Advice For Severe Adrenal Stress And Hypoglycemia

[linnae]

Hello! Im new here and so thankful to have found such an amazing community! I just spent most of today scouring the threads for information and while it was all so interesting and helpful (and contrary to everything i have ever heard) I'm so confused! So, I thought i would try and ask for your insight because my issues seem to cross multiple threads but I am sure are all related somehow.
Also, I apologize for the length of this in advance and I thank all who read it in its entirety.

Currently I have severe stage 3/4 adrenal stress syndrome aka HPA axis dysfunction. I have been working with Dr Lam since May and also a bio identical hormone doctor.

Here is a brief about my history:
I am a recovering alcoholic, sober for 10 1/2 years. I was a functional alcoholic and used it as a coping mechanism for stress amd anxiety. I drank heavily for about 3 years when i was under constant stress- was in a job that i hated and felt trapped in and also my son was diagnosed with autism. All of my health problems started after i quit drinking.
I spent the the first 5 of the last 10 years focused on helping my son and let my health decline.
Immediately after I quit drinking i had adrenal fatigue type stmptoms but didnt know thats what they were- postural hypotension and reactive hypoglycemia. I added more salt and ate more frequently which helped for a while.
Then i met a nutritionist to help with my son and we started a low carb diet and I actually felt great from it. Since i was cooking and it was just him and i, i did the diet too by default, thinking it would help my issues too. Then we did the GAPS diet for 2 years and it was really hard but rewarding for my son, as he recovered from the autism symptoms. My son transitioned off gaps nicely but i didnt. Within that 2 years on the gaps i started developing food sensitivities and started eliminating foods. My energy levels began to tank and my anxiety levels rose. I was constantly stressed.
Because i hated my job, when my son was old enough i went back to a school- 15 hours per week. The stress of school was intense as iwas also working 32-38 hourse per week. I had an adrenal crash then but was able to function thru it by taking lots of vitamins and daily naps.
After I graduated, about 2 years ago now, I started my own business and quit my other job. I was hoping that the stress level would go down but it was just a different kind of stress.
Then I got into the 'wired and tired' state where i couldnt shut off. I started having lots more food issues, anxiety, more blood sugar issues, sleep issues, was constantly exhausted to the point where my bones ached, and then the allergies started- seasonal, dander, perfumes, everything., I think I was running on pure adrnaline everyday!
This past fall I decided to start the GAPS diet again because that is supposed to help with allergies. Shorty after I started having low blood pressure drops after eating and discovered I had now developed a histamine intolerance. Gaps diet is high in histamine. Not sure where to turn so i started working with a functional med doctor in February who ran abunch of expensive tests and said i had toxic bowel syndrome and high levels of candida and to do a low fodmap diet. It didnt address any of my blood pressure or sugar issues so he referred me to a bio identical hormone doctor.
During this time my adrnals completely crashed and i became mostly bedridden. This was in April and I saw the hormone doctor in May. He ran a pretty comprehensive metabolic panel and the findings were that my liver enzymes were elevated, all sex horomes were very low and i was estrogen dominant, my cortisol levels were at a normal rhythm but higher than should be in am and lower than should be at night, my dhea was very low, and my thyroid panel looked good (he said i was making good amounts but whether my cells could use it was another story). He gave me a compound progesterone cream at 5% and dhea at 1%- low doses at my request due to my sensitivities. This way i could titrate up as body could tolerate.
I also started seeing Dr Lam in May. I find that thier protocols and level of support are very helpful but i havent made any real progress.
6 weeks ago i was starting to feel good so i went and had acupuncture and chiropractic and it was way too much for my system and i had the worst crash ever. Severe heart palpitations, trouble breathing, anxiety, worse hypoglycemia, constant headache, and I was completely bed ridden for 5 weeks. I thought I was dying and contemplated going to the ER but I knew that it was all hormonal and they wouldnt help me so I pushed thru amd rested and did deep breathing. I am just finally starting to come around again within the past few days.
Currently i am in bed 95% of the day. My energy levels are low. Just getting up to make food is exhausting.
My diet consists of really only meat with meat broths and vegetable broth.
I cannot tolerate any fiber and havent been able to for about 3 months. i get terrible indigestion and migraines. I dont have any issues with meat though.
I have had diarrhea for the past 6 months.
I think i may have sibo, i know i did when i was drinking.
My blood sugar is a mess- i have to eat every 90 min to 2 hours 24 hours a day- i havent slept more than 2 hours at a time for 6 months!!! When i crash i cant tolerate any form of sugar at all but when im not crashing carrot juice or apple juice diluted helps me feel better.
Currently my histamine levels seems to be low because i have been trying teaspoons of sauerkraut juice off and on and have had no reactions yet.
I also eat a lot of fat- coconut oil, duck fat, tallow, and avocado oil.
I feel like I am starving even though i am eating about 2+ lbs of meat per day! I dream about food- moslty sugar- which is why Im glad i found Ray Peat! However his diet goes against everything ive been taught- that Sugar is bad!
So, the supplements i am taking are progesterone, dhea, Pantotheanine, vitamin C, chromium, phytoplankton, and a multi vitamin. Everything is topical due to my severe digestive issues and also very small doses. Dr Lam says that in this stage of adrenal stress the liver is over burdened and the extra cellular matrix is toxic so there can be paradoxical reactions.
Phew! After all that (and thank you for reading!) I need advice on were I hsould start. I need to move forward very sowly to avoid further crashees. I do plan to continue with Dr Lam because i really feel they are helping and also my hormone doctor too. But neither of them can guide me with diet and i feel that is my biggest hangup with why im not getting any better and also why I got so sick to begin with. I realize stress played a big part but the low carb diet, i think, is what lowered my tolerance for stress to begin with.

So, I thank in advance for your bits of wisdom and I welcome any insight and guidance!.

 

[Giraffe]

while it was all so interesting and helpful (and contrary to everything i have ever heard) I'm so confused!

This is how I felt when I found Ray Peat's website. Thankful and so confused!

to the forum @linnae.

My blood sugar is a mess- i have to eat every 90 min to 2 hours 24 hours a day- i havent slept more than 2 hours at a time for 6 months!!! When i crash i cant tolerate any form of sugar at all but when im not crashing carrot juice or apple juice diluted helps me feel better.

When I found Peat works I could not sleep more than four hours. Among other things, I learned that it is stress hormones rising, what wakes me up, and that I need to improve glycogen stores in the liver. To improve glycogen stores you first need to come off stress hormones. I started to pay attention to symptoms (such as cold tip of the nose, frequent urination, cold hands and feet, feeling irritable) and I had a snack as soon as I noticed, usually some fruit juice or salted milk. I also changed my diet a bit (mainly less PUFAs, more fructose). It took about a month, and I could sleep five to six hours.

I also eat a lot of fat- coconut oil, duck fat, tallow, and avocado oil.
I feel like I am starving even though i am eating about 2+ lbs of meat per day! I dream about food- moslty sugar- which is why Im glad i found Ray Peat! However his diet goes against everything ive been taught- that Sugar is bad!

When you crave sugar, your body is telling you that it needs sugar, and there is nothing wrong with it.

With that much meat you will get a lot of phosphorus, iron and inflammatory amino acids. You can balance it a bit by adding calcium (e.g. eggshell powder) and gelatin.

I have had diarrhea for the past 6 months.

Have you tried activated charcoal?

So, the supplements i am taking are progesterone, dhea, Pantotheanine, vitamin C, chromium, phytoplankton, and a multi vitamin.

Progesterone and a little DHEA sounds good. I would add vitamin E.

Peat thinks that chromium is too toxic to use as a supplement. I have researched this a bit, and it looks like there is very little evidence that it helps with blood sugar issues. Not sure I would supplement phytoplankton or vitamin C (better to get it from food). What is pantotheanine? What is in your multi and how much?

Don't know if you have read these articles by Ray Peat:

Gelatin, stress, longevity
Vitamin E: Estrogen antagonist, energy promoter, and anti-inflammatory
Tryptophan, serotonin, and aging
Unsaturated Vegetable Oils: Toxic
Oils in context

You find a few useful links to threads and forums here:
New to Peat: How to get started? - Ray Peat Forum Wiki

Please look into the diet section. Take it slow if you decide to make changes to your diet.

Good luck!

 

[tara]

linnae
Sorry you've been having such a rough time.

I realize stress played a big part but the low carb diet, i think, is what lowered my tolerance for stress to begin with.

Could well be a part of it.

I second Giraffe's suggestions of adding calcium, gelatine, dreaming about sugar being an indicator of needing more of it, and making changes gradually. And her recommendation to read Peat's articles.

I am not an expert, but some thoughts ...
My hunch is that one of the keys for you will be figuring out which sources of carbohydrate you can most easily tolerate as you begin to reintroduce them as a larger part of your fuel. Maybe slowly, small quantities at a time.
Ideally, you will be able to retrain your system to run on a lot more carbohydrates, but some people seem to find this transition difficult to accomplish if they've been on a low carb diet for a while. If the trouble is primarily related to bacteria and endotoxin, then the simpler sugars may be most likely to digest more easily, and occasional use of activated charcoal might doa useful clean up now and then (eg once or twice a week). If gut irritation is significantly at play, then trying to find carbs that aren't too heavy in the particular irritants might be key. Mittir has some good posts on common gut irritants. If it is histamine, then some anti-histamine tactics may help - sugar, salt, theanine, cyproheptadine, diphenhydramine ...

You could experiment with small amounts of different sources. Eg:
-orange juice - preferably fresh ripe strained juice if you can access that
-clear apple juice -some people have trouble with OJ and find a clear apple juice easier to digest
- stewed fruit maybe sweetened with extra sucrose
- honey
- sucrose (downside of refined sucrose is that it is devoid of minerals and vitamins )
Peat seems to favour sweet ripe fruits as the major source of carbs, but some people seem to do well with starchier foods like well-boiled or coconut oil-baked potatoes. If major gut dysbiosis is currently key for you, the sugars may digest quicker and easier, and the spuds might feed the bacteria more because they take more breaking down. But some people here seem to get benefit from more glucose than fructose, at least at times.

The Randle 'cycle' means that while there is very high circulating fat, some tissues are more primed to burn the fat and less effective at burning sugar. For people who have trouble burning glucose, some have improved this by eating more carbs and a lot less fat. But it hasn't necessarily worked for everyone.

6 weeks ago i was starting to feel good so i went and had acupuncture and chiropractic and it was way too much for my system and i had the worst crash ever. Severe heart palpitations, trouble breathing, anxiety, worse hypoglycemia, constant headache, and I was completely bed ridden for 5 weeks. I thought I was dying and contemplated going to the ER but I knew that it was all hormonal and they wouldnt help me so I pushed thru amd rested and did deep breathing. I am just finally starting to come around again within the past few days.

AIUI, panic attacks are often (maybe always?) associated with functional hyperventilation - ie blowing out too much CO2. Both overbreathing and low metabolism can all contribute to this.

feel like I am starving even though i am eating about 2+ lbs of meat per day!

If it's leanish meat, 2 pounds could still be a bit low in calories (quite a part from being low in carbs).

Have you thoroughly measured body temps and resting heartrate? Can give a idea of how base metabolism is running, and gives you something to monitor to see if it is improving.

 

[linnae]

thank you for the nice welcome and advice!!!
Its good to know that Im not alone with these blood sugar issues and that there is hope that it will get better!
I am paying very close attention to my body and I never let myself get hungry anymore. It sounds like, right now, I am doing the right thing by eating frequently and using foods that balance the blood sugar but I might be adding to the problem by not eating carbs and eating too many things that over burden the liver. I think my first thing should be to work on my liver. Thank you for the advice about the calcium and gelatin. I have had some sensitivities to gelatin in the past, from the glutamate in it. Should i avoid it then or use small quantities?

I have used activated charcoal a few times. I will add that to my regime. Do you think I can add it to my bath water too and would that be helpful?

Do you have a recommendation for a good vitamin e? I checked the one ihave and its in a base of sinflower oil- im thinking thats a no-no, correct?

I will talk with Dr Lam about discontinuing the chromium. I havent seem any results from it, so i happy to let that go.

They have me on the phytoplankton because its supposed to clean up the extra cellular matrix but i havent had good luck with, it makes me very anxious so im on a negligible dose, 1 toothpick wiped on my wrist for 30 seconds 1x per week.

The vitamin c is supposed to be crucial for adrenal health, im not sure i can skip that until i can expand my diet a little more.

The pantotheanine is pantothenic acid- b5. Dr Lam says its cruical to the adrnals as well. Not sure im seeing much benefit from it or not?

This is the multi vitamin i take TWICE-A-DAY, 120 vegicaps
I have taken it for probably 8 years off amd on when im stressed but this past February when i was starting to crash my body rejected it and it made the crash worse. I still try and take it occasionally because i feel like my diet is so restricted that im missing a lot. The only way i can tolerate it right now is if i open a capsule and mix it with water and rub it on my abdomen. I get 4 doses out of each pill. so again, very small dosing, but any more makes me feel like im crashing again.

thank you so much for the article links and the wiki link, they were very informative and helpful!



to the forum @linnae.


When I found Peat works I could not sleep more than four hours. Among other things, I learned that it is stress hormones rising, what wakes me up, and that I need to improve glycogen stores in the liver. To improve glycogen stores you first need to come off stress hormones. I started to pay attention to symptoms (such as cold tip of the nose, frequent urination, cold hands and feet, feeling irritable) and I had a snack as soon as I noticed, usually some fruit juice or salted milk. I also changed my diet a bit (mainly less PUFAs, more fructose). It took about a month, and I could sleep five to six hours.


When you crave sugar, your body is telling you that it needs sugar, and there is nothing wrong with it.

With that much meat you will get a lot of phosphorus, iron and inflammatory amino acids. You can balance it a bit by adding calcium (e.g. eggshell powder) and gelatin.


Have you tried activated charcoal?


Progesterone and a little DHEA sounds good. I would add vitamin E.

Peat thinks that chromium is too toxic to use as a supplement. I have researched this a bit, and it looks like there is very little evidence that it helps with blood sugar issues. Not sure I would supplement phytoplankton or vitamin C (better to get it from food). What is pantotheanine? What is in your multi and how much?

Don't know if you have read these articles by Ray Peat:

Gelatin, stress, longevity
Vitamin E: Estrogen antagonist, energy promoter, and anti-inflammatory
Tryptophan, serotonin, and aging
Unsaturated Vegetable Oils: Toxic
Oils in context

You find a few useful links to threads and forums here:
New to Peat: How to get started? - Ray Peat Forum Wiki

Please look into the diet section. Take it slow if you decide to make changes to your diet.

Good luck![/QUOTE]

 

[PakPik]

Hi Linnae, it's good to have you around! :)

It sounds like, right now, I am doing the right thing by eating frequently and using foods that balance the blood sugar but I might be adding to the problem by not eating carbs

If there are not enough carbs, there's no balancing in blood sugar whatsoever (even if the numbers seem good for some time); in fact low carb contributes to worsening of sugar handling issues (if body is deprived of glucose it will do everything it can to get it, even at the expense of breaking down the tissues like the liver, the thymus, or even the heart and the brain). The process of breaking down tissue to convert it to glucose is extremely stressful and relies heavily on catabolic hormones like cortisol, this in turn generates insulin resistance, etc.... That pretty much guarantees crashing/atrophying adrenals and the rest of the body even more, while damaging mitochondria and thus the power of the cells to process sugar correctly and produce energy.

I really do ponder why that kind of diet is recommended for people presenting with sugar and high stress disorders/symptoms, if it just make matters worse (even if for the first months the person seems to be getting some sort of energy, but it is more like a high/stimulation from high stress hormones due to carb shortage, not real energy).

If this continues , the liver ends up losing more and more the ability to store glycogen, which will make it really really hard to maintain steady glucose supply levels throughout the day.

I totally understand where you are coming from regarding your sugar issues, since when I was really ill, not too long ago, I had to eat every 30 minutes, I couldn't even sleep because my sugar handling was so poor I was up all night till dawn eating and dealing with continuous horrible attacks. I just didn't sleep at all. I also spent around 95% of time in bed.

These are just pieces of the puzzle that I consider fundamental and have been really critical for my recovery. I thought I'd share them with you, and I hope slowly and gently you get a better understanding of your issues and get to a better place :)

The vitamin c is supposed to be crucial for adrenal health, im not sure i can skip that until i can expand my diet a little more.

The pantotheanine is pantothenic acid- b5. Dr Lam says its cruical to the adrnals as well. Not sure im seeing much benefit from it or not?

While certain vitamins can be very therapeutic in certain instances, if a person is facing terrible stress from something like starvation / low carbing -which is a form of starvation-, there's not much vitamins will do. Correcting a chronic stress situation means taming or even eradicating the things that are contributing to it, which doesn't exclude the possible benefits of supportive agents, but again, if the chronic sources of stress keep existing there's not much that a supplement will do. Conversely, if a person targets the most important contributing factors, especially including eating enough and eating well in terms of health-promoting macro and micronutrient intake-, then the addition of supplements plus some other measures can really work wonders.

I feel like I am starving even though i am eating about 2+ lbs of meat per day!

Well, low carbing and low calorie are starvation-style diets, so it makes sense you feel that way (on top of any preexisting issues you may have had before the restrictive diets).

I'm not suggesting that you need to eat in a certain specific way that will be counterproductive to you. We all have to figure out how to proceed with dietary changes by ourselves since we know our bodies better than any other person. I'm just pointing out that it is important to keep in mind that certain diets or lifestyles can make more part of the problem than the solution. The importance of enough carbs and calories, and well-balanced nutrients for the body can not be overstated as well.

I hope the best for you!

 

[linnae]

linnae
Sorry you've been having such a rough time.


Could well be a part of it.

I second Giraffe's suggestions of adding calcium, gelatine, dreaming about sugar being an indicator of needing more of it, and making changes gradually. And her recommendation to read Peat's articles.

I am not an expert, but some thoughts ...
My hunch is that one of the keys for you will be figuring out which sources of carbohydrate you can most easily tolerate as you begin to reintroduce them as a larger part of your fuel. Maybe slowly, small quantities at a time.
Ideally, you will be able to retrain your system to run on a lot more carbohydrates, but some people seem to find this transition difficult to accomplish if they've been on a low carb diet for a while. If the trouble is primarily related to bacteria and endotoxin, then the simpler sugars may be most likely to digest more easily, and occasional use of activated charcoal might doa useful clean up now and then (eg once or twice a week). If gut irritation is significantly at play, then trying to find carbs that aren't too heavy in the particular irritants might be key. Mittir has some good posts on common gut irritants. If it is histamine, then some anti-histamine tactics may help - sugar, salt, theanine, cyproheptadine, diphenhydramine ...

You could experiment with small amounts of different sources. Eg:
-orange juice - preferably fresh ripe strained juice if you can access that
-clear apple juice -some people have trouble with OJ and find a clear apple juice easier to digest
- stewed fruit maybe sweetened with extra sucrose
- honey
- sucrose (downside of refined sucrose is that it is devoid of minerals and vitamins )
Peat seems to favour sweet ripe fruits as the major source of carbs, but some people seem to do well with starchier foods like well-boiled or coconut oil-baked potatoes. If major gut dysbiosis is currently key for you, the sugars may digest quicker and easier, and the spuds might feed the bacteria more because they take more breaking down. But some people here seem to get benefit from more glucose than fructose, at least at times.

The Randle 'cycle' means that while there is very high circulating fat, some tissues are more primed to burn the fat and less effective at burning sugar. For people who have trouble burning glucose, some have improved this by eating more carbs and a lot less fat. But it hasn't necessarily worked for everyone.


AIUI, panic attacks are often (maybe always?) associated with functional hyperventilation - ie blowing out too much CO2. Both overbreathing and low metabolism can all contribute to this.


If it's leanish meat, 2 pounds could still be a bit low in calories (quite a part from being low in carbs).

Have you thoroughly measured body temps and resting heartrate? Can give a idea of how base metabolism is running, and gives you something to monitor to see if it is improving.

Thanks Tara!
I will look into posts about gut and histamine. That definitely seems to be an issue for me. I tried 1/2 tsp of gelatin in some water earlier today and had a mild histamine reaction. So cleaning up my gut needs to be a priority.

Do you know anything about taking pepcid for histamine issues? Is it safe? Perhaps i can do that and then be able to tolerate the gelatin...? or will it just cross cancel the effects?

I have been able to tolerate diluted freshly pressed apple juice the past few days and it had really helped my energy levels. But until i get my gut cleaned up im not sure i can do any fiber so its good to know juice will help for a bit!

The panic attacks are usually related to low blood sugar. If i eat and do breathig techniques i can work thru them. The only exception is during the last adrenal crash i had constant anxiety for about 2 straight weeks but my blood sugar was a mess then too.

I do think that im not eating enough calories. I calculated it out and with the meat and fat its around 2800 and i have read for someone trying to heal hey need 3000-3200. I think now that im adding in some juice it will help.

I haven't measured my temps or resting pulse. I will look into how to do that and start.
Thanks for all the help!!!

 

[linnae]

Hi Linnae, it's good to have you around! :)


If there are not enough carbs, there's no balancing in blood sugar whatsoever (even if the numbers seem good for some time); in fact low carb contributes to worsening of sugar handling issues (if body is deprived of glucose it will do everything it can to get it, even at the expense of breaking down the tissues like the liver, the thymus, or even the heart and the brain). The process of breaking down tissue to convert it to glucose is extremely stressful and relies heavily on catabolic hormones like cortisol, this in turn generates insulin resistance, etc.... That pretty much guarantees crashing/atrophying adrenals and the rest of the body even more, while damaging mitochondria and thus the power of the cells to process sugar correctly and produce energy.

I really do ponder why that kind of diet is recommended for people presenting with sugar and high stress disorders/symptoms, if it just make matters worse (even if for the first months the person seems to be getting some sort of energy, but it is more like a high/stimulation from high stress hormones due to carb shortage, not real energy).

If this continues , the liver ends up losing more and more the ability to store glycogen, which will make it really really hard to maintain steady glucose supply levels throughout the day.

I totally understand where you are coming from regarding your sugar issues, since when I was really ill, not too long ago, I had to eat every 30 minutes, I couldn't even sleep because my sugar handling was so poor I was up all night till dawn eating and dealing with continuous horrible attacks. I just didn't sleep at all. I also spent around 95% of time in bed.

These are just pieces of the puzzle that I consider fundamental and have been really critical for my recovery. I thought I'd share them with you, and I hope slowly and gently you get a better understanding of your issues and get to a better place :)



While certain vitamins can be very therapeutic in certain instances, if a person is facing terrible stress from something like starvation / low carbing -which is a form of starvation-, there's not much vitamins will do. Correcting a chronic stress situation means taming or even eradicating the things that are contributing to it, which doesn't exclude the possible benefits of supportive agents, but again, if the chronic sources of stress keep existing there's not much that a supplement will do. Conversely, if a person targets the most important contributing factors, especially including eating enough and eating well in terms of health-promoting macro and micronutrient intake-, then the addition of supplements plus some other measures can really work wonders.


Well, low carbing and low calorie are starvation-style diets, so it makes sense you feel that way (on top of any preexisting issues you may have had before the restrictive diets).

I'm not suggesting that you need to eat in a certain specific way that will be counterproductive to you. We all have to figure out how to proceed with dietary changes by ourselves since we know our bodies better than any other person. I'm just pointing out that it is important to keep in mind that certain diets or lifestyles can make more part of the problem than the solution. The importance of enough carbs and calories, and well-balanced nutrients for the body can not be overstated as well.

I hope the best for you!

Thanks for the input, you have confirmed my suspicions about the low carb diet. I feel so dupped by our current alternative health care providers. Everyone suggests low carb/ low sugar! Its literally killing me! I just wish that i wouldve wised up sooner. Eating sugary foods after eating low carbs for a while always made me feel yucky so i kept avoiding it but had I understood the physiology behind it, i could have take steps then to wean back in gradually and not given up. Sigh!

thanks for sharing that you had similar blood sugar issues too. It does make me feel like there is hope. Do you mind sharing some things that you did and what you think made the biggest impact for you?

 

[Iii]

Hi linae, you need to make sure that you don't have addison disease. The only way to diagnose it is with acth stimulation test. I myself have addison disease and it can be very serious if its not treated, your blood pressure could drop enough and you can go into a comma. When i forget to take my hydrocortisone I start feeling tired not being able to stand for even a minute, nausea, diarrhea. Your stomach issues could be due to a mild addison crisis. The year before I was diagnosed I had constant headaches, hyperpigmentation, nausea, would get tired just walking to the bathroom and lost a whole lot of weight.

 

[linnae]

Hi linae, you need to make sure that you don't have addison disease. The only way to diagnose it is with acth stimulation test. I myself have addison disease and it can be very serious if its not treated, your blood pressure could drop enough and you can go into a comma. When i forget to take my hydrocortisone I start feeling tired not being able to stand for even a minute, nausea, diarrhea. Your stomach issues could be due to a mild addison crisis. The year before I was diagnosed I had constant headaches, hyperpigmentation, nausea, would get tired just walking to the bathroom and lost a whole lot of weight.

I think I was tested for addisons and it was negative. I am sure a lot of my digestion issues are related to cortisol though because the diarrhea and stomach pain is worse when I have the adrenal crashes, when i am in the recovery phases it does start to improve but its still not great. I have had digestive issues most of my life, was treated for chronic ear infections as a kid.
My cortisol generally tends to be high, rather than low, which could point more towards cushings, correct? However, I think its just a matter of dysfunctional hpa axis at this point.
Thank you so much for the input. Im so sorry that you have addisons, its something that sounds horrible! How did you get it? Were you born with it or was it induced by something? (Just curious)

 

[Iii]

Oh good to know that you don't have it, you mentioned being tired so I figured I would mention my experience just in case. Yeah your adrenals making too much hormone is crushings the opposite. I was diagnosed with hashimoto after my daughter and a few years later addison the doctors concluded its autoimmune in origin.

 

[Iii]

Activated charcoal might help you for when your stomach is upset. I take it myself when my blood pressure drops and my stomach becomes upset.

 

[linnae]

@Giraffe @tara @PakPik what are your thoughts on adding a thyroid supplement? I dont know enough about it but it seems to come up a lot in the forums. I feel like Im not going to make any progress until i get the digestion under control and ability to add more variety but the stress hormones are preventing that and it sounds like thyroid supp can help with that?
I understand it will take time now that i am slowly adding in some fruit juice, for my liver to begin to store glycogen again but in the meantime maybe thyroid supp would maybe help give me a little boost to get things working more smoothly again?

Also, im looking into an anti histamine. I forgot to mention that i take claritin which helps marginally for seasonally allergies but does nothting for digestive histamine. I had a reaction to benedryl in my eary 20's so I may have to try the cyproheptadine but it sounds like a prescription is needed for it. It seems like with my hist intolerance i may need to do this for a little while so i can expand my diet and bring that stress down. Also, it might be two-fold because it apears to lower serotonin as well and I think i may have serotonin excess. i have been having terrible pain in my quad muscles and also brain zaps but mostly noticeable when my cortisol levels are high- from about 3am to 2pm. At first i thought it was low serotonin (because i had the brain zaps 20 years ago when i came off of zoloft) so i started adding tryptophan in for about a week. It was awful!!! I had more brain zaps, more quad pain, and i was very manic and was having weird dreams and when i woke up i couldnt tell what was reality and what wasnt for about 5 minutes or so! Totally scary! i stopped taking it after about 3 days.

Its hard with all of this great info provided to know where to start and what to try first but also to remember go slow at the same time.

Right now im going to add in fruit juice for a few days and see how that goes. Yesterday i sipped apple juice when i ate, going slow so as not to spike my blood sugar too high. Im trying to find the balance to keep the blood sugar stable so there arent many ups/downs. I think i may have had a little more sugar than i needed though because when i woke to eat at 4am and 6am i was shaky both times which indicates the reactive hypoglycemia, right? (I havent had that shakiness for months.) Also, because of that i had a small adrenal crash and excess cortisol this am. Very unpleasant.
Tonight i think i might try skipping the juice at night until my body adjusts more.... or does this mean i need the juice even more...? what are your thoughts?

Lastly, i used some activated charcoal yesterday and it helped a little with the digestion. Do you think you can overdo it? Say if i put some in water and sipped it daily, would it be too detoxifying to use it that often?

Thanks for all the help guys!!!

 

[tara]

Lastly, i used some activated charcoal yesterday and it helped a little with the digestion. Do you think you can overdo it? Say if i put some in water and sipped it daily, would it be too detoxifying to use it that often?

Activated charcoal binds to a lot of organic substances, so it can steal some of your nutrition, as well as endotoxins etc. I'd suggest trying it just a couple of times a week, away from food and supplements, and see if that is enough to make a difference. Then take it a bit more often if you need to.

I have used activated charcoal a few times. I will add that to my regime. Do you think I can add it to my bath water too and would that be helpful?

I'm not aware of anyone here using it that way. Elsewhere I have read of activated charcoal poultices being used to help draw out products of infection.

I think i may have had a little more sugar than i needed though because when i woke to eat at 4am and 6am i was shaky both times which indicates the reactive hypoglycemia, right? (I havent had that shakiness for months.)

Consider keeping some by the bed and having couple of mouthfuls any time you wake up?

I tried 1/2 tsp of gelatin in some water earlier today and had a mild histamine reaction. So cleaning up my gut needs to be a priority.

Some people find being very thorough about dissolving gelatine in hot water makes it more digestible. Or using hydrolysed collagen.

Do you know anything about taking pepcid for histamine issues? Is it safe?

I know nothing about it, but you could search for others' experiences - I think maybe @Peata has used and commented on it?

@Giraffe @tara @PakPik what are your thoughts on adding a thyroid supplement? I dont know enough about it but it seems to come up a lot in the forums. I feel like Im not going to make any progress until i get the digestion under control and ability to add more variety but the stress hormones are preventing that and it sounds like thyroid supp can help with that?
I understand it will take time now that i am slowly adding in some fruit juice, for my liver to begin to store glycogen again but in the meantime maybe thyroid supp would maybe help give me a little boost to get things working more smoothly again?

I'm not confident about this one way or the another. It's possible that it would be helpful, and it's also possible that until you can get more complete nutrition, it could increase stress and catabolism (because it increase the demand for a lot of nutrients, including carbs).
Also get some more data about how thyroid function is now - eg monitor body temps and resting heart rate regularly for a while. Have you had any tests for thyroid hormones? Results?
My hunch would be to read up about it here, on Peat's site, and elsewhere, to get more of an idea of how it works and what to look out for, and then if you think it might be helpful, start with very small quantities and slow increments, monitoring body temps as guidance to see if it's helping and to help avoid overdosing.
But I agree with what PakPik is saying about carbohydrates - I think it might be good to see how you go with increasing this first.

None of these ideas are guaranteed to work, just ideas to experiment with and see how they work for you.

 

[PakPik]

Hello again! :)

I feel so dupped by our current alternative health care providers. Everyone suggests low carb/ low sugar! Its literally killing me! I just wish that i wouldve wised up sooner.

I share with you that frustration. I've seen there's lots of confusion in the medical world, either alternative of conventional. Lots of counterproductive advice and treatments. But anyways, it's just a simple fact of life that the body needs continuous supply of sugars in its bloodstream, there's no questioning of that. It doesn't surprise me if you feel worse due to carb restriction, specially if you're accompanying it by high meat diet -after a high protein meal the body produces lots of insulin to dispose of it; if there are not accompanying carbs, insulin will lower sugar too much. Could that be why you don't tolerate gelatin, because glycine for example is an insulin bomb, so maybe it is plain hypoglycemia that you're experiencing?-.

Please don't beat yourself up because we've been told for a long time that carbohydrates are bad, etc. That wasn't our fault. So we came to believe it at one point, and we're just trying to do the best we can when following a treatment plan.

Eating sugary foods after eating low carbs for a while always made me feel yucky so i kept avoiding it

Yes, I know what you mean. You mentioned you have SIBO, right? In my case a very ravaging infection in my upper G.I tract what made me stop eating carbs. Every piece of carb, no matter which type, putrefied as soon as it touched my stomach/small intestine. I got reactions that turned to be unbearable when eating carbs, so I just quit the carbs.

I agree with the above responses that maybe in a case of small intestine infection it would be good to focus on simple carbs rather than complex carb (less potential to feed the infection). But to be honest I personally could not tolerate anything, not even simple carbs. Carch 22 situation. So I did a very desperate attempt to attack the bugs with garlic (I followed a protocol similar to the @thebigpeatowski 's garlic protocol, she also had really bad SIBO ). I was horrible, tehe garlic so intense, the die off, but I was desperate and really really sick, so nothing to lose. After such protocol I was able to finally introduce simple carbs (it didn't kill the whole infection, i continued to treat it for around 1.5 years, but it killed enough of it that I was able to reintroduce the simple carbs). What a difference.

thanks for sharing that you had similar blood sugar issues too. It does make me feel like there is hope. Do you mind sharing some things that you did and what you think made the biggest impact for you?

With my reintroduction of carbs after taming the G.I infection I had to be very careful because even 1 gram of carbohydrate wasn't handled well (which basically is due to all of the accumulated mitochondrial damage due to so much illness/body degeneration). So I played along with my body and went veeery slow, only incremental increases, tiny amounts of carbs from fruit juice (and later honey) every 3 hours (EDIT: it was more frequent in the very beginning). I also designed my diet so it would be balanced, well tolerated and as healthy as possible.

Mitochondria started regenerating little by little. It's something I could totally feel, and was very encouraging! Management of carbs kept improving. Since I was dealing with many illnesses or issues at once, 5-6 months into the diet I started incorporating meds and supplements, so as you can see in the first months I kept it simple and didn't take supplements or meds (they can make it hard to gauge how one responds to dietary means, and may even directly irritate digestion, etc...). It's just how I needed to do it as I was very frail, it may vary with another person.

I have a couple of posts on my experience with intestinal infection and dysfunction if you're interested:
Histamine Intolerance/Food Sensitivites. Long Post!
Anyone Help With My Labs?

I also have been keeping a diary/log kind of notebook where I handwrite everything, from reactions, to questions, to dosages, to insights :) It's been really really useful.

I may have to try the cyproheptadine but it sounds like a prescription is needed for it. It seems like with my hist intolerance i may need to do this for a little while so i can expand my diet and bring that stress down.

My very first med was cyproheptadine. WONDERFUL! I won't go into details on how it works because there's lots of info on the forum, but it targeted G.I tract/membrane problems, Nervous system problems, vascular problems, liver stress and immune problems at once. Wow! Then I tried other life-saving supplements, which have made tremendous contribution to my recovery. I tried pepcid/famotidine, but I didn't take it continuously like the other remedies. I liked famotidine as brief treatments (so I only did 1 week of it, then stop. If need arises again in the future, I would do another 1 week round). I just don't think it is as safe to take it continually as the other meds/supps (I already was taking a bunch of things to begin with).

Its hard with all of this great info provided to know where to start and what to try first but also to remember go slow at the same time.

Slow is wise! specially because it takes time to learn concepts and put things together, also because it is safer.

@Giraffe @tara @PakPik what are your thoughts on adding a thyroid supplement? I dont know enough about it but it seems to come up a lot in the forums.

From all I've read it seems thyroid can be a huge source of stress and catabolism as tara has already mentioned, specially for someone who is depleted from nutrients and food. Lot's of people do bad on thyroid. I've personally never used it due to those very reasons -and I haven't needed it anyways, temps, pulse and wellbeing finally came up-. When you're ahead in the game, eating well and all, maybe you could consider if you still need it?

Lastly, i used some activated charcoal yesterday and it helped a little with the digestion. Do you think you can overdo it? Say if i put some in water and sipped it daily, would it be too detoxifying to use it that often?

I've personally never sipped it all day long; just a single 1 gram dose when I needed it. Yes, I think it is possible to over do it.

Many blessings to you! I hope you can get some relief soon, linnae.

 

[Ewelina]

Hello again! :)


I share with you that frustration. I've seen there's lots of confusion in the medical world, either alternative of conventional. Lots of counterproductive advice and treatments. But anyways, it's just a simple fact of life that the body needs continuous supply of sugars in its bloodstream, there's no questioning of that. It doesn't surprise me if you feel worse due to carb restriction, specially if you're accompanying it by high meat diet -after a high protein meal the body produces lots of insulin to dispose of it; if there are not accompanying carbs, insulin will lower sugar too much. Could that be why you don't tolerate gelatin, because glycine for example is an insulin bomb, so maybe it is plain hypoglycemia that you're experiencing?-.

Please don't beat yourself up because we've been told for a long time that carbohydrates are bad, etc. That wasn't our fault. So we came to believe it at one point, and we're just trying to do the best we can when following a treatment plan.



Yes, I know what you mean. You mentioned you have SIBO, right? In my case a very ravaging infection in my upper G.I tract what made me stop eating carbs. Every piece of carb, no matter which type, putrefied as soon as it touched my stomach/small intestine. I got reactions that turned to be unbearable when eating carbs, so I just quit the carbs.

I agree with the above responses that maybe in a case of small intestine infection it would be good to focus on simple carbs rather than complex carb (less potential to feed the infection). But to be honest I personally could not tolerate anything, not even simple carbs. Carch 22 situation. So I did a very desperate attempt to attack the bugs with garlic (I followed a protocol similar to the @thebigpeatowski 's garlic protocol, she also had really bad SIBO ). I was horrible, tehe garlic so intense, the die off, but I was desperate and really really sick, so nothing to lose. After such protocol I was able to finally introduce simple carbs (it didn't kill the whole infection, i continued to treat it for around 1.5 years, but it killed enough of it that I was able to reintroduce the simple carbs). What a difference.



With my reintroduction of carbs after taming the G.I infection I had to be very careful because even 1 gram of carbohydrate wasn't handled well (which basically is due to all of the accumulated mitochondrial damage due to so much illness/body degeneration). So I played along with my body and went veeery slow, only incremental increases, tiny amounts of carbs from fruit juice (and later honey) every 3 hours (EDIT: it was more frequent in the very beginning). I also designed my diet so it would be balanced, well tolerated and as healthy as possible.

Mitochondria started regenerating little by little. It's something I could totally feel, and was very encouraging! Management of carbs kept improving. Since I was dealing with many illnesses or issues at once, 5-6 months into the diet I started incorporating meds and supplements, so as you can see in the first months I kept it simple and didn't take supplements or meds (they can make it hard to gauge how one responds to dietary means, and may even directly irritate digestion, etc...). It's just how I needed to do it as I was very frail, it may vary with another person.

I have a couple of posts on my experience with intestinal infection and dysfunction if you're interested:
Histamine Intolerance/Food Sensitivites. Long Post!
Anyone Help With My Labs?

I also have been keeping a diary/log kind of notebook where I handwrite everything, from reactions, to questions, to dosages, to insights :) It's been really really useful.



My very first med was cyproheptadine. WONDERFUL! I won't go into details on how it works because there's lots of info on the forum, but it targeted G.I tract/membrane problems, Nervous system problems, vascular problems, liver stress and immune problems at once. Wow! Then I tried other life-saving supplements, which have made tremendous contribution to my recovery. I tried pepcid/famotidine, but I didn't take it continuously like the other remedies. I liked famotidine as brief treatments (so I only did 1 week of it, then stop. If need arises again in the future, I would do another 1 week round). I just don't think it is as safe to take it continually as the other meds/supps (I already was taking a bunch of things to begin with).


Slow is wise! specially because it takes time to learn concepts and put things together, also because it is safer.



From all I've read it seems thyroid can be a huge source of stress and catabolism as tara has already mentioned, specially for someone who is depleted from nutrients and food. Lot's of people do bad on thyroid. I've personally never used it due to those very reasons -and I haven't needed it anyways, temps, pulse and wellbeing finally came up-. When you're ahead in the game, eating well and all, maybe you could consider if you still need it?


I've personally never sipped it all day long; just a single 1 gram dose when I needed it. Yes, I think it is possible to over do it.

Many blessings to you! I hope you can get some relief soon, linnae.

Wonderful posts! Thanks for your input @PakPik!
Have you used anything else for treating SIBO other than garlic and cypro? Maybe specific antibiotics or nystatin?

 

[linnae]

Activated charcoal binds to a lot of organic substances, so it can steal some of your nutrition, as well as endotoxins etc. I'd suggest trying it just a couple of times a week, away from food and supplements, and see if that is enough to make a difference. Then take it a bit more often if you need to.

I'm not aware of anyone here using it that way. Elsewhere I have read of activated charcoal poultices being used to help draw out products of infection.


Consider keeping some by the bed and having couple of mouthfuls any time you wake up?


Some people find being very thorough about dissolving gelatine in hot water makes it more digestible. Or using hydrolysed collagen.


I know nothing about it, but you could search for others' experiences - I think maybe @Peata has used and commented on it?


I'm not confident about this one way or the another. It's possible that it would be helpful, and it's also possible that until you can get more complete nutrition, it could increase stress and catabolism (because it increase the demand for a lot of nutrients, including carbs).
Also get some more data about how thyroid function is now - eg monitor body temps and resting heart rate regularly for a while. Have you had any tests for thyroid hormones? Results?
My hunch would be to read up about it here, on Peat's site, and elsewhere, to get more of an idea of how it works and what to look out for, and then if you think it might be helpful, start with very small quantities and slow increments, monitoring body temps as guidance to see if it's helping and to help avoid overdosing.
But I agree with what PakPik is saying about carbohydrates - I think it might be good to see how you go with increasing this first.

None of these ideas are guaranteed to work, just ideas to experiment with and see how they work for you.

Activated charcoal binds to a lot of organic substances, so it can steal some of your nutrition, as well as endotoxins etc. I'd suggest trying it just a couple of times a week, away from food and supplements, and see if that is enough to make a difference. Then take it a bit more often if you need to.

I'm not aware of anyone here using it that way. Elsewhere I have read of activated charcoal poultices being used to help draw out products of infection.


Consider keeping some by the bed and having couple of mouthfuls any time you wake up?


Some people find being very thorough about dissolving gelatine in hot water makes it more digestible. Or using hydrolysed collagen.


I know nothing about it, but you could search for others' experiences - I think maybe @Peata has used and commented on it?


I'm not confident about this one way or the another. It's possible that it would be helpful, and it's also possible that until you can get more complete nutrition, it could increase stress and catabolism (because it increase the demand for a lot of nutrients, including carbs).
Also get some more data about how thyroid function is now - eg monitor body temps and resting heart rate regularly for a while. Have you had any tests for thyroid hormones? Results?
My hunch would be to read up about it here, on Peat's site, and elsewhere, to get more of an idea of how it works and what to look out for, and then if you think it might be helpful, start with very small quantities and slow increments, monitoring body temps as guidance to see if it's helping and to help avoid overdosing.
But I agree with what PakPik is saying about carbohydrates - I think it might be good to see how you go with increasing this first.

None of these ideas are guaranteed to work, just ideas to experiment with and see how they work for you.

Activated charcoal binds to a lot of organic substances, so it can steal some of your nutrition, as well as endotoxins etc. I'd suggest trying it just a couple of times a week, away from food and supplements, and see if that is enough to make a difference. Then take it a bit more often if you need to.

I'm not aware of anyone here using it that way. Elsewhere I have read of activated charcoal poultices being used to help draw out products of infection.


Consider keeping some by the bed and having couple of mouthfuls any time you wake up?


Some people find being very thorough about dissolving gelatine in hot water makes it more digestible. Or using hydrolysed collagen.


I know nothing about it, but you could search for others' experiences - I think maybe @Peata has used and commented on it?


I'm not confident about this one way or the another. It's possible that it would be helpful, and it's also possible that until you can get more complete nutrition, it could increase stress and catabolism (because it increase the demand for a lot of nutrients, including carbs).
Also get some more data about how thyroid function is now - eg monitor body temps and resting heart rate regularly for a while. Have you had any tests for thyroid hormones? Results?
My hunch would be to read up about it here, on Peat's site, and elsewhere, to get more of an idea of how it works and what to look out for, and then if you think it might be helpful, start with very small quantities and slow increments, monitoring body temps as guidance to see if it's helping and to help avoid overdosing.
But I agree with what PakPik is saying about carbohydrates - I think it might be good to see how you go with increasing this first.

None of these ideas are guaranteed to work, just ideas to experiment with and see how they work for you.

I ordered the hydrolised gelatin today and will see if that helps.
Regarding the thyroid, i think i will wait on that, i have been doing some reading up and i may be too fragile for it right now. Also, my intuition says no.
Today i juiced a cucumber and mixed cucumber and apple and that seemed to agree with my system better. Im going to try that the the overnight too. It didnt give me the ups and downs like straight apple juice did but it definitely gave me some energy! So yay!
Also, i agree with both you anf Pakpik, better to start with food first!
Thanks again @tara you have been so helpful!!!

 

[linnae]

Hello again! :)


I share with you that frustration. I've seen there's lots of confusion in the medical world, either alternative of conventional. Lots of counterproductive advice and treatments. But anyways, it's just a simple fact of life that the body needs continuous supply of sugars in its bloodstream, there's no questioning of that. It doesn't surprise me if you feel worse due to carb restriction, specially if you're accompanying it by high meat diet -after a high protein meal the body produces lots of insulin to dispose of it; if there are not accompanying carbs, insulin will lower sugar too much. Could that be why you don't tolerate gelatin, because glycine for example is an insulin bomb, so maybe it is plain hypoglycemia that you're experiencing?-.

Please don't beat yourself up because we've been told for a long time that carbohydrates are bad, etc. That wasn't our fault. So we came to believe it at one point, and we're just trying to do the best we can when following a treatment plan.



Yes, I know what you mean. You mentioned you have SIBO, right? In my case a very ravaging infection in my upper G.I tract what made me stop eating carbs. Every piece of carb, no matter which type, putrefied as soon as it touched my stomach/small intestine. I got reactions that turned to be unbearable when eating carbs, so I just quit the carbs.

I agree with the above responses that maybe in a case of small intestine infection it would be good to focus on simple carbs rather than complex carb (less potential to feed the infection). But to be honest I personally could not tolerate anything, not even simple carbs. Carch 22 situation. So I did a very desperate attempt to attack the bugs with garlic (I followed a protocol similar to the @thebigpeatowski 's garlic protocol, she also had really bad SIBO ). I was horrible, tehe garlic so intense, the die off, but I was desperate and really really sick, so nothing to lose. After such protocol I was able to finally introduce simple carbs (it didn't kill the whole infection, i continued to treat it for around 1.5 years, but it killed enough of it that I was able to reintroduce the simple carbs). What a difference.



With my reintroduction of carbs after taming the G.I infection I had to be very careful because even 1 gram of carbohydrate wasn't handled well (which basically is due to all of the accumulated mitochondrial damage due to so much illness/body degeneration). So I played along with my body and went veeery slow, only incremental increases, tiny amounts of carbs from fruit juice (and later honey) every 3 hours (EDIT: it was more frequent in the very beginning). I also designed my diet so it would be balanced, well tolerated and as healthy as possible.

Mitochondria started regenerating little by little. It's something I could totally feel, and was very encouraging! Management of carbs kept improving. Since I was dealing with many illnesses or issues at once, 5-6 months into the diet I started incorporating meds and supplements, so as you can see in the first months I kept it simple and didn't take supplements or meds (they can make it hard to gauge how one responds to dietary means, and may even directly irritate digestion, etc...). It's just how I needed to do it as I was very frail, it may vary with another person.

I have a couple of posts on my experience with intestinal infection and dysfunction if you're interested:
Histamine Intolerance/Food Sensitivites. Long Post!
Anyone Help With My Labs?

I also have been keeping a diary/log kind of notebook where I handwrite everything, from reactions, to questions, to dosages, to insights :) It's been really really useful.



My very first med was cyproheptadine. WONDERFUL! I won't go into details on how it works because there's lots of info on the forum, but it targeted G.I tract/membrane problems, Nervous system problems, vascular problems, liver stress and immune problems at once. Wow! Then I tried other life-saving supplements, which have made tremendous contribution to my recovery. I tried pepcid/famotidine, but I didn't take it continuously like the other remedies. I liked famotidine as brief treatments (so I only did 1 week of it, then stop. If need arises again in the future, I would do another 1 week round). I just don't think it is as safe to take it continually as the other meds/supps (I already was taking a bunch of things to begin with).


Slow is wise! specially because it takes time to learn concepts and put things together, also because it is safer.



From all I've read it seems thyroid can be a huge source of stress and catabolism as tara has already mentioned, specially for someone who is depleted from nutrients and food. Lot's of people do bad on thyroid. I've personally never used it due to those very reasons -and I haven't needed it anyways, temps, pulse and wellbeing finally came up-. When you're ahead in the game, eating well and all, maybe you could consider if you still need it?


I've personally never sipped it all day long; just a single 1 gram dose when I needed it. Yes, I think it is possible to over do it.

Many blessings to you! I hope you can get some relief soon, linnae.

Thank you again for all this wisdom!!! So appreciated!

He garlic flush sounds awful! I feel I probably need to do something along those lines but i need to get stronger first. Luckily, so far, the apple juice hasnt bothered me too bad in regards to the sibo. Although, my body is trying to figure out what to do with sugar and that's interesting! I discovered today that if i mix cucumber and apple juice its easier on my system amd still delivers enough carbs but doesnt cause a roller coaster effect!!!

I appreciate your input on what worked for you regarding diet and waiting on supps. I think im in the same boat as far as frailty goes, so if i do add in anything i will have to go super slow. Its encouraging to know that you can feel the changes, i already feel something even after just 2 days and thats exciting!
And thank you for including those posts, they were good reads and very informative posts!
Great suggestion about keeping a log- I am a journaling fanatic, its my type A personality, i think, i have so many journals and i write daily. i have logged everything since may. It helps to go back and see progress and also note changes, etc. its invaluable during his time.
Im curious: when did you start the cypro and did you notice that it had any negative effects like lowering blood suagr too much? I have been reading about it and it seems like a life saver and i want to try it but im not sure when would be a good time. Part of me feels like now its needed so i can actually eat and sleep but part of me says that i should be a little stronger first?! Just wondering when you added it in?
And thanks for the insight about thyroid supps. I am definitely going to wait on that, mostly because my intuition says to hold off.
You've been so kind and helpful and given me lots to think about. Thanks again!

Ps sorry everything for the poor format in my replies, im doing this from my phone because its too stimulating (or too many emf's or something) to sit at my computer right now!

 

[PakPik]

Wonderful posts! Thanks for your input @PakPik!
Have you used anything else for treating SIBO other than garlic and cypro? Maybe specific antibiotics or nystatin?

Hi Ewelina!
No, I haven't used pharma antibiotics. To beat the G.I infections I've focused on two very important aspects: 1) targeting the pathogens, of course, and 2) correcting a very entrenched immunosuppressive state. By the way, 1) and 2) form a vicious circle, so it has not really been possible for me to separate one from the other. To that effect, besides cyproheptadine and my initial garlic protocol (I only did it once because it was too gross), my main supplements/strategies were:

-Aspirin: I've used it to help dismantle and/or discourage biofilms, and it also helps blast certain organisms directly. Also, I've taken advantage of its pharmacological actions to help in my journey towards correcting immunosuppression. Also to chelate/lower iron in order to kind of blunt the out-of-control pathogen growth and give me a chance to catch up.

-Niacinamide: due to the same reasons I listed for aspirin (except it doesn't chelate iron that I know of). I also liked that, according to studies I read, it can kill several drug resistant infections.

-LOW FAT but NUTRITIOUS, WELL-TOLERATED diet (I even went ultra low fat during a few months out of pure desperation): WOW! At first I did it as a means to decrease my stored PUFA burden in order to help ameliorate or improve my condition. But I later found out pathogens are super keen on fatty acids, fatty acid mediators and cholesterol, so low fat diet put a restriction on them (I am not saying they are bad, just saying that when most pathogens have unrestricted access to fatty acids, prostaglandins or sterols they can grow readily, fast and happily in an immunosuppressed host). This indeed was a turning point for me, and I even found that after doing low fat for a few months aspirin's and niacinamide's anti-infectious properties kicked in very powerfully, much more effective than before (as if the pathogens had been thoroughly weakened and/or my resistance had increased. I think it was both!).

That's just my experience :)

 

[PakPik]

Thank you again for all this wisdom!!! So appreciated!

He garlic flush sounds awful! I feel I probably need to do something along those lines but i need to get stronger first. Luckily, so far, the apple juice hasnt bothered me too bad in regards to the sibo. Although, my body is trying to figure out what to do with sugar and that's interesting! I discovered today that if i mix cucumber and apple juice its easier on my system amd still delivers enough carbs but doesnt cause a roller coaster effect!!!

I appreciate your input on what worked for you regarding diet and waiting on supps. I think im in the same boat as far as frailty goes, so if i do add in anything i will have to go super slow. Its encouraging to know that you can feel the changes, i already feel something even after just 2 days and thats exciting!
And thank you for including those posts, they were good reads and very informative posts!
Great suggestion about keeping a log- I am a journaling fanatic, its my type A personality, i think, i have so many journals and i write daily. i have logged everything since may. It helps to go back and see progress and also note changes, etc. its invaluable during his time.
Im curious: when did you start the cypro and did you notice that it had any negative effects like lowering blood suagr too much? I have been reading about it and it seems like a life saver and i want to try it but im not sure when would be a good time. Part of me feels like now its needed so i can actually eat and sleep but part of me says that i should be a little stronger first?! Just wondering when you added it in?
And thanks for the insight about thyroid supps. I am definitely going to wait on that, mostly because my intuition says to hold off.
You've been so kind and helpful and given me lots to think about. Thanks again!

Ps sorry everything for the poor format in my replies, im doing this from my phone because its too stimulating (or too many emf's or something) to sit at my computer right now!

Hi Linnae, you're welcome!

Glad you're figuring out a way to improve tolerance of fruit juice, yay!

Oh yes, it is so exciting to feel that your cells are saying "THANK YOU!" (at least that's what they told me ) They so need their glucose. One great pearl of wisdom that I learned from Dr. Peat -and fits my experience and observation from people around- is that cells perform their best and as they are supposed to when they can process glucose correctly and generate clean energy; harm that or take that away from them and you get a low functioning, sick cell. It's so simple!

Regarding cypro, I started taking it only 5-6 months after the garlic blast and focusing on a good, well tolerated diet. I did beautifully as soon as I started it and never had a problem with it, thanks God!. Such needed relief. However, I don't know if it would have been the same had I started cypro from the very beginning. Maybe I'd suggest keep on reading/researching and come to your own conclusion. I believe it is good to be ingesting enough food and carbs if one is using that med, since it lowers stress hormones. But maybe it can help tolerate the carbs better to begin with? Things to ponder!

And no worries about formatting; indeed it is great you're avoiding sources of overstimulation -extremely important if you ask me, may be even more important than supplements. And please excuse me back for my typos, etc..., English is not my first language and sometimes I type too fast :)

By the way, kudos to you for helping your son with autism! It was great that he improved so much!

Please be safe and take care, Linnae. :)

 

[Ewelina]

Hi Ewelina!
No, I haven't used pharma antibiotics. To beat the G.I infections I've focused on two very important aspects: 1) targeting the pathogens, of course, and 2) correcting a very entrenched immunosuppressive state. By the way, 1) and 2) form a vicious circle, so it has not really been possible for me to separate one from the other. To that effect, besides cyproheptadine and my initial garlic protocol (I only did it once because it was too gross), my main supplements/strategies were:

-Aspirin: I've used it to help dismantle and/or discourage biofilms, and it also helps blast certain organisms directly. Also, I've taken advantage of its pharmacological actions to help in my journey towards correcting immunosuppression. Also to chelate/lower iron in order to kind of blunt the out-of-control pathogen growth and give me a chance to catch up.

-Niacinamide: due to the same reasons I listed for aspirin (except it doesn't chelate iron that I know of). I also liked that, according to studies I read, it can kill several drug resistant infections.

-LOW FAT but NUTRITIOUS, WELL-TOLERATED diet (I even went ultra low fat during a few months out of pure desperation): WOW! At first I did it as a means to decrease my stored PUFA burden in order to help ameliorate or improve my condition. But I later found out pathogens are super keen on fatty acids, fatty acid mediators and cholesterol, so low fat diet put a restriction on them (I am not saying they are bad, just saying that when most pathogens have unrestricted access to fatty acids, prostaglandins or sterols they can grow readily, fast and happily in an immunosuppressed host). This indeed was a turning point for me, and I even found that after doing low fat for a few months aspirin's and niacinamide's anti-infectious properties kicked in very powerfully, much more effective than before (as if the pathogens had been thoroughly weakened and/or my resistance had increased. I think it was both!).

That's just my experience :)

Thank you @PakPik! Your reply is very helpful!