★★★★★
Gwen, Thank you for sharing your experience and protocol... so helpful! As some others suggested, I ordered the sea buckthorn oil, but while waiting for it to arrive, I tried just upping my consumption of cod liver oil (I had been taking 1g/day)... lo and behold, the day after I upped it to 3g/day, my eyes were no longer dry and my mouth had improved by about 50%. And today, 2 days later, my salivary glands are 98% back in action! (Weirdly, I had a dream last night that I couldn't stop drooling. ; P)
I still plan to try the sea buckthorn oil, mainly to see if I get any of the skin benefits, but it's good to know how powerful something as simple as cod liver oil can be (good for vit D, too, which I'm borderline low in). Cheers!
Fish Oil
★★★★★
Everyone's comments have been incredibly helpful!
I'm a very active, lean, 56-year-old who was experiencing several Sjogren's symptoms for months and they were significantly debilitating -- dry mouth, dry eyes, lung soreness plus heart palpitations. I refuse to seek out the help of traditional doctors because of their reliance on chemical cures. I did, however, engage a Sports Nutritionist that came highly recommended by an active, lean colleague of mine, who is 57 years old. I'm mentioning my age and my colleague's age so women who are of the same "vintage" realize that there is post menopause hope as one's body changes. When I shared my symptoms with the Sports Nutritionalist he said "Have you been tested for Sjogren's?" He also said, "At a minimum, you should be consuming 3000 mg of high grade fish oil per day." I was consuming 1000 mg per day. Interesting.
I next went online, read your comments, and did the following: increased my fish oil soft gels consumption to 3000 mg per day (Carlson Norwegian Salmon Oil), started taking 2 Solgar Flaxseed Oil 1250 mg soft gels per day and started taking 2 Solgar Super GLA Borage Oil 300 mg soft gels per day. The next day, my dry eyes and dry mouth significantly improved! The day after, my eyes and mouth felt normal again. I am still experiencing lung soreness plus heart palpitations, but I have noticed slight improvement there as well. My thought is that it may take longer for the rest of my body to get "fully lubricated" once again. I truly believe that I'm on the right path, so I wanted to share my experiences in case it may help others. As a side note, my Sports Nutritionalist also told me to switch multi-vitamins -- moving from a tablet to soft gels because they are absorbed into your system whereas tablets can pass right through you. One of his clients was being x-rayed for some type of condition, and the doctor saw the multi-vitamin in the gentlemen's intestinal tract, e.g., it hadn't been absorbed into his system. I am going to make this change as well.
I would recommend that if you increase your oil intake, you make sure that you're not over-doing it by eating fatty foods. Too much fat could cause other problems. Eat healthy!
