Inability to sleep, chest pain, please help

[ChelsBells]

Oh definitely. For all the talk you hear about vitamin D or vitamin C or whatever, as important as they are, vitamin B1 is perhaps the most underrated vitamin that hardly no one (Dr. Lonsdale excluded) is talking about. If you're deficient in B1, hardly nothing will function properly within the body.

This prompted me to look into Thiamine deficiency and I really think you're on the money. Thank you, thank you, thank you x 1,000!

 

[ChelsBells]

Highly recommend watching the videos on Eliot Overton's YT channel on thiamine deficiency and on the therapeutic efficacy of thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD or sometimes referred to as allithiamine) in addressing some the kinds of issues you're having. TTFD was a miracle for my recovery from a COVID infection and also with what I've come to realize was a long-standing B1 deficiency. His product Thiamax is very good, but it is quite powerful and so important to educate yourself on the context and cofactors around thiamine before jumping in on supplementing it. I started with very small doses and have been slowly and carefully titrating up.

Dr. Chandler Marrs has a website called Hormones Matter with excellent information on thiamine and its fundamental role in the production of energy at the cellular level. She co-authored a book with Derrick Lonsdale called Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition. You can preview a good portion of it for free on that Amazon link.

Tons of great information! I checked out the Hormones Matter page last night - that started to really put pieces of the puzzle together. I'm going to check out Eliot Overton's channel now. Thank you very much.

 

[ChelsBells]

Happy to hear back from ya, whatever is helping keep it up, the lorazepam, my story with benzoes is different, tremors at night sounds terrifying but at least it's the good time of the year to heal too you know what I mean.

Have you gained a bit of weight? I believe you were underweight, just eat what you crave as long as its low Poly and don't care about anything else.

You are so right - it is a perfect time to heal... plenty of sunlight, fresh fruits, outdoor hobbies. All good stuff!

I am overweight and trying my hardest to avoid Pufa, listen to what my body is asking for, and just enjoy and appreciate the food I do eat.

 

[Nemo]

And after Peating for a while, I started to feel really weak, so I gave up, and went back to most of my old ways. I continued doing daily Orange juice, grass fed milk, butters & meats but little else besides that.

I am also anemic probably due to Endometriosis.

Okay, so let's start here, just one easy step at a time, okay?

You're a bundle of stress hormones, including estrogen, that are causing you terrible distress, and your endometriosis is due to that too.

You are already taking some good steps. You are drinking at least some OJ. Drinking at least some milk. Making an effort to replace PUFA with saturated fat (butter). That's a start.

You're also keeping an eye on your thyroid, with your doctor. So let's set that aside for the moment.

Immunodeficiency, dioxins, stress, and the hormones

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

Tissue-bound estrogen in aging

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

The thing screaming out at us is progesterone. From the first article:

"Estrogen activates the production of cortisol, and damages the normal feedback control, causing both cortisol and ACTH to be elevated. Estrogen causes chronically elevated free fatty acids, and synergizes with unsaturated fats. Estrogen inhibits thyroid function. Hypercortisolism is typically associated with hypothyroidism, and both tend to cause the loss of lean body mass."

That can explain just about every symptom you have. So how do you oppose estrogen? From the second:

"The amount of estrogen in tissue is decreased when progesterone is abundant. In the absence of progesterone, tissues retain estrogen even when there is little estrogen circulating in the blood."

Progesterone is also a systemic health hormone:

Progesterone – not a sex hormone, but a systemic health hormone – To Extract Knowledge from Matter

It's the basic hormone of adaptation and resistance to stress:

Progesterone Summaries - Progesterone Deceptions - Progesterone Supplementation - Dosage of Progesterone

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

Vitamin E is also anti-estrogenic.

Aspirin, brain, and cancer

Ray Peat

raypeat.com

So is aspirin (same article).

So if I had your symptoms right now, the very first thing I would do is start supplementing progesterone. It's extremely safe, pretty cheap, highly effective, and just generally makes you feel good and protects you from all kinds of terrible things.

You can get progesterone cream over the counter from Amazon. Or you can order Progest-E at a number of places. That's a progesterone formula developed by Ray Peat. Or I can recommend Idealabs' progesterone product, Progestene, which is what I use: IdeaLabs Online Store - Lab / R&D Chemicals

To help you along faster, I'd recommend aspirin. Start with a couple of adult aspirin at bedtime. If you take big doses of aspirin, you have to take it with other vitamins, so I'd just do that to start.

To help you along even faster, I'd recommend Vitamin E. I use Tocovit from Idealabs (IdeaLabs Online Store - Cosmetic Raw Ingredients) but maybe people here can recommend other brands. Vitamin E will also help your body cope with the PUFA already in your system.

But if you can start only one thing, start progesterone. It will make you drowsy, so you may want to take it right before bed.

Also, to help control the stress hormones keeping you from sleeping, I would try to eat sugar and salt with some fat right before bed or even in the middle of the night if you wake up with an attack.

The bedtime snack could be salty cheese with some fruit, or ice cream with some salt on it. The idea is to get your blood sugar up and keep it up so you can sleep. You don't want a sugar buzz that melts away in a few minutes. The sugar and salt help control cortisol and adrenalin.

You can gain weight adding fat and sugar at bedtime so the best thing is to shift some fat from early in the day to bedtime rather than just adding it. You may have to eat a lot at bedtime at first, but pay attention to the effects. It can get to be where a slice of salty cheese and sip of OJ are like a sleeping pill. You can literally feel the adrenalin ease and sleep approach.

Let's start there and see how it goes. Others here will have more good ideas. We've all overcome stuff like this.