By skyforbes 
Disclaimer: This article details my experiences with fibromyalgia and the guaifenesin protocol only. I am not a medical professional but an individual suffering from the condition. Please consult a healthcare provider if you have concerns about your health and symptoms. The guaifenesin protocol is a treatment plan for reversing fibromyalgia devised by Dr. St. Amand, an experienced endocrinologist and UCLA assistant clinical professor. Dr. St. Amand also suffers from fibromyalgia firsthand. Guaifenesin has been approved by the US FDA since 1952 and is a common component of over-the-counter cough and cold formulations.
It’s been over a decade since I developed full-blown, symptomatic fibromyalgia. At the time, I was very young, short on knowledge and utterly terrified about what was happening to my body. I felt as though I’d fallen into a black hole, physically, mentally and metaphorically. I had no idea what I was dealing with and had never even heard of fibromyalgia. Little did I know, the path to diagnosis would be hellish.
In hindsight, there were little clues that all was not well. I developed severe migraines with visual aura at age nine and often had strange aches in my teenage years. Compared to many other girls, I’d noticed that I had poor muscle definition and had nowhere near their energy levels. By the time I reached my final term at university, it was a struggle to keep the now daily migraine attacks at bay. Just nine months later, all hell was to break loose.
The Crash
It was Spring, and I was working a soul-crushing office job. Most nights, I was lucky to get 5 hours of sleep due to exhaustion and insomnia. I began to experience episodes where I felt I wasn’t present in the moment; I was physically present but felt absent. I continued in this zombie-like state for several weeks and tried to function the best I could, but it was an increasingly uphill struggle. I remember researching online and deciding that I was battling derealisation, but I had no idea why or how to get better.
The migraine attacks were now not only daily but seemed to last all day. I was forever on the edge of developing a fully-fledged visual aura, and the light physically hurt my eyes and head.
Everything was about to become worse, however, much worse. One night in late July, I was woken up by an intense feeling of strangulation at around three in the morning. I almost expected to see someone in the room, except no one was there.
In the following weeks, I developed crushing chest pains and neuropathic burning sensations over my entire body. I can only liken the pain to having crushed glass stuck underneath the skin. My throat was now locked constantly in strangulation mode, which severely affected my ability to swallow food. I started to lose substantial amounts of weight as a result. Internally, my body shook with weakness, and my legs struggled to support me. Panic attacks were severe and constant.
Next came the infections. I’d never been prone to infections, so this was another fresh horror. Throat infections, ever-present urinary tract infections, ear infections, and other parts of my body joined in with the nightmarish picture unfolding. Oral antibiotics often failed to clear the infections adequately; before I knew it, the bacteria would spread to my blood. I can confirm that sepsis is absolutely no fun whatsoever. Blood poisoning is touch and go and requires lengthy hospitalisation. I seriously began to wonder if this mysterious condition would kill me.
The Fibromyalgia Diagnosis
Throughout this nightmare ordeal, I saw doctors wherever and whenever I could. As someone who never previously went to the doctors and tended to avoid them like the plague, this wasn’t something I enjoyed.
Every single doctor I saw had no idea what was wrong with me. Not only that, they displayed frank indifference. There were vague mentions of anxiety disorders, or perhaps my brain pain processing had become faulty. When I asked how this was possible, they’d often shrug their shoulders or say, “I don’t know.”
My general practitioner, at the time, next decided that I should start cognitive behaviour therapy sessions. The CBT was akin to gaslighting and, in my opinion, hugely dangerous. The therapist seemed set on forcing me to do things that my body physically couldn’t and making me believe that all of my symptoms were psychosomatic. At the end of the sessions, my doctor blamed me for “not allowing the conditioning to work.”
Over a year after I first became seriously unwell and still had no answers, but now living in a new area, I demanded that my current doctor run comprehensive blood work. A few days later, I received a voicemail from the surgery receptionist to say that “everything was fine.” I felt disappointed at this news and increasingly desperate.
About a week later, I returned to the GP surgery and asked for a printout of the blood results. I ploughed through the 24-page document with little hope until I came across something that stood out; my inorganic phosphate levels were above the normal range, and there was an exclamation mark beside the recorded level stating, ‘GP contact patient to discuss.’
Knowing that I wouldn’t get anywhere with my doctor, I took to the internet. I found lots of information on hyperphosphatemia, the official term for high phosphate levels in the blood. The various symptoms this condition can cause were listed: muscle pain, weakness, and fatigue, which all sounded mightily similar to the problems I had with my body.
A few pages into the search results, I came across a new term for a condition that caused muscular abnormalities and severe fatigue; fibromyalgia. I started reading up on fibromyalgia and knew immediately that this was the answer and cause of all my pain and suffering. I could have written articles describing the symptoms of the condition. After so long of dealing with doctors who made me feel that I was on the brink of insanity, and who implied that no one else in the history of medicine had ever experienced my symptoms, I felt no longer alone. I cried bittersweet tears.
I felt furious that I had been doubted from day one, gaslighted, and even brainwashed into believing there was nothing physically wrong with my body. I’m of the not-so-rare opinion that emotional abuse is unfortunately rife in the medical community, reinforced by erroneous training practices. Nothing will change unless we continue raising awareness of this mistreatment.
Guaifenesin for Fibromyalgia?
Now that I had a name for my condition, fibromyalgia, and an idea of what may be amiss biochemically, excess inorganic phosphate, I began typing the two terms into my search engine together. Glances at mainstream medical pages for fibromyalgia, such as the National Health Service entry, told me in no time that there was no accepted cause of the condition. The amount of supposedly informative medical websites that could only state with annoying frankness, ‘the cause of fibromyalgia is currently unknown.’
The cold truth is that there is no money in a cure. The vast majority of medical papers carry significant funding bias. In real terms, this means that scientific studies are interested in supporting the study’s financial sponsor and whatever new pharmaceutical drug they bring to the market. When people say follow the science, in most cases, this is code for follow the money. For this reason, I doubt there will be mainstream scientific breakthroughs in the fibromyalgia field that genuinely help sufferers in the decades to come.
Fortunately, my search results generated some more interesting findings, with one term cropping up repeatedly: the guaifenesin protocol. In the most horrendous fibromyalgia flare-up, I was willing, desperate in fact, to thoroughly research anything that may help. I soon discovered that the guaifenesin protocol was a treatment plan devised around the theory that people with fibromyalgia have problems with excess phosphate levels in their bodies. For the first time since I could remember, excitement and hope returned. Could there be a fibromyalgia cure?
Guaifenesin for fibromyalgia was first discovered by Dr. R. Paul St. Amand, an assistant clinical professor of medicine and teacher at UCLA Harbor General Hospital in California, United States. Dr. St. Amand’s findings began in 1958 when his observations on dental tartar woke up his inner researcher. After years of investigation, he came to a logical conclusion; people with fibromyalgia do not excrete enough phosphate. The cause of this phosphate metabolism issue is genetic and leads to a bodywide inability to generate sufficient energy.
The more I read, the more evidence I found to support Dr. St. Amand’s theory. A study reported in 1989 studied muscle biopsies of people living with fibromyalgia. The results found a 20% reduction in adenosine triphosphate, commonly known as ATP, in the tissues. ATP is vital as a currency of energy; the cells need a healthy supply for every bodily function, from fighting illness, movement, food digestion, and last but far from least, brain function.
Following my research, I’ve learned that phosphate excesses in the inner core of living cells, the mitochondria, slow down and block ATP production. In basic terms, too much phosphate hinders energy output in a significant way. Little wonder people with fibromyalgia are suffering to such a hellish extent.
The Guaifenesin Protocol
Luckily for those of us horribly brain-fogged with fibromyalgia, Dr. St. Amand has succinctly compiled his findings on guaifenesin for fibromyalgia in a paperback book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia. Buying this book was my starting point to learning more than I ever thought possible about this wretched condition, and clearly outlines how to take guaifenesin effectively to reverse the illness.
After decades of research and testing, Dr. St. Amand’s protocol works on the notion that single-ingredient guaifenesin taken daily reverses fibromyalgia symptoms by instructing the kidneys to excrete the healthy, normal amount of inorganic phosphate. Not only that, guaifenesin pulls the existing misplaced calcium phosphate out of the muscles, skin and organs, and the reversal of this horrid soft tissue arthritis begins. People with fibromyalgia ordinarily have kidney tubules that can be likened to a squashed straw; guaifenesin works by correcting this malfunction.
Taken ordinarily, guaifenesin acts as an expectorant, commonly known for thinning mucus. However, an extra step is required for the guaifenesin protocol to work: avoiding salicylates. Frustratingly, guaifenesin and salicylates compete for the same kidney receptors, but being the better fit, salicylates get preferential parking.
Salicylates are essentially natural chemicals made by plants. Eliminating salicylates from your life simply involves switching from using toiletries and cosmetics abundant in plant extracts and oils to using products with a generally shorter, plant-free ingredient list. Whilst it initially sounds like a lot of hard work, you soon discover that it’s pretty hassle-free once you get the hang of the process. Before finding guaifenesin for fibromyalgia, I was so despairing that I was willing to do or take virtually anything. I wanted the closest version to a fibromyalgia cure possible, at whatever cost in every sense of the word.
Did Guaifenesin for Fibromyalgia Work for Me?
By the time I tried guaifenesin for fibromyalgia, I’d probably tried more than fifty supplements and vitamins to alleviate my suffering. Nothing worked, and many things I tried made me worse and further exhausted. The first time I tried guaifenesin was different; I immediately felt some slight tingling in my worst affected area, my neck muscles. After several minutes, the muscles felt more relaxed and looser. Finally, I wasn’t being strangled.
In the weeks that passed, my neuropathic pain essentially disappeared, and my anxiety levels returned to normal range. Areas of my body that had been puffy and swollen started to reduce in size, and the general feeling of inflammation settled. My severe fibromyalgia jaw pain lessened, along with the frequency of migraine attacks with visual aura, plus my fibromyalgia flare-ups faded. I had genuine energy for the first time in a long time, something I had almost forgotten existed.
Is Guaifenesin a Fibromyalgia Cure?
When we talk about fibromyalgia cures, the original defect must see a correction by the treatment for anything to be a cure. Using guaifenesin for fibromyalgia addresses the disease at the root cause but doesn’t fix the genetic abnormality. Therefore, taking guaifenesin for life is imperative to keep fibromyalgia in remission.
Unfortunately, having gotten used to relative wellness in the fibromyalgia department, I had recently become lazy in following the protocol. I also have another chronic condition which has taken priority. I’m saddened and frustrated with myself in equal measure to report that I’ve suffered a significant fibromyalgia flare-up this year following an aggressive bacterial infection. Fibromyalgia jaw pain has been particularly monstrous, and my high anxiety levels have returned. Now that I’m firmly back on the guaifenesin protocol, I’m steadily improving, but I remain cross with myself for allowing this to happen. Guaifenesin is as close to a fibromyalgia cure as we’ll probably ever get without actually being one, but diligence is a must on our part.
Final Thoughts on Guaifenesin for Fibromyalgia
Goodness knows where I’d be without the guaifenesin protocol. Genuinely, I dread to think. All I can say is if you follow the protocol correctly, you will reverse your fibromyalgia symptoms with small daily improvements. The reversal process can be tough at times; after all, you’re purging the very thing that made you so unwell in the first place. Stick to the course; however, you will be rewarded with newfound health and wellbeing.
The mainstream medical community remains somewhat clueless about fibromyalgia. Prescriptions of antidepressants and high-strength painkillers are commonplace. These drugs do nothing more than attempt to mask the symptoms, and I can say from personal experience do a pretty poor job. Not only that, you have numerous side effects and toxicity worries to battle.
If you’re currently in a very dark place and suffering horribly with either suspected or diagnosed fibromyalgia, believe me when I say there is hope and help. You can banish fibromyalgia flare-ups to the past. Guaifenesin for fibromyalgia is as good as it gets, and your body and mind will thank you endlessly if you decide to follow this path.
I’ve now compiled a list of all the salicylate-free products I use whilst following the guaifenesin protocol. You can read the post here.