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Dr. Lowe How to Prepare Patient-to-Patient Fibromyalgia Research Foundation
The Metabolic Treatment
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July
17, 2002 Here’s what happened to me: I ballooned up 8 pounds in four months of taking this stuff, and, yes it’s true, my ability to have and orgasm came to be almost nill! This, in all my17 years of pain and trying different medications, had never happened. I was told by a few "well meaning" people, "Maybe something else was going on. Like I don’t know my own body? The sexual problem started two days into the medication, which is interesting because I was told that it can take 12 or 24 hours to get into or get out of your system. Hmm . . . . It took almost 11 months for the side effects to stop, and I still feel like there is a "residue" left in me (or whatever). The water weight came off just by stopping the guaifenesin, but the most frustrating side effect took it's own sweet time. I said, To hell with gaui, and didn’t choose to continue. How could something that’s supposed to help you make your body go wonky? I was only on it for four months, and I had no intention of staying on it 2 years and 10 months like the "Doc" recommended. Have you heard of such side effects with guaifenesin before? Dr. Lowe: Sorry for the adverse reactions you apparently had to guaifenesin. As you indicate, most people believe the agent is completely without adverse effects. And I admit, yours is the first description of severe, troubling adverse reactions I've heard. But that certainly doesn’t mean other patients don’t experience them. Many patients say they have the symptom exacerbations Dr. St. Amand predicts during the course of their guaifenesin treatment. Rather than adverse reactions, he views these as part of the therapeutic process during guaifenesin treatment. However, I believe the conclusion that these exacerbations are therapeutic effects induced by guaifenesin is logically unsound. As you noted, patients take guaifenesin for a long time. During this span of time, any fibromyalgia patient is naturally going to experience fluctuations in the intensity of her symptoms—times when the symptoms are better and times when they’re worse. In research, we refer to these fluctuations part of the "natural history" of a disease. Patients taking guaifenesin do experience periodic exacerbations, but so do patients who never take it. Because the two groups of patients (those taking guaifenesin and those not) both experience the exacerbations, it’s illogical to conclude that guaifenesin induces them. With a high degree of probability, if the patients taking guaifenesin weren’t taking it, they’d still have the periodic symptom exacerbations. So, contrary to the belief of guaifenesin advocates, I don't consider these exacerbations of symptoms evidence that guaifenesin is working. Instead, the exacerbations are evidence that it's not working. (If anyone has questions for this patient about her adverse reactions to guaifenesin, please send an e-mail to us at AskDrLowe@drlowe.com. We'll forward your e-mail to her.) December 12, 2001 Dr. Lowe: I’ve never personally maligned Dr. Paul St. Amand or any other doctor on my web site. I have, however, quite properly criticized some of Dr. St. Amand beliefs, which I judge to be scientifically false. And I’ve properly criticized his guaifenesin treatment for fibromyalgia, which I consider nothing more than a placebo. I am mandated to provide such criticisms, as scientific and educational activities, by the corporate charter of the Fibromyalgia Research Foundation, of which I am Director of Research. The views we express on drlowe.com serve the needs of many people. Roughly 22,000 people per month visit our site, looking for alternatives to mainstream medicine’s largely inept and injurious methods. Mainstream medicine fails to help 75% of its patients,[1] and it causes the unnecessary deaths of 224,000 United States citizens each year.[2][3] In view of these tragic findings, I believe mainstream medical professionals need all the help they can get to rectify their horrific track record, and I feel a humanitarian responsibility to continue providing my modest assistance on drlowe.com and elsewhere. That sense of responsibility compels me to decline your request to remove "remarks about all medical professionals off your web site,"—none of which, contrary to your opinion, are "unfounded."
References April 12, 2001 Dr. Lowe: I have talked with many fibromyalgia patients who have used guaifenesin. None of these patients recovered their health while using it. They didn’t recover even though they followed Dr. St. Amand’s treatment protocol precisely. The minor improvements some of these patients had while using guaifenesin can be attributed to the diet changes Dr. St. Amand recommends. The diet changes are the useful part of his protocol. The guaifenesin is a safe medication, but it is useless as a fibromyalgia treatment. (Incidentally, some of the patients who didn't benefit from the use of guaifenesin subsequently completely recovered from their fibromyalgia symptoms with metabolic rehab. We have meticulous records quantitatively documenting their recovery. Researchers are free to examine these records pending approval by the patients.) Dr. St. Amand's portrayal of how guaifenesin alters fibromyalgia patients' biochemistry and benefits them is completely fictional. In trying to understand his beliefs, I’ve read every scientific publication I could find on guaifenesin. Despite having read almost every published paper on the topic, I’ve found no evidence whatever to substantiate his views. Instead, I’ve only found evidence that contradicts his views. Moreover, Dr. Robert Bennett conducted a well-designed study to determine whether Dr. St. Amand’s protocol worked. The outcome was that the treatment didn't work. I personally don't think Dr. St. Amand can credibly document that he’s ever gotten a single patient well from fibromyalgia with the use of guaifenesin. In his book, he pronounced, "Thyroid conditions are not related to fibromyalgia."[1,p.146] This statement clearly shows that Dr. St. Amand doesn’t understand the nature of fibromyalgia. If he did, he would be compelled to retract this pronouncement and abandon his false belief that guaifenesin is an effective fibromyalgia treatment. 1. St. Amand, P.R. and Marek, C.C.: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia. New York, Warner Books Inc., 1999. June 5, 2000 Dr. Lowe: I know of no reason in general why one shouldn't use T4 and guaifenesin at the same time. However, whether one uses them separately or in combination, 100 mcg of T4 or guaifenesin at any dosage isn't likely to improve fibromyalgia status.
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