I have only posted twice before in 2021, but have been reading ever since and trying to work it out for myself. I feel very defeated this morning and so here I am again, reaching out to anyone who might be able to help (as so many of you did previously, thank you).
I am thinking of the concept of high-calorie malnutrition (having read so much of what Mostly Lurking has posted here). I came here seeking a way to refeed after a lifetime of anorexia and under-eating enough to cause serious harm to my metabolism and anxiety off the scale, day-in, day-out. I have been focussing on taking in energy/eating sugars with the hopes that this would reduce surges in cortisol and adrenalin. My stress hormones NEVER turn down. My diet has therefore been high in honey, fruit (including ripe bananas, I am afraid through lack of any other sweet-enough fruits available in the UK and having to consider foods low in oxalates, which cuts out dried fruits). I have recently been compelled (from hunger and a desire) to eat condensed milk.
Without a doubt I was thiamine-deficient when I joined this forum 18 months ago. I am seriously so now and very very worried. I experience much worsening peripheral neuropathy, pretibial oedema (which I understand is quite an accurate way of diagnosing thiamine deficiency?), extreme tightness in calves and other muscles such that walking up and down stairs is now difficult, as is walking full stop. I am also going through a phase of quite bad sciatica (which I am sure must also be related to my deficiency state). Not to mention so many of the other dysautonomia symptoms so clearly stated by Dr. Lonsdale in Hormones Matter.
I am underweight for my height (43 kg, 5 ft 4 inches) and have a raging hunger which I cannot satiate - night or day. This is very scary for someone with a history of anorexia which has now morphed into extreme orthorexia. I know some may say, just go away and eat, but that is not so helpful to me at the moment because I can only eat if I have a plan, a plan which I can trust is helping to heal and replete my depleted body. I am searching for that plan, but in doing so, I have only made my situation very seriously worse. I really do not want to experience a heart attack due to my thiamine deficiency, as well as everything else. I have been working on the theory that before all else the body needs energy/calories. I think I have read Kelj say that many times when she has been talking about her courageous recovery journey and I think Peatfield also. But now I have exacerbated an thiamine deficiency. My impasse.
Mostly Lurking, if you are there, I have heard you say that Ray Peat has talked about the sugar in 1 quart OJ and 2 quarts milk to be sufficient. I cannot drink OJ because, since starting to eat more calories (from milk, honey, fruit etc), I have developed very bad laryngopharyngeal reflux and GERD. I feel sure that the greatly heightened stress of the last six months has exacerbated these symptoms. I have read many threads here talking about thiamine being central to the digestive and absorptive process so thiamine pops up again. So I have substituted OJ with melon and bananas and pears. After that I am left with 2 quarts milk (I am actually drinking about 2.5 quarts daily). This is just not enough, even though on good days I make 2000 calories. I go to bed hungry (but acid makes me constantly hungry anyway, such that that hunger is like a pain) I have no idea what else to eat now to increase my caloric intake, whilst not making me more thiamine deficient and reflux worse.
On many occasions I have tried to take thiamine. I have been using Energin (about 20 drops daily), so some thiamine there. I have tried to add on to this 25 up to 100 mg Thiamine HCL. I am extremely sensitive to all oral supplements (hence Energin). I thought I was perhaps doing okay with 100 mg Thiamine HCl but only managed it for about 4 days in a row and it does give me a headache every dosage. I have recently tried to replace Energin with Pure Encapsulations B Complex Plus, but I am not sure if this is not making the peripheral neuropathy even worse (too much B 6 maybe and I really do not understand about folic acid and B 12, which this supplement includes)
This morning I rubbed in my 20 drops Energin and about 45 mins later, I took 100 mg thiamine HCL. Within 10 minutes, I experienced a considerable swelling in my knee (pretibial) which was very scary and again made walking difficult. Thiamine is supposed to help with this not make it worse, I thought. I have read about the thiamine paradox but I am too nervous and confused to work my way through it. All I do is end up stopping thiamine and then feeling anxious for stopping it. I do take magnesium as listed below. And it is this latest tibial scare which has brought me here today. I have no idea which way to turn and feel paralysed with fear.
I have just eaten some oat bran, not because I wanted it and also knowing that I do not do starches very well at all, but just because I am afraid to eat foods which are devoid thiamine, but, of course, what good would that miniscule bit of thiamine do me when I am so deficient? How do others get around this thiamine problem when not eating legumes, nuts, seeds etc., I wonder. I am just acting out of blind fear now.
You will all think me neurotic and perhaps I am, but I only want to do the best for myself so that I can join society as a useful human being, instead of being so tired and overwhelmed by stress around food.
Thank you anyone who has stuck through this ramble.
I shall just give you a typical day's worth of food in case that should help.
Breakfast:
350 mls goat's milk (1/2 semi skimmed /1/2 full fat and the same each time I drink it), with half tsp sugar!
1 large poached egg
120 g melon
Mid morning:
Breakfast repeated
Lunch:
100 g ground beef with fat skimmed off (too rich otherwise)
180 g pears
350 mls milk (as above)
2 large tsps condensed milk
Mid afternoon
350 mls goat's milk
1 1/2 bananas (about 140 g)
Dinner:
180 g pears
40 g carrot salad (without vinegar)
30 g Feta cheese (low fat)
(some days 50 g prawns or 100 g cod or 1 large kidney instead of cheese)
350 mls goat's milk
2 tsp condensed milk
(twice per week 1 oz liver)
I try to stop eating by 7.30 but invariable the reflux makes me so ragingly hungry that I have to succumb and have:
300 mls goat's milk
1 banana
And I still go to bed so hungry
I wake always at 2.00 a.m. I try to lie out my hunger but often I get up and have 2 large tsps of honey and some beef stock from my lunchtime ground beef.
I take a mixture of magnesium oxide (I have extreme constipation without it and very loose stools with it), magnesium carbonate (I think this is constipating as is magnesium glycinate) and I sit with my feet in Epsom Salt footbaths twice every day and use topically 20 drops of magnesium chloride.
I have no life because all I can think of is food. It is as if my house is burning and so there is no way that I can go out and have fun. I have to sort out the fire in my house first. Except that I am not sorting it out. I am only getting worse.
Again, I thank you so much for all I have learned from this forum and for anyone who feels able to respond to me again today.
Best wishes
Tilly-J
I am thinking of the concept of high-calorie malnutrition (having read so much of what Mostly Lurking has posted here). I came here seeking a way to refeed after a lifetime of anorexia and under-eating enough to cause serious harm to my metabolism and anxiety off the scale, day-in, day-out. I have been focussing on taking in energy/eating sugars with the hopes that this would reduce surges in cortisol and adrenalin. My stress hormones NEVER turn down. My diet has therefore been high in honey, fruit (including ripe bananas, I am afraid through lack of any other sweet-enough fruits available in the UK and having to consider foods low in oxalates, which cuts out dried fruits). I have recently been compelled (from hunger and a desire) to eat condensed milk.
Without a doubt I was thiamine-deficient when I joined this forum 18 months ago. I am seriously so now and very very worried. I experience much worsening peripheral neuropathy, pretibial oedema (which I understand is quite an accurate way of diagnosing thiamine deficiency?), extreme tightness in calves and other muscles such that walking up and down stairs is now difficult, as is walking full stop. I am also going through a phase of quite bad sciatica (which I am sure must also be related to my deficiency state). Not to mention so many of the other dysautonomia symptoms so clearly stated by Dr. Lonsdale in Hormones Matter.
I am underweight for my height (43 kg, 5 ft 4 inches) and have a raging hunger which I cannot satiate - night or day. This is very scary for someone with a history of anorexia which has now morphed into extreme orthorexia. I know some may say, just go away and eat, but that is not so helpful to me at the moment because I can only eat if I have a plan, a plan which I can trust is helping to heal and replete my depleted body. I am searching for that plan, but in doing so, I have only made my situation very seriously worse. I really do not want to experience a heart attack due to my thiamine deficiency, as well as everything else. I have been working on the theory that before all else the body needs energy/calories. I think I have read Kelj say that many times when she has been talking about her courageous recovery journey and I think Peatfield also. But now I have exacerbated an thiamine deficiency. My impasse.
Mostly Lurking, if you are there, I have heard you say that Ray Peat has talked about the sugar in 1 quart OJ and 2 quarts milk to be sufficient. I cannot drink OJ because, since starting to eat more calories (from milk, honey, fruit etc), I have developed very bad laryngopharyngeal reflux and GERD. I feel sure that the greatly heightened stress of the last six months has exacerbated these symptoms. I have read many threads here talking about thiamine being central to the digestive and absorptive process so thiamine pops up again. So I have substituted OJ with melon and bananas and pears. After that I am left with 2 quarts milk (I am actually drinking about 2.5 quarts daily). This is just not enough, even though on good days I make 2000 calories. I go to bed hungry (but acid makes me constantly hungry anyway, such that that hunger is like a pain) I have no idea what else to eat now to increase my caloric intake, whilst not making me more thiamine deficient and reflux worse.
On many occasions I have tried to take thiamine. I have been using Energin (about 20 drops daily), so some thiamine there. I have tried to add on to this 25 up to 100 mg Thiamine HCL. I am extremely sensitive to all oral supplements (hence Energin). I thought I was perhaps doing okay with 100 mg Thiamine HCl but only managed it for about 4 days in a row and it does give me a headache every dosage. I have recently tried to replace Energin with Pure Encapsulations B Complex Plus, but I am not sure if this is not making the peripheral neuropathy even worse (too much B 6 maybe and I really do not understand about folic acid and B 12, which this supplement includes)
This morning I rubbed in my 20 drops Energin and about 45 mins later, I took 100 mg thiamine HCL. Within 10 minutes, I experienced a considerable swelling in my knee (pretibial) which was very scary and again made walking difficult. Thiamine is supposed to help with this not make it worse, I thought. I have read about the thiamine paradox but I am too nervous and confused to work my way through it. All I do is end up stopping thiamine and then feeling anxious for stopping it. I do take magnesium as listed below. And it is this latest tibial scare which has brought me here today. I have no idea which way to turn and feel paralysed with fear.
I have just eaten some oat bran, not because I wanted it and also knowing that I do not do starches very well at all, but just because I am afraid to eat foods which are devoid thiamine, but, of course, what good would that miniscule bit of thiamine do me when I am so deficient? How do others get around this thiamine problem when not eating legumes, nuts, seeds etc., I wonder. I am just acting out of blind fear now.
You will all think me neurotic and perhaps I am, but I only want to do the best for myself so that I can join society as a useful human being, instead of being so tired and overwhelmed by stress around food.
Thank you anyone who has stuck through this ramble.
I shall just give you a typical day's worth of food in case that should help.
Breakfast:
350 mls goat's milk (1/2 semi skimmed /1/2 full fat and the same each time I drink it), with half tsp sugar!
1 large poached egg
120 g melon
Mid morning:
Breakfast repeated
Lunch:
100 g ground beef with fat skimmed off (too rich otherwise)
180 g pears
350 mls milk (as above)
2 large tsps condensed milk
Mid afternoon
350 mls goat's milk
1 1/2 bananas (about 140 g)
Dinner:
180 g pears
40 g carrot salad (without vinegar)
30 g Feta cheese (low fat)
(some days 50 g prawns or 100 g cod or 1 large kidney instead of cheese)
350 mls goat's milk
2 tsp condensed milk
(twice per week 1 oz liver)
I try to stop eating by 7.30 but invariable the reflux makes me so ragingly hungry that I have to succumb and have:
300 mls goat's milk
1 banana
And I still go to bed so hungry
I wake always at 2.00 a.m. I try to lie out my hunger but often I get up and have 2 large tsps of honey and some beef stock from my lunchtime ground beef.
I take a mixture of magnesium oxide (I have extreme constipation without it and very loose stools with it), magnesium carbonate (I think this is constipating as is magnesium glycinate) and I sit with my feet in Epsom Salt footbaths twice every day and use topically 20 drops of magnesium chloride.
I have no life because all I can think of is food. It is as if my house is burning and so there is no way that I can go out and have fun. I have to sort out the fire in my house first. Except that I am not sorting it out. I am only getting worse.
Again, I thank you so much for all I have learned from this forum and for anyone who feels able to respond to me again today.
Best wishes
Tilly-J
