Table of contents.
-What was wrong?
-What else was wrong?
-The thinking.
-What I did.
What was wrong?
A reasonable question for anyone wondering if this page might apply to them. I was thoroughly entertained at school, so it was not lack of interest, but being backward at coming forward was an understatement. Luckily I knew how to play outside in the playground having fun, and was at least proactive there. In the classroom was a different story. This is where my attention deficit played out. I was removed from the classes of history, geography, physics, chemistry and more. I was allowed to stay in class for woodword, maths and art. This all happened without any discussion with me or my parents.

I remember my careers guidance interview at school. I sat down and my maths teacher said to me. What do you like? I said I liked computers and woodwork. He said do woodwork! Then shouted NEXT? Well I did do wood work. I'm not saying his observations was not correct at the time, but it does show where I was at. Jordan Petterson says Ones' education level should be as high as your intelect or ambition. I like this statement.

Although I did stumble through and finish a degree at age 33 my health did become a factor in my performance at university and food allergies caused excema to express itself, and a concussion during my placement year probably didn't help matters much. However, it was the downward spiral after finishing university and dissertation, that caused me most concern.

This downward spiral mostly mentally was noticed by me. I had to actually think myself into a conscience state in the mornings sometimes. It was like a mild fading away from reallity. I decided it was a time in my life where I could sink or swim and decided to swim for it. So I set a goal to work my way out of this, what ever it was. This seemed to work, slowly.

Next came my overall health decline. This was more physical. Although having a bad back for most of my life had helped me decide to explore university just incase my back stopped me from working, I did not expect it to fall into such disrepair. I put this down to it having got weak due to not having to do much work during university studies and becoming much weaker. However, even whilst back working, there was not a corresponding increase in strength. My back continued to play a painful role in what ever I did.

This decline at age 44 although now mostly physical did include loss of focus and a general melas. My back did finally go relatively completely, and I spent a year under the care of a bad back specialist at the expense of my partner at the time. This was a long old road with me doing all that I could whilst taking the bad back peoples' advice along the way. Plus I was doing up to 27 hours yoga/Pilates each week. I was determined.

My hips become unstable and painful and therefore running also become painful. I was advised by the physio that she had seen this before and that if I keep up this regular visit to her mini gym that we would get me back to running. I hoped she was right. She was right! It did take most of the year. The other thing I noticed in my general decline was my mental health. It showed itself with an inclination to have this debate every morning with myself in my own head, whether or not to go into work and at what time. This was a morning ritual. Eventually I would go to work at my joiners’ shop and do some work. At my lowest point I would work just 10 hours a week.

I do not think I suffered depression; however, I think it is about as close as one can get.

What else was wrong? I started an access course to science and my grades suffered for the first third of the course. I had recently finished reading four books before the course started that past summer on nutritional suggestions for ADHD, mitochondrial health and the benefits of vitamin c, and old age, and in a crisis of almost failing chemistry at around Christmas time on my college course, I decided to try an experiment.

: What I did?
I put the knowledge I had gleaned from these four books, and put it together and come up with my own idea. These books were covered such subjects as: the second covered nutrition for ADHD and this came after reading eight books on ADHD myself, and I was becoming convinced that food may play a role in some cases on the function of the brain. which also played a role in me deciding to combine a bunch of supplements and see what if I could improve my mental function. The last book I had read was on nutrition for old age.

This idea was to assume that I was damaged goods. And according to last book on old age which said that GIs coming back from the Korean war had two different health outcomes. Veterans that were captured by the enemy in Korea and subject to malnutrition for the entirety of their incarceration as POWs suffered massive weight loss and physical and mental stress too. Which, upon their return was partly dealt with by them getting lots of rest and good food. A socioeconomic looked at some of the details of survival rates amongst some of these returning veterans. Survivors that decided to take supplements their average age of death was approximately 80 years old. Of the ones that did not take supplements the average age of death was around 65 years of age. This might suggest that if someone has suffered a major stressful incident in their lifetime, this may alter their capacity to absorb nutrition or put a chronic dependency on nutrition going forward.

My interpretation of this information was to assume that perhaps I had some ongoing dependency on a supplement or two due to a childhood illness in the first two years of life that needed antibiotics. With this in mind and all the feedback I had got from different people throughout my life. I thought I would be able to detect a difference. Luckily for me I was attending college on my access course to science. This gave me another form of feedback I could use, and since I had already completed the first third of the course, I could even compare grades from the first third with the second and the third third of the course.

What I did? First, I took 3g to 9g of vitamin c a day and by the end of the first week I felt a difference. I felt better. A little more alert, more rested after sleep and a little less virus. This resulted in my average weekly study amount of time going from 8 hours up to 16 hours a week. The next thing I did was to start taking B1 B2 and B3 in differing amounts. What I learned worked for me was that anymore then 500mg of B2 made no more impact. Next, I found that 1g of B1 and B3 together had the effect of letting me concentrate on my studies more. This meant my average weekly study went from between 12 to 16 hours up to 60 hours instantly. However, this did not last.

Why this did not last is questionable, firstly it could have something to do with the placebo effect, and I realise how significant this is. Secondly it could be I exhausted my reserves of what B1 B2 and B3 rely on, like for example B12 or lecithin or choline, because of what I did next, I think the later. Vitamins are interactive. When you add some supplement to your diet it might in turn put a strain on your reserves of another vitamin or mineral. I think this was the case for me, and when I found out what I thought the vitamin was that was missing and took it in abundance suddenly my ability to study went back up to a full week with nearly full concentration and the ability to sit and focus with regular breaks for more than twelve hours some days. This meant the game was back on. The brain is made up of one third lecithin by dry weight. This means there is lots of it in the brain. So, I started supplementing with 4g at a time up to twice a day, and added along with this the vit c, b1, b2, b3 and I could study again. This has remained my go to supplements from December through to August the following year at the writing of this. It is August now 2021. That is a consistent ability that has now lasted 9 months. I have taken pre-emptive moves to avoid what might be the next deficiency I may have.

When I finished college, I could see that my grades did indeed jump to the next level and distinctions and a few merits was my reward compared to a whole bunch of passes in the first third of the course. I also remained virus free, pretty much, compared to before. I used to always be fighting something or other, not anymore. After college I started work immediately as a carpenter and joiner, since I was qualified and experienced, and the next phase of my discoveries emerged.

About four weeks before the end of the college course, mentioned above, I started taking L acetyl cystine, and L acetyl carnitine to help with possible withdrawal I was expecting when trying to cut out both alcohol and SO2 (sodium dioxide, used to extend shelf life of food). These amino acids that I had just added to my diet gave me an unexpected benefit. My body responded very well to these supplement by rewarding me with extra strength, which was much appreciated, since now I was back working again as a carpenter and joiner.

Just like when trying to increase my ability to concentrate whilst studying, now I wanted to increase my ability to hold onto my strength or at least recover well whilst working as a carpenter and joiner. My history as a carpenter and joiner was that on occasion my back would hurt. Sometimes it would hurt a lot. I once took a year out of work whilst under the care of a bad back specialist. This did help, because it gave me good posture and nudged the bits that needed nudging and helped me improve my posture and got me back exercising. Althought it was a painful, it did work.

When I started back at work after finishing full time education, I expected my back to be weak and that it should take a while to get back into the swing of things. This was the normal process. I only hoped that my back would stay pain free during this process, because in the past after a period off work, my back would normally show some difficulties in adjusting, often it was some pain, some stiffness and I would keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. This time was after spending nearly a year taking all these supplements. I did not expect much to be different. However, to my surprise, despite being put on, what is colloquially called first fix, which is the heavier of the work options available to me, 2nd fix being a little lighter work. I found that my back was fine. Practically no problems at all. This was a real surprise. For the first time in my life it seemed I had solved the mystery as to why my back was hurting in the first place. The only supplement I can imagine that made all the difference was vit c.

This is a work in progress. I am going to put together a document soon to summarise properly why I think vit c may have had such a major impact on my newfound back strength. Something to get the discussion started might be that the two facet joints per disc in the spine are lined with cartilage. Cartilage are made from Also, since the NIH (national institute of health) have said. In my opinion this might be something to do with treating the nutritional side of this discussion as less important. This site says although in principal I agree with the idea of doing something before it gets too bad, how we might get there might be completely different.

This site says that Although chondroitin sulfate and glucosomine sulfate supplements may be of significant benefit for arthritis and even joint health, I did not take any during my time at college leading up to my six week trial back at carpentry doing first fix roofing and flooring. This site The Medical News Today says This was certainly my experience of taking just vitamin c in unusually high levels. 3g to 9g a day and more. Often, I would take my vitamin c intake up to what is called bowel tolerance. This was not necessarily planned, but I soon stopped taking vitamin c for the rest of that day whenever I reached this level. With no more harm done than an extra visit or two to the toilet that day.

So, it has been first mental performance at college and now physical with my injury free, and pain free back that I have benefitted mostly with from supplements, and although I did try amino acids a few years back, at that time I was not taking as much if any vitamin c, and maybe therefore I did not notice any significant benefit from this group of supplements. However, today and in recent times the last four months of taking amino acids like L acetyl carnitine and tyrosine and L acetyl cystine have indeed produced a positive result now that I take enough vitamin c. The benefit afforded me was a much more rapid recovery from physical exertion. I would say along with avoiding sickness, this is the most confidence boosting producing group of supplements I have taken. I have become much more confident that exertion wherever it is, work, cycling, running or even drinking too much one night or simply not getting enough sleep one night, is now of little consequence, because my recovery is almost complete within one day. When I compare this to before vitamin c, it could take me a week to recover. I can only put this down to my body not working very well. Now my recovery does not take too long at all, and this feels really good. In some cases what used to bother me does not bother me anymore. So I think my ability to handle stress has improved too. A small example of feeling better is reflected in my enjoying a good stretch in the mornings when I wake. I had almost forgotten how good a healthy healed recouperated stretch might feel like. It seems a long time ago now, that I felt that. I suspect it has something to do with the supplements.