hayfever advice

SQu

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My apologies if I'm wasting people's time asking questions that have been answered elsewhere. I've spent a few days doing nothing but reading forums and posts on my issues. I did have a good look and get some info from some posts but if I've missed something that seems to answer my question please point me in that direction!

Many years ago I got bad hayfever to the point of such nonstop sneezing and dizziness I could do literally nothing else but go to bed and sleep it off, then I'd wake up all better. Variations on this worst case were just heavy bouts of sneezing, eye tearing, face numb yet itchy, scratchy cough, and (embarrassingly) a definite worsening of slight urine incontinence that started after childbirth but is pretty well controlled with pelvic floor exercises. (It's not just the extreme pressure of constant powerful sneezing - it's a bit worse even taking that into account otherwise I wouldn't even mention it)

Low carb sorted that out and it was gone for years. The past few weeks it's been back at a time when I have had the following happen:
1. a health setback following a holiday following a period of overwork - migraine, bad nausea, bad aching, tiredness, insomnia, feeling 90years old, and none of my usual fixes working, such as BCAAs, aspirin
2. I've been upping the peatiness of my diet and it's summer so I've been having more fat free milk, more very ripe tropical fruit, more orange juice (commercial but not from concentrate, does include pulp), more gelatin, but nothing here is new ,I'm just having more of it. Less starch, and just one slice of homemade bread a day but I'm thinking of dropping that.
3. To counteract the nausea I tried charcoal and the first time it worked a treat even leading to slight euphoria, but the next time it made me worse. I am aware that changes raise stress hormones for me and I get paradoxical symptoms so I back off then try again later and slower.
4. I tried diphenhydramine 25mg - nothing - doubled it to 50 - helps somewhat, sometimes, not helping poor sleep though
I'm still taking that.

A day's diet includes often 2 litres of fat free milk, alitre of orange juice, sugar, coffee before 12am, 3 eggs, a smear of butter, a teaspoon or two of coconut oil, fruit, gelatin, a bit of meat or chicken at night at a family meal, a bit of rice or potato with it - a few spoons - a little veg but I'm not mad about it. also the daily carrot, which I'm now having in the form of that salad with coconut oil, a bit of vinegar and salt. There's nothing new here, just more of the same. I take too many supps but feel worse without them so I keep on them - vits c,e,b complex, niacinamide, mag glycinate, zinc with selenium and vit a, ubiquinol, bit of k2 (but so expensive here!!!), adaptogens, p5p and vitex. nothing new there either. aspirin before bed (2) and the DPH. NDT made me more hypothyroid not less so I stopped that, haven't taken progesterone since I learned the creams are not so good but it did help before that.

Thanks in advance for any help!
 

Swandattur

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You were probably allergic or sensitive to something you were eating before low carb. If I eat too many high histamine foods or foods I'm sensitive to, I get the sneezing and incontinence thing, too when I sneeze too much. Also, improving metabolism helps on those things.

As for the new symptoms, do you take the cascara sagrada with the charcoal? I think that is supposed to help. Maybe it is the weird pulp in the commercial orange juice that is getting to you. Just some thoughts to help trouble shoot. I'm just stumbling along myself.
 
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SQu

SQu

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Thank you Swandattur. In the past I found cascara constipating (!) but maybe it was just a bad quality one. I think the pulp is just oranges as it's a good quality brand. The hayfever has subsided a bit to be replaced by my regular headache verging on migraine and nauseated feeling, perhaps brought on by too many antihistamines, the benedryl kind. I'll look into the cascara again. Thank you and I hope this year your path is smoother with less and less stumbles
 

HDD

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sueq,

You are not wasting anyone's time. We are all here to learn and help one another.

"Many years ago I got bad hayfever to the point of such nonstop sneezing and dizziness I could do literally nothing else but go to bed and sleep it off, then I'd wake up all better. Variations on this worst case were just heavy bouts of sneezing, eye tearing, face numb yet itchy, scratchy cough, and (embarrassingly) a definite worsening of slight urine incontinence that started after childbirth but is pretty well controlled with pelvic floor exercises. (It's not just the extreme pressure of constant powerful sneezing - it's a bit worse even taking that into account otherwise I wouldn't even mention it)"

>>>>>>This is a quote from Peatarian in another thread.

>>>>"It is very important to lower your estrogen. There is no allergy to estrogen: Estrogen is the cause behind all allergies. It increases all stress hormones, including histamine which is responsible for many of the symptoms you describe.


"Low carb sorted that out and it was gone for years. The past few weeks it's been back at a time when I have had the following happen:
1. a health setback following a holiday following a period of overwork - migraine, bad nausea, bad aching, tiredness, insomnia, feeling 90years old, and none of my usual fixes working, such as BCAAs, aspirin
2. I've been upping the peatiness of my diet and it's summer so I've been having more fat free milk, more very ripe tropical fruit, more orange juice (commercial but not from concentrate, does include pulp), more gelatin, but nothing here is new ,I'm just having more of it. Less starch, and just one slice of homemade bread a day but I'm thinking of dropping that.
3. To counteract the nausea I tried charcoal and the first time it worked a treat even leading to slight euphoria, but the next time it made me worse. I am aware that changes raise stress hormones for me and I get paradoxical symptoms so I back off then try again later and slower.
4. I tried diphenhydramine 25mg - nothing - doubled it to 50 - helps somewhat, sometimes, not helping poor sleep though
I'm still taking that. "

>>>>>>Another from Peatarian.

"Feeling sick is connected to estrogen."


Ray Peat-
"The premenstrual estrogen-dominance usually leads progressively to higher prolactin and lower thyroid function. Estrogen is closely associated with endotoxinemia, and with histamine and nitric oxide formation, and with the whole range of inflammatory and “autoimmune” diseases. Anything that irritates the bowel, leading to increased endotoxin absorption, contributes to the same cluster of metabolic consequences."


"Some women with premenstrual fatigue have found that the “premenstrual” phase tends to get longer and longer, until they have chronic fatigue. I found that to be one of the easiest "PMS" problems to correct. When people are older, and have been sick longer, the fatigue problem is likely to involve more systems of the body. The larger the quantity of "toxic fat" stored in the body, the more careful the person must be about increasing metabolic and physical activity. Using more vitamin E, short-chain saturated fats, and other anti-lipid-peroxidation agents is important."

http://raypeat.com/articles/nutrition/carrageenan.shtml





"A day's diet includes often 2 litres of fat free milk, alitre of orange juice, sugar, coffee before 12am, 3 eggs, a smear of butter, a teaspoon or two of coconut oil, fruit, gelatin, a bit of meat or chicken at night at a family meal, a bit of rice or potato with it - a few spoons - a little veg but I'm not mad about it. also the daily carrot, which I'm now having in the form of that salad with coconut oil, a bit of vinegar and salt. There's nothing new here, just more of the same. I take too many supps but feel worse without them so I keep on them - vits c,e,b complex, niacinamide, mag glycinate, zinc with selenium and vit a, ubiquinol, bit of k2 (but so expensive here!!!), adaptogens, p5p and vitex. nothing new there either. aspirin before bed (2) and the DPH. NDT made me more hypothyroid not less so I stopped that, haven't taken progesterone since I learned the creams are not so good but it did help before that."

>>>>Progest-e is the only progesterone supplement that is recommended.

>>>>There was another poster that had a problem with NDT. Peat recommends cynoplus/cynomel.

>>>"Hyperestrogenism, like hypothyroidism, tends to produce dilution of the body fluids, and is associated with increased bowel permeability, leading to endotoxemia; both dilution of the plasma and endotoxemia impair heart function."


"Vitamin E, like progesterone and aspirin, acts within the cellular regulatory systems, to prevent inflammation and inappropriate excitation. Since uncontrolled excitation causes destructive oxidations, these substances prevent those forms of oxidation."


Thanks in advance for any help!
0

>>>>In the thread where the woman was nauseous, I believe Peatarian recommended Odansetron or potato pudding (juiced potatoes, starch removed, cooked). Odansetron is prescribed for nausea in pregnancy and for cancer patients. It is a serotonin antagonist. The potato pudding is, too.

I hope something here is helpful
 

HDD

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"I still wouldn't add ondansetron or minocyclin to the supplement list because RP doesn't recommend the regular use. But on the other hand neither does he with cascara. He also recommends benadryl or other antihistamins but not regularly, either. There is a circle of histamin, estrogen, melatonin and the other stress hormones which can be stopped using antihistamins. Or naltrexone in very low doses for that matter."

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=249&p=1732#p1732

This is another Peatarian quote that I had saved.
 
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SQu

SQu

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Thank you so much! I will go through all this and give it some thought. I am getting worse and worse and struggle with this bright screen which makes my ability to read carefully and thoroughly and to think clearly worse. the hayfever is still there though not as bad but I just feel increasingly unwell with a constant headache, sometimes tipping into migraine, light headedness, nausea, and foggy thinking, emotional. I'm still eating all the peat stuff mostly but too nauseaous for eggs or liver right now, also sometimes I have to just eat what I can face, whatever that might be, which has turned out to be a chicken burger, a slice of cheesecake. I live in South Africa so the heat now is intense and baking, and I pour with sweat all the time, though my temps are a bit lower when I test, 36.4 when I wake, 36.7 later in the day, pulse 85 or so. also finding things like cytomel etc - not sure how - if anyone else is from here perhaps they wouldn't mind dropping me a note. if I take myprodol (with extreme migraine) I wake up a bit better though lightheaded. this bad phase started shortly after Christmas but not because of Christmas excess as there wasn't any of that,, we ate normally. the only change was upping the peatiness of my diet, more o.j. more low/fat free milk less starch. but right now can only face invalid's food - potatoes sound ok, maybe I could manage bland rice and potatoes. thanks for the input.
 

loess

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sueq said:
I am getting worse and worse and struggle with this bright screen which makes my ability to read carefully and thoroughly and to think clearly worse.

Go download f.lux!
 

HDD

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I apologize for my post being confusing. The thing that I was trying to point out was that estrogen/serotonin was most likely the source of your symptoms. And that there is a good progesterone that you can order. And not to give up on thyroid.

I just stumbled upon this in the email depository about taking thyroid.

"When you first start taking thyroid again, your tissues will need some extra magnesium, during the time when the dose is increasing, and when the mineral balance is restored your temperature and metabolic rate might decrease a little. Orange juice, milk, and coffee are good for the main minerals, while salting your food to taste.

Supplementing thyroid can sometimes reduce the rate of metabolism, by allowing cells to retain enough magnesium, which stabilizes ATP."

In another thread, someone posted that they would increase their magnesium when thyroid wasn't working (not exact words).


For migraines,Ray Peat found a couple of things that helped him. First, was the daily carrot or carrot salad. Are you able to eat this, still? This will help balance your hormones by helping the liver get rid of estrogen.The other thing is sugar. Ice cream in particular is what Peat found to help get rid of his migraine. With ice cream you need to watch the ingredients. There are only a few brands that do not have bad ingredients. Haagen Dazs is the most common one and just a few flavors are completely clean.
Low blood sugar can also cause both nausea and migraines. Try to eat something every 2-3 hours. It just needs to be a little snack. A little OJ and a piece of cheese. Sugary, milky, coffee. Etc.

Sometimes the supplements can be causing a problem. You need to check the ingredients in each of them to make sure they are not contributing to the problem.



Are you able to get out in the sun in the day? The light is very beneficial. Even for a very short time.

The potato pudding I mentioned above is made using a centrifugal juicer. You juice the potatoes, let the starch settle, and then scramble the remaining liquid. If you have the juicer, it might be worth trying. There are some threads discussing how to do this on the forum. There are some anti-serotonin drugs that can be helpful while healing.

I will send you a pm for obtaining cynoplus.
 
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SQu

SQu

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No it's me! Counting to ten would confuse me right now.
there is bright sunlight year round here. I just know I'd do much worse with less sun (that quote about cloudy Eugene and basement apartments ...)Today I sat outside more and feel a bit better for it. Less light sensitive in spite of the glare. I have an infra red lamp but it's too hot to use now - 37C at 6 pm, no rain. I have an oscar juicer so can juice potatoes then let it settle and pour off from the starch. I'll try that tonight. Thanks for ice cream tip, I'll look for a good one with least additives . I'm going to ask at the pharmacy about cyproheptadine ,they can tell me if I need a prescription , probably do. I've been trying to avoid taking thyroid as so many people seem to struggle - even better informed people like on this forum - but I see for others it does wonders so would do it if I felt I understood the dosing - I'm sure there are good threads here on that? I took a thyroid glandular and got hypothyroid symptoms so stopped. Someone told me too much free t3.
I do take carrot and that's fine and I try charcoal about twice a week week away from meals. I feel that's strong medicine- will continue in another post..
 
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SQu

SQu

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Haagendazendiane thank you very much for the PM, I'm following that up. And for all the advice and support.If I met you in person I would definitely give you flowers as in your pic.

By the way is there a particularly recommended thread on dosing? I know there is a lot on the topic but anything particularly recommended thyroid -wise? I have notes on what RP said from danny roddy's ray peat's brain.

I was typing on a smart phone which was not ideal but I can follow up on a laptop now. Also I spent time in the sun, cut back on niacinamide, strained the pulp out of the OJ, and ate some commercial potato and maize crisps (on the eat what you can face principle) and who knows which if any helped but I feel a bit better tonight.

Re the potato, thanks for that thread, so much food for thought, I plan to read it all, but for now I've read the recipe, and my question is, is the juice supposed to still have starch or do you pour it off the top and leave the starch at the bottom? I've juiced some potatoes with my juicer, it's not a centrifugal type, it's a chew it up fine and spit it out separately from the pulp type. It looks like it would boil not fry, it's pure liquid. Should I be mixing pulp and juice? and frying that? Or boiling the juice?

Secondly, from that thread and the talk of antibiotics, something has come full circle for me - about 5 years ago I was treated by a CFS doctor who had the infection theory, you know, the chronic tick bite fever theory of CFS and yes, it helped a lot. She gave me doxycycline which worked quite well, but cyclimycin made me very dizzy and then that road, like all roads, led to terrible migraines. Ditto Flagyl only worse migraine and vomiting without prior dizziness. Felt like it nearly killed me but in the end I was a good 50% better. For a good while. They also knocked out my chronic thrush until very recently when it has made a milder reappearance and I do hope that it will stop there.

Thirdly on reading your posts with a clearer head it seems to me that I need a stronger anti-estrogen agent than coffee, aspirin, sunlight, and all the other things I'm doing. Seems I'm walking a fine line and any disturbance and I go down. I do need to consider some of these other things and will look into the cypro, ondensetron, low dose naltrexone, not sure about the antibiotics as per past experience.

I have become accustomed to thinking of myself as responding weirdly to medication (see CFS story above, mystified the doctor) or to being very prone to the 'healing crisis' or 'detox symptoms' - an idea I have come to suspect is a myth. But is it possible, has anyone else found that knocking out the estrogen and serotonin can make you worse before you get better? Or am I still getting something wrong? I have had so many nightmare bad patches of this kind and this has been one of the worst (Flagyl was worse though) and I am losing courage to face more. Myth or not, I get this a lot.

I know so many people are so much worse off than me - having kept clear of doctors other than the CFS one I've kept clear of diagnoses and making-things-worse medicines. But I have also been lucky not to get as ill as some people I read about. yet even at this level it is not overly dramatizing to call it near-crippling, a waster of many many good years of my life and my potential.

For 5 months RP eating has made me better, the good patches got longer, the bad ones less often, until now, which has been about 3 unpleasant weeks. My family struggles when I'm like this too.

Now I'm rambling. Excuse me. there is a point I'm fumblingtowards, to do with healing crises (are they real or another mistake and something I could avoid) and recapitulations of old problems revisiting like the Ghosts of Illnesses Past. And needing a bigger way to oppose estrogen.

Thank you, thank you, I am so grateful for the help!
 

aquaman

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sueq said:
A day's diet includes often 2 litres of fat free milk, alitre of orange juice, sugar, coffee before 12am, 3 eggs, a smear of butter, a teaspoon or two of coconut oil, fruit, gelatin, a bit of meat or chicken at night at a family meal, a bit of rice or potato with it - a few spoons - a little veg but I'm not mad about it. also the daily carrot, which I'm now having in the form of that salad with coconut oil, a bit of vinegar and salt. There's nothing new here, just more of the same. I take too many supps but feel worse without them so I keep on them - vits c,e,b complex, niacinamide, mag glycinate, zinc with selenium and vit a, ubiquinol, bit of k2 (but so expensive here!!!), adaptogens, p5p and vitex. nothing new there either. aspirin before bed (2) and the DPH. NDT made me more hypothyroid not less so I stopped that, haven't taken progesterone since I learned the creams are not so good but it did help before that.

Thanks in advance for any help!

I'd try dropping the eggs, they give me bad allergies. Didn't realise it was them for the longest time until recently.

Add shellfish and white fish, your diet seems too heavily liquid-based.
 
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SQu

SQu

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Eggs? I have been eating those forever, and feel better for them though sometimes also don't feel like them much. Like liver, they agree with me though I don't always feel up to them. I know my liver needs support and always assumed it was the choline that I needed. But that feeling that they work for me could also be stress hormones I suppose - boy does that adrenaline mess up our biofeedback! Interestingly, I have been feeling like plain white fish the past few days. Which is rare. Thanks for the input!
 

aquaman

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sueq said:
Eggs? I have been eating those forever, and feel better for them though sometimes also don't feel like them much. Like liver, they agree with me though I don't always feel up to them. I know my liver needs support and always assumed it was the choline that I needed. But that feeling that they work for me could also be stress hormones I suppose - boy does that adrenaline mess up our biofeedback! Interestingly, I have been feeling like plain white fish the past few days. Which is rare. Thanks for the input!

Yeah i've eaten tons of eggs all my life.

Suddenly I realised that I get an allergic reaction from them, not that bad, which is why i've never noticed before, just a slight increase in post-nasal drip.

I'm going to try only egg yolks, cutting whites out.
 
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SQu

SQu

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Haagendazendiane , an update on your advice : ice cream made a very big difference - a good one with only bad possibilities being inulin and 'thickener' - all other ingredients good. (Actually I don't know if inulin is good or bad.)

So now I understand that when I feel bad I eat at longer intervals due to nausea and this makes things worse. This is a big eye opener.

I also had coffee, cautiously as the idea sickened me but the coffee itself went down fine and i had 4 small cups over the course of the morning, and all improved my symptoms.

interestingly my hayfever vanished but for a small reappearance when I ate another good but not top quality ice cream that had whey powder and unspecified 'emulsifiers' 'stabilizers' 'flavourings' and 'colourings'. I'll avoid that one now, stick to the first, and try RP's recipe.

I also found cyproheptadine ( though I don't think you mentioned it there) fortunately over the counter in this country, and broke up a 4mg tablet and took at bedtime with good results.

the boiled potato juice helped too but I am not sure I got the method right as it remained juice with just a few specks of coagulated curds in it - my juicers spits out the chewed up pulp. So I should make sure to include not exclude the starch that sinks to the bottom? the recipe seems to say this, is it correct? I got confused about that.

Anyway this is all by way of saying a big thank you for your well timed advice and suggestions!

Aquaman if this happens again I'm going to consider the egg thing. Thank you!
 

Swandattur

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Just eat the liquid part, and not the starch that sinks to the bottom. Also, skip the pulp. When you cook this liquid in a pan, it coagulates into something that looks like scrambled eggs. I think not all the starch sinks to the bottom. Maybe you have to wait longer for that. New potatoes (just cooked, not juiced) are supposed to be good, too. They have less starch and more ketoacids.

I think I was allergic to egg whites for a while. I seem to be able to eat them now. The whites are supposed to be a likely allergen.
 

Poppyseed13

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Hello.

One of the many things I use for hayfever is a nettle infusion (a la Susun Weed). I drink it cold and the effect lasts for about 4-6 hours with no sleepiness.

I put one cup of dry nettles in a pint jar and pour boiling water over it, snap the lid closed and let it sit over night. In the morning, I strain out the nettles and put the nettle "juice" into the fridge. After it has cooled, I drink it straight--some people like a bit of salt in it. I find it very refreshing.

Nettles are anti-estrogenic.

Cheers,
Poppyseed13
 
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SQu

SQu

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I did let the juice settle and when cooked it just boiled, almost pure liquid. Sounds like that was right, and it undoubtedly helped, and I'm going to make some more now!
Thanks Poppyseed, I'll try the nettle tea too.
All in all I am MUCH better, so thank you! I am going to not continue to avoid the thyroid issue as it seems I'm walking a knife edge, easily tipped over - I'm going to grasp that particular nettle (the cynomel/cynoplus one), then read everything on this forum about dosing (could take weeks!) and then start. Any particularly helpful thread you could recommend on that? I'm intimidated by the conflicting info, some people turn their lives around, others make it worse, many in the middle struggle along.
 

HDD

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I used the recommendations from Ray Peats Brain for dosage amount. I started with a very small amount of cynoplus and nibbled a little cynomel a few times during the day. I now take 1/8th in the a.m. and 1/8th before bed. I nibble T3 once or twice during the day. In the beginning, I kept a record of my pulse and temperature. I occasionally check it now. Nutrition is very important when supplementing or raising metabolism.

I saved this post (below) to refer to.

"What you eat is important. If you are eating PUFA then taking thyroid will do nothing. Vitamin A is important too. If you are new to this site like you said, then you may have a lot of learning to do about RP's philosophy.

"•Thyroid supplementation is highly individual and takes commitment, a minimal understanding of what’s going on, and an experimental attitude towards one’s health issues to proceed with supplementation. Please be aware that only you, (by utilizing self diagnostics) will know when to increase or decrease dosage.
•Low pulse (60/70s or low body temperature: chronic cold hands, cold feet, and cold nose) can sometimes warrant thyroid supplementation.
• Thyroid supplementation greatly increases the need for all nutrients, especially vitamin A, copper, and magnesium.
• Cynomel can be broken up into 8ths, while Cynoplus can be broken up into 4ths.
• Starting as low as possible is always better." - TPW"
 

Swandattur

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Interesting about the nettle tea. I used to know of an older lady that drank nettle tea. I guess you just have to wear leather gloves to gather them.
 

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