A Breakthrough with Something Else - Want to Volunteer?

Hello Everyone!

Thank you to the people who have e-mailed me about this nutrition project... and I'm sorry for stopping the 30-day nutritional experiment short without an explanation. However, please read on for some good news...

WHY I STOPPED THE SUPPLEMENTS

About 10 days after starting in December, my body started feeling really crappy taking all of the vitamins. The probiotic pills always gave me side pain shortly after taking them, the combination of vitamins continued to make me nauseas, and I had trouble sleeping because of a bloated feeling in my stomach every night. I'm not sure which vitamins were affecting me but I stopped them all, cold turkey, around Christmas. I also read somewhere that synthetic vitamins and nutrients are not absorbed by the body very well and can cause nothing more than irritation.

MY SHORT BREAKTHROUGH

BUT, while visiting my parents over the holidays, I had a breakthrough. And I think it was diet-related...

At the end of 2 weeks staying at my parents' house, they saw that I was trying to eat healthy so they told me to try their new (very specific) eating & exercise routine. They just started this new healthy living last year and they are completely different people--high energy, sleeping better at night. So, I agreed. It was similar to the "healthy eating" I was doing on my 30-day experiment, but there were a few noticeable differences.

So, begrudgingly, after the 2nd day of eating exactly what they ate and exercising twice a day (that was hard), I very suddenly noticed that the contact between my lips, tongue, and palate while speaking were lighter and that I no longer struggled silently with certain agonizing consonants (b, d, k, f, r, etc.). I now got all sounds on the first try with soft contact.

The first time I noticed the improved fluency was about 2 hours after eating dinner. My parents and I were sitting with my sisters, talking and having tea, and I noticed myself feeling free to say a lot of words I have purposefully avoided before. Like starting sentences with "Don't" or "Do You". My mouth seemed totally relaxed and it had such a light, airy touch. No faulty timing, coordination-induced muscle locks, or blasts of air. Just relaxed, effortless contacts and transitions... it felt very weird, like I was drunk, but I wasn't.

So, I tried NOT to scream & jump for joy right then and there. I'm not sure if my family noticed, since I often speak easier when I've had a few drinks or when I'm whispering or talking in a sing-song voice. Plus, we don't really talk about my stuttering... it's very uncomfortable for us.

But, anyway, it didn't make sense--I had stopped taking all of my supplements! I went to my former bedroom (now a guest room in my parent's house) and read softly aloud from of a book, just to make sure I was actually more fluent--and it seemed that I was. I called my significant other, in New York, on the phone and I rambled on for 30 minutes telling him about my day, which I almost never do.

FLUENCY GOES AWAY

But, unfortunately, the next day we went on a trip to another city to visit my extended family--and my newfound fluency kind of drained away within the first day. My parents and I weren't eating our usual dinner. By the 2nd or 3rd day I was back to normal, stuttering speech. So I initially thought it was my vitamins that was responsible for the fluent spell, so I frantically started popping all of my supplements and probiotics again every day... but to no avail.

Then, when I got home to New York, I was pretty devastated and spent the bulk of my time thereafter trying to figure out where I went wrong or--maybe--where I went RIGHT...

I read something in the New York Times about probiotics increasing pancreatic sensitivity and infections in some people (which explains my side pain)... so I stopped all the supplements except my daily multi-vitamin, which still makes me a bit nauseas for about 30 minutes after taking it.

FIGURING IT OUT

I've been thinking a lot about what my parents might have been EATING or DOING that changed my brain function, and I think I may have figured it out. I've been doing testing on my own for about 2 days now and I will post the results here if it works.

For those who keep asking me, YES, I STILL BELIEVE that our "stuttering brains" are missing some type of nutrient that could greatly improve our fine motor function. Maybe not 100% correct it, but greatly improve the neurotransmitter connections.

I also believe that most of the other therapeutic theories out there (including valsalva) address the symptoms of stuttering (not the root cause); the symptoms of how our bodies react when our timing & coordination get thrown off. For example, our breathing becomes irregular and explosive as we try to break through the faulty timing & coordination of our fine motor skills. But that erratic breathing is not the cause of why our timing & coordination is off. I think it's what happens when you keep missing the coordinated contact on a sound.

WANT TO VOLUNTEER & TELL ME YOUR RESULTS?

I AM LOOKING FOR 100-200 VOLUNTEERS who are willing to eat a specific dinner for about 7 days to see if they see a difference, and also to complete a pre & post-survey. I know it sounds crazy, but what have we got to lose? You can use an alias instead of your real name.

If interested, please e-mail me with your gender, age, and number of years you have had persistent developmental stuttering. You can start NOW.

There is no money involved in any way, sorry. I'm just trying to get reports from other people if this works for them.

In the meantime, I will post back here in a couple days and let you all know if I'm more fluent again!

THANKS FOR READING!!

XOXO
Simona

-