I had my appointment at the Fibromyalgia & Fatigue Clinic (FFC) in Norwalk, CT on Thursday 02.28.08. Interesting experience.

Dr. Maria DiGiovanni is the physician there. I liked her and found her to be a relatively warm person — at least far as doctors go. She sat with me for 45 minutes as I rattled off my story and told her about myself. As I talked she interjected from time to time with information on what’s happening biologically with the different symptoms I described. Some of it was a little technical and over my head, but she had a couple of visual aids that helped me understand. During a sidebar on the thyroid she spontaneously drew a picture illustrating why people with CFS often have issues with it. It helped.

Later, she gave me a general overview of what CFS means in the body (very similar to this article). She said that at the FCC they focus on Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum’s protocol and believe that CFS is caused by a hypothalamic dysfunction. Through his studies he’s come to the opinion that the hypothalamus, being the master switch for the entire endocrine system, suffers a "short circuit" or "blow out" during periods of physical or emotional stress. This could be life stress (job, work, family, etc.) or a physical one (illness, surgery, car accident, etc.). This blow out causes everything to be thrown off and sends the body into a chemical chain reaction resulting in CFS and Fibromyalgia.

I’m simplifying it, but what Dr. D said all pretty much fit with what I’ve read. So I decided to try out her suggestions. She gave me the following prescriptions and supplements:

• Cortisol – To help balance out my circadian rhythm and sleep better
• Nystatin – For canadida and yeast
• Rest & Restore – It’s full of Melatonin and has been really helpful so far
• MitoMax – For mitochondrial health and ATP improvement
• Daily Energy Enfusion – A bunch of vitamins in one powder

All of this seemed well and good. I’m a little skeptical of all the supplements, but I’ll try them out and see what happens.

Then she sent me off to the blood guy. He was a nice and comfortably chatty man. As he got me to roll up my sleeve and applied the rubber band tourniquet he pulls out this tray with an entire rack of vials on it.

"Are ya ready for this?" he asks me.

"All of them?!" I reply.

Smearing a slightly sadistic smile on his face he says, "Yep."

31 one vials of blood later I felt like medieval patients must have back when the barber put the leeches on them. Luckily I decided to try one of the FFC’s vitamin IVs so I had an hour to sit around in the LazyBoy, listen to my iPod and snack on free crackers before getting in the car to drive back to Brooklyn. In the chair is where I took the picture with my iPhone.

So, all in all, it was a useful and worthwhile trip. I’m taking the supplements and the pharma drugs and they seem to be doing something right. The Melatonin is helping me sleep a little better and the Nystatin is having an effect on the Candida (more on that in a later post). I’ll also certainly be getting back the most thorough blood test of my life in a month when I return to see Dr. D again. More news on this as I get it.