A Multitude of Recoveries Through Alternative Mental Health Treatments
I wasn't diagnosed with pyroluria until age 65. By then my health had seriously collapsed twice. I'd spent my adult life trying to figure out what could be wrong with me; since I didn't have frank mental illness, 'only' very severe anxiety since adolescence that years and years of therapy never addressed (but P5P [Vitamin B6] put an end to in about 48 hours!), no one thought of pyroluria. I found the condition mentioned in a journal article on adrenal exhaustion and heavy metal toxicity (it had been long established I had both), and when I was diagnosed and came to my integrative physician with the diagnosis he was stunned, "Of course. I just never thought of it because even though you have all the other symptoms, you're not bipolar or schizophrenic." Neither he nor anyone else other than my husband had any idea how flimsily mentally hinged I often felt. But I was able to work around that and my other symptoms, push myself and lead my life. Diagnosis and the resulting treatment with P5P and zinc were a miracle.