The New Fibromyalgia Remedy: Stop Your Pain Now with an Anti-Viral Drug Regimen

By Daniel C. Dantini

Debilitating pain and tenderness in muscles, ligaments, and tendons are the typical symptoms of fibromyalgia, and this guide by a medical researcher of the disease dismisses traditional treatment—heat, exercise, and rest—in favor of antiviral medications that often provide immediate relief and eventual complete recovery. Offering new hope for advances in treatment, the discussion covers the difficulty of diagnosing fibromyalgia, the overlaps with chronic fatigue syndrome, the unrelatedness of arthritis, and the possibility that food allergies may trigger attacks. Patient success stories along the way encourage readers while data samples, references, and appendices provide clinical details.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Feb 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936374694

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An Addicus Nonfiction Book

Copyright 2008 by Daniel Dantini, M.D. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, write Addicus Books, Inc., P.O. Box 45327, Omaha, Nebraska 68145. ISBN 978-1-886039-84-1

Cover design by Peri Poloni

Typography by Linda Dageforde

Illustrations by Jack Kusler

This book is not intended to serve as a substitute for a physician. Nor is it the author’s intent to give medical advice contrary to that of an attending physician.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dantini, Daniel C., 1942-

The new fibromyalgia remedy : stop your pain now with an anti-viral drug regimen / Daniel C. Dantini.

p. Cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-886039-84-1 (alk. paper)

1. Fibromyalgia — Popular works. 2. Fibromyalgia — Chemotherapy. 3. Antiviral agents. I. Title.

RC927.3.D36 2008

616.7’42061 — dc22                      2007047495

Addicus Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 45327

Omaha, Nebraska 68145

www.AddicusBooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Fibromyalgia — My Story

2 Understanding Fibromyalgia

3 Getting a Diagnosis

4 Linking Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Delayed Food Allergies to Fibromyalgia

5 Temporary Remedies

6 The Dantini Method

Appendix A: Patient Data Sample

Appendix B: Blood Testing Information for Doctors

Resources

Glossary

Index

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Iwould like to thank all of my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue patients, past and present, for the knowledge they have given me about these chronic diseases, and for allowing me to take part in their care. I would also like to thank my office staff: Donna, Lynn, and all of the employees at my lab, Sage Medical Laboratory.

I owe special thanks to Sam Jordan for his dedication to getting my knowledge of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue out of my head and on to paper. Without his hard work and patience this book would not be possible. I express my appreciation to my literary agent, Sammie Justesen, for her work in securing a contract with Addicus Books

I am also thankful to everyone at Addicus Books, especially Rod Colvin, for his faith in me and his willingness to publish this book on a very misunderstood topic. I wish to extend my appreciation to Chris Hinz for her expert editorial support. I thank Lori Cossens-Richardson for her editing work early in the process.

Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to thank my family. Doug, Dave, Susan, and Laurie, you all are wonderful and supportive children, and I am proud to be your father. And to my wife, Chris, thank you for your support when I was battling fibromyalgia, and thank you for your guidance, which has allowed me to treat thousands of patients.

Introduction

My wife, Chris, and I talked about writing this book for years, but never had the time. I maintain a busy practice, specializing in otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat), cosmetic surgery, and allergies. When not seeing patients, I’m in surgery, flying around the country to speak about chronic illness and its relationship to food allergies, or at home being a husband and father.

At the urging of my colleague and long-time friend, Sam Jordan, I finally decided to take on this project. Sam had helped me compile my Web site. While doing so, he became so excited at what I had discovered about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome that he said to me, You made these diseases your cause — and, in the process, you found a major cause of these diseases! Why haven’t you written a book?

He was right. I needed to share this information with my fellow sojourners. My purpose for writing this book is simple: I want to help other people get well. Through trial and error and my own fight to recover from these diseases, I was able to determine what was causing my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome and how to manage it. This book chronicles how I’ve successfully helped myself and my patients.

So please read, learn, and use this book to restore your own health!

1

Fibromyalgia — My Story

As a physician, I treat hundreds of different conditions. One of the diseases I treat is one that also caused me a great deal of suffering. That disease is fibromyalgia. Since 1986, when I first suffered the chronic fatigue and muscle pain associated with this disease, I’ve become intimately familiar with the struggles of the estimated 3 to 6 million Americans who face fibromyalgia pain daily. What I’ve learned from my own experience and that of my patients has led me to believe that a group of common viruses are at the root of fibromyalgia. In the following chapters, I’ll explain how I came to my conclusions and how you can find long-term relief for your long-standing fibromyalgia pain.

A Debilitating Disease

If you’ve picked up this book, chances are that you, or someone you know, are living with a chronic disease that has mystified physicians and frustrated their patients for decades. You probably already know that fibromyalgia causes more than just debilitating weariness and muscular discomfort. It changes lives.

I know this because prior to the onset of my symptoms more than twenty years ago, I had a busy and satisfying life. I was working hard as an ear, nose, and throat specialist with parallel focuses on allergies and facial cosmetic surgery.

My symptoms probably started gradually, just like yours. I began to feel very tired but I made all kinds of excuses for it. I was in my forties, so it must just be age. I was trying to run three offices and teach part-time at the University of Pittsburgh, so I simply had too many things on my professional plate. My wife, Chris, and I had just built a new home, so we were trying to squeeze in too many projects on weekends to finish it. We have four children, which also kept us very busy.

Regardless of my excuses, I was utterly depressed and incapable of moving forward. I would go to sleep right after work, wake up for dinner, only to go right back to bed for the night. Eventually I put a couch in my office to sleep a few hours between surgeries and appointments. I had very little time for anything but sleeping, eating, and going to work. It was a complete reversal of my previous life — and nothing like the life I had imagined!

To make matters worse, within months of my first symptoms, I had other health issues — frequent headaches, night sweats, and an irritable bowel. What’s more, my muscles and joints started to feel heavy, weak, and sore.

But fatigue was taking the biggest toll. In one scary moment I realized that my constant exhaustion had reached dangerous — even potentially fatal — levels. I passed out on the interstate driving home. When I awakened, I had veered into the center median at 60 mph, heading for a cement culvert. I managed to stop just in time, but the shock of a near accident became my defining moment.

I had no idea how long I had fallen asleep at the wheel, probably just a few moments, but I could have died and taken some innocent person with me. I realized that I had to do something about my condition. But what was my condition? Answering that question would not only draw on my experience as a clinician-researcher but also take me on a challenging personal journey as a sufferer. If you’ve been on that same road, you’re well aware of the confusion and frustration that are as much a part of fibromyalgia as its many and varied symptoms.

Diagnosis Can Be Elusive

Who gets fibromyalgia? Although it’s more prevalent in women (by a 20:1 ratio), I’m living proof that it definitely can occur in men. Also, while young and old alike may be diagnosed, the symptoms usually surface first in the twenties and thirties. It affects people from all races and from all walks of life.

These individuals not only experience widespread pain, lethargy, and other severe life-limiting symptoms, they also face a lack of definitive answers and a barrage of skepticism from people who can’t finger the cause so they conclude it is a mental condition. And yes, that includes physicians. One can hardly blame them, however. In the absence of vast scientific data on the causes of fibromyalgia, and medical directives on the best ways to treat it, doctors are finding a wide range of ailments that fit the profile and an equally expansive number of therapies to treat the symptoms. Many factors keep them from addressing this health issue in the most effective long-term way.

First, because there are no common clinical laboratory findings specific to identifying this disease, most doctors aren’t trained to sift through the symptoms to diagnose or effectively deal with it. Their conclusions are based largely on guesswork and trying to eliminate certain ailments.

Second, research to date hasn’t unearthed the kind of information gold mine necessary to give practitioners any specific directions for treating this disease. My own double-blind study is in the process of completion and when published by its cosponsor, a leading pharmaceutical company, I believe it will prove the viral connection.

Third, fibromyalgia is difficult to diagnose because it’s an extremely complex illness. Patients with this disease’s symptoms usually require more time and attention than doctors have or want to invest. So the natural tendency for physicians