria produce, so a handy source of bacterial biofilm in the head makes it easier to put LPS near the ear. Thus if you've ever had sinus or ear problems as a kid, that would be as good a source of bacterial biofilm as a dental infection, and it would be in very close proximity to the ear.

As far as the dental, other signs that you might have a problem would be if you have teeth that are sensitive to touch or heat/cold, even if it only happens occasionally. That's a dead ringer for a tooth problem. If your teeth are healthy, they won't be sensitive. If you've ever had a bit of tooth fall out without being chipped, that's a double dead ringer of an internal resorption. If you have any of the above, ask your dentist friend to look at your 3D images for the teeth that are sensitive. She'll need to be very meticulous in looking all around the nooks and crannies of the OUTSIDE part of the tooth's root. With the 3D viewer, look at it from every angle. A quick glance won't be good enough to say "nothing there".

I don't have any opinions about the herbal supplements. My case is/was bad enough that no supplement would ever work for me. So if supplements work for you, then keep at them.

I don't see if you are taking probiotics. If not, please consider the ones I listed. If you have a gut problem, the pre and probiotics are an essential part of the fix.

I'll also take a contrarian view on milk, unless you have a documented problem with milk (lactose intolerance), you not only don't want to cut out dairy, you want as much high-fat dairy as you can get. Remember, milk fat is the first thing you're fed when you come out of the womb. For my coffee and cereal, I use half-n-half. 1% and 2% milk is an abomination before nature. You might consider adding lactoferrin to your supplements. It's a proven immune booster and gut healer.

Turns out now that animal fats are good for you again, and vegetable oils are the debil. Lard and cream is what you need. The fat goes toward the production of cholesterol. Cholesterol IS NOT the cause of inflammation. It's a marker of inflammation. That means you have high cholesterol because you have high inflammation, not the other way around. Cholesterol is a precursor to bile, and bile is how the body rids itself of toxins from the liver.

And unless you've got salt restrictions from your doctor, salt ain't a problem either.

So, eat a steak, a burger, chicken wings, pork chop, fish, shrimp, egg, bacon, nuts, cheese, etc for good fat and good protein. Just cut down on the buns and fries and candy bars.

If a person is overweight and eating lots of carbs, when they start the diet, they'll usually start steadily shedding weight. A bit of extra exercise will help things along. And when the weight comes down, so will your cholesterol numbers.

 

Just for reference, here's what I'm taking daily
zoloft - can't withdraw from it #($&#*$. BTW - take care of your gut and teeth and you likely won't ever have to worry about depression.

Aderall XR - helps me avoid frequent narcolepsy attacks, helps concentration, fights the chronic fatigue so I can get up and do things. (I retired at the end of 2018).

Prebiotic/Probiotic - Dr Tobias Deep Immune

Fiber capsule - psyllium, or pectin. Both feed good gut bacteria, but they also absorb bile so that all the bile your liver is producing can get flushed out. I used to take cholestyramine, but the psyillium or pectin work as well and don't require a prescription. Tip: If you give your kids apple juice, get unfiltered, it'll contain pectin.

Dulcolax - heavy liver detoxing can slow your gut, so you may need a little help)

Methylated Folate - I get this from my new Doc who does both modern and alternative treatments. That is one of the most effective things I have right now. You need to see if you have the MoTHerFing gene mutation first though.

Oil of Oregano - I forget the name, but I get a supplement from my doctor that is oil of oregano in pill form. I take three a day and it is quite effective in treating the systemic yeast and it's quite effective at attacking biofilms as well.

Vitamin D3 - everybody needs this, apparently

Metallic Nanoparticles - I'm not going to say more about these as I don't want to encourage anyone who hasn't looked into it. As it turns out, they are very effective against yeasts, viruses and disease causing bacteria, they do not harm the good bacteria. However, you've got disease causing bacterial biofilms in many parts of your body. Joints, pancreas, prostate, head, etc, etc, and you can't control what gets 'cured' first. From my experience, it's a great way to trigger gout attacks, or it could trigger pancreatitis or other issues.

Now, if you want to 'cure' the gout, you've got to get the immune system to start attacking it, then let it finish attacking it, so no predinsone. If you can ride out extremely painful gout attacks for a few weeks, your joints will eventually be in much better shape. But you have to keep treating it, because the bacterial biofilm causing gout will re-grow if you don't. So if you can stand to be away from work, or off your feet and in pain for a few weeks, go for it. Otherwise, don't take the colloidal metals unless you're as desperate as I was.

So, that list is pretty much what I expect to take every day for the rest of my life.

===================================

Additionally, I just started taking ozone blood therapy. They draw 200?cc of blood, oxygenate it with O3, then put it back in your arm. I had a couple of better well being days after the first one, so I'm encouraged. They say if it's going to help you'll know by the third treatment. Ozone is more reactive than O2, so it helps speed along the chemical reactions that use oxygen. I'll let y'all know how it goes...

 

More brain dumping. It's been a while since I was here

Natural supplements are often effective, but only if you use them right along to prevent such problems from building up. If you're trying to cure diseased nerve tissue with over the counter herbal supplements, it probably won't work.

This is not to say that the supplements aren't useful, on the contrary, many people get relief, but the supplements won't correct a heavily diseased condition. They are useful as part of a full press health plan, where you use them to reinforce the other things you might do. This is especially true of most probiotics. You can't just start taking one/day and hope to change anything.

To be clear, there are very few people in the US, and other countries as well, who don't have some amount of diseased gut issues. We eat too many carbs, we take too many oral antibiotics, we binge on booze, we eat additives, but mainly carbs, carbs, carbs, and antibiotics, antibiotics, antibiotics. The carbs feed the bad bacteria, and antibiotics kill off everything. The bad bugs are more aggressive about re-colonizing. The LPS produced by the bad bacteria damages the gut wall, and "things" leak in. And disease causing yeasts are the most aggressive. So, a few rounds of antibiotics, and your gut is ruint.

The best thing anyone here, or anywhere else for that matter, is improve your gut health. In order to cure your gut, you need to attack the bad bacteria and yeasts. You used to have to go to the doctor to get abx and anti-fungal meds, but now the new macrophage based prebiotics mean you can attack the bad bacteria without harming the good bacteria, without seeing a doctor, and at a reasonably cheap price. Any macrophage prebiotic will work, and spore-based probiotics will colonize the gut more effectively. To be clear, it is practically impossible to take too many probiotics. The more you take, the quicker they'll recolonize the gut. Live culture foods such as sauerkraut and kim-chee and pickles, and kombucha, and kefir, and anything with live culture will help the healing.

But you have to starve the bad stuff by going low-carb, high protein, high fat, and high fiber. It's not a low-calorie diet, you can cut the cravings for the carbs by having a second helping of bacon, and a third if you like.

 

Basic immune system 101, really 001.

There are two parts of the immune system.

The adaptive immune system waits until something attacks you, then it attempts to kill the invading germs by developing antibodies. So you have to catch it (or be vaccinated) to get the antibodies.

The innate immune system is different, it's the first line of defense. There are some substances that are so toxic to humans, that we've genetically adapted by automatically raising the alarm when they are encountered.

Lipopolysaccharide - Wikipedia
Lipopolysaccharide aka endotoxin aka LPS is one of those toxins.
"Lipopolysaccharides (LPS), also known as endotoxins, are large molecules consisting of a lipid and a polysaccharide ...; they are found in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria."
...
"The molecular mimicry of some LOS molecules is thought to cause autoimmune-based host responses, such as flareups of multiple sclerosis.[11][27] Other examples of bacterial mimicry of host structures via LOS are found with the bacteria Helicobacter pylori and Campylobacter jejuni, organisms which cause gastrointestinal disease in humans, and Haemophilus ducreyi which causes chancroid."

LPS is also found in certain gram-positive bacteria as well.

So, the takeaway:

LPS, associated with bacterial biofilms with gram- and some gram+ bacteria is BAD. It's not the only toxin, mycotoxins are also BAD.

 

All that leads to this recent research


Response of the inner ear to lipopolysaccharide introduced directly into scala media
Response of the inner ear to lipopolysaccharide introduced directly into scala media - PubMed
"Depending on the concentration of LPS, changes ranged from moderate-to-severe hearing loss and endolymphatic hydrops with minimal cellular infiltrate or fibrosis, to dense cellular infiltration that filled the scalae. Interestingly, higher concentrations of LPS not only induced severe cellular infiltration, hydrops, and hearing loss, but also a substantial enlargement of the endolymphatic duct and sac."

So, LPS can cause hearing loss and hydrops

A new animal model for Ménière's disease
A new animal model for Ménière's disease - PubMed
"A new murine model for the study of Ménière's disease has been developed by treatment with both lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and aldosterone."
...
"All experimental animals showed mild to moderate endolymphatic hydrops"

The idea has been around since 1980
Inner ear damage induced by bacterial endotoxin
Inner ear damage induced by bacterial endotoxin - PubMed

Localization of endotoxin in the inner ear following inoculation into the middle ear
Localization of endotoxin in the inner ear following inoculation into the middle ear - PubMed
"These findings suggest that endotoxin can reach the inner ear by various routes, e.g. the round window, blood vessels or lymphatics, and/or interscala exchange, resulting in a disturbance not only of the cochlea but also of the vestibular end organs."

Systemic lipopolysaccharide induces cochlear inflammation and exacerbates the synergistic ototoxicity of kanamycin and furosemide
Systemic lipopolysaccharide induces cochlear inflammation and exacerbates the synergistic ototoxicity of kanamycin and furosemide - PubMed
"We conclude that LPS and its associated inflammatory response are harmful to the inner ear when coupled with ototoxic medications and that the immune system may contribute to the final hearing outcome in subjects treated with ototoxic agents."

Survival of bacterial biofilms within neutrophil extracellular traps promotes nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae persistence in the chinchilla model for otitis media
Survival of bacterial biofilms within neutrophil extracellular traps promotes nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae persistence in the chinchilla model for otitis media - PubMed
"Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) is a leading cause of acute and chronic otitis media, which are a major public health problem worldwide. The persistence of NTHi during chronic and recurrent otitis media infections involves multicellular biofilm communities formed within the middle-ear chamber."


So, there is staring to be research into the role of disease causing bacterial biofilms and LPS into vestibular problems.