Help Nate Go Back to Work GoFundME CrowdFudningExposure.com Campaign
Hello everyone and thank you for reading our story.
I’m raising money for my boyfriend Nathan Lowe, who is currently battling with gadolinium toxicity or Gadolinium Deposition Disease (GDD). We are currently trying to raise money so Nate can seek chelation treatment and hyperbaric oxygen treatment as these are the only somewhat effective treatments out there right now for GDD. I know the amount seems a bit high but there are only 3 doctors/treatment facilities in the whole US that acknowledge and treat GDD and they are no where close to us. We currently live in Iowa, the 3 treatment facilities are located in South Carolina, Texas, and Nevada. Treatment time can take from 2 months to 6 months and are done on an almost daily basis. The costs can range up to $3,000.00 a week and that’s just for the treatment, which is not covered by insurance at all. We would need to pay for lodging, food, etc while there too so as you can see it’s’ going to add up quickly so anything helps at this time. Nate is unable to work so we’re currently living on one income which is just enough for our day to day life, not for weeks of treatment. We are still actively trying to find a chelation therapy clinic closer to us and have some leads through a support group on Yahoo (link is below) but there don’t seem to be any in our state or city. We’re not looking to get rich off this, we just want Nate to be able to return to work and live a somewhat normal life again. This has turned our whole world upside down and all of our plans seem to be going nowhere now, all because of an MRI where contrast was used. I know our story is one of millions out there because we live in a country where profit is more important than a person’s health.
Any small amount helps and if you’re not able to contribute then please just share our story with others. A summary of what has happened is below along with links to sources about GDD.
Nate had an MRI with a gadolinium contrast back in January of 2018. It was initially for a back injury he suffered at work but shortly after he began to have strange symptoms that were unrelated to his back. His feet and hands would tingle and burn, he started to lose focus, and had a hard time concentrating. Simple chores around the house became impossible for Nate to accomplish and often times he would find himself wandering around unable to remember what it was he got up to do. They symptoms only got worse as time passed, excruciating pain and burning in his bones and muscles, swelling of his hands and feet, and more brain fog. We were convinced that they didn’t have anything to do with his back injury.
Nate first approached the Orthopedic doctor that had requested the MRI w/ gadolinium contrast about his symptoms and he was told to go see his primary doctor as there was nothing he could do. So Nate went to his primary doctor, again and again and again. He brought up information we found on the FDA website and other internet sources but he refused to even look into them. Nate finally convinced his doctor to run a gadolinium test, and gave him the name of the test that needed to be run which is an extensive urine test but Nate’s doctor didn’t even order the right test, he ordered a blood test which is not very accurate regarding detecting gadolinium but guess what, the blood test came back showing levels of gadolinium, 5 MONTHS AFTER THE MRI. We can only guess what the level was right after the contrast was put into his body but Nate’s physician stated that the levels were acceptable and that’s it, his doctor refused to look at it any further even though he agreed that Nate’s symptoms were odd and didn’t have an explanation for them but he would not entertain the idea that it was caused by the gadolinium but wouldn’t offer any ideas as to what he thought it was. After all this back and forth, Nate’s doctor sent us a letter in the mail stating he refused to see Nate any further.
We were totally floored by this as gadolinium is not a naturally occurring metal in our bodies so how they have an acceptable level of gadolinium is a mystery to us. We finally got another doctor to run the urine test for gadolinium and 9 MONTHS LATER, Nate is still excreting gadolinium, even though we’re told that it’s acceptable levels but yet they also told us that the gadolinium is supposed to clear out from your body within a day or two.
We then tried the radiology lab that performed the MRI, we wanted to get more information regarding which contrast agent was used and how much was used. They were unable to tell us the amount and only provided one of the instructional inserts that came with the contrast agent which had a suggested amount of contrast to use per body weight, they told Nate that they probably used the recommended amount but again could not verify the exact amount that was used. The instructional insert had a black box warning that stated some patients were sensitive to gadolinium and to report it if any patients experienced certain symptoms after the contrast was applied. All of the symptoms listed were exactly what Nate was experiencing but no one would listen. We also realized that the gadolinium contrast they used is banned in Europe, Magnevist, because it is a linear contrast and doesn’t appear to flush out of your body as well as a macro-cyclic contrast. There’s a link below to the EU website.
We didn’t know where to turn to so after a whole lot of internet searching we came across a lot of information but how to determine what was real and what were gimmicks was causing us a lot of confusion on how to proceed. We finally got in touch with a law firm that is pursuing a class action law suit against the contrast companies like Bayer but they had no suggestions on how to find treatment and money from that can take years to trickle down to us and the longer the gadolinium sits in his body, the more damage it is going to cause. We had seen a lot of stories about Gena Norris, Chuck Norris’ wife, she was diagnosed with gadolinium toxicity and found that chelation treatment along with hyperbaric oxygen treatment helped rid her of the symptoms of gadolinium. The first link below is an interview with her and Chuck regarding their experience with all of this.
On a whim, we messaged her, asking if she knew where we could go for treatment. To our surprise, she messaged back with the names of 3 doctors that acknowledged that gadolinium toxicity exists and had developed treatments, unfortunately, none of them are close to us, which is why we are trying to raise money, the treatments aren’t covered by insurance and they are costly and Nate will have to live there while receiving treatments because they are done a few times a week so it would be too costly to try and go back and forth that often.
I do understand that for some people they get an MRI w/contrast and their body clears it out right away and they are perfectly fine. Chuck Norris mentions that in the interview link below that he has had a few and is fine but for his wife it’s a different story. Some people are more sensitive to the gadolinium, some health care facilities administer it differently and use different kinds. Unfortunately for Nate, he is one of those that are adversely affected by gadolinium but our government and health care system don’t want to acknowledge that people react differently because unfortunately, we live in country with a for profit health care system that is primarily run by pharmaceutical companies.
After all the research we have done on this and the battle we have fought so far, it has made us realize that when it comes to healthcare and treatment, you need to be on your toes and stay involved in decisions your doctors make regarding treatment and care. If you aren’t able to contribute hopefully our story will at least raise awareness regarding medical treatment and being involved because a lot of the medicines and treatments out there aren’t always in our best interests. A lot of them that are approved by the FDA aren’t because they are completely safe for us, it’s because the % of people affected meets a minimum acceptable percentage for them to ok it for use in the public but when you’re one person in that small percentage it’s not very acceptable at all and can ruin your whole life.
Thank you again for reading our story, and thank you in advance if you’re able to help us out.
Links
Gena Norris’ story
http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/mri-06-11-2017
Yahoo support group for Gadolinium
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MRI-Gadolinium-Toxicity/info
EU decision on gadolinium contrast
https://www.ema.europa.eu/medicines/human/referrals/gadolinium-containing-contrast-agents
FDA Warning & various links to case studies
https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm455386.htm
https://gadoliniumtoxicity.com/2018/05/19/head-pain-is-diagnostic-feature-of-gdd/#more-2091
https://gadoliniumtoxicity.com/2018/08/23/gd-toxicity-if-not-nsf-then-what-is-it/
