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Sure! Thanks@youngsinatra, you could also make homemade yogurt with oat milk if you tolerate it (homemade). Let me know if you want a recipe.
I suspect that most of my issues also stem from my messed-up digestive system. I have never done a comprehensive stool analysis as I thought that this field of research is still in baby shoes and not that helpful.
In the past I had a bad case of SIBO, that was helped by antimicrobials and antibiotics, but it always came back. I was stuck on keto for awhile. Eventually I was able to clear the persistent SIBO with a high dose of thiamine for a few months. But I still had (and have) very sensitive digestion. I can eat many things and feel well for multiple hours, until this food enters my large intestine. Then I get all kinds of psychological (depression, anhedonia, low-grade anxiety) and physiological symptoms (joint and muscle pain, nerve pains, headaches, GI pain, lowered body temperature, dizziness, blood shot eyes)
I mainly get digestive pains or cramps in the lower part of the gut (colon) roughly below the navel.
I suspect it’s pretty difficult to repopulate these very low laying parts of the GI tract. I suspect that once the GI flora is gone, it can only be replaced by FMT.
I‘m thinking about investigating water kefir as a probiotic. But maybe I‘m just damned to stay on a very restricted diet.
I‘m writing this as I‘m currently having a GI flare up after experimenting with a few prebiotic plant foods in the last 3 days. (black beans, oats, onions, corn)
Just got back on my „white diet“ which is my basic diet to feel good and have no symptoms. It’s basically white rice, chicken cooked in refined coconut oil, cooked/peeled fruits like apple, pear, banana, salt, mineral water. It’s basically all white food.
I used this recipe with gelatin, a different probiotic than the one she recommends as my starter and did the longer fermentation time of 36 hours at 106 degrees Fahrenheit per the Super Gut book.Sure! Thanks
@Korven do you have any tips for how to eat when your appetite is down?
Have you ever tried Nigella Sativa/Black Cumin Seed in a regimen to restore your appetite? It is known to help with many many disorders including digestion and I am starting to take it to reduce possible candida.I should also add that sometimes, though not always, there's a trade-off between what is "optimal" digestion-wise and what will make you hungry.
Often I found I had zero desire for another boring meal of beef/chicken and rice or whatever. In that situation it may be better to eat fatty, greasy food that stokes digestive fire, or to season your meal and have some fun eating (and deal with the rosacea breakouts from spicy food later LOL)
Have you ever tried Nigella Sativa/Black Cumin Seed in a regimen to restore your appetite? It is known to help with many many disorders including digestion and I am starting to take it to reduce possible candida.
Black cumin (Nigella sativa) and its constituent (thymoquinone): a review on antimicrobial effects
Abstract
Nigella sativa seeds have wide therapeutic effects and have been reported to have significant effects against many ailments such as skin diseases, jaundice, gastrointestinal problems, anorexia, conjunctivitis, dyspepsia, rheumatism, diabetes, hypertension, intrinsic hemorrhage, paralysis, amenorrhea, anorexia, asthma, cough, bronchitis, headache, fever, influenza and eczema. Thymoquinone (TQ) is one of the most active constituent and has different beneficial properties. Focus on antimicrobial effects, different extracts of N. sativa as well as TQ, have a broad antimicrobial spectrum including Gram-negative, Gram-positive bacteria, viruses, parasites, schistosoma and fungi. The effectiveness of N. sativa seeds and TQ is variable and depends on species of target microorganisms. The present review paper tries to describe all antimicrobial activities that have been carried out by various researchers.
Aeyyy! Good for you man!Something went terribly wrong with my health back in 2018-2019.
The worst symptoms that have been plaguing me:
Constant nausea and a "sickness feeling", wonky digestion, extreme fatigue, unintentional weight loss, chest pain on and off, exercise intolerance/CFS-like symptoms (post exercise malaise), rosacea, red dry eyes, breaking out in hives... and NO APPETITE.
I still don't know why I got so sick. It may have been due to untreated celiac disease, or a stint of carnivore in 2018 which wiped out my good gut bacteria, or a case of food poisoning from drinking raw milk in 2019. Or maybe all of them? Or bad luck?
Anyways I have managed to improve about 90% through different diet and supplement experiments.
However - what I couldn't seem to figure out was the complete loss of appetite. It was driving me nuts never being hungry or wanting to eat. I had to force feed myself to not lose any more weight.
I started suspecting SIBO and/or H.pylori as culprits. Natural antimicrobials like mastic gum, Pylopass, lactoferrin, kefir, oregano oil, etc did help some, but it was never a full cure.
So I decided I was going to go after the gut critters with a combo of Augmentin + Lactoferrin + Famotidine + S.boulardii.
Why this cocktail?
• Augmentin (amoxicillin + clavulanic acid) 500/125 x 2 daily
Basically to kill the bugs! Augmentin contains clavulanic acid which is an beta-lactamase inhibitor, preventing drug-resistant bacteria from destroying amoxicillin.
• Lactoferrin 250 mg x 2 daily
I had already been taking this for 1 year prior and seen awesome results. Chelates iron and steals it from bugs. Powerful antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agent, most importantly has a synergistic effect when taken together with antibiotics:
• Famotidine 20 mg x 2 daily
Raises intragastric pH in order to wipe out H pylori
• S. boulardii 5 billion CFU x 2 daily
Reduces risk of C.diff infection
I herx'ed pretty badly the first couple days (but really nothing in comparison to the years of suffering I've gone through) but managed to endure 8 days. Knock on wood it's been a few days since doing this protocol and I have been consistently hungry for my meals, which is a wonderful feeling!
This is not medical advice. Try at your own risk. If you start this and haven't taken lactoferrin before I would suspect the herx symptoms would be awful.
Cheers, I just wanted to share this if someone else has similiar mystery gut issues and loss of appetite.
Yes!
A couple of things that helped (a little):
• Try to maintain whatever appetite/hunger/digestive fire you have. For me that meant eating only 3 square meals and no snacking in between. Maybe others are different but if I ate something before meals I would have zero appetite.
• Waiting 1 hour before eating in the morning. Seems to help a lot for some reason.
• As a rule of thumb, eating lighter meals, maybe chicken/fish and white rice and well-cooked vegetables. Anything that contained too much fat, or giant portions of starches,etc, would make me not want to eat again for 10+ hours.
• Smaller meals better than bigger meals.
• Seasonings, spices to make food more appealing does help stimulate appetite. BUT my sensitive stomach could not handle sauces and spices so not good for me personally. Preparing foods in delicious ways, e.g. making beef burgers on the grill is much more appealing to me than cooking it in a pan, so it helped with appetite.
• No snacking after dinner (so I can have some appetite the next morning)
• Folate and cyproheptadine work as appetite stimulants.
And of course all the rest about avoiding endotoxins, gut transit time, blah blah blah (you probably know all this already).
To be honest I didn't follow this advice always. Sometimes I just gave up trying to be hungry and force fed myself. But generally speaking it's prudent to not overeat and try to maintain whatever small hunger you have, than to gorge on food and not want to eat for the rest of the day. As always, just my 2 cents, I'm sure others are different.
Aeyyy! Good for you man!
I know that feeling of getting your appetite back when you were missing it for so long. Eating is so amazing! haha
Did you have any kind of fungal flare ups during this? I try to take potassium iodide during any ABX courses, but I'm not sure if thats very effective standalone.
This is excellent! I like the idea of maintaining whatever digestive fire you have. Hadn’t really thought of it that way though I have had success with some of the tips (light meals, seasoning, etc). Soup always works for me - I crave it and can eat a lot (it’s lower cal but at least doesn’t feel like force feeding).
Oddly, without changing anything, I was hungry all day yesterday for the first time in a long while and crammed in a ton of nutrition. It was great! I’d forgotten how it feels.
@ursidae, there are apparently lots of false negatives. It’s my understanding that in adults these days (at least in the US) a blood test for antibodies is enough to get an official diagnosis. Here’s what I get tested periodically to ensure I’m not getting trace amounts of gluten that could wreck my health. View attachment 53126
thank you, this will be useful in the future