18 Year Old With Chronic Fatigue

[Amber]

Hi,

About me, im an 18 year old girl struggling with weird symptoms including chronic fatigue, sudden 20lbs gain ...

... brain fog, fatigue, poor concentration, loss of memory ...

I have been through very stressful times in my life which i think had a big influence on my health.
...
My diet is about 1800Kcal, about 60% Carbs (used to be low carb to lose weight) 20% protein and 10% fat. My diet is basically milk, eggs, sugar, orange juice cheese and coke.

Supplements right now:
Magnesium 400MG
Zinc 15MG
Progesterone Dr Lee
T3 20mcg daily

I went through a 20kg weight loss to 65kg (i am 1.76m tall) but gained 10kg back since then on the 1800Kcal. The weight loss took me a year on about 1400Kcal + exercising 6 times a week ...

Then something weird, every time i use progesterone or take t3, my whole body swells up and i get very estrogenic symptoms including mood swings, crying spells, edema and worse fatigue. I dont get it because they are both suppossed to be anti estrogen.

I think thats it for now, i hope someone can give me some advice because i don't want my life to be like this!

Thanks for reading.
[tara: content removed at member's request]

 

[Lecarpetron]

The weight loss took me a year on about 1400Kcal + exercising 6 times a week ...

This is severe undereating. To recover from this, you likely need to eat more than 1800 kcal, especially if you still exercise a few times per week. Progesterone won't work if your thyroid status sucks. If your thyroid sucks, taking T3 without being well-nourished will just make your body more stressed. Surgery itself is a massive stressor. You might want to de-stress for a while with lots of food, naps, etc. and then slowly introduce supps in a few months. Cyproheptadine could help you regain your appetite and kill some stress hormones.

 

[Amber]

Thanks for the reply.

I know i was undereating, but i couldn't lose weight eating more than that and i wanted to lose weight really badly because i didn't feel good. Right now im at 20% bodyfat and im pretty lean but as soon as i eat more than 1800~ cals a day i start gaining weight which is something i don't want. I will try to increase my calories step by step and relax a little. I try to relax but most of the time i feel so stressed/anxious/nervous that i can't even get myself to do everything i want to do which adds up to the stressed feeling leaving me feeling more stressed.

 

[Elchapchapchapo]

Personally I am a supplement guy so keep this in mind.

I would consider taking a look at things specifically for mitochondria - methylene blue (oxidal from haidut), coq10, or vitamin K. I think these will be of great benefit to you.

I have wrote about being fatigued and have also read other threads about fatigue and what I have seen is to do bag breathing. A basic start would be 2 mins a day.

Like mentioned above eating plenty of nutritious calories will help a lot too. Peat likes OJ and Milk a lot due to the fact these contain sugar, magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium which ultimately are what are involved with hydration and are some of the things that are found within the cell.

The B vitamins are a huge help for improving cognitive function. Peat has an audio clip where he actually talks about taking vitamin b1 the night before he would have to study and noticing positve effects. Liver is an awesome source of the b vitamins. Haidut (idealabs) also has a concoction which is topical which can be beneficial as well so one doesn't irritate the gut especially if it is already irritated.

 

[Lecarpetron]

I know i was undereating, but i couldn't lose weight eating more than that and i wanted to lose weight really badly because i didn't feel good. Right now im at 20% bodyfat and im pretty lean but as soon as i eat more than 1800~ cals a day i start gaining weight which is something i don't want.

So the million dollar question is, how do you convince your body to use food as energy/stress repair instead of just piling on visceral fat? If you are undereating and still gaining weight, that indicates your metabolism is running low and you might want to focus on encouraging glucose oxidation. You could try niacinamide/aspirin/caffeine, or some Idealabs supps as recommended above. Keep track of your progress by monitoring body temp and pulse.

 

[Amber]

Right now my plan is to get niacin and aspirin and try that to increase sugar metabolism. Will get them tomorrow. I have a bottle of b-complex vitamins at home right now (all activated forms) so i will try that too. I will also start with 2 cups of coffee a day to see how i react to that.

 

[Sucrates]

Was the surgery gut related? If the B-complex has more than 5mg B6/P5P in it I'd skip that until you do some reading, some people get very bad effects - "B6 toxicity".

 

[Amber]

Was the surgery gut related? If the B-complex has more than 5mg B6/P5P in it I'd skip that until you do some reading, some people get very bad effects - "B6 toxicity".

It wasn't gut surgery ...

[tara: content removed at member's request]

 

[johnwester130]

eat more sugar and take

taurine- doubles glycogen storage

the b vitamins, like niacinamide

aspirin

caffeine

coconut oil

vitamin k2

vitamin e

pregnenolone

 

[michael94]

you guys are going to kill this girl lmao

 

[Amber]

Johnwester130

Thanks for the reply, i will look into the things you mentioned.

Icecreamlover,

Haha well I hope not!

 

[Amber]

Also, whenever i eat a lot of potassium (about 5000MG a day) i get very bad muscle cramps in my legs and they start swelling and feel tense. Anyone knows what the cause of this is? I was thinking aldosterone going up maybe because of too much potassium.

 

[michael94]

lol. It was not meant too serious but don't try too many thing at once....

 

[Amber]

lol. It was not meant too serious but don't try too many thing at once....

I know

 

[michael94]

Sounds like your surgery may have caused low grade cholestasis. This is actually pretty common in surgeries, especially transplants. Something about the combination of slicing someone open and putting them on anesthetics leads to rapid formation of lithogenic bile and eventually bile duct blockages. Birth control and painkillers are not helpful either. I had a situation similar to yours... 20 quite healthy, very active, etc. Then I decided I wanted to be 7% bodyfat and deadlift 5 plates so I started taking "supplements". Then this happened... Androgenic/anabolic steroid-induced intrahepatic cholestasis: a review with four additional case reports. - PubMed - NCBI And yea, all down hill from there. This is an extreme case obviously but I suspect things like vaccines have a similar effect. Pregnancy is also known to cause cholestasis so you can get the idea of how fundamental bile flow is in response to stress.

Anyway, since then I've come to the conclusion that cholestasis ( of various degrees ) and the associated liver/GI dysfunction is the #1 source of chronic disease. Ray peat forum members may not agree but that is mostly because I haven't put myself to the task of convincing them. And trust me there is a very good case for it. It explains everything from why certain people eat/live in a supposedly unhealthy way yet glow like a god to why others can try EVERYTHING with very little progress. And more

 

[Amber]

Sounds like your surgery may have caused low grade cholestasis. This is actually pretty common in surgeries, especially transplants. Something about the combination of slicing someone open and putting them on anesthetics leads to rapid formation of lithogenic bile and eventually bile duct blockages. Birth control and painkillers are not helpful either. I had a situation similar to yours... 20 quite healthy, very active, etc. Then I decided I wanted to be 7% bodyfat and deadlift 5 plates so I started taking "supplements". Then this happened... Androgenic/anabolic steroid-induced intrahepatic cholestasis: a review with four additional case reports. - PubMed - NCBI And yea, all down hill from there. This is an extreme case obviously but I suspect things like vaccines have a similar effect. Pregnancy is also known to cause cholestasis so you can get the idea of how fundamental bile flow is in response to stress.

Anyway, since then I've come to the conclusion that cholestasis ( of various degrees ) and the associated liver/GI dysfunction is the #1 source of chronic disease. Ray peat forum members may not agree but that is mostly because I haven't put myself to the task of convincing them. And trust me there is a very good case for it. It explains everything from why certain people eat/live in a supposedly unhealthy way yet glow like a god to why others can try EVERYTHING with very little progress. And more

I agree with what you said about the liver. One of my lab tests also showed elevated liver enzymes a few times and then they went back to normal again. After that a kind of hepatitis randomly showed up on my lab test too which my doctor couldn't explain but he basically said that my liver could have been inflamed. Also, after my surgery (i think 3/4 months later) i got diagnosed with mono which was still there 3 months ago. I think all of this is very complicated especially because even my doctor said he couldn't do anything for me.

 

[pimpnamedraypeat]

Anyway, since then I've come to the conclusion that cholestasis ( of various degrees ) and the associated liver/GI dysfunction is the #1 source of chronic disease. Ray peat forum members may not agree but that is mostly because I haven't put myself to the task of convincing them. And trust me there is a very good case for it. It explains everything from why certain people eat/live in a supposedly unhealthy way yet glow like a god to why others can try EVERYTHING with very little progress. And more

Aaaand I'm hooked.

Alright man what do you got this time? Not more turpentine I hope.

 

[Amber]

Alright so my electrolytes are like this:

300MG Magnesium daily total (including from food)
800MG Calcium from food
About 3000MG Potassium
1Tsp of salt and whatever is in my food (dont add any to my food)

My macro split is 70% Carbs, 15% Protein and 15% fat. I ate 2000cals today. This means im eating about 350GR Carbs, is 3GR potassium and 300MG Magnesium enough for this or should i raise both of them?

 

[proseandpassion]

I had this kind of severe fatigue when I was 20, I had to drop out of college and be on bed rest for a semester. For me the culprit was a major crash after severe calorie restriction (I had been vegan and counting 1,000 calories a day). I had severe gallstones and was hypothyroid.

 

[Amber]

I had this kind of severe fatigue when I was 20, I had to drop out of college and be on bed rest for a semester. For me the culprit was a major crash after severe calorie restriction (I had been vegan and counting 1,000 calories a day). I had severe gallstones and was hypothyroid.

Yeah pretty much same for me. There have been times where i ate even less than 1000cals. At the time i didn't realize how bad it was.