My Healing Journey

This is a log of the interventions taken to detoxify my body to prepare for regenerating new beta cells, and the actions taken to initiate that regeneration process.

Life Events:

Tonsillectomy 1997 (treated with antibiotics)

Seasonal ear infections 1997-2000 (treated with antibiotics)

Lyme's Disease Summer 2001 (treated with antibiotics)

Diagnosed Type I diabetes in August 2001

Diagnosed celiac disease November 2014

Born and Raised in Upstate New York (Saugerties, NY)

Drank and bathed in softened well water.

Attended Boston University Fall 2011-Spring 2013

Attended Hofstra University Fall 2013-Spring 2016

Lived in Seattle, WA March-May 2017

Lived in Hyattsville, MD May 2017 - May 2018

Lived in Orlando, FL August 2018 - November 2021

Lived in San Diego, CA November 2021- August 2022

Currently Live in Upstate New York

Detoxing:

April 2021

Learned of Matt Blackburn and Mitolife supplement company after reading Fowler Fitness blogs on Shilajit and Vitamin E. Initial interest was spurned by athletic aspirations and training goals in weightlifting.

Started taking 3-5 tablets of shilajit daily, 2 Vitamin K capsules daily and 2-4 Vitamin E capsules with breakfast and dinner to address energy and mineral balance.

Had no consistent history of supplementing Vitamin D or fish oil but eliminated any fortified foods. Learned of Matt's CLF protocol and followed religiously for first 4 months and essentially adopted it afterwards.

Daily activity. Lifting weights 3-5x/week, walking 1-2 miles/day. morning and midday sun exposure.

Working in the fire service and coaching early mornings so sleep was not consistent. Averaged 4.5-6 hours/night with 1-2 hour naps midday.

Added periodic Dissolve-It-All stretches to combat existing fibrosis and calcification. 1 bottle every other month.

May-October 2021:

Remained consistent with shilajit, vitamin E and K daily. Ordered 1 bottle of Dissolve-It-All once every other month, 2-4 capsules daily.

Daily activity remained the same, as did sun exposure.

November 2021:

Moved to San Diego and became familiar with Morley Robbins and Root Cause Protocol (RCP).

Read (Cu)re: Your Fatigue and began Steps 1 and 2 of the RCP.

Began taking adrenal cocktails 1-2x daily, as well as added copper bisglycinate supplementation (2-8mg/day). Combined principles of Matt Blackburn's CLF protocol and RCP.

Began using ZeroWater filtration pitcher. Added Trace Elements to each filtered glass. Filtered shower water with Sante for Health filter.

March 2022:

Began supplementing Rosita Cod Liver Oil (CLO) for retinol content. 1 tsp daily.

Added raw dairy: Raw milk, raw cheeses when available. 1-2 cups/ day of milk bought weekly at local farmer's market.

April 2022:

First blood donation.

May 2022:

Appointment with RCP Practitioner Hamid Jabbar.

Learned of low serum magnesium levels, low vitamin A levels. Iron saturation was elevated, as was ferritin.

He mentioned experience with the Shibipo people of the Amazon and their medicinal use of ayahuasca. I took this as a calling to take initiative in exploring psychedelics.

June 2022:

Second blood donation.

Learned about harmine and it's effect on beta cells. Began researching ayahuasca, psychedelics and their effect on body detoxification and spiritual purification.

July 2022:

7/19/22 Ordered and received my first bags of Syrian rue seeds. I blended them to a fine powder and made a rue-vinegar-honey solution. ~8-10g of rue were used in the initial mixture which when mixed with water filled a medium mason jar.

I consumed 2/3 of the mason jar before dinner (~6pm PST). Its taste was awful. I tried to chase it with chicken breast, mixed vegetables and rice.

Within 10 minutes, I began to feel light-headed and the room started to shift slightly. My body felt lighter as I got up from the dinner table and moved to the couch. My head still swam, so I closed my eyes to settle myself. Bright, flashing, pulsating light patterns lit up the inside of my eyelids. I was excited! I welcomed it all and remember talking calmly to myself about why I was doing this and that I was going to be OK.

Then the nausea hit. Hard. My stomach started to rumble enough to command my entire focus. I tried breathing through the discomfort to let things settle but soon realized there was no way to hold on to my dinner. I rushed to the bathroom and vomited my chicken and vegetables. It took 4-5 rounds of heaving, cleaning my face and breathing deeply before I felt like I had been completely purged.

My head was still swimming and the light show persisted whenever my eyes were closed. This was often, as the nausea never really subsided. My initial reaction after the first round of vomiting was to get up and walk around, as this usually helps either vomit faster or let things settle. When I attempted to get up I got incredibly light-headed with white dots flashing into my vision. I took a knee on the bathroom floor and breathed my way slowly to standing. I walked to the kitchen, still moving slowly. Once there, I vomited in the kitchen garbage can. It was more of my dinner but I could tell I was digging deeper into the well of my guts. Liquid, colors and textures from what I had eaten even earlier in the day.

I caught my breathe after 4-5 rounds of heaves in the kitchen and realized the bathroom was going to be my safe haven. I made my way back to the bathroom to feel an incredible knot form and then quickly release in the lower part of my stomach. I proceeded to shit my ever-loving brains out. There was no water, so I can't technically classify this as diarrhea, but imagine the runoff after having someone take a power-washer to your stomach, small and large intestine, and colon.

I voided things I had eaten the week prior. That's right. I don't eat black beans very often but I had them with lunch on Wednesday July 13th. As weird as this may sound I inspected (and continue to this day) the toilet bowl to make some observations. Sure enough, two undigested black beans floated to the top. Alarmed isn't the right word. I was shocked but it didn't have the weight of something wrong. It was noted as a sign of healing.

Good riddance.

While I stood and cleaned myself in the bathroom, my phone screeched that my blood sugar had run low, the insulin for the dinner I didn't have now hitting its mark. I gathered myself enough to mosey to the kitchen. It was twilight and I didn't have any house lights on. I shuffled around the kitchen to the fridge to slurp down some maple syrup, my surefire hypoglycemia repellent. This turned out to be a challenge.

Once I opened the fridge and got my hands around the maple syrup, I stood up and turned to sit at the kitchen table. By now I was trembling uncontrollably, and my light-headedness had reached a crescendo. I stumbled, lost my footing and fell to the floor between the table and the sink. I rolled around and oriented myself, maple syrup still in hand. Some had spilled onto the chair and floor. I managed to guzzle enough maple syrup to cover myself for the low.

I sat there and took stock of the mess I made. Table and chair were thrown askew and maple syrup spilled across the floor. I took stock of the mess that I was. My blood sugar had rebounded, so that worry was gone. Looking back, it was at this point I felt as though I largely weathered the storm.

I gave up on the prospect of being mobile and found myself laying on my side on the bathroom floor. I closed my eyes, as the light show came back on. Head still swimming and body trembling (which I read about when researching harmine), I slept. 45 minutes to 1 hour at a time, my maps interrupted by bouts of more vomiting. The heaves were producing less and less, but not nothing. I felt as though my insides were being scraped by a spoon. This went on for ~6 hours. Sleep, heave, sleep, heave.

Around 1am, I looked at the clock and was shocked at how much time had passed. Still feeling very sick and unsteady, I stumbled to my bedroom. I lay down and pull the covers over me thinking "There can't possibly be anything left to throw up". I slept until 6am.

When I woke up, I winced as I sat up. My ribs and diaphragm felt like I had been wrung out like a dirty dishrag. I felt light-headed and faded, but still active lights, flashed with every blink.

"Oh my god, I'm still tripping", I thought. I hunched over as I walked because it hurt to stand up straight. I wasn't hungry but I knew I needed food. Could I trust to hang on to whatever I ate?

Food was tolerable and the day started to return to normal. The problem was my blood sugar. After my maple syrup binge, my blood sugar had continued to rise to 270-300 the entire night. I had given myself 2 or 3 unit bursts several points over the night to try and corral it. I woke up having been at or above 270 all night.

OK, not great but I had seen worse and a simple bolus and a walk around the block would fix it. Except that it didn't. 90 minutes after waking up I had already given myself 10 units with 15 minutes of slow, gingerly walking. For context, 10 units is an amount of insulin that initiates a lower blood glucose in about 10 minutes usually.

The lack of response after my 10 units in boluses made me think that maybe the cannula of my insulin pump had kinked. I changed my pump and gave another 5 unit bolus. After a 20 minute walk, my blood sugar had lowered only marginally. I started to wonder what the harmine had done to my insulin sensitivity. Or that perhaps it had other unintended consequences.

By afternoon my blood sugar had normalized. I kept my food intake minimal and with only the essentials. Fresh fruit, white rice, sautéd veggies and water.

I gave myself the following day to recover. But in the meantime I wondered what the most effective way to dose the Syrian rue would be.

The initial experiment was a success in my eyes. I had clearly detoxed. My stomach and intestines had clearly been cleaned...deeply. But I knew the regenerative power of the harmine was going to be a long exposure thing. So how, without completely debilitating myself by tripping balls night after night, could I dose the harmine?

I landed on encapsulating the blended rue powder. With gelatin capsules I bought off Amazon, I stuffed the rue powder into swallowable pills. But how much was in a single pill? How much was enough to make a difference?

Let's go with 4 capsules. I started my day on Saturday July 23rd with 4 capsules before breakfast. I paired with 1g of Berberine (via capsule) because of it's GLP-1 activity to better influence the beta cells.

About an hour after breakfast, I started to feel the effects. My focus became very slow moving and relaxed. It reminded me of a head-high from a cigar. There was some queasiness but it paled in comparison to Thursday night so it was no bother. By mid-afternoon, the effects had lightened. I took 2 more pills with my lunch and 4 more with my dinner.

I continued this routine for 15 days.

August 2022:

Third blood donation.

Break-up with girlfriend. Stress of break-up caused major fluctuations in blood sugar. I remained consistent with my harmine-berberine routine but had slightly reduced the dose to 3 pills with breakfast and 3 with dinner.

The mental effects of the harmine were far less pronounced by now. I still had not taken a solid poop since July and had lost 20 pounds in about 2 weeks. However, all in all I was feeling very good, and confident in the experiment.

Vitamin E, shilajit, K, copper and retinol everyday.

September 2022:

Drive cross-country to NY. No major issues. Blood sugar is remaining slightly elevated and I'm naturally guarding against lows like I never had before. IE no matter the amount of insulin (within reason), my blood sugar would trend toward hypoglycemia and then naturally correct with no food intake.

Began drinking hydrogenated water 3-4 times daily.

Added 2 Panax Ginseng capsules in the morning on an empty stomach as an additional GLP-1 agonist.

Added Gentian tea as a supplemental GLP-1 agonist to combat the growth of additional alpha cells and improve insulin sensitivity.

Rue has gone back to 4 capsules in the morning and 4 capsules after dinner.

October 2022:

Blood Donation 10/12/22

H2 machine broke 10/15-10/25

10/7 Endocrinologist visit: A1c 6.1%