Recovering from chronic (long-term) illness, pain or low energy
The challenge in overcoming chronic illness, pain or low energy that has lasted years, if not decades, is working out what your body is fighting specifically. Your chronic illness does not exist in isolation. There is much going on in the body that complicates matters.
Therefore, the first step in overcoming chronic illness is to simplify your health, such that you are handling fewer health problems simultaneously. You will be better able to determine what is causing your chronic illness if, for example, you reduce the number of toxins that you are exposed to or eat food that suits your genetics or reduce the stress in your life.
Moreover, your chronic illness might have multiple causes. One illness or nutritional deficiency makes you susceptible to other illnesses and nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, overcoming a seemingly unrelated illness or nutritional deficiency allows your body to use its resources to better overcome your chronic illness.
This page presents a framework for helping you find your answer to a complex long-lasting illness.
A Framework for Recovering from Chronic Illness, Pain or Low Energy
Part 1: Simplifying your Health
Remove stress
The hormones that we produce when under stress put us in a state that helps us handle a threat in the short term. For instance, the hormones adrenaline and cortisol put us in a fight-or-flight state by preparing the body to either confront the threat (fight) or flee from it (flight), allowing us to respond quickly and effectively to the perceived threat. However, remaining in this state in the long term exhausts our resources, damages our neurological system, weakens our immune system, disregulates our emotions, affects our mental processing, strains our cardiovascular system and thus causes a variety of diseases.
Therefore, you might want to pay attention to what is making you miserable and put yourself around different people, change your job, and exercise. We are not in a position to remove all sources of stress from our lives, but eliminate as much as you can.
Replace processed food with naturally occurring food and homemade food
The core issue with processed food is that we, the consumer, do not know how the food has been processed.
We have created a medical diet for those suffering chronic illness, pain or low energy. It is a low-inflammatory plan aimed at reducing much of the toxicity found in the modern diet.
Find the diet that works for your genetics
Not everyone is designed to be a vegetarian. Not everyone is designed to be a carnivore. Some people work better on a fat-based diet whereas others can handle some carbohydrates. Some people thrive on tomatoes whereas tomatoes cripple others with a severe episode of arthritis. Find the diet that works for you. One man's medicine is another man's poison.
We have a page that specifically discusses diets that work for different people.
Reduce your exposure to toxins
Why would you not be in a constant state of inflammation, and the pain associated with it, given that we have poisoned the earth, poisoned the air and poisoned the water?
You will want to reduce the toxic load that you are placing on your body so that the body can devote its resources to fighting your chronic illness.
To this end, you might want to purify your water and avoid pesticides and herbicides. You might want to eliminate your use of fragrances on your body, on your clothes and in your home. Trust your sense of smell when it is telling you to avoid certain environments or chemicals. Put on your skin only what you would be willing to eat or drink.
Give your gut biome a chance to balance itself
You require a proper balance of microbes in your gut to digest food, absorb nutrients, create vitamins and neurotransmitters, regulate the immune system, protect against pathogens and prevent harmful substances from entering the bloodstream. However, it is near impossible to guess what microbes your gut needs, and even if you could guess, it would be equally difficult to then supply those microbes to your gut.
What you can do is not kill microbes in your gut in the first place, increasing the chance that different microbes exist at levels that suit you.
Therefore, you might want to drink purified water, rather than directly drinking tap water that has been treated with chlorine to kill microbes. Moreover, you might want to reduce the amount of preservative that you eat (because preservatives kill bacteria) by making food at home from natural ingredients.
Move
Pump your lymphatic system through exercise and by massaging your lymph nodes. Your lymphatic system is the main battleground where your immune system is fighting foreign invaders, and your lymph fluid must be kept moving through bodily movement, exercise and massage as there is no other pumping mechanism for ridding the lymph system of waste, toxins, and pathogens.
Get in the sun, often
Most of the global population has a severe deficiency of vitamin D, which is crucial to the proper functioning of many physiological processes in the body. Besides creating vitamin D in the skin, sunlight regulates levels of melatonin, serotonin and cortisol that make us active and regulate mood, appetite and sleep. Raising your serum 25(OH)D level to 50–100 ng/ml (125–250 nmol/L) has beneficial effects across a wide range of diseases. This typically requires vitamin D doses of at least 10,000 IU per day.
Sleep
Sleep aids recovery in that it releases hormones that stimulate tissue repair; produces and releases proteins that target the immune system's response to infection and inflammation; regulates inflammation; replenishes energy stores; and ensures balanced levels of cortisol and insulin, thus preventing weight gain, reducing stress, and maintaining metabolic health. Go to bed early.
Rule out parasites
Long-term parasitic infections can lead to chronic illness but are difficult to diagnose. Take sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) for 1–4 weeks as a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic medication that has been used for thousands of years. Sweet wormwood is different from Common wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), which does have medicinal properties but can be dangerous if taken in high amounts as it contains thujone. In addition, take diatomaceous earth for up to a week to eliminate parasites in the gut.
If you are lucky
Once you have improved and simplified your general health, your body might now have the resources it needs to overcome your chronic illness, pain or low energy, such that it disappears as mysteriously as it arrived.
Part 2: Addressing Nutritional Deficiencies
Many cases of chronic illness are due to a lack of a specific nutrient or group of nutrients for a period of years or decades. You likely think that you eat well, but:
Your health problem might be that you need a large supply of a nutrient to fight an infection rather than you do not have that nutrient in the diet. You do not need to have a severely low level of a nutrient for it to be a tool in treating your chronic illness.
Addressing a nutritional deficiency requires high-dose supplementation rather than a diet correction because food does not provide the amount of a nutrient needed for a therapeutic effect.
Start by covering the nutrient deficiencies that are the main causes of chronic illness
Matching your illness to the deficiency of a specific nutrient can be difficult. Different nutritional deficiencies can have similar symptoms. We therefore suggest starting by supplementing the nutrients whose deficiencies are strongly associated with a wide range of chronic illnesses.
Other nutrients for specific chronic illnesses
Blood tests for determining nutritional deficiencies
Resources on specific vitamins and minerals
Part 3: Find Other People Suffering the Same Illness
You are most likely to find the answer to your chronic illness by learning from the experiences of others.
We find that we best learn about health by reading the experiences of hundreds of patients who have tried different approaches or by listening to the experiences of clinicians who have treated hundreds of patients having the same illness. We learn from each of these people. There are online groups whose members are getting results and who can recommend a protocol for overcoming your illness.
See our page on Your Best Resources.
Therefore, the first step in overcoming chronic illness is to simplify your health, such that you are handling fewer health problems simultaneously. You will be better able to determine what is causing your chronic illness if, for example, you reduce the number of toxins that you are exposed to or eat food that suits your genetics or reduce the stress in your life.
Moreover, your chronic illness might have multiple causes. One illness or nutritional deficiency makes you susceptible to other illnesses and nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, overcoming a seemingly unrelated illness or nutritional deficiency allows your body to use its resources to better overcome your chronic illness.
This page presents a framework for helping you find your answer to a complex long-lasting illness.
A Framework for Recovering from Chronic Illness, Pain or Low Energy
Part 1: Simplifying your Health
Remove stress
The hormones that we produce when under stress put us in a state that helps us handle a threat in the short term. For instance, the hormones adrenaline and cortisol put us in a fight-or-flight state by preparing the body to either confront the threat (fight) or flee from it (flight), allowing us to respond quickly and effectively to the perceived threat. However, remaining in this state in the long term exhausts our resources, damages our neurological system, weakens our immune system, disregulates our emotions, affects our mental processing, strains our cardiovascular system and thus causes a variety of diseases.
Therefore, you might want to pay attention to what is making you miserable and put yourself around different people, change your job, and exercise. We are not in a position to remove all sources of stress from our lives, but eliminate as much as you can.
Replace processed food with naturally occurring food and homemade food
The core issue with processed food is that we, the consumer, do not know how the food has been processed.
- We do not know which processes have stripped the food of its nutrition.
- We do not know what additives have been added to make us addicted to the food.
- We do not know the full range of effects of sweeteners, flavourings, pesticides and preservatives.
- We do not know how the ingredients themselves are processed before they are combined.
- Few foods that have a shelf life long enough for retail sale can be considered natural.
- Simply reading the ingredient list does not tell us most of what goes on in the production of our food.
We have created a medical diet for those suffering chronic illness, pain or low energy. It is a low-inflammatory plan aimed at reducing much of the toxicity found in the modern diet.
Find the diet that works for your genetics
Not everyone is designed to be a vegetarian. Not everyone is designed to be a carnivore. Some people work better on a fat-based diet whereas others can handle some carbohydrates. Some people thrive on tomatoes whereas tomatoes cripple others with a severe episode of arthritis. Find the diet that works for you. One man's medicine is another man's poison.
We have a page that specifically discusses diets that work for different people.
Reduce your exposure to toxins
Why would you not be in a constant state of inflammation, and the pain associated with it, given that we have poisoned the earth, poisoned the air and poisoned the water?
You will want to reduce the toxic load that you are placing on your body so that the body can devote its resources to fighting your chronic illness.
To this end, you might want to purify your water and avoid pesticides and herbicides. You might want to eliminate your use of fragrances on your body, on your clothes and in your home. Trust your sense of smell when it is telling you to avoid certain environments or chemicals. Put on your skin only what you would be willing to eat or drink.
Give your gut biome a chance to balance itself
You require a proper balance of microbes in your gut to digest food, absorb nutrients, create vitamins and neurotransmitters, regulate the immune system, protect against pathogens and prevent harmful substances from entering the bloodstream. However, it is near impossible to guess what microbes your gut needs, and even if you could guess, it would be equally difficult to then supply those microbes to your gut.
What you can do is not kill microbes in your gut in the first place, increasing the chance that different microbes exist at levels that suit you.
Therefore, you might want to drink purified water, rather than directly drinking tap water that has been treated with chlorine to kill microbes. Moreover, you might want to reduce the amount of preservative that you eat (because preservatives kill bacteria) by making food at home from natural ingredients.
Move
Pump your lymphatic system through exercise and by massaging your lymph nodes. Your lymphatic system is the main battleground where your immune system is fighting foreign invaders, and your lymph fluid must be kept moving through bodily movement, exercise and massage as there is no other pumping mechanism for ridding the lymph system of waste, toxins, and pathogens.
Get in the sun, often
Most of the global population has a severe deficiency of vitamin D, which is crucial to the proper functioning of many physiological processes in the body. Besides creating vitamin D in the skin, sunlight regulates levels of melatonin, serotonin and cortisol that make us active and regulate mood, appetite and sleep. Raising your serum 25(OH)D level to 50–100 ng/ml (125–250 nmol/L) has beneficial effects across a wide range of diseases. This typically requires vitamin D doses of at least 10,000 IU per day.
Sleep
Sleep aids recovery in that it releases hormones that stimulate tissue repair; produces and releases proteins that target the immune system's response to infection and inflammation; regulates inflammation; replenishes energy stores; and ensures balanced levels of cortisol and insulin, thus preventing weight gain, reducing stress, and maintaining metabolic health. Go to bed early.
Rule out parasites
Long-term parasitic infections can lead to chronic illness but are difficult to diagnose. Take sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua) for 1–4 weeks as a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic medication that has been used for thousands of years. Sweet wormwood is different from Common wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), which does have medicinal properties but can be dangerous if taken in high amounts as it contains thujone. In addition, take diatomaceous earth for up to a week to eliminate parasites in the gut.
If you are lucky
Once you have improved and simplified your general health, your body might now have the resources it needs to overcome your chronic illness, pain or low energy, such that it disappears as mysteriously as it arrived.
Part 2: Addressing Nutritional Deficiencies
Many cases of chronic illness are due to a lack of a specific nutrient or group of nutrients for a period of years or decades. You likely think that you eat well, but:
- you might have been born with deficiencies that you have never made up for;
- modern food lacks certain vitamins and minerals because of how it is farmed and processed;
- your genetics might prevent you from activating certain vitamins;
- you might have chronic infections that deplete you of vitamins and minerals; or
- your prescription drugs might deplete you of vitamins and minerals.
Your health problem might be that you need a large supply of a nutrient to fight an infection rather than you do not have that nutrient in the diet. You do not need to have a severely low level of a nutrient for it to be a tool in treating your chronic illness.
Addressing a nutritional deficiency requires high-dose supplementation rather than a diet correction because food does not provide the amount of a nutrient needed for a therapeutic effect.
Start by covering the nutrient deficiencies that are the main causes of chronic illness
Matching your illness to the deficiency of a specific nutrient can be difficult. Different nutritional deficiencies can have similar symptoms. We therefore suggest starting by supplementing the nutrients whose deficiencies are strongly associated with a wide range of chronic illnesses.
- Vitamin D: It is highly likely that you are deficient in vitamin D if you do not work outside. Given that a low vitamin D level is associated with almost every type of disease, the first step is to increase your 25(OH)D serum level to at least 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L) through supplementation and exposure to the sun. Supplementation will need to be at least 10,000 IU per day and likely much more. High dosing on vitamin D requires supplementation with vitamin K2 and magnesium.
- Vitamin B1: Specifically the fat-soluble form of vitamin B1 (benfotiamine), which can be better stored in the body and better pass through the brain–blood barrier. Vitamin B1 can be considered the most important B vitamin, as it is the "conductor" of the B-vitamin orchestra; i.e., it ensures all the other B vitamins work as they should. Equally important, illness leads to low energy and vice versa, and vitamin B1 is the nutrient most important to energy levels. Finally, vitamin B1 is crucial for the autonomic nervous system because it is needed for nerve signaling, energy production and neurotransmitter function. The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary bodily functions like heart rate, digestion and breathing, and a vitamin B1 deficiency can seriously affect these processes. Start with 50 mg per day benfotiamine and work up to as much as 2000 mg per day. The sweet spot for many people is around 1400 mg per day. High dosing on any B vitamin requires supplementation with a B-complex, as the B vitamins work together. Moreover, taking electrolytes (such as potassium and magnesium) is recommended when taking high doses of vitamin B1. We recommend you read our page on vitamin B1 and chronic illness.
- Vitamins B6, B9 and B12: Specifically the activated forms of vitamins B6 (P-5-P), B9 (methylfolate) and B12 (methylcobalamin). A large proportion of the population struggles to convert vitamins B6, B9 and B12 to their activated forms. As previously mentioned, high dosing with any B vitamin requires supplementation with a B-complex. In saying that, the easiest way of taking high doses of P-5-P, methylfolate, and methylcobalamin in the first place is to take multiple doses of a B-complex containing these activated B vitamins.
- Vitamin C: Specifically, vitamin C needs to be in liposomal form (encapsulated in liposomes) for the body to absorb large doses. Start with 2000 mg per day and explore taking doses up to 10,000 mg per day. High dosing on vitamin C is especially crucial for those suffering concussion, cancer, or any illness associated with a compromised immune system. Although supplementing with vitamin C is one of the first steps for anyone suffering chronic illness, it should be discontinued if symptoms get worse; e.g., some people will find their arthritis worsens. High dosing on vitamin C requires copper and magnesium supplementation.
- Magnesium: Ideally magnesium (bis)glycinate as it can be absorbed in high amounts. Magnesium is needed for many other nutrients to work. Indeed, you may notice symptoms of magnesium deficiency (such as cramping and eye twitching) when high dosing on other nutrients. Take a minimum of 500 mg of magnesium and as much as you need to prevent cramping and twitching.
- Iron: Ideally iron (bis)glycinate as it can be absorbed more easily. Iron supplementation is required by almost all woman but few men. It is a nutrient for which a blood test will provide useful information.
- Iodine: Ideally, Lugol's iodine, which is a mixture of iodine and iodide. Iodine is one of the world's main deficiencies. Iodine plays a key role in hormone production, especially the production of thyroid hormones. Without enough iodine, the body cannot produce thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), which regulate metabolism, energy, and overall hormonal balance.
- Omega-3: Specifically the useful DHA and EPA forms of omega-3 from fish rather than the ALA form from plants, which the body struggles to convert to the useful forms. Take a minimum of 400 mg omega-3 daily.
Other nutrients for specific chronic illnesses
- Sulphur: Specifically methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) as it is the most effective form of sulphur to take. Sulphur is particularly needed for detoxification as it is used by the body to make glutathione, the body's master detoxifier. Take at least 2000 mg of MSM daily if your chronic illness is potentially associated with toxins or mould.
- Vitamin A: Specifically the activated forms of retinol (retinyl acetate or retinyl palmitate) rather than beta-carotene, which the body struggles to activate. Vitamin A competes with vitamin D in the body, and it is more important to raise the vitamin D level first for chronic illnesses. Vitamin A is more important for fighting viral infections.
- Vitamin B3: Specifically niacinamide (non-flushing niacin) for alcoholism, addiction, depression, anxiety or mental illness. Take at least 1000 mg per day.
- Vitamin B3: Specifically niacin (flushing niacin) for cardiovascular disease or poor circulation/blood flow. Start on 500 mg per day and build tolerance to the flushing effect.
Blood tests for determining nutritional deficiencies
- Blood tests are of limited use. They typically tell us how much of a vitamin or mineral is circulating in the blood at a certain time, rather than how much of that vitamin or mineral the body has stored.
- The most meaningful blood tests are those for vitamin D, vitamin B12, and iron.
- Vitamin D: Your blood serum 25(OH)D level must be 50–100 ng/ml (125–250 nmol/L). It is possible that even higher levels are more beneficial. 25(OH)D is the stored form of vitamin D, and its blood level indicates how much vitamin D is stored in fat tissue and the liver.
- Iron: Multiple tests are done for iron. The primary test is for the ferritin level in the blood, which is an indicator of the body’s iron stores in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow. Your blood serum level needs to be at least 70 ng/mL.
- Vitamin B12: Your blood serum level needs to be at least 300 pg/mL and ideally closer to 900 pg/mL. The vitamin B12 level in the blood is an indicator of how much vitamin B12 is stored in the liver because vitamin B12 readily moves in and out of circulation between the blood and liver.
- Laboratories often base their low/medium/high ranges on what is typical for today's generally unhealthy population, not on what is optimal.
- It can be more meaningful and less expensive to simply supplement a vitamin or mineral and observe the effect rather than take a blood test and interpret the result.
- If you are wanting your doctor to refer you for blood tests, it can be more effective to present yourself with symptoms of a condition that justify the blood tests be done, rather than to present your doctor with a list of the blood work that you would like done.
- In any event, you might want to ask your blood testing clinic what blood tests can be done for free or at low cost without a referral from a doctor.
Resources on specific vitamins and minerals
- Our dosage guides for vitamin C, vitamin D and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) as medicines for chronic illness, including contraindications, precautions and co-factors.
- A deep dive into vitamin D by Dr Peter Osbourne
- An introduction to vitamin B1 by Elliot Overton, a specialist on vitamin B1
- A deep dive into vitamin B1 by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into vitamin B3 by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into vitamin B9 by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into vitamin B12 by Dr Peter Osbourne
- High-dose vitamin C therapy for major diseases by Andrew W. Saul
- A deep dive into vitamin C by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into magnesium by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into iodine by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into iron by Dr Peter Osbourne
- A deep dive into omega fats by Dr Peter Osbourne
Part 3: Find Other People Suffering the Same Illness
You are most likely to find the answer to your chronic illness by learning from the experiences of others.
We find that we best learn about health by reading the experiences of hundreds of patients who have tried different approaches or by listening to the experiences of clinicians who have treated hundreds of patients having the same illness. We learn from each of these people. There are online groups whose members are getting results and who can recommend a protocol for overcoming your illness.
See our page on Your Best Resources.