An Introduction Along With Some Questions.

[bistecca]

Hi there RPforum!
I'm just going to lay it all out there with hopes that someone will be able to provide some insight.

So I'm a 27 y.o. male. I've been familiar with the idea of "paleo" for 4-5 years now, and following some variation of an ancestral diet for the duration. I enjoy the range of discussion in the paleo sphere, the diversity of the backgrounds of people involved in the discussion. I've never been too much of an extremist, I've never gone very low carb. The lower I went, generally speaking the worse I felt. I love fruit, and always kept maple syrup in the fridge. I've never been, until recently, unhealthy enough to consider the notion that I might need to make a significant overhaul. I have a shallow background in Biology and chemistry, a few courses. I've always been aware of RP, but I've never dug too deeply. I wish I had the perspective that RP has, but as I don't, I have had a hard time committing to some sort of RP protocol. Lacking that perspective, it can also be difficult to appraise exactly what a personal protocol would be, given the breadth of considerations RP makes. My understanding was always that he and the paleo community had a lot of the large issues in common. Most paleo folk will shun excess pufa, most paleo folk don't entirely demonize sugar, they love fruit, many tolerate dairy, seafood is awesome, SFA's are good, etc. I've always thought of them as being largely similar but RP's ideas being more nuanced and specific for people trying to overcome chronic issues. I've also had a hard time grappling with peats anti-establishment views. I've had enough instances of opposition to authority in my past, I wasn't eager to have another set of anti-authoritarian ideals underlying my dietary decisions.. I could explain to my family that I don't eat grains, but the seemingly even more restrictive peat approach made me fear the prospect of explaining that to family and friends. Of course my priorities and opinions have changed. Having suddenly encountered some chronic health issues, i've been spending more time pondering RP's writing and considering the utter complexity of it all. Danny Roddy and georgi have helped to shed some light on the topic as well. So i've been employed in restaurants for some time. Working in restaurants (i slowly began to realize) exposes you to a set of toxic, or carcinogenic or estrogenic(largely synonymous?) substances. Kitchens are, more often than not, powered by gas appliances. (I imagine the potential substances include things like formaldehyde, PAH's, CO, NO2, SO2, who knows what else?) The kitchen in which I worked was inadequately ventilated, increasingly so as time went by. The longer I worked in the restaurant world, the more strange symptoms I developed. About 8 months ago I developed a skin condition which I'm 95% sure is tinea versicolor. That condition has persisted since. About 2 months ago I began to notice that the skin condition would flare not more than a few minutes after walking in the door to work. I slowly began to develop a sort of lung irritation involving increased phlegm production. My eyes would often be bloodshot at the end of a shift. I'm a non-smoker,a non-drinker and generally try to be pretty attentive to my health. About a month ago I started to develop persistent night sweats. Shortly after the development of the night sweats, which were a significant detriment to my quality of life, I decided to leave the restaurant business. I spoke with a doctor who ruled out several of the more serious conditions that could be causing the night sweats, but I've yet to pinpoint the cause. The night sweats have, since I left that line of work about a month ago, subsided entirely. I still have trouble sleeping through the night, however. I also still have the skin condition, and I haven't felt like I used to feel before I started in that line of work. I ache in my joints. My skin heals much slower than it used to. Anything i eat that is fibrous turns to gas, which never used to happen to this degree. I have a sort of mental fog and irritability that I never seemed to have before. I had some basic blood work done a couple weeks ago and everything they tested was normal, except my creatinine levels were slightly out of range on the high side. The test was obviously not comprehensive. I do remember that my blood CO2 levels were high(not out of range, 29 iirc?). In addition my pulse is typically 80-85 bpm. I know these aren't by any means perfect indicators of metabolic function, but i've heard they are decent. I plan to head to a GP soon to see how they think I should approach the problem. I guess I'd like some guidance with regard to the whole situation. Anyone else experienced a similar situation? Similar symptoms? How might I go about investigating the problem? What tests should I ask for, which biomarkers measured? Any input is appreciated! I hope this marks the beginning of a long and fruitful membership to the RPForum.

 

[tara]

Welcome bistecca :)

I wish I had the perspective that RP has, but as I don't, I have had a hard time committing to some sort of RP protocol. Lacking that perspective, it can also be difficult to appraise exactly what a personal protocol would be, given the breadth of considerations RP makes.

I don't think you need to commit yourself off the bat to some strict 'RP protocol' even if there was one.

. I could explain to my family that I don't eat grains, but the seemingly even more restrictive peat approach made me fear the prospect of explaining that to family and friends

You don't have to any more restrictive than you want to be. Probably the most important thing that most of us here agree about is to minimise PUFA consumption, and you are probably already doing that.
Going easy on the nuts and oily fish if you are eating these, and increasing carb consumption, may make a difference. You can gradually try out other changes and see which ones serve you well.
Many here get half or more of our calories from carbs, some more from sugars (various sources), some more from starchy foods like potatoes and rice.
I'm wondering how much of your current diet is carbs, and how much you are eating overall, if you feel like telling?
Some of us here use cronometer or similar from time to time to check on roughly what we are getting from our food. You can see if there are any obvious gaps in micronutrients - if there are gaps you may be able to make adjustments to fill them. (Don't believe it on PUFAs, calories, iron.)

Some people here say they go better with much less fibre. Peat recommends a daily carrot salad for helping to balance hormones and move out endotoxins.

I imagine that the kitchen you worked in would have a lot of smoke/particulate in the air, and that's what was hard on you? Or more general stress form workplace demands?

Glad the night sweats have gone.

Have you tried having something sweet and salty before bedtime to help sleep? Some people find sweetened milk good, maybe with gelatine.
For me, hunger is the most reliable way insomnia. I seldom suffer it these days, since eating more and more sugar thorugh the day. (I also supplement Mg and progest-e, which probably also help.) But for quite awhile I kept snacks by the bed to eat quickly if I woke in the night and didn't go straight back to sleep.

I'm not familiar with tinea versicolor, but if it is a fungus, I wonder if it would respond to a simple treatment of slopping on a bit of dilute vinegar before showering/bathing for a ferw days? It might not work, but it would be very easy and cheap to try. Fungii generally thrive in slightly alkaline conditions, and hate acid.
Some people seem to find skin issues respond to increasing zinc or vit-A. Skin also needs a bit of vit-C. Peat doesn't generally recommend supplementing ascorbic acid, but it is good to get some from food.

Are you getting regular sunlight? Is your breathing relaxed, nasal, diaphragmatic?

I had some basic blood work done a couple weeks ago and everything they tested was normal, except my creatinine levels were slightly out of range on the high side.

If you want to post numbers here, you may get other views than the standard dr's. You have to be very unwell before most drs will recognise a problem - standard ranges can be pretty broad.

Other may have suggestions of what else to ask dr to test.
I'm wondering about average UpH, which you can test yourself if you want. Ideally 6.3-6.7. (This range is what Peat says is good, but I'v not seen him recommend often that people test it - more an RBTI thing.)

I would find your post easier to read if you were to edit in a few paragraph breaks - maybe others would too. :)

 

[bistecca]

Hi tara! Thanks for the welcome and the thoughtful response. I'll apologize for my lack of attention to format of my post. I tend to focus on getting it all down and having some kind of flow with regard to my thoughts. I always have trouble going back and deciding where paragraph breaks should be. It should be easier to organize my posts from here on out as people respond to each portion, and I can, in turn, respond to those points.

>Going easy on the nuts and oily fish if you are eating these, and increasing carb consumption, may make a difference. You can gradually try out other changes and see which ones serve you well.

I definitely already avoid nuts and oily fish. My current diet is basically animals, vegetables, roots, fruits, eggs, some dairy and sweeteners like sugar and honey. I've always eaten a lot of seafood, shrimp, scallops, oysters, lobster, clams, cod and cod-head-broth. I use oils like coconut, red palm, butter and sometimes rendered beef tallow and bone marrow. I'm very well practiced in PUFA avoidance, and I credit a lot of my health improvements to that intervention. I will eat pork and poultry, but it's mainly in the form of broth from chicken feet, necks and backs as well as pigs feet and ears, which I de-fat after making the broth. I eat nose to tail. I keep a nice chunk of beef liver in the fridge which I make a point to pull out and slice off a few chunks into an omelet or something at least once a week. Like I've mentioned, the carbs that I eat are mainly roots, fruits and veg, but they all tend to turn to gas, which is worrisome. This realization has also led me to get carbs from more refined sources, which I'm trying to grow more comfortable with. Honey and fairly refined sugar. I don't eat many sources of starch because most of the starch sources I'm used to eating are pretty fibrous. I'm considering adding in white rice, but I always remember rice giving me reactions similar to other grains; inflammation and some acne.


>Some of us here use cronometer or similar from time to time to check on roughly what we are getting from our food.

That's a good idea and I need to pay better attention to this. Sometimes financial restrictions make it hard to shop based upon micronutrient density and i have to instead opt for caloric density.

>Peat recommends a daily carrot salad for helping to balance hormones and move out endotoxins.

I've definitely tried his salad, however even raw carrots seem to turn to gas. It seems like the only thing that reliably promotes peristalsis for me is refined sugar.

>I imagine that the kitchen you worked in would have a lot of smoke/particulate in the air, and that's what was hard on you?

Yea the kitchen would get smokey and that would definitely exacerbate problems, but even when the kitchen wasn't smokey it was causing issues. I'm pretty sure that propane combustion creates a lot of really nasty stuff, which i mentioned in my post, so it didn't even have to be smokey to cause a worsening of my symptoms. The skin condition would flare pretty much the moment i walked in the door in the morning. I actually called my state's osha and they're basically powerless to test air quality.

>Have you tried having something sweet and salty before bedtime to help sleep?

I have. Actually last nite I had a nice arrangement of foods before bed that i hoped would help and I, for the first time in a long time, slept all the way through the nite. I had an omelet with maybe an oz or two of beef liver, some chopped cooked parsnip, a small salad, then a glass of chicken broth with salt and sugar added. Some red palm oil and butter for cooking the omelet for the vitamin a and e, maybe some d and k2 as well in the butter because it's "pasture butter."

>I'm not familiar with tinea versicolor, but if it is a fungus, I wonder if it would respond to a simple treatment of slopping on a bit of dilute vinegar before showering/bathing for a ferw days?

I haven't.. I'll consider it.

>Some people seem to find skin issues respond to increasing zinc or vit-A.

I haven't tried many supplements except the occasional d3, but I do try to eat foods that cover these grounds. I try to eat oysters and other shellfish regularly. Not as much as I'd like lately.

>Are you getting regular sunlight? Is your breathing relaxed, nasal, diaphragmatic?

I'm not getting regular sunlight because of the season. I do take 1 or 2 thousand iu's of d3 sporadically. I'm not sure how I would describe my breathing.

>If you want to post numbers here, you may get other views than the standard dr's. You have to be very unwell before most drs will recognise a problem - standard ranges can be pretty broad.

I'll try to get those numbers posted soon.

Thank you again so much for your response.

 

[thegiantess]

I'm new here too, and have a similar background---Paleo-ish for 4-5 years, but always aware of Ray Peat. Likewise for me Peat was just too out there for me to commit. I did incorporate some of his ideas, but I never really had any big health problems so I didn't bother too much. I finally made my way to this forum as a contributor when I was looking to lose the rest of my baby weight. I find it a lot easier now to buy in completely to his ideas as I have listened to and read his ideas exhaustively. They make sense when you start to put it all together. So while I still don't follow a puritanical Peat diet, which in my mind means you can't eat starches or poultry or pork, I do eat a fair amount of sugar in the form of fruit and some sucrose, I take aspirin, I stopped eating nuts and avocado (darlings of the Paleo world). Anyhow, enough about me..

The lung issues seemed directly related to the kitchen environment, and so I think you have solved that by removing yourself. The skin issues, considering it is a fungus, could be a few things that immediately come to mind. Perhaps the humidity/heat of the kitchen was causing yeast to overgrow? But bc it has persisted since you left the kitchen that suggests to me it is a gut issue. I think real candida is pretty rare, but perhaps you have some
Level of SIBO? Perhaps your immune system has been compromised due to your exposure to whatever contaminants there were in the kitchen and that has caused the natural yeast on your skin to persist, unchecked? I think the fact that a simply carrot causes gas means there is a gut issue.

You should get a full thyroid panel that includes free t3 and t4 to get a better ideas of metabolic function. Also did you former blood work include liver function? Other than that eating the most easily digested foods might be best. Maybe a round of antibiotics? There are a lot of directions you could go. Did you look on this forum for others who has similar gas issues?

 

[tara]

From your description of diet, my guess is increasing sugars/carbs and decreasing fibre may be possible changes still to try - and it seems you are starting to experiment with these. I wonder if you are getting much calcium? Without dairy, this is harder. Are you avoiding it becasue it bothers you? If you are eating a lot of well-cooked green and their water, this would be giving you some. Peat recommends eggshell powder if a supplement is needed, or oystershell next best.
What portion of our calories do you think you are getting from sugars/carbs? There is probably no set ratio that suits everyone, but probably at least 1/3 , many people here are eating more than 50%, some up to 80%, on the basis that sugars are preferred fuel.

I have. Actually last nite I had a nice arrangement of foods before bed that i hoped would help and I, for the first time in a long time, slept all the way through the nite. I had an omelet with maybe an oz or two of beef liver, some chopped cooked parsnip, a small salad, then a glass of chicken broth with salt and sugar added. Some red palm oil and butter for cooking the omelet for the vitamin a and e, maybe some d and k2 as well in the butter because it's "pasture butter."

Glad you got a good night's sleep. Peat usually recommends getting more of one's protein before nightfall, not so much last thing at night, other than a bit of milk and/or gelatine. But if it works for you, that's what matters.

It seems like the only thing that reliably promotes peristalsis for me is refined sugar.

That's promising. If something as benign as a bit of refined sugar helps, you may have your solution.
Along with reducing the dietary fibre. Juices, broths, and maybe some well cooked fruits and veges?

From RBTI, rather than Peat, I've got the idea that vit-D supplement is more helpful to people who are running too acid, not so much for people running alkaline. I'm not sure, but I wonder if you are on the alkaline side at the moment. Measuring UpH a few times with pH strips or similar can give an indicator. Ideally, pH 6.3-6.7.

You should get a full thyroid panel that includes free t3 and t4 to get a better ideas of metabolic function.

IIRC, Peat is more interested in total T3 and T4 than free?

I'm not getting regular sunlight because of the season. I do take 1 or 2 thousand iu's of d3 sporadically.

We need sunlight for more than just teh UV/vit-D. The orange through near infrared spectrum restores cytochrome C oxidase, which is a crucial enzyme in efficient mitochondrail respiration. It tends to run down in darkness. In the absense of sunlight, some people use supplemental red lighting. A few people credit this as being a key part of their recovery. There are some long threads on the technicalities.

I'm not sure how I would describe my breathing.

Do you know if you breath with your mouth open or shut at night? The rest of the time? Can you tell if your chest or belly rise when you breath when you are not working hard? Buteyko devised a way to test assess CO2 levels by measuring how long someone could comfortably hold their breath after relaxed exhalation before the first impulse to breath again (Control Pause, CP). If there is actual lung damage, that would change it. But otherwise, it can be a guide , to how well oxygen is delivered. Also, maouth breathing exposes teh lungs to more of the atmospheric contaminants; nasal breathing filters out a lot, though not gases themselves. All these can be retrained if needed.

 

[bistecca]

Hey giantess! thanks for your response.. Cool to see someone arrived here by way of a similar path! Looks like we might be, geographically speaking, close by as well, if your avatar is any indicator of where you're from(I'm from right around the chesapeake bay, the land of the hardshell crab).

But bc it has persisted since you left the kitchen that suggests to me it is a gut issue. I think real candida is pretty rare, but perhaps you have some
Level of SIBO? Perhaps your immune system has been compromised due to your exposure to whatever contaminants there were in the kitchen and that has caused the natural yeast on your skin to persist, unchecked? I think the fact that a simply carrot causes gas means there is a gut issue.

This definitely echoes what i've been thinking.

You should get a full thyroid panel that includes free t3 and t4 to get a better ideas of metabolic function. Also did you former blood work include liver function? Other than that eating the most easily digested foods might be best. Maybe a round of antibiotics? There are a lot of directions you could go. Did you look on this forum for others who has similar gas issues?

I'll add that to the list.. I don't know if the previous bloodwork had liver function. It had probably 20 different measurements. I don't have the paper and didn't investigate them all. I'll try to get my hands on that and post it. I also haven't looked around here for others who have had similar issues. Still finding my way around, but i'll definitely see if i can find something.

So how has your transition, so to speak, effected you? Have you noticed improvements since incorporating peats ideas? I appreciated the paleo idea for it's whole foods, holistic kind of approach. It's accessible for almost anyone. I definitely like the nuance that peat and his peers provide, but the notion of supplementing specific hormones and trying to manipulate multiple biomarkers still seems a little foreign and daunting to me. I really find value in peats ideas because at the core, i think they still align with a lot of the tenets of the paleo movement. No doubt there are extremist wings of "paleo".. sugar-phobes, the people who lean on the almond flour crutch, the fat-o-phobes.. But they have so many commonalities. I think one of the most important things to take away from either "ideology" is to avoid metabolically deranging nutrients, and include foods(or supplements) which provide all the essential metabolic cofactors. Maybe as time goes by i'll start to develop an understanding for the necessity for other supplements. Thanks for your response!! :)

 

[thegiantess]

@tara Yes you're right I meant total t3 and t4!

 

[thegiantess]

@bistecca Um, hard to say if I have had a lot of improvements from incorporating more of Peat dietary advice, but about 1.5 years ago I was a long distance athlete, then got pregnant with twins and since they were born 6 months ago I haven't returned to that sort of exercise. After reading his ideas I finally accepted that the type of exercise I was doing was stress. I will say that my CO levels were not borderline low on a blood test for the first time in.. 5 years or more. They are actually at the high end. My pulse has come up, I don't have cyclical gas and heartburn. So yah. But I'm sure that's all from dropping exercise.

You're right. At the core of Paleo and Peat and the perfect health diet (which I quite like) is that PUFAs should be strictly limited, one should be well nourished, and sleep is critical to health. I think the interesting thing about Peat is that he delves into the very complex hormonal state that others are daunted by.