Fangio; The full story

I discovered Fangio (pictured above) last Friday, early in the morning, whilest out for a walk in my wheelchair. I'd gone out to try to take some autumn themed animal shots. I'm making a calender of British wildlife throughout the year to sell in aid of ME research via http://www.photobox.co.uk/content/share?osid=pukbs130 hopefully. I needed one last photo to complete it, Oct

I was just complaining about the lack of any animals, wild or domestic, to photograph when my Mum pointed out a hedgehog snuffling about on the bank by the cemetry. We went on a hedgehog workshop last
year, where we learnt that any hedgehogs out during the day are in trouble, so we decided we'd better rescue it. Apart from the fact that hedgehogs are nocturnal so if one is about during the day its a sure sign something funny is going on, even if there isn't anything wrong with it there very soon will be. If out during daytime they'll get infested with flystrike and lice.

Mum ran off to borrow a cardboard box to put her in leaving me alone with Fangio. After taking a few snaps I decided to pick her up before she disappeared into the hedge. She was a very lightweight, lighter than Barney the smaller of my two guinea pigs. She instantly curled up into a ball, spines bristling. I stayed vy still so as not to alarm her furthur. After a few seconds she stuck her pixie-like snout out and started sniffing me in a puzzled manner. She was ob wondering why I wasn't attempting to eat her. She'd just decided the danger had passed and was unrolling when my Mum arrived. We plopped her into a Doc Martains before she had a chance to make a dash for freedom off my lap.

We took her home, gave her a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel, and phoned round the local hedgehog carers. Unfortunatly they all seemed to be full and we only got answer machines. We gave her some Felix and a shallow dish of water. You have to be careful giving poorly/stressed hedgehogs water as they will attempt to drown themselves under stress. After the food had only been greeted with a breif snuffle and then
ignored, we started to get a bit worried. We finally managed to get hold of an hedgehog carer in Ipswich who reccommended we take her to Mildenhall vets, a vets practice in our nearest town. They are particularly good with hedgehogs apparently Upon examination it was discovered that, though very feighsty, she only weighed 100g. Hedgehogs have to be at least 600 to hibernate and with winter approaching Fangio wouldn't survive the months ahead. She would have to remain in captivity. Unfortunately it was against the
vets practice rules to keep her but the man (Alex) in Ipswich offered her a place at his.

Only one problem; he was having a fundraiser the next day so would be unable to collect her. We arranged to meet his wife at the Moterway services on the way to Ipswich. We did get to meet Alex as he came with his wife. He is a big man with a beard and biker t-shirt. He examined her and said she was nice and fat, the way he liked to see them so at least her outlook is good

I'm guessing she was about three weeks old. Hedgehogs often have a litter later in the year if its fine, and with global warming, they now keep having them as late as early Nov. This doesn't give them long enough to grow let alone fatten up for the winter, and they often get abandoned as their Mother goes into hibernation. Hedgehogs are now an endangered species so every hoglet counts

Cold

 I haven't updated my blog for a fortnight! I'v had a cold which has
left me worn out and headachey. Was feeling rather devastated by this,
just as I felt I was getting my life sorted out at last, but such is
life. From experience life seems to enjoy throwing everything it has
at you and you just have to rise to the challenge. I tried to pretend
I was perfectly alright to start with but after 3 days of driving
myself to exhaustion and trying not to faint from the pain and fog in
my brain I gave in and bawled
Still I managed to upload my slideshow before I had my setback. Its
accessed via untitled page link under my profile, please take a look
and tell me your comments. The song, entitled 'Silently', is written
and played by my beutiful, glamorous friend Chlay. You can buy it from
iTunes with the money going towards The ME association.
Dr Wight recommened Bubu to detoxify me and releive cold symptoms. Its
a South American herbal remedy which you can buy from Rio Healthcare.
It has a mild taste and no known side affects though you have to take
lots of fluids whilest using it

Dr Wight

It would take a very long time to explain every detail of the journey
which led me to becomeing one of Dr Wights patients so I shall
probably explain more as we go along. I'll just say for now that we
first heard of him when he was reccomended to us by a man who goes to
Dads Yoga Nidra class. We pressuried my Dad into going, in spite of
his aversion to anything vaugely 'hippyish', to try and releive his
stress. As it turns out its just as well we did or we'd never have
heard about Dr Wight. The man who reccomended him actually suffers
from lyme disease, not ME, but he'd been misdiagnosed with ME to start
with which is how he ended up at Dr Wights clinic.
He first tested me for Mitochondria disorders because, though ME is
generally regarded by enlightend clinicians as a neroulogical
disorder, many ME sufferers have Mitochondria problems and all forms
of treatment will prove pointless if your Mitochondria isn't working
properly.
I'v suffered from many, varied neroulogical symptoms over the years
ranging from cocentration and memory problems, hypersensitivity and
IBS to name but a few. However as I haven't got anything wrong with my
actual Mitichondria cells (apart from this glycolic acid which ison my
translocating proteins, not affecting the cell itself) the other
likely cause of my neroulogical symptoms is a persistent virus.
Probably an Enterovirus (virus of the gut). I haven't actually been
tested for any Enteroviruses as it would involve a stomach biopsy and
Dr Wight didn't want to do one of those on me. It was a virus which
gave me a very high temperature and made me so sick I couldn't keep
even water down (symptoms suggestive of a virus of the gut) that
seemed to cause my ME, 10 years ago, though.
To help fight a potential persistent virus Dr Wight has given me low
dose Naltrexone to take. I'v been taking a 1ml dose for a week now. I
haven't experienced the miracle cure I half dreamed of yet, actually
all I'v really had are a few side affects (headache, sore throat), but
nothing too bad. Overall, along with my new diet, sleep meds and
infra-red, I'm feeling brighter and optimistic

Fwd: Infra-red sleeping bags and lots of lettuce

For those who are wondering what a infra-red sauna is and how it
works, the answer is I have no idea how it works. I'm only familiar
with infra-red as a tool for filming cuddly penquin colonys and cute
lion prides at night. I'v read one testimonial of a CFS sufferer who
had a toxin, Nitrosamine, blocking his mitochondria cells and he had a
60-70% reduction of the toxin after 6
months of using so I'm hopeful it'll wash it out.

A description of use;
 I'v now had my infra-red coccoon for about a fortnight. Its like a
silver sleeping bag which covers you up to your neck. You have to heat
it up for 15 mins before using, and then snuggle down up to your neck.
I'v only used it 3 times for 2 mins each as I'm vy sensitive to it.
The first time I used it I nearly fell asleep whilest using it and
afterwards had a raging headache. Then I had a break of nearly a week
during which time I had a terrible tummy upset. The rolling around,
screaming in agony kind.The second time was much the same though not as
severe. The third time I
scarcely had a headache at all but instead had a curious pulsing
sensation of blood surging through my neck and head. I staggered out
of it after 2 minutes feeling vy weak as if I'd been doing strenuous
exercise. Apparently the infra-red does have a similar effect as a
workout. I always have to have a long lie down after using for over an
hour but they
reccomend this for users anyway, even for people without my ME related
problems with exercise. Its also crucial to drink 80ml for every 15
mins in the coccoon.

The support service offers advice on fitness and diet as well as using
the cocoon. They've recommended I go on a guinea pig diet of living
lettuce and sprouts and not so many carbs. Well, I guess, it makes the
Flintstones skip with excitment, why not me? The theory behind it is
that we eat more carbohydrates than we need, even that we're told to,
which makes our bodys too acid. We need to be more alkaline. This
could result in lack of energy as well as other problems like IBS

Tuesday morning

Feeling guilty. My family (Mum, Dad, older brother) have only been
back from their holidays for one night and already I'm getting ratty
with them.
Mum has a bad back so is staggering round, clutching her back like
shes 90, and as a result Dad is even more stressed than usual. He came
barging in whilest I was resting to say Mum is just about ok to shower
me and will be in, in a min when he knows I always have a rest at 9'o
clock so I ended up snapping at him

shampoo

I've recently been diagnosed with glycolic acid ( from shampoo/hair products) on the translocating protiens of my mitochondria cells. This is very unusual; My new Dr who is an ME expert, miles away, and has tested many people had never seen it before. I thought it was a bit unfair; I only wash my hair twice a week, never use fake tan and rarely wear make up and I get to have this unusual weakness when the rest of my peers are smothering themselves with no side affects!

Stranger still I wouldn't have said fatuige was a major part of my CFS, I'd always scoffed at the idea of CFS being something to do with the mitochondria; I thought it must be something much more complicated. I'v relapsed since last Summer, not back to what I was like before that fortunately, but it affected my sleep badly. I got insommnia which then had an affect on my energy and concentration levels, I suffered from dizziness, headaches, lack of appetite, weakness and mild light and sound hypersensitivity. I wear ski sunglasses my Grandma kindly gave me all the time now and often have to have the voloume on my iPod dock right down

Basically what it means though is this is stopping me from tranferring energy round my body properly and fortunately there is a treatment that can help. Dr Wight got back in touch with the lab that did the tests as he'd never seen it before and they told him that infra-red saunas often helped people with such complaints.

So Mum got online. The 1st company she looked at were selling proper saunas and she got very excited at the thought of getting a double persons one and having sauna parties. But just as I was wondering how to put her off, she found another company selling cocoons (above link). Apart from the advantage that a cocoon would take up less space, this company also offered a support service so you could pay for advice