Preliminary Thoughts on Doctor Report

Training:
It's going very poorly as of late.  I have not been below the Mendoza line in 4 days.  Today was pitiful.  Plan was a 5 miler at Gold's but it ended up at 2 miles in 16:24 (8:12 pace) with splits of 7:41-8:33.  The culprit is clearly the FOS.  The first few weeks, I took a gummy with a few other ingredients that I bought in Auburn.  When I ran out, I started taking the pill form that I ordered online (I can't find it locally in a store).  Is it the pill form that I cannot tolerate or is it yet another treatment that worked for a while but later caused a collapse?  I'll find out this weekend after another trip to Auburn this Saturday.  The Sparga was so bad that I thought I had sustained an injury.  If the gummy form fails, I'll be right back to no more options to treat the sulfates and I don't believe that Mag +Thym Adren will be enough to slow down my runaway adrenal function.

Test Results:
 5 tests were ordered:
-Hair mineral test
-Urine mineral test
-Urine test to determine need for supplements:
-Urine Amino Acid Test (re-test)
-Stool analysis (disgusting)

Let's start from the top.
Hair mineral test:
This one looked surprisingly GOOD.  Because the sample was washed, I really cannot rely on it to determine adrenal function but it did show that the 4 macro minerals (Ca.Mg,Na.K) were in relative balance. Potassium was slightly low (still within range) but that may have been due to use of B12.  I suspect that an unwashed sample would have shown a VERY high Na/K ratio.  Use Analytical Research Labs or Accutrace to assess mineral ratios.

I was primarily interested in this test to confirm or rule out mercury toxicity using Cutler's counting method.  Lots of high and low values suggest impaired mineral transport and is thus strong evidence of mercury toxicity.  If mercury reads low in the hair, you may still be toxic because it can hide in organs and is difficult to eliminate.  In my case, all but 2 minerals were in the green zone (16th-84th percentile) and most were well within the range.  Odds are, mercury toxicity is not the problem and I will NOT go through with amalgam removal.  Personal note to Carrie:  Thanks anyway for caring enough to make the suggestion and I still value your advice.

The 2 minerals that were outside the range were not a surprise; Lithium and cobalt were too low and in the red zone (critically low).  Cobalt is the B12 mineral and Lithium is involved in B12 transport yet I cannot tolerate either in any form.  Why?  That will be explained in the Urine mineral test.  The big surprise was Sulfur.  I expected it to be sky high but it was actually slightly BELOW average.  I am baffled by this and cannot understand why my sulfates are off the scale.

Urine mineral test:
Again, there were only 2 abnormalities and Sulfur was in the low-average range (around 30th percentile).  This test showed the opposite problem.  Lithium was WAY TOO HIGH wwhile Cobalt was low.  I am wasting the Lithium and B12 away in the urine.  That is, it's not being properly absorbed into the cells.  What to do about it?  I'm not entirely clear but it may have something to do with my ATP status.  If I can fix that, will my sulfates go down and thus normalize my adrenal function?  I can dream.

Urine Amino Acid Test:
This was a re-test that showed many alarming things the first time around.  This time, the news is MUCH better.  Yes, many amino acids are still on the low side but not critically so.  I list the big changes one at a time:

-Ammonia had been borderline high (yellow zone) but has dropped significantly and is now well within the green zone and just a hair above the 50th percentile.
-Taurine, which had been in the red zone at 1290 has been cut nearly in half to 660 and is also in the green zone.  In both cases, simply stopping the supplementation for several months was enough.
-Beta alanine, which had been sky high at 51 has plummeted all the way down to 6.  Doc simply wants it under 20 and I don't think there is any downside to it being too low.  I've read that high beta alanine is a sign of gut dysbiosis so I credit probiotic use in this case.
-The SHOCKER was Methionine, which I believed to be responsible for the extreme sensitivity to Cal/Mag and Zn/Cu.  It rose from 2 all the way up to 13, which is well within the green zone.  I really don't know what I did that caused such a drastic improvement and will have to ask about it.
-The only downer was that glutamate crashed and once again, I don't know why.  It had been 34, which was a little high but was actually undetectable this time.  Could it be a lab test error?  Again, I will dig deeper.

 The remaining 2 tests showed no critical problems, only a mild need for a couple vitamins.  I expected that the stool test would show terrible mal-absorption but that was not so.  Doc did suggest 2 nucleotide products called KLX and TNF.

Summary:
This is good news overall and definitely a boost in confidence in light of my recent struggles.
-I have ruled out mercury toxicity
-Nice improvements in ammonia and taurine
-HUGE improvements in beta alanine and methionine
-The Lithium and Cobalt problems were fully expected but should be treatable.
Questions:
I am still VERY concerned about the urine sulfates and don't know what to do about it.  This will be the first thing that must be addressed in my follow up questions.  Can it be corrected with proper absorption of Lithium and B-12?
What about the glutamate?  What caused it to drop? Do I need to supplement with it?  What problems are caused by low glutamate?
-Phospho-Serine was also low.  I might be willing to try that stuff again but am a little gun shy because it did not work in the past.

A follow up will be posted in a few days.