HELP ! My (bad) digestion is keeping me away from happiness!

[chrstn4o]

Someone with an eating disorder doesn’t need to go down this path. It will simply keep them in the loop of avoiding addressing their eating patterns.

That's just your opinion. But you're entitled to it so I don't come at aggressively telling you to stop it. So respect other's people's right express their opinions in a public forum that they paid money to be a member of. No need to be so rude just because you had a bad experience with a functional doctor and poor quality stool testing. For all you know I might be right, given I've written a book om health and help people with chronic and complex problems as a living....maybe there's 0.1% chance?

 

[chrstn4o]

Semantics game. Dysbiosis=digestion problem. Dysbiosis = thiamine problem in all likelihood.

SIBO, IBS, and Constipation: Unrecognized Thiamine Deficiency? - Hormones Matter

Is it possible that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is simply a symptom of an underlying vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency?

www.hormonesmatter.com

Gastrointestinal beriberi: a forme fruste of Wernicke's encephalopathy? - PubMed

Gastrointestinal symptoms, such as anorexia, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, are very common in patients with Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE). Mild thiamine deficiency may have only gastrointestinal symptoms. We are reporting two patients with thiamine deficiency who predominantly had...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I am open minded, like I said I started the thiamine today, and I feel good so far so you may be on to something! Though 30-40% chance it is placebo :)

 

[mostlylurking]

That's just your opinion. But you're entitled to it so I don't come at aggressively telling you to stop it. So respect other's people's right express their opinions in a public forum that they paid money to be a member of. No need to be so rude just because you had a bad experience with a functional doctor and poor quality stool testing. For all you know I might be right, given I've written a book om health and help people with chronic and complex problems as a living....maybe there's 0.1% chance?

Thiamine and the Microbiome - Hormones Matter

Health depends on the 70-100 trillion single-celled organisms that live in our intestines.

www.hormonesmatter.com

I had severe gut dysbiosis fall of 2020. I never got tested because it was obvious that the multiple dosings of antibiotics (including Bactrim) for the UTI caused it. I miraculously recovered via high dose thiamine hcl. My gut is still fine; I'm still high dosing thiamine hcl.

Have a great day!

 

[chrstn4o]

Thiamine and the Microbiome - Hormones Matter

Health depends on the 70-100 trillion single-celled organisms that live in our intestines.

www.hormonesmatter.com

I had severe gut dysbiosis fall of 2020. I never got tested because it was obvious that the multiple dosings of antibiotics (including Bactrim) for the UTI caused it. I miraculously recovered via high dose thiamine hcl. My gut is still fine; I'm still high dosing thiamine hcl.

Have a great day!

You are going to make me draw bath with and dunk myself in!

 

[Peatress]

That's just your opinion. But you're entitled to it so I don't come at aggressively telling you to stop it. So respect other's people's right express their opinions in a public forum that they paid money to be a member of. No need to be so rude just because you had a bad experience with a functional doctor and poor quality stool testing. For all you know I might be right, given I've written a book om health and help people with chronic and complex problems as a living....maybe there's 0.1% chance?

Yes it's my opinion and you are entitled to yours too. Yes you are a paying member and yes you've written a book does that make you an expert on everything? Yes I did have a bad experience with a functional medical doctor but that's not why I object to the push towards the testing you are advocating as I have explained previously.

 

[French.cat]

This could be to estrogen dominance OR it could be from thiamine deficiency.

Thiamine deficiency.
suggested reading:

SIBO, IBS, and Constipation: Unrecognized Thiamine Deficiency? - Hormones Matter

Is it possible that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is simply a symptom of an underlying vitamin B1 or thiamine deficiency?

www.hormonesmatter.com

People who are low in thiamine do better on a keto diet because carbs/sugar use up thiamine when metabolized.

Sugar Intake and Thiamine - Hormones Matter

The high sugar diet was affecting the brains of these children. I found that supplementing with thiamine made their emotional symptoms disappear.

www.hormonesmatter.com

The thyroid needs thiamine to do its job because all the cells in the body, in their mitochondria, use thiamine as a co-enzyme when making ATP (cellular energy)

How Can Something As Simple as Thiamine Cause So Many Problems? - Hormones Matter

Is thiamine deficiency too simple to explain the devastating nature of the systemic adverse reactions to some vaccines and medications?

www.hormonesmatter.com

Do you have an endocrinologist to help you with thyroid? It would be a good idea to find one and not try to wing it alone. Optimizing thyroid supplementation takes months.

Being spacey can be caused by thiamine deficiency. Or it can be caused by estrogen dominance.
for your consideration, assuming the problem is estrogen dominance:

• Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 1
• Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 2
• Politics & Science: Progesterone Part 3

for your consideration, assuming the problem is thiamine deficiency:

Comprehensive review of Wernicke encephalopathy: pathophysiology, clinical symptoms and imaging findings - Japanese Journal of Radiology

Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE) is a severe and life-threatening illness resulting from vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency. The prevalence of WE has been estimated from 0.4 to 2.8%. If not treated properly, severe neurologic disorders such as Korsakoff psychosis and even death may occur. The...

link.springer.com

Also this one:

13 Signs of Thiamine Deficiency (B1)

Cliff notes: Thiamine deficiency was not solved decades ago by enriching grains and is alive and well. The implications of this have a huge impact on modern day health and disease. It's always been amazing to me that a country with an endless food supply and resources can coexist with so much...

butternutrition.com

You already gave me the advice of taking thiamine, but I can't find the good daily amount.
I'm currently taking 100 mg a day, with magnesium. I'll try lowering fodmap while highly dose of thiamine to see if my gut gets better...
How much would you recommend?

 

[chrstn4o]

Yes it's my opinion and you are entitled to yours too. Yes you are a paying member and yes you've written a book does that make you an expert on everything? Yes I did have a bad experience with a functional medical doctor but that's not why I object to the push towards the testing you are advocating as I have explained previously.

OK so none of us are experts, we're all entitled to our opinions, and we won't be telling each other to stop giving our opinions which we're free to give. Sound good? Cool.

Oh and actually I have worked with underweight women, ex vegans, and a former anorexic lady.. And their guts were all in bad shape. So I'm not sucking opinions out of my thumb, they're either based on clinical experience or at least from stuff I've read :)

 

[French.cat]

Sounds like you have gut dysbiosis. Whether it is in the small intestine or large is not clear but is going to cause a lot of other problems in the body. If you can afford to do a quality stool pathogen test like the GI-MAP, it would help to identify whether it is a parasite/protozoa/bacteria etc causing the problem. Often it is a combination of them coupled with low or altered levels of the commensal bacteria. Unless you test it, it's hard to know what's going on, but in the meantime a low FODMAP diet may help to reduce gas and bloating due to fermentation.

Gut dysbiosis were also my conclusion. Unfortunately probiotics are (to my understanding) useless since my gut is very leaky.
I've test my gut inflammation and that was above the range (PH above 7,2 as far as I remember.

I can try FODMAP for a week just to see if I feel better in my skin with less fermentable foods.

@Peatress You are really sweet, thanks for you worries ! Actually I consider myself healed from the "harmful mental system" I was trapped in.
I can now avoid food without getting back to bulimia or anorexia, or any restrictive mental issue.

Actually I just want to find the right food to be able to think normal, and stop this ******* brain fog... and also feel strong, not weak anymore.
I'll love to do fitness as soon as my digestion is fixed

 

[French.cat]

OK so none of us are experts, we're all entitled to our opinions, and we won't be telling each other to stop giving our opinions which we're free to give. Sound good? Cool.

Oh and actually I have worked with underweight women, ex vegans, and a former anorexic lady.. And their guts were all in bad shape. So I'm not sucking opinions out of my thumb, they're either based on clinical experience or at least from stuff I've read :)

Interesting! I think your opinion is highly valuable :)

 

[chrstn4o]

Interesting! I think your opinion is highly valuable :)

Appreciate that!

 

[mostlylurking]

You already gave me the advice of taking thiamine, but I can't find the good daily amount.
I'm currently taking 100 mg a day, with magnesium. I'll try lowering fodmap while highly dose of thiamine to see if my gut gets better...
How much would you recommend?

I follow Dr. Costantini's protocol on his website. I take thiamine hcl and started with about 300-350mg, 2Xday and worked my way up, over 4 months time, to 1 gram, 2Xday, which, according to my weight, is my ideal dose. I use the pure powder form of thiamine hcl and mix it into plain water. Don't mix into any liquid that is sweet as it will cancel out the thiamine.

Other people use TTFD thiamine which does not have the poor absorption that thiamine hcl has so is taken in much lower doses. There is also a sublingual type available.

My digestive tract normalized after being on my ideal dose for 2 days. It was a very noticeable event. I had a lot of digestive tract symptoms.

 

[chrstn4o]

Gut dysbiosis were also my conclusion. Unfortunately probiotics are (to my understanding) useless since my gut is very leaky.
I've test my gut inflammation and that was above the range (PH above 7,2 as far as I remember.

I can try FODMAP for a week just to see if I feel better in my skin with less fermentable foods.

@Peatress You are really sweet, thanks for you worries ! Actually I consider myself healed from the "harmful mental system" I was trapped in.
I can now avoid food without getting back to bulimia or anorexia, or any restrictive mental issue.

Actually I just want to find the right food to be able to think normal, and stop this ******* brain fog... and also feel strong, not weak anymore.
I'll love to do fitness as soon as my digestion is fixed

Generally the low fodmap diet is done for longer than a week. Trying and stopping things for a week here and there is probably not the way. BTW, every single person whom I've helped that tried probiotic felt an improvement, so I wouldn't discount them, they can be useful even if it is just crowd out more pathogenic ones.

My educated guess is you may not be producing enough stomach acid, which is very common and partly due to insufficiency of zinc in many cases. My hunch is that zinc and betaine HCl, with other digestive enzymes probably, would help. But I wouldn't try it for week, you know? You gotta give interventions time in most cases.

 

[French.cat]

I follow Dr. Costantini's protocol on his website. I take thiamine hcl and started with about 300-350mg, 2Xday and worked my way up, over 4 months time, to 1 gram, 2Xday, which, according to my weight, is my ideal dose. I use the pure powder form of thiamine hcl and mix it into plain water. Don't mix into any liquid that is sweet as it will cancel out the thiamine.

Other people use TTFD thiamine which does not have the poor absorption that thiamine hcl has so is taken in much lower doses. There is also a sublingual type available.

My digestive tract normalized after being on my ideal dose for 2 days. It was a very noticeable event. I had a lot of digestive tract symptoms.

Ok I'll read the blog later, thanks !! Do you say "don't mix into any liquid that is sweet as it will cancel out the thiamine" because thiamine is needed to digest sugars?
I already knew it but it's good to remember tho. 300 mg twice a day is doable. 600 mg is already A LOT compared to my daily 100 mg but I can give it a try.
I need to read more about Thiamine because I don't want to follow any advice blindly. I want to educate myself before !

What do you think about Fodmap by the way ? I was thinking of maybe try FODMAP DIET + Thiamine :)

 

[French.cat]

Generally the low fodmap diet is done for longer than a week. Trying and stopping things for a week here and there is probably not the way. BTW, every single person whom I've helped that tried probiotic felt an improvement, so I wouldn't discount them, they can be useful even if it is just crowd out more pathogenic ones.

My educated guess is you may not be producing enough stomach acid, which is very common and partly due to insufficiency of zinc in many cases. My hunch is that zinc and betaine HCl, with other digestive enzymes probably, would help. But I wouldn't try it for week, you know? You gotta give interventions time in most cases.

Thanks for the recommandations. I know healing takes time but I am not patient to live a normal life... you see. I may prefer having zinc through seafood instead of additional supplements, cause I've already bought so much that I am quite moneyless now. I could do everything (and I already do) to feel comfortable with food. When I can digest properly my mood is sooo different, I find myself hopeful for the future in spite of longlife depression.

 

[mostlylurking]

You already gave me the advice of taking thiamine, but I can't find the good daily amount.
I'm currently taking 100 mg a day, with magnesium. I'll try lowering fodmap while highly dose of thiamine to see if my gut gets better...
How much would you recommend?

I want to add:
The digestive tract problems that high dose thiamine hcl resolved for me included:

1. poor peristalsis of the esophagus (food wouldn't go down)
2. very low stomach acid
3. SIBO (poor peristalsis allows the food to stay in the small intestine too long and allows bacteria to migrate up from the large intestine and set up shop where they don't belong)
4. leaky gut: I was allergic to almost everything. I got the AlCat test (gold standard of food sensitivities tests) I was almost universally reactive. I avoided all foods I reacted to for years; it did not heal my gut.
5. constipation/diarrhea

Thiamine hcl + magnesium glycinate healed my gut. Thiamine fixed my autonomic nervous system.

Ok I'll read the blog later, thanks !! Do you say "don't mix into any liquid that is sweet as it will cancel out the thiamine" because thiamine is needed to digest sugars?
I already knew it but it's good to remember tho. 300 mg twice a day is doable. 600 mg is already A LOT compared to my daily 100 mg but I can give it a try.
I need to read more about Thiamine because I don't want to follow any advice blindly. I want to educate myself before !

What do you think about Fodmap by the way ? I was thinking of maybe try FODMAP DIET + Thiamine :)

Dr. Costanini's FAQs include those instructions about not taking thiamine with sweet things.

Fodmap diet seems to equal avoidance of problem foods, yes? I did that for years; it didn't fix me.

 

[revenant]

Definitely sounds like gut issues, I also had bloating, brain fog and blurry vision almost daily a few years ago.

Things have gotten better although not perfect, and I've tried a ton of things over the years. A few I would recommend testing are:

- oregano oil (to kill off bad bacteria; if you get dieoff symptoms you know it's working)
- activated charcoal (to bind endotoxin; if you feel better the next day you know it's endotoxin related)
- Iberogast (does a lot of things and may cause dieoff symptoms; the first time I took it I felt horrible for three days)
- glycine (to heal the gut lining)
- berberine
- vitamin B2
- salt
- cascara sagrada

 

[mostlylurking]

I need to read more about Thiamine because I don't want to follow any advice blindly. I want to educate myself before !

Yes, I agree!

Info for you:

Thiamine Deficiency Testing: Understanding the Labs - Hormones Matter

Understanding thiamine deficiency and the lab testing methods most appropriate for detecting abnormal thiamine chemistry.

www.hormonesmatter.com

Navigating Thiamine Supplements- Hormones Matter

Understanding the different forms of vitamin B1.

www.hormonesmatter.com

I chose to stick with thiamine hcl because I could not tolerate TTFD because my glutathione level was in the ditch due to heavy metal toxicity. Happily taking high dose thiamine hcl has normalized my glutathione level for the first time in many years. Although the amount needed (1 gram, 2Xday) is a large amount (due to poor absorption in the gut), the pure bulk powder is inexpensive. A little of it tastes as bad as a lot of it so it's just a matter of getting used to the taste. Here are some sources for info about thiamine:
Dr. Costantini's website. He successfully treated thousands of Parkinson's Disease patients in Italy using thiamine hcl. I chose to follow his protocol because I tolerate thiamine hcl better than TTFD. Dr. Costantini's FAQ's are well worth the time to read. His patient before and after videos are illuminating and very short.
Dr. Derrick Lonsdale's articles. He is on the far side of 99 and although is in a wheel chair and assisted living, he still has his wits about him which is a great testament to TTFD.
Daphne Brian's book about thiamine and Parkinson's Disease; she found great success using a sublingual form of thiamine which I have tried and found that it does work. This website is based on Dr. Costantini's work with thiamine hcl.
Elliot Overton's youtube channel. Excellent videos and a great way to get started learning about thiamine. Elliot focuses mainly on TTFD thiamine but the information can be extrapolated over to the other types of thiamine for general understanding. He explains the pros and cons of the different types.
Elliot Overton's website. Excellent articles under Blog. Also links to his videos.

What do you think about Fodmap by the way ? I was thinking of maybe try FODMAP DIET + Thiamine :)

If Fodmap means avoiding all foods that cause issues, I did it for many years (1995-2022). Yes it made things better; no, it didn't fix me.

I may prefer having zinc through seafood instead of additional supplements,

Stick with the crustaceans: shrimp, crab, lobster, oysters. According to Ray Peat, the minerals are tricky and it's just safer to get them via shellfish.

 

[mostlylurking]

I want to add:
The digestive tract problems that high dose thiamine hcl resolved for me included:

1. poor peristalsis of the esophagus (food wouldn't go down)
2. very low stomach acid
3. SIBO (poor peristalsis allows the food to stay in the small intestine too long and allows bacteria to migrate up from the large intestine and set up shop where they don't belong)
4. leaky gut: I was allergic to almost everything. I got the AlCat test (gold standard of food sensitivities tests) I was almost universally reactive. I avoided all foods I reacted to for years; it did not heal my gut.
5. constipation/diarrhea

Thiamine hcl + magnesium glycinate healed my gut. Thiamine fixed my autonomic nervous system.


Dr. Costanini's FAQs include those instructions about not taking thiamine with sweet things.

Fodmap diet seems to equal avoidance of problem foods, yes? I did that for years; it didn't fix me.

Fodmap: Low Fodmap Diet: What it Is, Uses & How to Follow

What are FODMAPs?​

FODMAPs are:

Fermentable. These are all foods that your gut bacteria feed on, converting them to gasses in a chemical process called fermentation.

Oligosaccharides. These are soluble plant fibers known as prebiotics, which feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Oligosaccharides include onions, garlic, beans/lentils and many wheat products. Sensitivity to oligosaccharides may help explain some cases of non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Since gluten-free grains are lower in fermentable sugars than grains that have gluten, some people who think they are sensitive to gluten may actually be sensitive to the oligosaccharides residing in wheat products.

Disaccharides. Lactose is the fermentable sugar in this group, the sugar in dairy and human milk. Lactose intolerance is one of the most common food intolerances worldwide.

Monosaccharides. Fructose, the sugar in fruit, is the fermentable sugar in this group. But only in certain quantities and proportions, so not all fruits are affected.

Polyols. These are sugar alcohols, commonly used as artificial sweeteners. They are also found naturally in some fruits.

@French.cat, I found this information about Fodmap. I have never tried it so cannot report my results. However, I spent 2015-2022 living almost exclusively on dairy, gelatin, shredded carrots, and orange juice (+liver and crustaceans weekly) and I did very well on it even though there are major parts of this Peaty diet that aren't allowed on FODMAPs diet.

 

[mostlylurking]

@French.cat
I want to offer you this video for your consideration. It is a good starting video to learn about thiamine.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuIhjlFYYZY&list=PLZPlb2-Xf5TzYhS2h-bXD4q8TBWRjub-D&index=13

 

[French.cat]

@French.cat
I want to offer you this video for your consideration. It is a good starting video to learn about thiamine.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuIhjlFYYZY&list=PLZPlb2-Xf5TzYhS2h-bXD4q8TBWRjub-D&index=13

Oh my ! That's fairly interesting. I am spending my day in my bed crying because of exhaustion (I eat less calories since Sunday, because I'm bored with food, well maybe that's an explanation) so I have a minimal focus... And the video gave me a lot of hope ! Thanks again. I'm watching all Eliott's videos about thiamine deficiency. That's amazing ! And the fact he is really cute doesn't spoil anything haha.