hello everybody.. where to start?

[Bryan]

Hey, I don't really know what to say but here it goes anyway. I'm a youngish male, Raised on a vegetarian diet and moved on to low-carb, after reading gary taubes and weston price, then broda barnes and matt stone got me interested in the thyroid, found ray peat's work maybe two years ago and have improved my health quite a bit. Used to have varicose veins, cysts, arthritic pain, very high cholesterol (334 mg/dl), hair loss, chronic sinus infections Etc. many of these things have been reversed or helped by peat's recommendations. Found this forum awhile ago and didn't really bother signing up until now

 

[Dean]

Hey Bryan, welcome. I'm new too. Care to elaborate more on what you've been doing in terms of diet and supps? Dr. Peat has alot of recommendations that people kind of devise their own plan from based on personal need and preference. It would be interesting to know what specifically has been working for you.

 

[charlie]

Bryan, welcome to the forum.

That's awesome you have improved yourself with Ray Peat. It only gets better!

 

[Bryan]

I had some problems clearly related to estrogen, like Dark circles, arthritic pain, hairloss, varicose veins, and maybe shock once, though I didn't go to see anyone about it until after I was mostly over it, and even then they didn't mention the possibility of shock or serotonin syndrome. So I took progesterone first, 25 - 200 mg daily, pretty much as needed. Then I used pregnenolone about 50 - 1000 mg daily as well, after some months of just progesterone. Those two together reversed the swelling, pain, and stiffness in my hand. Food sensitivities went away. Even gluten, which gave me mouth cysts, became tolerable in that respect. Niacinamide too, 10 - 200 mg, not always daily. I haven't actually used thyroid yet, and I don't have any money to buy it with now anyway. :?

Pulse rate is about 75 - 80 BPM, temperature is variable but 98-point-something most of the time and as high as 98.7 recently.

Diet is mostly whole milk, oj, chocolate, beef, eggs, ice cream, potatoes, rice, some kale for vitamin K, some candy etc. geared towards a bit of weight gain (I'm under weight).

Low PUFA, less than 10 grams a day 3000 kcals, for 2-3 years now. lowered O6 intake after reading about it, and I never could stomach the fish oil, so I was functionally peating before even before paying much attention to him.

 

[Dean]

Thanks for info Bryan. I'm kind of focusing on diet first over supps due to expense and concern about excipients. It's tempting though to jump right to the supps as soon as possible for quicker results.

I notice you didn't mention gelatin. How often are you eating beef? Any coffee or other caffeine source (other than the chocolate)?

 

[Bryan]

I eat beef daily. Gelatin, Unique E, and T3 are in the future I hope. I don't drink coffee.

 

[Isadora]

Hey Bryan,

I see you mention hand stiffness, swelling and pain -- the first one here I see with this problem. You seem to be very sure it was estrogen related and that the progesterone, then progesterone+pregnenolone made it go away.

Is my understanding correct? If so, that would be extremely encouraging for me.

Was there any inflammation in your fingers? Were you able to make a fist? Was the pain more intense in the morning?

For me, it is intense in the morning and my fingers are a bit swollen -- I cannot fit most of my rings on them anymore, even though my overall weight hasn't changed. During the day, the pain goes away almost completely -- but annoyingly, it does reoccur if I play around with kettlebells. I find that very frustrating, needless to say -- I had finally found something I liked to do in terms of lifting, but their handling is probably too hard on the joints. I wonder, should I stop using kettlebells?

 

[Bryan]

Sorry for not responding quicker, I wasn't paying attention.

I think it might have been a deficiency of stress hormones, leading to arthritis. Cortisone relives arthritic pain and pregnenolone and progesterone cured my problem. They both act like cortisone, as far as the anti-inflammatory effect. With progesterone high, the adrenals can stop producing cortisol. Some kinds of arthritis goes away during pregnancy, when progesterone is high.

To be clearer about what I meant, estrogen exposure through long term soy consumption as a kid and familial hypothyroidism lead to the problems of not being able to produce enough cortisol / being hypothyroid. And an acute period of stress lead to the arthritic type pain. This is just my take on it and maybe others have their ideas for me to consider.

The inflammation was in my right hand palm. It didn't hurt until I moved it. There was stiffness and I couldn't move my pinky or ring finger without pain and resistance. Definitely noticeable swelling. I was constant for about a year. Didn't get better or worse during that time and I never saw a doctor about it.

I'm very young (20's) and hypothyroid so my situation might not be the same as yours. I think the hormones are safe and it could be a good experiment to try them.

 

[Isadora]

I repeated my experience with progesterone two days ago and it didn't go well at all. I am still looking for answers as to why. I am pretty sure I managed to turn it into cortisol -- it did give me momentary pain relief, but also tons of anxiety, I'm still reeling from it... I'm wondering if pregnenolone would follow the same route... I guess, since you were cortisol deficient, you didn't develop too much of it when supplementing with its precursors? Who knows... We are all so different... Anyway, thanks for sharing!

 

[Bryan]

I used to think I had problems with pregnenolone turning into cortisol. I felt great when I was on it, but after it wore off I thought I felt worse. I think now that I was comparing the normal feeling of having enough pregnenolone to the sickness without it. And that I just wasn't taking enough of it in the first place.

My mother tried progesterone once and had a similar reaction of panic. I read a quote of peat's once, that I can't seem to find again, that was something like "people who take thyroid and aren't used to the free flow of energy feel like they're in a foreign country".

Are you very ill? I have to take anywhere from 100mg to 1000mg of pregnenolone to feel normal. Peat used to take it by the tablespoon.

You could try pregnenolone, or ever progesterone, in higher amounts. Maybe taking it in the middle of the day, if you didn't do that, could help with adjusting to the change?

Anxiety is a problem I've had for a long time. I don't want you to think I'm dismissing your reaction as just a placebo effect, But it could be.

 

[Isadora]

I tried progesterone twice so far -- the first time, for a couple of days, three-five drops/day. It was rather unpleasant and I had all kinds of symptoms normally associated with estrogen, plus the dizziness and other weird things -- like a few breakouts and a stabbing pain in both ears (!). The second time, just one drop and - bam! The cortisolish feeling and the panic! Plus the ear pain bonus, one day later. I read today on this bizarre ear thing and got very scared. I'll spare you the details and I hope I don't have what I've read about -- but I'm done with progesterone. I am probably one of the few people eminently unfit to use it.

I can live with that... But I think also that people should be more aware that there are a few persons out there for whom progesterone is not the best idea, the general impression, at least around here, being that "it absolutely cannot hurt". You say your mother didn't take to it either, so maybe I'm not so exceptional after all!

Well, I'm glad it worked for so many others!

Maybe some thyroid supplementation will fix my pains -- which are by no means unbearable, but they increase with time and I would like for them to please stop bugging me.

 

[biggirlkisss]

Congrats on improving your health.