Chest "zaps" At Night. Cortisol? Adrenaline?

[raypeatclips]

@Lecarpetron @Mad @stressucks Any updates on the zaps?

 

[stressucks]

I can't say I really have any anymore

 

[raypeatclips]

I can't say I really have any anymore

How did you fix the issue?

 

[Lecarpetron]

@Lecarpetron @Mad @stressucks Any updates on the zaps?

I haven't had them lately, though sleep has been on and off overall. I would say longer term use of 2 mg per day cypro made the difference for me. But...cypro tanks my temps yet I'm having a hard time coming off of it because it at leaSt prevents zaps.

 

[raypeatclips]

I haven't had them lately, though sleep has been on and off overall. I would say longer term use of 2 mg per day cypro made the difference for me. But...cypro tanks my temps yet I'm having a hard time coming off of it because it at leaSt prevents zaps.

This is my experience as well, having stopped taking cypro this week zaps are frequent and got insomnia.

 

[stressucks]

How did you fix the issue?

Eating salty carbs before bed, and an anti histamine. I'm not sure I had the exact same issue though

 

[raypeatclips]

Eating salty carbs before bed, and an anti histamine. I'm not sure I had the exact same issue though

Which anti histamine do you take?

 

[stressucks]

Which anti histamine do you take?

The wal greens one. Wal-som

 

[InChristAlone]

The zaps suck! Stress causes it for me too but I'm on cypro and don't have it much at all and I've been trying to sell my house since May. I'm very pleased with how I've handled the stress. Some things I think that have helped me handle stress is allowing my nervous to come down. When I notice the stress rising I allow it to rise, it peaks then re regulates. This is key. It is about allowing the sensations to pass. No matter how scary. To build capacity to allow, and to remember you are safe. A good book is called 'when the body says no'. It's about how in our society it is common for people to ignore their body's cries. So re-learning how to self regulate is the lesson with chronic stress.

 

[raypeatclips]

To all the "zappers" what is your diet like at the moment? @Mad @stressucks @Lecarpetron @Janelle525

I asked Peat about this.

Q. The past couple of days, regardless of day or night, whenever I try to sleep I get jolted awake by what feels like an adrenaline rush. It seems to happen regardless of how much I have eaten as my initial thought was that it was low liver glycogen related. Do you have any ideas how to fix this issue? Thank you

Ray Peat:

The most frequent cause is the presence of something in the intestine that’s causing stress—too much protein, or something such as starch supporting bacterial metabolism, or allergens.

*****

The past few days I have reintroduced wheat to my diet, in the form of no vegetable oil bread and butter shortbread biscuits. Perhaps this could be the exact reason this is happening to me, wheat irritating my insides. Wow. Time to lay off the wheat and see what happens. Thought I'd tip you guys off Peats thoughts on it.

 

[raypeatclips]

The zaps suck! Stress causes it for me too but I'm on cypro and don't have it much at all and I've been trying to sell my house since May. I'm very pleased with how I've handled the stress. Some things I think that have helped me handle stress is allowing my nervous to come down. When I notice the stress rising I allow it to rise, it peaks then re regulates. This is key. It is about allowing the sensations to pass. No matter how scary. To build capacity to allow, and to remember you are safe. A good book is called 'when the body says no'. It's about how in our society it is common for people to ignore their body's cries. So re-learning how to self regulate is the lesson with chronic stress.

Interesting, thanks for this post. I've never thought of allowing the stress to happen. I'll keep that in mind

 

[Lecarpetron]

Awesome, thanks for reporting this @raypeatclips

I do eat some wheat, white bread and pasta from time to time. It may be time to test no wheat for a few weeks. I could see poor digestion being the root of this problem for me.

 

[Mad]

@Lecarpetron @Mad @stressucks Any updates on the zaps?

I haven't had them lately either EXCEPT there was one night recently where I, again, had only mild zaps that didn't last long but were definitely zaps. It was the first night that I started back on progesterone and I was also very physically exhausted that night. All I could think was OMG I KNOW IT IS THE PROGESTERONE. But the next day I took some more and didn't get zaps again, so I've been upping my progesterone dose since then.

 

[Mad]

To all the "zappers" what is your diet like at the moment? @Mad @stressucks @Lecarpetron @Janelle525

I asked Peat about this.

Q. The past couple of days, regardless of day or night, whenever I try to sleep I get jolted awake by what feels like an adrenaline rush. It seems to happen regardless of how much I have eaten as my initial thought was that it was low liver glycogen related. Do you have any ideas how to fix this issue? Thank you

Ray Peat:

The most frequent cause is the presence of something in the intestine that’s causing stress—too much protein, or something such as starch supporting bacterial metabolism, or allergens.

*****

The past few days I have reintroduced wheat to my diet, in the form of no vegetable oil bread and butter shortbread biscuits. Perhaps this could be the exact reason this is happening to me, wheat irritating my insides. Wow. Time to lay off the wheat and see what happens. Thought I'd tip you guys off Peats thoughts on it.

Wow that is interesting.
So yes, I have been trying to avoid all starches lately. I have also been doing low fat. Both of these diet changes were made to try to control acne and estrogen, and lose some weight that I've gained while "eating peaty". I wouldn't think it would be too much protein for me - I sometimes struggle to get 100g per day.
I can't say that days that I eat starch directly correlates to zap nights, since I just went on vacation and ate whatever I wanted and had no zaps. But perhaps if there are added stressors, it could be the main cause of zaps. I will really have to pay attention to what I ate that day in the future if I do get zaps.
These diet changes were probably made around the time that my zaps stopped...I might could go back and look at little journals I've kept to see exactly when. I know that I suspected it was Progest E, so I stopped that completely and started working on reducing serotonin via extra thyroid doses, bag breathing, and drinking carbonated drinks. I also worked on getting sun most days and I added some snacks into my routine to make sure I eat every 2-3 hours. More recently, I started back on Haidut's Progestene but did not start with high dose like I did with Progest E.
Definitely keep us updated with your experiment with eliminating wheat!!

 

[InChristAlone]

I think a large part of getting jolted awake by a stress response is a result of sleep apnea. I think one reason I'm not getting it is because I've been taping my mouth shut every night. I mouth breathe at night if I don't. Also getting lots of sunlight seems to really help sleep.

My diet is not that great so in my case I can't blame anything improving on my diet. Lots of wheat lately. Yet I've been sleeping great! Even the first two days of my period! Unbelievable!! I usually have night sweats. Summer is healing time folks!

 

[Hurricane07]

I have been suffering these 'zaps' for almost 2 months now. The variables I can think of that may have lead to them is:

1. I moved into the 5th floor of a new apartment complex (possible emf and far from the ground)

2. I endured a very stressful period where a potential working partnership was moving in a direction I did not like. (expectations placed upon a situation were not met... not just expectations but very high expectations)

3. during that period I was eating a lot of food on the run, lots of pizzas, burgers etc

I am almost certain it is related to endotoxin in my gut as the only thing that has helped me get to sleep is a glass of water with activated charcoal. However last night this failed to work.

I absolutely feel for anyone going through this as it is really unpleasant, I have learned to just remain calm and let it pass, sometimes this is literally hours. I have practised viapssana meditation for some years now and i am very grateful i have developed this mode of awareness without getting lost in the experience and reacting, it gives me a buffer. Having said that it is something I am very keen to rid myself of.

As a note to my first point, twice in the last week I have stayed away from my apartment,, one time at the beach (where I did some Wim Hof breathing and a cold plunge (very cold this time of year), and another in a less dense part of the city (Melbourne) at my friends place and both times I slept fine, even after having a couple beers and even smoking some cigarettes. I thought I had pinned it down to endotoxin but perhaps it's something to do with the emf?

To be honest i'm stumped on this one, there are so many variables it feels almost impossible to pin them down. Maybe terminate my lease and move to a less EMF dense place might be the only answer.

 

[Hurricane07]

Have there been any notable studies on the effects of EMF in relation to endotoxin?

 

[raypeatclips]

@Hurricane07 I am not entirely convinced it is endotoxin related either.

I'm wondering how much of it is stress related. Im going through a stressful period at work when the zaps have started, which I noticed you mentioned stress at work in your post. Perhaps the reason you didn't get the zaps when you stayed out of the house was to do with general lowering of stress (cigarettes socialising, change of routine, as well as the emf which I am sure is a stressor) compared to when you are at home and coming to and from work etc

I haven't found any particular change in turning off wifi at night but going to experiment with it further.

My current thinking is that the zaps are result of stresses, probably more than one stress at once. My diet hasn't particularly changed recently but the added work stress has.

@Janelle525 says she is eating more wheat but her general stress and dealing with stress seems to have improved.

@Mad similarly said that on vacation and eating whatever they wanted the zaps didn't happen.

@Lecarpetron noticed zaps after a long distance move, also says they are struggling with mood. Not seemed to change diet or supplementation.

@Simonsays Says he was experiencing severe stress when he developed the symptoms.

I wonder how much the mental aspect plays into all of this. Peat never talks about mental effects, always sees things from a physiological point of view . Surely if this was purely diet related as Peat suggested then lecarpetrons diet that hadn't changed shouldn't have brought on zaps, mad should have had zaps on vacation eating lower quality food, Janelle should have zaps from eating more wheat etc Anyone elses thoughts appreciated

 

[raypeatclips]

Other thoughts are that endotoxin isn't the result (people get it on a low endotoxin diet and people get it after activated charcoal)

I am wondering is histamine is at play here. People have reported benefits from bag breathing before bed and co2, which has an effect on histamine. As well as other people reporting benefits from taking anti histamines such as cypro. I found this study that talks about histamine and wakefulness. Perhaps I am going down more of the insomnia route than zaps route here.

Histamine in the regulation of wakefulness. - PubMed - NCBI

Peat says estrogen leads to mass cells activating histamine and serotonin and as estrogen is raised by stress perhaps stress > estrogen > histamine is the reason for sleep issues.

So ultimately it is thyroid related, people with good thyroids probably would not get this issue. For the rest of us it might be interesting to experiment with some anti estrogen anti histamine substances. All the fat soluble vitamins?


Out of interest everyone with chest zap issues, have you had vitamin d levels tested and if so what were the results?

 

[Mad]

Other thoughts are that endotoxin isn't the result (people get it on a low endotoxin diet and people get it after activated charcoal)

I am wondering is histamine is at play here. People have reported benefits from bag breathing before bed and co2, which has an effect on histamine. As well as other people reporting benefits from taking anti histamines such as cypro. I found this study that talks about histamine and wakefulness. Perhaps I am going down more of the insomnia route than zaps route here.

Histamine in the regulation of wakefulness. - PubMed - NCBI

Peat says estrogen leads to mass cells activating histamine and serotonin and as estrogen is raised by stress perhaps stress > estrogen > histamine is the reason for sleep issues.

So ultimately it is thyroid related, people with good thyroids probably would not get this issue. For the rest of us it might be interesting to experiment with some anti estrogen anti histamine substances. All the fat soluble vitamins?


Out of interest everyone with chest zap issues, have you had vitamin d levels tested and if so what were the results?

I have not had my levels tested.
But I do think you're on to something... If you read through this whole thread, mentionings of stress seem to be everywhere. So the relation of stress to estrogen, serotonin, and histamine could certainly be part of the physiological side of it all.

As a side note, I thought I had mentioned this before but I can't find it anywhere: at one point when I had been zap free for several weeks/months, I somehow had forgotten to bag breathe before bed for two or three nights in a row and got zaps each night. I don't recall what caused me to forget... Probably I was especially busy. After a couple of days of this I couldn't believe that I had forgotten to bag breathe, and was also amazed at the possible direct correlation for me. So in that case, I guess we don't know if it would have been the stress/being busy that caused those zaps or the lack of bag breathing.

Another side note... Ever since that first round of very bad zaps that I got for a couple of months, any time I have gotten zaps since then, they have been more mild/not lasted nearly as long. I think this result could speak to the role of stress in zaps, as well, since I think I handle them better now that I am more prepared to deal with them, am not as scared of them, and know that I don't have to suffer from them every night (aka zaps themselves used to cause immense amounts of stress for me and no longer do because I do not fear them like I did).