A Weird Oxygen Experience

[j.]

Summary: I had a feeling that in some positions, like when lying down, not enough oxygen was getting to my head. I took thyroid and that feeling went away in about 20 minutes.

Complete story:

I developed a bit of a metabolic acidosis due to excess ingestion of acids and misuse of vinegar a few days ago. It practically fixed itself in two days. I was using a few drops of progesterone per day, like 3 drops. But after I felt I was fine again, I still added two more drops to feel more relaxed and sleep. Then I felt like not enough oxygen was going to my head when I was lying down. So I had to sit for a few hours, and only 8 hours later, at about 7 a.m. in the morning, I was able to comfortably lie down.

During the day, there were no symptoms. I thought the problem that occurred after taking progesterone was a one time thing, and I took one drop of Progest-E. A few hours later the feeling reappeared. After some hours, I felt it went on for too long, and decided to take half a grain of thyroid. That fixed the problem in 20 minutes.

I haven't been taking thyroid for a while, so maybe low thyroid was an important part of the problem. Pregenolone, progesterone, or DHEA didn't solve it, but thyroid apparently did.

 

[Blossom]

Maybe the thyroid helped restore your cells to a better oxidative metabolism that was impaired from the acidosis due to vinegar?

 

[j.]

Maybe the thyroid helped restore your cells to a better oxidative metabolism that was impaired from the acidosis due to vinegar?

Makes sense. Chronic kidney patients have something called "low t3 syndrome".

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by a low T3 syndrome

I'm not chronic, but maybe the metabolic acidosis lowered my T3 for a little while. There was a researcher who tried using T3 with kidney patients. She concluded that it was a bad idea because it increased protein wastage, and therefore was a bad idea. Unfortunately I didn't save the link. But Peat seems to disagree with that as among the first things he advises for kidney patients is a thyroid supplement.

 

[Blossom]

That's very interesting. If they have low t3 syndrome it would make sense that it could only help (to give t3) in the long run even if the immediate response didn't seem positive. The research was probably flawed due to a lack of a realistic understanding of what to expect because of all the confusion in 'medical science'. I often wonder how things would change if egos were put aside and science was truly incorporated into medicine. It would probably cut into someone's pharmaceutical profits if it got out that t3 helped and also open a can of worms about what else it can do. It reminds me of how Peat talks about the use of t3 for brain dead heart donors for it's protective properties yet medicine, in the U.S. at least, will rarely prescribe it for a living person!

 

[j.]

I think the research was flawed just because the researcher didn't say "hey, if it wastes proteins, let's give the patient more protein somehow and see what happens".

It seems that the right strategy generally should be to fix the thyroid no matter what. If fixing it creates problems, then try to fix the new problems in a different way, but don't give up on fixing thyroid function.

 

[Blossom]

I think the research was flawed just because the researcher didn't say "hey, if it wastes proteins, let's give the patient more protein somehow and see what happens".

It seems that the right strategy generally should be to fix the thyroid no matter what. If fixing it creates problems, then try to fix the new problems in a different way, but don't give up on fixing thyroid function.

I agree j. If the subjects nutrition had been improved upon when adding the t3 as per RP recommendations the outcome probably would have been far different. There is a definite lack of appreciation for nutrition in 'medicine' still to this day as evidenced by the soybean oil pumped routinely in many sick peoples veins when they are unable to eat on there own. At least it's gluten free?!?

 

[j.]

Lemon, although acidic, raises pH due to the products of its metabolism. I wonder if lemon juice is an effective treatment for people with chronic metabolic acidosis. It would be one of those cheap RP cures that typically are implemented with expensive patented drugs.

 

[Blossom]

If memory serves me correctly the people who advocate eating an 'alkaline' diet push lemon juice heavily and the use of pH strips. I ran into a wide variety of interesting people and approaches working at a health food store in college.

 

[Blossom]

It just dawned on me that sodium bicarbonate would probably help quickly if that happened again. It's used a lot here on the forum and I've seen it used at work too. Thyroid helping is probably a sign that you just need to stay on top of your thyroid by getting enough thyroid regularly to prevent that from happening so easily. I hope you don't have to go through that again but if you do maybe try the baking soda so your not stuck suffering for hours on end. It's just a thought I had.

 

[Blossom]

Now that I think about it you probably were cautious because of your previous milk alkali syndrome.

 

[j.]

Now that I think about it you probably were cautious because of your previous milk alkali syndrome.

Haha, yeah. Now I'm not completely convinced it was low oxygen, it could've been also allergic reactions, a form of anxiety, a combination of many things. I think it's less serious than I thought at first. It doesn't make sense to me to not get enough oxygen in the head only when you're lying down, since it seems the blood would move more easily when it doesn't have to fight against gravity.

I did notice that there are places where they list lightheadedness as a side effect of progesterone.

 

[Blossom]

Now that I think about it you probably were cautious because of your previous milk alkali syndrome.

Haha, yeah. Now I'm not completely convinced it was low oxygen, it could've been also allergic reactions, a form of anxiety, a combination of many things. I think it's less serious than I thought at first. It doesn't make sense to me to not get enough oxygen in the head only when you're lying down, since it seems the blood would move more easily when it doesn't have to fight against gravity.

I did notice that there are places where they list lightheadedness as a side effect of progesterone.

I was just assuming you had to sit up to breathe. Of course I would think that! You never even said that but I thought it anyway because of my day in and day out experience with people who can't breathe comfortably lying down. That's why I originally thought bag breathing might help. Oh well, I'm glad that over for you anyway.

 

[j.]

My current beliefs about what happened.

I damaged my adrenal glands, so my body had difficulty producing aldosterone. When I took progesterone, which antagonizes aldosterone, my body couldn't produce aldosterone fast enough. Aldosterone regulates blood pressure, so blood pressure went down, and that's what I was feeling.

How I damaged my adrenals? One of the two recent attacks to my body, either the bad plastic experience, or the excess of acids I talk about in the OP. I think it's the former. I'm extremely sensitive to liquid from plastic, so I tried to "get used to it", as I mentioned in the linked post, by consuming a lot of it. The next morning I woke up with back pain, which I think meant the kidney and/or adrenals reacted badly to it, and made me even more sensitive, even to the amounts I can usually tolerate fine. Once I stopped all such consumption, recovery came quickly. I already can consume such liquids now, provided I'm in a low stress state, with sugar, etc.

The damage to the adrenals was of the acute version, from which one can recover quickly.

 

[charlie]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Plastics and food is freaking evil. Even if you are able to "tolerate" it you knows it still inside doing damage.

 

[j.]

I was thinking that if your immune system attacks your adrenal glands, it can initiate a self-perpetuating cycle. Cortisol has the capacity to slow down the immune system, but since your adrenals are the ones responsible for secreting cortisol, no one at that moment could stop your immune system from attacking the adrenals.

When doctors see a patient with damaged adrenals glands, they typically don't know what caused it. It's "idiopathic", or an unexplained attack of the immune system. My guess is that these people are hypothyroid and sensitive to estrogen, and the immune system attacks the estrogenic substances they consume, such as plastic, and while the immune system does that it also attacks the adrenals.