A thimble full of moonlight

loess

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Sep 22, 2013
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I started Peating four days ago and have noticed an incredibly profound and rapidly improving rise out of a tunnel of depression, fatigue, and fear that has crippled me for over two months. I will maybe elaborate on my history and the backstory that caused me to tank into this bout of depression at some point, but for now I'll just log my little prism of reality that goes on each day so that I can have a record of my early days of Peat.

Yesterday I had a carrot salad in the morning and around 1800 calories of OJ, milk, and gelatin during the day. Very sedentary as usual these days, spending the day reading on the laptop and getting up from the bed only to use the bathroom, visit the kitchen, etc. Tomorrow I will make myself go for a short gentle walk outside as it's no good to be indoors all day. I'm guessing that I am way overdue for some liver or some shellfish because at around 5pm, thoughts of chocolate took ahold of me and would not let go until I gave them what they wanted, which ended up being milk and a whole bar (100g) of Green & Black 85% dark chocolate. Theobromine is a pretty darn potent alkaloid so I usually like to eat small amounts but I really felt like I was craving the zinc and minerals, so I just went with it and shazam, no more choco bar. Around an hour later I felt the most euphoric sense of calm and hopefulness that I have experienced during this bout of darkness. I felt very creative and uplifted. That feeling kind of gently bloomed over the next couple of hours, it was nice and balanced. I wrote in my journal late into the night and started to feel the need for some sugar around 2 am so I made myself a bit of gelatin and some salted OJ (about 1 tsp of salt) and fell asleep soon thereafter, though I'm wondering if I overshot on protein for the day because I could really feel some digestive discomfort going on with the gelatin.

While I was asleep I had a nightmare where a childhood friend was in a courtroom and pointed a gun at me. I woke up just before he was going to pull the trigger. Very strange, probably chocolate-induced in some way, or maybe too much salt at once? One of my nostrils was plugged up which doesn't usually happen unless I am dehydrated. After a little while I was feeling like I needed some sugar to calm down so I went down and drank some OJ and milk which made me feel better, but today I have noticed that I've been dealing with more mucus than normal in my sinus and throat.
 

mandance

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Welcome to the forums loess. And congrats on your new journey towards better health!
 
OP
loess

loess

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Thanks mandance! I am so grateful to have found my way to Ray Peat's work, and this place, it is a lovely group of open-minded intelligent folks.

I dropped a big chunk of change at Whole Foods yesterday but I am glad to be stocked up for a week or so. Got milk, OJ, oysters, shrimp, Carlson D3, niacinamide, couple of chocolate bars and cottage cheese. I am going to buy a thermometer today so I can start monitoring daily temps.
 
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loess

loess

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Today I am a rich man! Got my 300 watt bulbs & niacinamide powder in the mail. Found huge bags of wild caught shrimps & scallops at Costco, then turned around and literally collided my cart into cases of Mexican Coke. Then at the other grocery store I scored some rambutans and free case of oranges due to cashier error.

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4peatssake

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loess said:
Today I am a rich man! Got my 300 watt bulbs & niacinamide powder in the mail. Found huge bags of wild caught shrimps & scallops at Costco, then turned around and literally collided my cart into cases of Mexican Coke. Then at the other grocery store I scored some rambutans and free case of oranges due to cashier error.

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OP
loess

loess

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I would gladly give that kid a high five and buy him ice cream.

OK watch out because here comes the complain train.

1) I love the carrot salad but I am super frustrated with my slow digestion. It is just sitting in me like a rock lately. It is now 8:26 pm and I haven't felt like eating anything since I ate the carrot + coco oil + vinegar at noon. I know it's doing something because I get the stomach gurgles eventually but lately it takes hours and hours. I drank 1.5 tablespoons of cascara before I ate it and still nothing. I just drank some OJ and a little milk not even because I was hungry but just because I didn't want to go the whole day without eating anything.
2) The free case of oranges was sugary and yummy but yesterday I couldn't make it to the wholesaler so dropped $50 on a case of conventional navel oranges at the grocery store. I should have cut one open first because they are all ridiculously unripe. Might as well call them lemons. Huge waste of money but hey sometimes you gamble with fruit. THANKS A LOT for tricking me by dying the rinds of your oranges to make them look more orange, Sunkist. Still I might try to return them and see what happens.
3) Haven't pooped in 4 days. Need to figure it out, maybe not enough magnesium or other minerals. Drinking a lot of liquid, mostly OJ and milk but also have had grapes, persimmons, meat, cottage cheese and plenty of gelatin. Come on bowels, the endotoxin party is over, kick them outta there!
 
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loess

loess

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I guess the cascara finally kicked in because I woke up in the middle of the night and took care of #3 up there in a big way! I have no words to convey how much better I felt after that! Slept like a big old sleepy bear.

Today was great, I hit all my Peat goals. For once I actually got started eating early enough in the day to hit my sugar and protein needs (from OJ/dates/shrimps/scallops/gelatin). Got some liver in (with coffee and sugared milk) after a couple of weeks without it. Got in a tbsp of salt and some aspirin & niacinamide. Hung out under my lights and listened to music in the headphones. Earlier this week I bought a few bottles of Gerolsteiner mineral water and although it is a little bit pricey I think it's really helping me retain minerals instead of flushing them out when I need to drink water (usually in the mornings). The carbonation is nice too.

Tonight was the first time that I have felt like playing music in a long while. I picked up my banjo and didn't set it down for 1.5 hours. This one song I wrote on the guitar and played at my grandma's funeral a few years ago came back to me and spilled out in banjo form. I think some pieces of me that went dormant over these past months are slowly trickling back into my heart.
 
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loess

loess

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Time to update if only to type out some thoughts and see if it helps me sort some stuff out.

I seem to have settled into a pretty highly liquid diet. It's easy from a standpoint of being super lazy about preparing food, which I most certainly am. So that's a plus...but I am concerned that so much liquid might be causing me some problems. These days my food is coming from: OJ (10-15 oranges daily), skim milk (3 liters/day), sugar or honey (as needed), sometimes dates, niacinamide, B6, shrimp/scallops (5 days a week), gelatin, bone broth, oysters 1x or 2x/week. I'm unclear as to my protein needs, I can't seem to dial in what feels right but I may not be eating enough. I probably get around 50-60g/day, but it's hard to get more because if I eat too much at one time, I pay for it later. With the colder/drier weather I've been getting itchy scalp and skin. Haven't been eating liver very much so perhaps including it more often will help with that. Had 2 oz today with coffee/sugar/milk and will have 2 more oz in a day or two.

Here is a dilemma I have been feeling stuck in:

Carrot salad+cascara and charcoal+cascara do really good things for me overall. I do the charcoal once or twice a week, but it basically takes all day for it to go through me and needs to be taken completely on its own (with the exception of the cascara), so I usually have to wait for a day of rest or very low activity.

As for the carrot, I want to be able to do it every day. But it does not feel good to eat it with other foods, and it does not feel good to eat it on anything other than an empty stomach. The problem is, it takes 5-6 hours, sometimes more, for the carrot to clear out of my stomach and dump into my small intestine. My digestion is super slow and I am pretty certain that my vagus nerve is severely damaged and out of wack after the years of binge eating and dieting and other things leading to hypothyroidism. Anyway, I can feel what it feels like when the pyloric valve opens up and there is gurgling and food moves out of my stomach into my small intestine. It happens a little bit at a time but doesn't feel "finished" for at least 5-6 hours on average.

So, this leaves only a small window of time in the morning to eat the carrot without pushing too far into the day for the next meal. Problem is, in the morning I usually still have food sitting in my stomach from the night before. Sometimes water in the morning tends to help get things moving again. In addition, due to the drier weather and breathing a lot of stale air from the house A/C all night long, I often wake up with a stuffed nostril and dry mouth/throat so I need some water in the morning to help feel re-hydrated. I have tried repeatedly to avoid not drinking water in the morning and it just doesn't work. And when I consume sugar without being hydrated I get rapid heartbeat, anxiety, forehead sweating, difficulty breathing. It's a quandary because during the day I consume a heck of a lot of liquid (though I make a considerable effort to eat enough salt to offset that).

So anyway, often it's like 11 am or later before I can get to the carrot, and then I don't even want to bother because I'm gonna need fuel during the day, and I can't wait all day for the carrot to pass through. I guess I am going to have to get over it and do the carrot with other food and see what happens. But isn't there something about the carrot slowing or blocking absorption of vitamins/nutrients, just like charcoal? Does sugar from simple syrup or honey at least get absorbed OK when taken with carrot?

I have a feeling that my body is not ready to handle the amount of milk that I have been drinking. Or perhaps I need to get some milk from a different source. There is a farm that sells raw milk from grass-fed Jersey cows, but the only way I can get it is by driving an hour and back so it's not really practical on a regular basis. I may try dialing down the milk to a glass or two each day and replace with potato protein soup and perhaps eggshell to get calcium. I don't have the slightest idea of how to gauge the amount of eggshell I would need though.

Supplements:

Just got Nutrisorb vitamin A and some B6 powder. I have thiamine HCl powder coming which I will add to the niacinamide and B6 daily. Also have Thorne K2, and Swanson vitamin E on the way in the mail and will carefully experiment with these as needed. I was doing vitamin D on the wrist every day but I'm going to slow down until I can find a way to get enough magnesium in to balance it out. Hard to get enough magnesium with just transdermal magnesium oil so I may try spraying some oil into OJ and drinking it. Is it safe to take magnesium chloride orally like that? If not, I will order magnesium glycinate powder. Lastly I stopped aspirin since I wasn't eating liver much but since I am eating more and will also have the K2 liquid soon, I'll probably start it up again and see how it feels.

Bottom line on this stuff is:

1) I want to get some bloodwork done so I can get a better grasp on where I'm at instead of firing shots in the dark.
2) I may simply not be eating enough calories overall and compounding my issues because of it. I have been spending a lot of time underneath my lights, after all...
3) Long-term plan is to get on thyroid, but I'm doing my best to ensure that I get adapted to Peat food and lifestyle routines before I commit. I've read too many accounts of people having problems upon diving into taking thyroid too rapidly without getting other things ironed out first.
 
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loess

loess

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Sep 22, 2013
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I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I am beginning to rise out of the plateau I was at for a while. One thing that I figured out that something is up with the way my body deals with consuming OJ (even fresh-squeezed) at the same time as milk. Sits in my stomach and feels sour. I think too much OJ in general is not good for me. Maybe too acidic. I suspect that I would tolerate some fruits better if I was picking them ripe off of the tree. Incidentally, the other day I reconnected with a friend I hadn't seen in a couple of years who has a farm in Maui, so I may just be able to go for a visit and pick some tree-ripe tropical fruits some time next year. Anyway, now I am not so sure that the milk was my problem and I'm super psyched about that. Warm milk with honey and a little salt is like rocket fuel and digests well for me. A little at a time throughout the day. I am eager to take a day trip down to a farm I used to volunteer at so I can get some of their raw goat milk.

Today I had cascara+carrot salad and it was out of my stomach within 4 hours, and it went completely through me within 7 hours. That beats previous experience by a longshot, usually it takes 6-8 hours for the carrot to move through and anywhere from 16-24 hours for a bowel movement with cascara. If this shorter transit time keeps up, that will be huge for me. It means I could do the carrot more often and wouldn't have to set aside an entire day for it to clear.

I have been eating 1.5 oz of liver sautéed in ghee every other day this week, and an egg yolk on the days I don't eat the liver. Next week I probably will leave the liver out so as not to overdo it. Have noticed that I am not as itchy and have less dry scalp even with the weather turning colder and drier. I discovered today that my ribcage is a good spot to apply the magnesium oil (in addition to the tops and bottoms of my feet). Since there is no body hair there, there is not as much friction when I rub it in and it doesn't irritate my skin as much.
 
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loess

loess

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Yes, 600 mg along with 5 mg of B6, twice a day. It doesn't feel like too much, but will keep that in mind. I just received thiamine and was going to begin slowly addding it in small increments.
 
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loess

loess

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Eight years later. I'm in dire straits at 40 years old and living with the consequences of some extremely poor life choices and a broken body and brain. In 2017 I entered into what became a toxic relationship with a single mother and her two children. We eventually co-habitated and I lived largely as a stay-at-home stepparent over about four years, with a meager and very inconsistent income and progressive isolation from my friends and family. That's even kind of pushing it to describe it that way, as we only had the kids half the time. At the core, I was simply unemployed. The relationship finally imploded in a prolonged traumatic and high conflict split in the spring of last year. Lost my home, the momentum that I had invested into various farming projects on the acreage that we lived on, and all connection to my former stepchildren. I moved in with my parents and immediately came down with what may or may not have been COVID-19, developed further back problems and a nasty set of hemorrhoids spending 12-15 hours per day in the car working a completely chaotic job delivering lost/delayed luggage to airline passengers within a 4 hour radius of where I live.

The viral illness didn't have any effect on my respiratory system, but it most definitely got into my brain, producing pulsating headaches for four days straight and initiating a slew of neurological issues. This took place right alongside prolonged grief, panic, anxiety and complex-PTSD that followed my breakup and the unraveling of every fundamental piece of scaffolding in my life. All of this madness blew a bunch of circuits in my brain and damaged my HPA axis, resulted in eight months of crushing insomnia and came with a set of neurological, musculoskeletal and psychological sequelae that I continue to deal with to this day. I'm stuck in deep depression, anhedonia, learned helplessness and a veritable circus show of strange and unpredictable phenomena in my brain and nervous system, particularly with regard to my vagus nerve. Among the most prominent are multiple tones of really loud tinnitus, visual snow, spinal/back problems, episodes of panic and anxiety originating and centered in my solar plexus, random episodes of tachycardia and some kind of ever-present brain inflammation that, while it can vary in intensity, I can feel at all times. I'm thankful that it doesn't ever progress into headaches or migraines, but I'm certain that whatever's going on in there is driving nearly all of the downstream symptoms. I've had the tinnitus since my late teens, and the visual snow as far back as I can remember, so those aren't new, but what has taken place is that they both ramped way up in volume/intensity during that illness and have stayed that way. Also, my back is freaking killing me, but I suppose that's not so uncommon for people of my age.

I did fortunately leave the relationship free of all ties to my former partner and without debt, but I have no savings and an absolutely absymal work history over the past ten years. The last full-time job I had was in 2015 working as manager of a local bookstore. I'm thankful to have a roof over my head, but the environment that I'm in living with my parents is itself toxic and I've reached a point of paralysis in trying to re-launch my life from the ground up. I'm really confused and uncertain as to how to choose a career to pursue while contending with the chronic stress and unpredictability of the neuroinflammation and the episodes of anxiety, disorientation and panic that I go through, as well as the ways that I am frequently triggered into the unresolved grief and attachment that I have to my former life and former family. I'm pretty stumped as to what's actually going on with me anatomically/physiologically. I've thrown everything RP inspired that I can think of at this, and nothing has stuck. I can only conclude that the neuroinflammation trumps it all. I don't know if have Lyme disease, some version of mast-cell activation syndrome or other chronic inflammatory disorder, some sort of unknown latent post-viral infection, heavy metal toxicity, mold toxicity, or perhaps I'm simply experiencing the lived implications of somaticized and deeply internalized prolonged trauma. The possibilities are endless.

I've considered trying to pick up a trade, perhaps going through the two year process of schooling to become an electrician. It's hard to know what choices are inclusive of chronic pain, unstable coordination/motor skills, brain fog, etc, while also having a keen awareness that financial collapse is imminent yet you have years of building any kind of a career that pays halfway decently ahead of you that may or may not even be relevant in the future, and your life's hanging in the balance. If I had my health and psychological well-being intact and some savings, I'd be on my way toward going all in with an escape to Mexico, but for the foreseeable future that's not in the cards; my body's way too unstable to risk traveling alone like that. In addition, I've got so much trauma stored inside of me deal with that I don't feel like I'd be a healthy asset to any kind of intentional expat community without a ton of therapy and inner work to heal my attachment wounds, nervous system and emotional dysregulation and serious deficiency in courage and a sense of self.

Anyway, just thought I'd post in my old thread because I really don't know where to go from here. I know that don't want to ultimately live or settle in the midwest USA where I'm currently stuck and I can't continue to survive on 5-6 months of a lack of quality sunlight every year; my condition will at best plateau, but will likely further deterioriate. I know that it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to accrue enough money/savings to buy land anywhere before things go haywire. I know that I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life, but I definitely need to get comfortable with the potential to, because there's no way in hell I'm going to be ready to date or find a partner while inside of this crazy chronic illness and without years of working toward some kind of healing the dumpster fire that is my past, the ways in which my trust in other humans has been severely compromised, and the rest of the trauma that lives in my brain. I know that I'm starved for human touch and connection, but I'm not wired for casual sex and have no interest in pursuing it at this time. I'm still way too haunted by my ex and will probably never fully get over her.

Essentially, I'm completely lost in my life without much of a marketable skillset, and am starting from scratch at 40 years old while living in a state of constant somatic dissociation and a whole lot of resentment and bitterness. My sense of hope and autonomy over my one life has been almost entirely extinguished. A warning to any young, child-free folks considering dating a single parent with small children who has a high-conflict dynamic with their children's other parent: don't go there. If you don't have a developed sense of self and the ability to set strong, clear boundaries for yourself, then the chronic stress and the disempowerment that you might undergo in that dynamic has the potential to inflict massive damage on your physical and mental health. In addition, you could risk forging a bond and connection with people who, should things go south, you will lose forever, and your investment in time, energy, and finances could be a total waste.

My goal over the next few months is to try to find some kind of stable work that I can handle that produces enough income for me to move out to live on my own to find some kind of clarity and go from there. Open to any thoughts or advice from anyone who reads this; that being said there's inevitably a mountain of relevant additional context and data spanning years of my life that would be impossible to thoroughly or completely cover here.
 
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Old Irenaeus

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Well, your brain seems healthy enough to type a really long report free of grammar and spelling errors. That's something to be thankful for.
 
K

Kayaker

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@loess Are you EMF-sensitive? Do you feel faint while standing up? What's your TSH? When did you come down with the virus?
 
OP
loess

loess

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@Old Irenaeus You've got a point there for sure. I'll be the first to admit that I have a tendency to lose perspective and it's important to try to keep it in check.

@Kayaker Yes, very much so, and it sucks. It's inescapable until I can move out of here. I went from living rurally to living in the city in a house that's wired up with wi-fi and signal boosters/repeaters and all sorts of EMF-producing devices/appliances/gadgets, and it's really affected me. I believe that may be one of the primary factors in my blood-brain barrier continuing to be leaky/compromised for so long last year, right along with the insomnia. For all I know it's still not intact. Again, it certainly could be worse; I could be stuck in a shitty apartment in the inner city. I'm trying to find a quiet, small house to rent in one of the small towns in rural Iowa near the area where I used to live (we lived on an acreage).

I left in early April and came down with the virus (or whatever the hell it was) a week later. My parents were both vaxxed some time I think shortly prior to that, so it's possible that I caught COVID from their shedding. My ex got very sick as well a few weeks later; supposedly she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr. It took her about seven weeks to recover. I don't know if both of our illnesses were directly correlated or not. Certainly the stress leading up to and inside of the breakup had to have left us both with a greatly reduced capacity to fight off infection or re-activation of a latent virus like EBV.

I was in really bad shape most of last year. Yes, I felt faint standing up and would get headrushes/stars. POTS. Dizziness. That finally began to clear up in late November. I tried to donate blood in November but only made it maybe halfway through the pint before I nearly fainted. TSH in August was 2.25. I haven't tested it since then.
 
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K

Kayaker

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@Kayaker Yes, very much so, and it sucks. It's inescapable until I can move out of here. I went from living rurally to living in the city in a house that's wired up with wi-fi and signal boosters/repeaters and all sorts of EMF-producing devices/appliances/gadgets, and it's really affected me. I believe that may be one of the primary factors in my blood-brain barrier continuing to be leaky/compromised for so long last year, right along with the insomnia. For all I know it's still not intact. Again, it certainly could be worse; I could be stuck in a shitty apartment in the inner city. I'm trying to find a quiet, small house to rent in one of the small towns in rural Iowa near the area where I used to live (we lived on an acreage).
Good plan. You should buy some cheap farmland, if available. Would put distance between you and any future towers being built, and you would also be able to grow organic food.
I left in early April and came down with the virus (or whatever the hell it was) a week later. My parents were both vaxxed some time I think shortly prior to that, so it's possible that I caught COVID from their shedding. My ex got very sick as well a few weeks later; supposedly she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr. It took her about seven weeks to recover. I don't know if both of our illnesses were directly correlated or not. Certainly the stress leading up to and inside of the breakup had to have left us both with a greatly reduced capacity to fight off infection or re-activation of a latent virus like EBV.
You can't catch the virus from shedding. The virus has spike proteins on its surface and shedding mimics the actual illness except for replication.

Also, was your ex vaxxed? Sometimes, people have a re-activation of old viruses from it.

I was in really bad shape most of last year. Yes, I felt faint standing up and would get headrushes/stars. POTS. Dizziness. That finally began to clear up in late November. I tried to donate blood in November but only made it maybe halfway through the pint before I nearly fainted. TSH in August was 2.25. I haven't tested it since then.
TSH should be lower, and healing isn't going to happen well until it's minimized. Have you had ferritin tested? Almost fainting from losing half a pint is unusual. I also had the problem with standing this summer and noted a relapse after my parents got boosted. I believe niacinamide helps shed the proteins if taken from time to time.

 
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loess

loess

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Good plan. You should buy some cheap farmland, if available. Would put distance between you and any future towers being built, and you would also be able to grow organic food.
I wish I'd set myself up better financially to be able to buy land, but at present I only have around ~$1K to my name, no savings at all. Absolutely a future goal though.

You can't catch the virus from shedding. The virus has spike proteins on its surface and shedding mimics the actual illness except for replication.
Right - I didn't word that very well.

Also, was your ex vaxxed? Sometimes, people have a re-activation of old viruses from it.
My ex wasn't vaxxed before she got sick, but a couple of months later, after she'd recovered, she got the jab. I didn't know at the time and we had unprotected sex (like I said, it was a long, drawn-out, off-and-on breakup), and that slightly concerns me. If I'd known I wouldn't have gone there.


TSH should be lower, and healing isn't going to happen well until it's minimized. Have you had ferritin tested? Almost fainting from losing half a pint is unusual. I also had the problem with standing this summer and noted a relapse after my parents got boosted. I believe niacinamide helps shed the proteins if taken from time to time.
I started back up on a bit of thyroid (Cynomel and Tyromax) once winter hit, it's possible that it's come down, but perhaps I'll go get it tested again. I should start measuring my morning & after breakfast temps and pulse too. When I went to donate blood, hemoglobin tested at 15 g/dL. Have not had my ferritin tested; might be worth doing that alongside serum iron, transferrin, TIBC.

Even with the near-fainting, after I recovered from that I got the familiar feeling of overall clarity and just generally feeling a lot better after donating that I've experienced many times before after donating. I'm going to try again in February.

RE: niacinamide - I take 5-10 drops of Energin most days, and will occasionally dip my finger into niacinamide powder. I did a NutrEval plasma + urine a couple of weeks ago and just got the results from that back. I was rather surprised to see the big discrepancy in the higher reading on niacinamide against the rest of the B vitamins...

nutreval vitamins.png
 
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OP
loess

loess

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I've been taking 25mg of B6 (P5P), 50mg riboflavin and a tablespoon of glycine every day, and the neuroinflammation has consistently calmed down for the first time since I came down with the illness in April. It's kind of a miracle. I think replenishing B6 has something significant to do with it. I'm not going to continue at that dose for very long and will eventually taper it back to the 6 mg that is in Energin, as I don't want to overshoot it and create problems.

The C-PTSD, anxiety, and constant invasive thoughts and rumination about my ex and former life is just as debilitating as it has been and I spiral into manic episodes about it every day, but I'm thankful to have been able to, at least for now, quell what has been an extremely frightening and seemingly never-ending somatic experience of inflammation in my brain. I'm still getting used to what it feels like for that not to be present as intensely as it has. I find myself riding the edge of fear that it could return.

I think that it's likely that I've got MTHFR defects and that impaired methylation is a key driver of a lot of the mental issues and tendencies that have challenged me throughout my life and permeated my personality. In this season of life it's also continuing to keep me stuck in this highly anxious and hypervigilant state, alongside the confusion, claustrophobia and isolation of complex grief and mid-life crisis, directionlessness, applying for job after job with no success to date and having no social life whatsoever.

I'm going to try to experiment with addressing the undermethylation by supplementing additional riboflavin, glycine, choline (eggs), and creatine to boost and conserve methylfolate and reduce my system's demand for methylation. I also want to raise my glutathione back up so that it's at a sufficient level for me to re-introduce supplementing small quantities of TTFD (B1). Based on some of the markers in my NutrEval, I think my experiments with TTFD supplementation last year resulted in long running deficiencies of B6 and B2, glutathione and potassium.

Seriously lost and incredibly lonely in life right now searching for a path/career/way out of stuckness. I've been searching for a farm apprenticeship/WWOOF/work trade opportunity somewhere, but it's super confusing to figure out what to commit to and where to go since the COVID circus continues to create uncertainty and disconnection everywhere. My other thought is to bite the bullet and just find a position in my city at a crappy warehouse job or something, working as many hours as I can over the next year or so while living at my parents, saving money, building my car out to be semi-livable for several weeks at a time, and eventually making my way to Mexico. I need, like, a therapist or life-coach who is trauma-informed, aware of the Great Reset, hasn't bought into the COVID fear and disinformation, and has a bioenergetic lens on reality. Who's that golden goose and what's their phone number?
 
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K

Kayaker

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When I went to donate blood, hemoglobin tested at 15 g/dL. Have not had my ferritin tested; might be worth doing that alongside serum iron, transferrin, TIBC.
Hemoglobin isn't a good indicator of iron status. Mine is high and ferritin sitting at 30~, slightly below normal.
Even with the near-fainting, after I recovered from that I got the familiar feeling of overall clarity and just generally feeling a lot better after donating that I've experienced many times before after donating. I'm going to try again in February.
Interesting. Maybe you have toxins in your blood that you aren't excreting for some reason.
RE: niacinamide - I take 5-10 drops of Energin most days, and will occasionally dip my finger into niacinamide powder. I did a NutrEval plasma + urine a couple of weeks ago and just got the results from that back. I was rather surprised to see the big discrepancy in the higher reading on niacinamide against the rest of the B vitamins...
Those tests look fine, except for vitamin D, which means you should get Sun or a mercury vapor lamp.


I didn't have that brand of test, but most of my nutrients were below-average despite eating a nutritious diet. I think I have an absorption problem.

I've been taking 25mg of B6 (P5P), 50mg riboflavin and a tablespoon of glycine every day, and the neuroinflammation has consistently calmed down for the first time since I came down with the illness in April. It's kind of a miracle. I think replenishing B6 has something to do with it, because I was already getting plenty of riboflavin from food and Energin.
What made you decide to try P5P?
The C-PTSD, anxiety, and constant invasive thoughts and rumination about my ex and former life is just as debilitating as it has been and I spiral into manic episodes about it every day, but I'm thankful to have been able to, at least for now, quell what has been an extremely frightening and seemingly never-ending somatic experience of inflammation in my brain. I'm still getting used to what it feels like for that not to be present as intensely as it has. I find myself riding the edge of fear that it could return.
By neuroinflammation, you mean brain fog and what other symptoms? I had neuroinflammation, and what felt like my brain swelling because my eyes were pressing up against my eyelids and they were hard to open and close. I consider neuroinflammation to be just brain fog. Just as various things can cause skin inflammation like cuts and burns, different things can cause neuroinflammation, but the result is the same. Brain fog, brain shutdown.
I think that it's likely that I've got MTHFR defects and that impaired methylation is a key driver of a lot of my mental issues that have challenged me throughout my life and it's continuing to keep me stuck in this highly anxious and hypervigilant state, alongside the confusion, claustrophobia and isolation of complex grief and mid-life crisis, directionlessness, applying for job after job with no success to date and having no social life whatsoever.
I've come across this article many times.

I'm going to try to experiment with addressing the undermethylation by supplementing additional riboflavin, glycine, choline (eggs), and creatine to boost and conserve methylfolate and reduce my system's demand for methylation. I also want to raise my glutathione levels so that they're at a sufficient level to re-introduce small quantities of TTFD (B1). Based on some of the markers in my NutrEval, I think my experiments with TTFD supplementation last year resulted in long running deficiencies of B6 and B2, glutathione and potassium.
That's unfortunately an issue with supplementing for chronically hypometabolic people. They have deficiencies in general, they supplement one or a few vitamins or minerals, they feel better, then they end up feeling worse because they make other deficiencies even worse. They think because they felt good that they should just take more of what made them feel better at first.
Seriously lost and incredibly lonely in life right now searching for a path/career/way out of stuckness. I've been searching for a farm apprenticeship/WWOOF/work trade opportunity somewhere, but it's so hard to figure out what to commit to and where to go since the COVID circus continues to create uncertainty and disconnection everywhere. My other thought is to bite the bullet and just find a position at a crappy warehouse job or something, working as many hours as I can while living at my parents, saving money and eventually making my way to Mexico. I need, like, a therapist or life-coach who is trauma-informed, aware of the Great Reset, hasn't bought into the COVID fear and disinformation, and has a bioenergetic lens on reality. Who's that golden goose and what's their phone number?
Are you sure you can handle Mexico, amigo? :smokingsombrero

The Great Reset isn't set in stone. You can still fight it.

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