ME/CFS Testimonials

“Mike has an unparalleled ability to synthesize the vast array of knowledge necessary to understand, address, and treat the terrifyingly complex nexus of disease we call ME/CFS. In his practice he looks at pathway maps across genes and indexes with extensive testing in many different areas (gut microbiome, viral reactivations, bacterial and fungal infections, heavy metals, mineral depletion, etc) and zeroes in on the root causes of disease for each particular individual - this is a very, very detailed process that takes sustained effort and dedication to undertake, and he is relentless in his pursuit. His ability to recognize patterns and endlessly push to synthesize information to create a more accurate and specific picture of your specific combination of factors that led you to this state of chronic illness is not like anyone else I have encountered in this space. As your work with him goes on, you can feel him putting the pieces of the puzzle together over time, it's impressive and exciting to witness, knowing that he is unraveling what has been a mystery. I am no novice in this area of research as a five year sufferer on the severe end of the illness spectrum. I have delved as deep as it's possible to as a patient researcher (without graduate level education in this field prior to becoming ill) into the whole history of biomedical research and theoretical bases for this illness - studying the work of Ron Davis, Robert Phair, Ken Lassessen, Amy Proal, Robert Naviaux, Dan Peterson, Remission Biome, and all of the greatest minds in this field. I have never encountered another individual who is capable of taking all of the insights in the field, finding previously undiscovered insights of his own, and using them to create actionable steps to start correcting the many different things wrong metabolically and immunologically to actually get you better as effectively as Mike is able to do. As many of us know all too well, once you've reached a certain duration and level of compromise in this illness and it becomes a kind of metabolic steady-state, it's very difficult to start reversing. You need to know each specific detail and build back from the ground up - Mike is the only person I have come across who's been able to begin doing this for me. It's apparent that he himself has been through the wringer himself with ME/CFS, and his level of care and understanding for what this is like to endure is present all along the way when you work with him. It's evident that he is gifted synthesizing information and putting patterns together, and given what he went through himself - has found a way to deploy his gifts for others benefit. Recovering from this illness is close to impossible without the skills he brings to the table once you reach a certain point - and i am beginning to see step changes in my functioning after mike has recognized and provided guidance on what to address. He tells me it won’t be easy given my state, but he sees a way out. I cannot state strongly enough that Mike is the highest caliber of individual in this field, I truly believe he is peerless in this area of practice and there is no one else I would recommend other than him for those suffering with this horrible understudied area of chronic illness. He is the best there is, and I do not say that lightly - I've searched everywhere I could find. He's also just a really solid human, a pleasure to work with, and you will feel immediately how committed he is to getting you better. Since having him on my side I have hope again to eventually return to health for the first time since this nightmare began. I give anyone dealing with ME/CFS the highest possible recommendation in working with Mike, he's the best there is in this field in terms of getting to root causes. In my opinion it's not even close. I hope that as many people as possible are able to make use of what Mike has to offer."

UPDATE (6/25) - BRENNAN JUST COMPLETED A CYCLE FOCUSED ON LOWERING OXIDATIVE STRESS; HIS FEEDBACK BELOW:

I have been very, very deep in the hole for many years on the severe end of the ME spectrum when it comes to Bell's Functionality Score. Complete immunological and metabolic breakdown, fundamental processes of cellular energy completely crippled and subsequently metabolism completely crippled as well - and those of us in the ME world know when your metabolism is completely shut down, your immune system is extremely exhausted and not able to carry out any significant immune activity that is able to successfully clear any of the co-infections that we all have that got us into this position of illness in the first place. With Mike’s guidance, we began a regimen focused on aggressively lowering oxidative stress, and the results have been strong : lower oxidative stress lab markers, improved ATP production from the Krebs cycle, and improved functioning (cognition and energy). I have been pretty dialed into all the infection based research around ME / CFS, but Mike’s guidance was focused on nutritional repletion, then lowering oxidative stress, then doing cellular and mitochondrial membrane repair, and then some detoxification (massive levels of DDT, some metals, some mold) prior to launching into a series of anti viral’s and immune support and such. For those of us in the ME / CFS world, whether we have identified the coinfections that exist or what they are or not, they're there in various capacities for all of us - which is really tricky. To be honest this was a bit counter intuitive to me - so i was skeptical and not totally on board when we went this direction.

So Mike and I have gone on a real journey together of trying to turn my metabolism back on by finding out the specific genetic points of weakness that need to be identified and correctly hit the right points with very intensive supplementation, diet, physical interventions, etc. And I've had to really push, and keep experimenting based on all of Mike's ideas about what things to hit to try to support the metabolism based on my very specific situation (this is important, because we all have some central strong commonalities in what is dysfunctional with us when it comes to ME metabolism but what specifically in terms of pathogens, our genetic weaknesses, environmental exposures etc is different and all needs to be identified), the more severe you are and the longer you've been ill particularly. I will say I now tolerate all the mito support agents i could not tolerate for so long (Lipoic Acid, CoQ10, PQQ, AKG, etc). What's amazing about Mike's ability as a practitioner is his mind for things and is his ability to keep pushing and seeing things from a new vantage point, endlessly incorporating ideas to drill down into exactly what is going on with you specifically. This is the only way to get to the actual root cause, and through the process of him searching based on testing and researching and seeing how you respond to things, he identifies these key areas of your genetics/exposures/infections/etc that are quite revelatory for what is sustaining this degree of illness for you and what the pathway out of the labyrinth, is going to look like. He has also had me incorporate oxygen therapy as well as PEMF mat therapy, after lowering oxidative stress, which was a definitive positive impact.

There have been so many points along the way right from the beginning where I knew Mike was coming up with different information for me to move the needle or getting me better eventually, but you have to allow the process to unfold and see what he can figure out - the more you're down to gathering data the closer you will get to him gathering the necessary information for figuring out your individual case. My oxidative stress and the inflammatory cascade was SO severe that tampering it down took months not weeks. One of the novel things Mike came up with is assessing my ability to make iron-sulfur clusters ( a key cofactor for the Krebs cycle, heme cycle, and so many other things), and then also to protect them from being oxidized. These cannot be measured directly, but he identified a whole series of indirect markers - and after we began supplementation to protect these iron-sulfur clusters the impact from an energy standpoint was significant. Sometimes it can be hard to see that you are moving in the right direction - but when Mike had me re-do the oxidative stress panel, 8 out of the 10 elevated markers had significant reductions, you see it in black and white. After months of gathering data and trying things, the picture is cohering about how to do successful reconstitution of my cellular energy and what the biggest blockages are for me fixing this situation - there are so many switches that need to be flipped in order to get truly better.

After we lowered oxidative stress, i really wanted to go after my viral infection load and aggressively upregulate my immune system, but Mike cautioned me against this - he said this was not the time. Mike told me that by upregulating the immune system we would dramatically increase oxidative stress, and if my cellular membranes were not repaired, this would result in a crash. But i decided to go ahead and experimented with some things….. and crashed, so we re-connected, lowered oxidative stress again, and then with his guidance - onboarded a series of supplements designed to repair cellular membranes, and the inner membrane of the mitochondria. This had an immediate impact on functioning, and energy, i had this sense my cells were just drinking up these cellular membrane repair supplements. The cellular membrane integrity issue was probably huge in hindsight for me because of the massive oxidative stress had gotten so severe that nothing could really be done until that was addressed. To begin to have it successfully addressed and be able to stand up for sustained periods and hold things and move (very lightweight) things to some degree after being one step away from paralysis and the total inability to walk is surreal, unless you have someone who can address the whole situation meaningfully. Mike told me he suspected the inner membrane of the mitochondria was compromised, and he also said, he didn’t have any labs to directly assess this. He was relying on my overall oxidative stress markers, as well as my genetics. Currently we are aggressively doing cellular and mitochondria membrane repair, and will be entering some detoxification later this summer. I had massive levels of DDT in my system (stored in lipids), and as best as we could trace, this was me handling marijuana products years ago. DDT is a strong immune suppressant. The first re-test we did to move out the DDT showed strong liberation of the stored DDT in my lipids and fat tissue - so the detoxification is moving things out for sure.

The insane level of knowledge plus relentless pushing into new territory when things don't work to learn why and find what does - this is what really makes Mike’s approach peerless. But I would really say that it's important to be willing to give the process time to find the right data points for your individual case and experiment, which is of course incredibly hard to do when you risk your baseline level of function with each intervention. I believe improvement is possible for all of us if you identify the right interventions - which can be a process! You get as much as you put into it, I know it's hard to stay rigorous when you are you are very compromised but it's worth it. Keep pushing and improvement is possible - I personally believe I'm now getting towards the first step to getting significantly better with the things we have identified. It's insane to feel hopeful after so long, allowing hope to make you be relentless in dialing in every single aspect of treatment interventions and never giving up is (for me, and hopefully others) the key! You reach a point of severity where absolutely nothing moves the needle and you only get worse over time, so to realize you can reverse slowly over time with sustained effort is inspiring. I have followed many others, and have tried many of their approaches, even those that claim a 95% cure rate, and i never had any noticeable improvement symptomatically nor in physiological lab markers. With Mike, improvement in symptoms and labs, are being seen, and the improvements line up directly to what he has told me he was going after.

Brennan, MA | ME/CFS sufferer for five years