Hope for Hidden Illnesses: Anxiety, ADD, Fibromyalgia and More

Hear ye all who had been diagnosed as having, anxiety, ADD or fibromyalgia.?Or ye who have constant anxiety, irritability and/or pain, tension and spasms in your muscles. ?

What I have learned has saved my life or at least my brain’s health, and I hope it could provide answers to?someone else.

We are about to delve into the wonderful world of genetics, which I think (hope) is the future of functional medicine and nutrition.

Perhaps I have always been “inside my head” or tense.?I have certainly been irritable with no real reason why.?I would just tell my husband to stay clear of me, which he wisely did. ?

I remember one time where I spent one hour doing deep breathing and relaxation hoping to ease my stiffness and tension with absolutely no result at all.?The same with a massage session that left me feeling not one bit better - as stiff and achey as I was before the massage.

Taking the GX Science’s genetic test and working with Dr. Kendall Stewart, a functional neurologist in Austin, Texas, was what finally gave me my answer.?A broken GAD1 gene.

Know Your Genes

The GAD gene helps make what is needed to convert glutamate, which is an excitatory neurotransmitter (stimulating, go-go-go) to the calming neurotransmitter GABA (relaxed, calm, focused). ?

Glutamate is actually needed to stimulate brain cells for learning, memory, etc., but too much makes it an “excitotoxin”.?Toxic in the sense that it overstimulates brain cells and nerves and results in neurological inflammation and cell death.?Ouch. ?

My gene was ‘double broken’ and my brain was on overdrive.?My body mirrored that overdrive with the previously mentioned stiffness and tension - I was DESPERATE to relax.?Does this sound familiar to those of you with ADD, insomnia, migraines, or fibromyalgia?

Symptoms of Glutamate Toxicity

Here are possible signs of high glutamate:

Focus/Brain:?ADD, poor focus, distractible, speech delay, dementia, seizures, migraines

Pain: Pain amplification, low pain threshold, headaches

Mood:? Irritability, depression, anxiety, restlessness, inside your head, overthinking, overwhelmed, brain stuck “on”, dysphoria, alcohol/substance desire

Muscle/Body:?Spasms, tremors, muscle tension, low energy, weakness, ear noise/tinnitus, teeth clenching, hypersensitivity, overactive bladder, fibromyalgia

Sleep:? Insomnia, bed wetting

Per a handout from Dr. Stewart’s office, the broken gene is certainly a big cause of glutamate to GABA imbalance, but other situations can also cause this:?influenza, viruses, nitrous oxide, stroke, concussion, injury, inflammation and more.

I’m not an expert in the genetics or the therapy, but I’ll share what I do know in the hopes that someone else can start feeling better. ?

Experts who have been trained in these areas can be found at GXsciences.com and it is important to find a practitioner who knows how to improve gene function with herbs/nutrients/safe pharmaceuticals.??

It is also important to find a genetic test that understands what genes are important to test for and will have opportunities for therapeutic measures.?Warning:?Not all genetic tests are created equal (or useful). ?

Improve Glutamate Balance

The simplest remedy, as explained to me by Dr. Stewart, is eating foods with the herb anise.?That would include chai tea and pho soup.?Black elderberry syrup (or the gummy form has less sugar) was also recommended to me by someone in Dr. Stewart’s office - 1 Tablespoon twice a day. ?

The foods to avoid would be foods with glutamate and other possibly stimulating compounds such as:

• MSG added (Chinese foods, processed foods)?
• Supplements with glutamine relatives, example glucosamine which is often used for joint health
• Coffee
• Hydrolyzed (protein) or autolyzed (yeast) containing foods
• Aspartame (Nutrasweet)
• Wheat gluten and milk casein (cheese is most concentrated)?
• Soy extracts, soy sauces
• Nuts (walnuts)
• Tomatoes
• Processed meats
• Grape juice
• Seafood (scallops, oysters, anchovies)
• Mushrooms (dried shiitake are the worst, and white button mushrooms are much lower)
• Peas,
• Starchy vegetables (corn, potatoes). ?Darn, potatoes are my guilty pleasure!

The reason I love nutrition health coaching is that even small changes to adopt a healthier diet can improve almost everything and anything.?Specialized diets may be needed for various health issues like ADD, migraines and fibromyalgia, but small steps toward implementing these diets will be most successful.

My book, “Sick and Tired, to Healthy and Inspired: 9 Steps to Prevent Lifestyle Related Diseases” (available on Amazon) gives a list of healthy foods and also gives strategies to make diet changes successful. ?

Instead of feeling sad about eliminating the foods above, people can feel excited over the list of health supporting foods found in the book.?Instead of feeling overwhelmed by going gluten free overnight, people can find small steps to get started in the book.?

Therapies

Other than food, Dr. Stewart has a nutritional supplement called Pro GAD Enhancer that I find helpful.?There are prescription drugs that block the glutamate receptor site on our nerves.?I feel ok with the prescriptions as Dr. Stewart uses drugs that are mostly based on plants.?A practitioner who has trained with Dr. Stewart would know these. ?

Nutrients that help to lower glutamate levels include vitamin C, magnesium, Vitamin D, and omega-3 fatty acids.?The B vitamins, especially B-6 are important as well. ?

An article on WebMD offers some other ideas https://www.webmd.com/diet/high-glutamate-foods#3

• Relaxing herbs such as lemon balm, chamomile, and passion flower can offset the negative effects of glutamate by restoring its balance with GABA
• Blueberries have been found to protect against glutamatergic excitotoxicity (nerve cell damage or death). ?

Results

I would say my symptoms are improved 80%, but when I am at rest my leg is constantly swinging back and forth.?A sign to me that my brain is still overexcited.

True confession, I have not been very compliant in following the doctor’s recommendations so I need to be more aware.?Very recently I was driving home from the grocery and my neck was threatening to go into spasms.?I went and took one of the forgotten medications prescribed to me and voila - no more spasms. When will I learn??

Hope

I believe I was given my health issues so that I could share answers with others.?Hopefully this may prompt someone to find solutions for their health woes.?ADD, fibromyalgia, migraines, insomnia - I have seen people suffering with these and it would be great if this could offer relief.

Avoiding inflammation and/or excitotoxicity in the brain are important if we hope to age well and keep our brain functioning at it’s best.?I sure hope to have a happy brain and I’ll bet you do too. ?

PS - I recently learned that one benefit of those with more glutamate receptors is that they are highly intuitive.?How fascinating is that? ?

Excellent article for further reading (unfortunately this seems to be a paid article now): https://www.scribd.com/document/399302215/How-to-Increase-GABA-and-Balance-Glutamate