In winter 2002, I have a major relapse. Just that spring I had graduated from Pratt with honors. I hadn’t been my best, but I had gotten through. I had even floated around Europe for 6 weeks in the summer. I turned 23 in Ireland. I was living life and just starting to get excited about feeling “not great, but not terrible,” and looking forward to everything I could still do. But I guess two years of running on adrenaline to finish school (and have my adventures, too) burned me out, and a stressful project for a theatre company that winter was all it took to trigger the CFS maelstrom. Up until then, I had been operating off the magical and false premise that if I just kept moving, I would eventually blow the gunk off the engine and things would return to normal. Oh so Magical. Oh so False. Oh so Unsustainable.
Familiar symptoms resurfaced, all with a heavier cloud desperation. Energy once again evaporated, as waves of a toxic malaise overwhelmed me and laid me out flat for hours. Anything I wanted to “do” was through sheer will, and even then I had to prioritize. Did I want to take a walk down the block or did I want to take a shower? I could only gather enough energy for one, and either one still left me winded. I was able to read a little, although I couldn’t remember much of what I had read. And I was too spaced out to drive anywhere. Migraines returned. I lost more weight. Interstitial cystitis hung around too. Blurry vision. Sinus congestion, sore throats, the crawling sensations under my skin, and a hypersensitivity to light and sound (I was unable to watch TV,) and temperature, etc. ad nauseum. I didn’t have the same level of disability as when I was first became ill, but I was still housebound. I was living at home, my parents once again taking care of all my needs; shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry. They had to drive me to any appointments, then help me out of the car once we got there. To get so sick and weak again after making it so far hit me hard. Emotionally, it was probably my lowest point.
In early 2003, I decided to dive into the medical world again and try a new doctor, (one day I’ll write a post about how futile this had proved in the past), and I made an appointment with a doctor, who among a few other supplements, gave me Methyl B12 injections.
One day after getting weekly injections for about a month, I had energy. It was just there!
I no longer had to push myself. The energy simply presented itself! It was like Methyl B12 had reached critical mass and finally kicked the engine over! I still struggled with symptoms, but it felt like something had been repaired and put right even if there was more work to do. It was like the master linchpin had slid back into place, and the wheel(s) could once again begin to turn.
All my symptoms began to improve. The toxic malaise lessened in intensity and duration, and my sleep got better. I could focus longer, and remember more. Speaking became more fluid. I could soon read a chapter at a time, instead of struggling to finish a scant page. I could get through a shower without the threat of passing out and the crawling sensations under my skin disappeared. My sagging spirits started to lift, and I didn’t feel so defeated by everything. Suddenly, I found myself moving in the right direction. I could feel my body returning to me. I was slowly…(miraculously)…being restored. I was being restored!
It would be awhile before I developed any real kind of stamina; but I was able to build on the energy I did have and and finally do some things (very piecemeal at first) that further strengthened my body and soul – like walk down the block and back, do a little gardening, talk on the phone or visit a friend. Next, I was able to concentrate enough to where I could drive again and even run an errand or two. All of these activities had been near impossible before. Six months later I got a part time job, and I felt like maybe, just maybe, I could get my life back together.
This pink liquid that looks just like transmission fluid and shifted me out of neutral reached cult status in my life. Nothing else I had tried up to that point (and I had tried a lot of different modalities and supplements) even came close to what Methyl B12 did to physically revitalize me and give me tangible hope that I would eventually come out of this. Methyl B12 essentially allowed my recovery.
Interestingly enough, my bloodwork did not show that I was deficient in B12. Only that I was on the low end of normal. What’s technically “normal” for one person might not be for another. I kept the injections up – weekly at first, and then did them whenever I felt myself start to drag a little – which came out to be about an injection or two a month, if that.
The only sort of bummer to this, is that at about five to seven years in, taking it on and off as needed, it stopped working its magic. It’s not that I became house-bound again, or was unable to work – at this point I was working full time and living with my husband, it just failed to give me the energetic boost and better sleep that I had come to expect. I’d start to slow down again, but when I took it, it didn’t help at all. I tried it a few more times before concluding that I had probably topped off the B12 tank and that my remaining issues had to be addressed in other ways.
I will forever be grateful to Methyl B12, and to the doctors who prescribed it for me during that critical period in my illness. I have no doubt that without it, I would not be where I am today. Because of Methyl B12 I was able to reach a new plateau of well-being. I was able to eventually work full time and devote energy to projects that were important to me. I was able to have a relationship and get married. I was able to live my life again.
Note: I no longer do injections, I do periodically take Methylcobalamin and Adenosylcobalamin together in one formula sublingually.
CFS | Endgame 
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