Is Vitamin D induced serotonin syndrome possible? Please hear me out...

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qminati

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here is a study about the depletion of serotone by l dopa

I can't thank you enough for this info
 

charlie

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Last April 2020 I had a severe vitamin d deficiency at 11 ng/ml. A bad case of RLS popped up out of nowhere. The doctor prescribed me 50,000iu of vitamin D3 once a week. After a month of being suicidal with an intense level of RLS the vitamin d3 actually gave me relief. I was so happy but the next couple days the relief went away. I asked my doctor if I could take the vitamin d3 ever day, he said no reason why not. So I did. I wasn't only taking vitamin d, i was also talking sleep agents full of 5htp plus CBD and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember and on the 4th night i took a high dose of magnesium.

That night I had a full blown attack. The shakes, heart pumping out of my chest, crazy vomiting, crazy diarrhea, trouble breathing. The loudest tinnitus ever I felt like electricity was going through my brain. Crazy vertigo, i thought it was the last moments of my life. Long story short, the ER said I was fine and sent me home with Xanax. This attack came in waves for the next week at least, it would be a month before I would feel normal again. The doctors sent me to a psychologist which did nothing for me.

I started learning about serotonin syndrome after research and I fit almost every single symptom. So i started following the advice i read on here and it has been SUPER helpful. Around wintertime i started feeling a lot better. I ended up moving to Medellin, Colombia. In this location the sun is full of vitamin d because its close to the equator. At this point i decided i was done with supplements and ready to live a life of natural sun and exercise with natural grown food which is the only kind of food offered in Colombia.

So on my first day here, I was out in that beautiful sun all day in and out walking around. I felt great in the sun, but that night it was really hard to sleep, no big deal, kind of weird but ok. The next day I decide to sunbathe around noon. I was sweating and feeling great. That night, took some supplements to help me sleep through this unexpected insomnia, I fell asleep around 10pm. around 11pm my eyes POP open, WHOA... heart attack? this felt very similar to the first time it happened last year. I had a brick feeling in my stomach, throwing up, heart going crazy, tremors, yup, it was another full blown attack.

This time i was more scared. The only thing i did was be in the sun all day, that couldn't really be the cause could it? Sure enough i stayed out of the sun and started feeling better 5 days later. I still couldn't believe it was the sun, so i did research and learned about the sunlight in your eyes increasing serotonin, and vitamin d also can increase serotonin.

And this is where I'm confused, on here i read people who take vitamin d with no issues. When i tell you that i have tested this over and over to make sure its the vitamin d, i even took a vitamin 5000iu pill and sure enough, ANXIETY, SHAKES, you name it... I'm having a hard time getting the doctors to believe the sun is the cause of this, but i know for a fact that it is, because i still go out every now and then to see how i react. Initially it seems to make me feel better while I'm actually under the sun, its only hours later that the symptoms show up.

What am i missing? I know my issues are serotonin related because all the advice on this forum has worked wonders for me. So why is the sun causing this? Could it be a separate issue?

And btw i have never had any kind of anxiety in my life until that first attack. I have zero social anxiety, i love people, i love sunlight, i love life. Only time this happens is when i take supplements or certain foods, and now found out that the biggest culprit is the damn sun? On one morning I wasn't even in the sun, i just had the sunlight coming through the window into my eyes and started feeling crazy and i read that sunlight in the eyes also increases serotonin. Any comments and opinions would help me greatly as I feel like I may be the only person on earth with this situation :(
Are you making any progress?
 

charlie

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Last April 2020 I had a severe vitamin d deficiency at 11 ng/ml. A bad case of RLS popped up out of nowhere. The doctor prescribed me 50,000iu of vitamin D3 once a week. After a month of being suicidal with an intense level of RLS the vitamin d3 actually gave me relief. I was so happy but the next couple days the relief went away. I asked my doctor if I could take the vitamin d3 ever day, he said no reason why not. So I did. I wasn't only taking vitamin d, i was also talking sleep agents full of 5htp plus CBD and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember and on the 4th night i took a high dose of magnesium.

That night I had a full blown attack. The shakes, heart pumping out of my chest, crazy vomiting, crazy diarrhea, trouble breathing. The loudest tinnitus ever I felt like electricity was going through my brain. Crazy vertigo, i thought it was the last moments of my life. Long story short, the ER said I was fine and sent me home with Xanax. This attack came in waves for the next week at least, it would be a month before I would feel normal again. The doctors sent me to a psychologist which did nothing for me.

I started learning about serotonin syndrome after research and I fit almost every single symptom. So i started following the advice i read on here and it has been SUPER helpful. Around wintertime i started feeling a lot better. I ended up moving to Medellin, Colombia. In this location the sun is full of vitamin d because its close to the equator. At this point i decided i was done with supplements and ready to live a life of natural sun and exercise with natural grown food which is the only kind of food offered in Colombia.

So on my first day here, I was out in that beautiful sun all day in and out walking around. I felt great in the sun, but that night it was really hard to sleep, no big deal, kind of weird but ok. The next day I decide to sunbathe around noon. I was sweating and feeling great. That night, took some supplements to help me sleep through this unexpected insomnia, I fell asleep around 10pm. around 11pm my eyes POP open, WHOA... heart attack? this felt very similar to the first time it happened last year. I had a brick feeling in my stomach, throwing up, heart going crazy, tremors, yup, it was another full blown attack.

This time i was more scared. The only thing i did was be in the sun all day, that couldn't really be the cause could it? Sure enough i stayed out of the sun and started feeling better 5 days later. I still couldn't believe it was the sun, so i did research and learned about the sunlight in your eyes increasing serotonin, and vitamin d also can increase serotonin.

And this is where I'm confused, on here i read people who take vitamin d with no issues. When i tell you that i have tested this over and over to make sure its the vitamin d, i even took a vitamin 5000iu pill and sure enough, ANXIETY, SHAKES, you name it... I'm having a hard time getting the doctors to believe the sun is the cause of this, but i know for a fact that it is, because i still go out every now and then to see how i react. Initially it seems to make me feel better while I'm actually under the sun, its only hours later that the symptoms show up.

What am i missing? I know my issues are serotonin related because all the advice on this forum has worked wonders for me. So why is the sun causing this? Could it be a separate issue?

And btw i have never had any kind of anxiety in my life until that first attack. I have zero social anxiety, i love people, i love sunlight, i love life. Only time this happens is when i take supplements or certain foods, and now found out that the biggest culprit is the damn sun? On one morning I wasn't even in the sun, i just had the sunlight coming through the window into my eyes and started feeling crazy and i read that sunlight in the eyes also increases serotonin. Any comments and opinions would help me greatly as I feel like I may be the only person on earth with this situation :(
And just so you know you are not alone. Jack Kruse, the sun guru, admits himself that the sun can cause serotonin syndrome.

Jack Kruse -
"Serotonin syndrome is a potentially serious drug/food/circadian interaction that occurs when too much serotonin builds up in your body. It can also happen with an imbalance of serotonin to dopamine to endorphin or melatonin. Can you get it in the sun........yes. But you would have to have a horrendous redox for this.........I have seen it. Phenothiazines cause it...........

Carbs increase serotonin in a big way. Ketosis depletes serotonin, relatively increase dopamine in ratio to serotonin to increases beta fat oxidation/ and B3 agonists. Ketogenesis promotes higher dopamine via NAD+ and excess electrons, is a great treatment for atypical depression, autumnal depression , low dopamine levels cause increased endorphins and a craving for nicotine and many psychiatric symptoms. You should not laugh"
Source

@sugarbabe
 
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qminati

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Are you making any progress?
Unfortunately not...

I am making progress on my other symptoms like twitches and tremors and I am feeling more energy and feel like my overall health is greatly improving from eating metabolically, but the sun issue just doesn't go away.

I walk around with an umbrella and avoid the really sunny days like the plague. Just 2 weeks ago i tested it and got 20 minutes of sun exposure to the 5pm sun and it messed me up really bad, just yesterday i started to feel normal again. 13 doctors in 2 different countries cant figure it out and most just dont believe me. It sucks because I love the sun. All i can do is keep inquiring and learning and hope to figure it out some day.
 
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qminati

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And just so you know you are not alone. Jack Kruse, the sun guru, admits himself that the sun can cause serotonin syndrome.

Jack Kruse -
"Serotonin syndrome is a potentially serious drug/food/circadian interaction that occurs when too much serotonin builds up in your body. It can also happen with an imbalance of serotonin to dopamine to endorphin or melatonin. Can you get it in the sun........yes. But you would have to have a horrendous redox for this.........I have seen it. Phenothiazines cause it...........

Carbs increase serotonin in a big way. Ketosis depletes serotonin, relatively increase dopamine in ratio to serotonin to increases beta fat oxidation/ and B3 agonists. Ketogenesis promotes higher dopamine via NAD+ and excess electrons, is a great treatment for atypical depression, autumnal depression , low dopamine levels cause increased endorphins and a craving for nicotine and many psychiatric symptoms. You should not laugh"
Source

@sugarbabe
THANK YOU!!!! Funny he mentioned carbs because that has been happening to me a lot too lately every time i eat after my last sun exposure, the more carbs i eat the worse I feel. Im pushing through it because when I dont eat carbs I get a stress response, it is a lose lose every time. Im gonna learn more about this guy and see what else he has to say thank you for posting this.
 

charlie

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Unfortunately not...

I am making progress on my other symptoms like twitches and tremors and I am feeling more energy and feel like my overall health is greatly improving from eating metabolically, but the sun issue just doesn't go away.

I walk around with an umbrella and avoid the really sunny days like the plague. Just 2 weeks ago i tested it and got 20 minutes of sun exposure to the 5pm sun and it messed me up really bad, just yesterday i started to feel normal again. 13 doctors in 2 different countries cant figure it out and most just dont believe me. It sucks because I love the sun. All i can do is keep inquiring and learning and hope to figure it out some day.
Keep at it. I have no doubt that sun can increase serotonin and cause issues. I am wondering if maybe it is some kind of deficiency.
 

Gustav3Y

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Interesting for me sitting in the sun it is not good even after attempting to take Vit A.
I have not insisted on taking more and more Vit A.
Maybe if I would have taken more it would have been better, but with too much of it the joints can start hurting and I have some specific joint issues for a long time.
Sunlight does help a bit with dermatitis on the nose, I still need to use other products to get rid of it, but the sun helps once I use those other products.

Maybe if I would not be aggravated by the sun, skin issues on the face would improve a lot, but maybe it makes no difference.
 

sousfifre96

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Normally when our vitamin D reserves are full and we are exposed to the sun.
The body stops absorbing vitamin D, it can even increase its catabolism (induction of cyp24a1).
Unless you have the genetic defect linked to the enzyme cyp24a1 which eliminates vitamin D when it rises too high.
So the vitamin D will continue to accumulate indefinitely.
 

charlie

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charlie

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This person tanked their potassium after starting vitamin D supplementation and also sitting in the sun.
In February my serum Vitamin D serum level was < 8 nmol/L [> 50.0] and after being on a very high dose of vitamin d supplements prescribed by my doc as well as sitting out in the sunshine for at least 15 mins daily throughtout the Summer my blood test results from yesterday's blood test remain at < 8 nmol/L [> 50.0] and I now have a low potassium result??? Any ideas what this could mean? All my doc has done is handed me a leaflet on how to increase potassium in my diet!
 
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qminati

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This person tanked their potassium after starting vitamin D supplementation and also sitting in the sun.

That is actually very interesting and the symptoms do match, but my potassium levels have been average throughout this whole ordeal from previous bloodwork, last one was done in January and i was right in the middle of the range. Does the body raise potassium levels when they tank? Are serum levels to be trusted?

I have been drinking about 1-2 liters of fresh squeezed OJ every day since April, and still a month ago the sun ruined me after only 20 minutes of exposure. With the levels of potassium in OJ, i would think I would have enough potassium.

Now what I have been doing that seems to work after sun exposure is going low tryptophan. I am seeing much greater improvements since stopping all milk and beef consumption. I add collagen to my cheese intake and every day seems to be better than the last. I will stick to low tryptophan for a while since it has shown me the best progress from everything I have tried. I was actually not doing too bad before my latest sun exposure. At this point serotonin rising from sun exposure seems to be the only explanation, although I am curious about the potassium thing.
 

charlie

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That is actually very interesting and the symptoms do match, but my potassium levels have been average throughout this whole ordeal from previous bloodwork, last one was done in January and i was right in the middle of the range. Does the body raise potassium levels when they tank? Are serum levels to be trusted?
Potassium is tightly regulated in the blood so it is the last thing to drop. The cells will deplete first. Once blood potassium starts dropping it is a serious condition because there are no reserves left. Vitamin B1 supplementation will also deplete potassium.

Now what I have been doing that seems to work after sun exposure is going low tryptophan. I am seeing much greater improvements since stopping all milk and beef consumption. I add collagen to my cheese intake and every day seems to be better than the last. I will stick to low tryptophan for a while since it has shown me the best progress from everything I have tried. I was actually not doing too bad before my latest sun exposure. At this point serotonin rising from sun exposure seems to be the only explanation, although I am curious about the potassium thing.
Great you are making progress! Please keep us updated.
 

Gustav3Y

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For me what is worth, I can say I tried sitting in the sun with barely any clothes for like 30min and after that of course I had sweat a lot all over the body and I assume that will have an effect on the minerals in the body at least due to the transpiration process?


The conflicting thing is that when I did the same with clothes on and with just my head and my face exposed to the sun, no transpiration as I was careful not to have my body in the sun's heat, I still felt not good.

So these are so different in how the sunlight was on my body and how my body reacted in the moment, but finally it was still after 30mintues aggravating me, energy loss and sleepiness for hours.
 

jpgio

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Last April 2020 I had a severe vitamin d deficiency at 11 ng/ml. A bad case of RLS popped up out of nowhere. The doctor prescribed me 50,000iu of vitamin D3 once a week. After a month of being suicidal with an intense level of RLS the vitamin d3 actually gave me relief. I was so happy but the next couple days the relief went away. I asked my doctor if I could take the vitamin d3 ever day, he said no reason why not. So I did. I wasn't only taking vitamin d, i was also talking sleep agents full of 5htp plus CBD and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember and on the 4th night i took a high dose of magnesium.

That night I had a full blown attack. The shakes, heart pumping out of my chest, crazy vomiting, crazy diarrhea, trouble breathing. The loudest tinnitus ever I felt like electricity was going through my brain. Crazy vertigo, i thought it was the last moments of my life. Long story short, the ER said I was fine and sent me home with Xanax. This attack came in waves for the next week at least, it would be a month before I would feel normal again. The doctors sent me to a psychologist which did nothing for me.

I started learning about serotonin syndrome after research and I fit almost every single symptom. So i started following the advice i read on here and it has been SUPER helpful. Around wintertime i started feeling a lot better. I ended up moving to Medellin, Colombia. In this location the sun is full of vitamin d because its close to the equator. At this point i decided i was done with supplements and ready to live a life of natural sun and exercise with natural grown food which is the only kind of food offered in Colombia.

So on my first day here, I was out in that beautiful sun all day in and out walking around. I felt great in the sun, but that night it was really hard to sleep, no big deal, kind of weird but ok. The next day I decide to sunbathe around noon. I was sweating and feeling great. That night, took some supplements to help me sleep through this unexpected insomnia, I fell asleep around 10pm. around 11pm my eyes POP open, WHOA... heart attack? this felt very similar to the first time it happened last year. I had a brick feeling in my stomach, throwing up, heart going crazy, tremors, yup, it was another full blown attack.

This time i was more scared. The only thing i did was be in the sun all day, that couldn't really be the cause could it? Sure enough i stayed out of the sun and started feeling better 5 days later. I still couldn't believe it was the sun, so i did research and learned about the sunlight in your eyes increasing serotonin, and vitamin d also can increase serotonin.

And this is where I'm confused, on here i read people who take vitamin d with no issues. When i tell you that i have tested this over and over to make sure its the vitamin d, i even took a vitamin 5000iu pill and sure enough, ANXIETY, SHAKES, you name it... I'm having a hard time getting the doctors to believe the sun is the cause of this, but i know for a fact that it is, because i still go out every now and then to see how i react. Initially it seems to make me feel better while I'm actually under the sun, its only hours later that the symptoms show up.

What am i missing? I know my issues are serotonin related because all the advice on this forum has worked wonders for me. So why is the sun causing this? Could it be a separate issue?

And btw i have never had any kind of anxiety in my life until that first attack. I have zero social anxiety, i love people, i love sunlight, i love life. Only time this happens is when i take supplements or certain foods, and now found out that the biggest culprit is the damn sun? On one morning I wasn't even in the sun, i just had the sunlight coming through the window into my eyes and started feeling crazy and i read that sunlight in the eyes also increases serotonin. Any comments and opinions would help me greatly as I feel like I may be the only person on earth with this situation :(
Did you consider that you may have had COVID? That was during peak COVID and many people I know who had COVID had a similar reaction to what you described along with it. Just throwing it out there because it may not have been something you’ve considered.
 
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qminati

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I posted this 2 and a half years ago, it has been hell on earth, 23 doctors in total who couldnt figure it out to the point they even thought I was making it up. Realized I had to abandon anything I or anybody thought they knew, and figure it all out for myself. Today, i am not fully recoverd, but I feel I will be in only a few months, I am feeling better than I have in 2 years, I know i finally cracked the code. Based on my experience, Im going to write some thoughts in case it helps anybody else. But let me be clear, Im not here to convince anybody, as it can be exhausting when everybody thinks they know whats possible and what isnt. Either belive me or dont, but i speak from the bottom of my heart that everything i tell you was my experience. im not good with writing, so im just gonna write random thoughts


- it was definitely serotonin syndrome, well a version of it at least, i connected with others i found online and had discussions with others who shared similar but not exact symptoms, i was the only one who couldnt be under the sun, others had other symptoms that were intense, not one of us was exactly the same, but one thing we shared in common is that we all had serotonin symptoms since we were kids. Chronic serotonin syndrome is real and can be passed on thru birth. The literature on SS is garbage. Serotonin affects other processes and brings to light all your health issues, you feel all the processes from food and supplements. And it is definitely not just serotonin, there are processes we simply are still not aware of in science, maybe in the future we can piece it all together, but for now, we are convinced that healing the gut is the only way to beat it.

- most people dont believe or brush off these truths, this is why research is so llimited, the lack of open minds.

- Ray Peat is indeed a genius, i cant tell you how many times i was able to tie my experience to things he spoke about, even little comments he made in passing, when that man talks, pay attention. I will also say he probably would not have known whats wrong with me either. He cant possibly be right about 100% of what he says because our bodies are all so different, i believe he was 100% correct about his own experience, but they dont always relate to others expereinces. To be fair, how could a man possibly know what others feel. He used science, and it was good enough to save my life with my ablility to understand that adjustments have to be made for my experience.

- Rob Turner, i will reach out to him when i am fully healed and thank him for saving my life with his foodbubble course. This site is very helpful, but unfortunately some people post things that are anti peat without realizing it, their heart is in the right place, but im convinced Rays work can be complicated, and is probably misenterpreted more often than not. I learned that if it doesnt come from Rays mouth or writing directly, dont trust it.

- Studies are the reason most people dont get things right, stop trusting studies over your own experience, i cant tell you how many studies hindered my progress, the moment i ignored "proven facts" and trusted my own experience, i was able to figure things out much faster

- i couldnt stomach most foods, after guaging how everything affected me, all i could ingest without tortourous reactions was parmigianno regianno and 3 bottles of fresh squeezed orange juice a day. Using my thermometer i was able to monitor my temps and see how my thyroid was improving, but it wasnt until i added a continuous glucose monitor that i was able to actually heal. In Robs course the way to health is clear, balancing your blood sugar all day every day, cant stress how well it works, it takes long, but its the truth.

- the only natural thing that helped without fail was sugar, but i mean massive amounts, without the CGM i would overdo it, the more stressed you feel, the more sugar you need, period, at least for me. Progesterone was helpful, activated charcoal was helpful.

- carrot salad was 100% working against me. My theory is that when the gut has such a massive amount of toxins, it only rattles your serotonin more, activated charcoal on the other hand would be what ultimately led me to recovery, 50 grams a week. my theory is all about balance, when the toxins in your gut reach a certain point, things behave different, i believe this was Ray Peats flaw i thinking, not that he was wrong, but he never imagined just how bad the gut can get. He once commented that if you need a high amount of progesterone and not get relief, it must mean you have an ungodly amount of toxins. Once again, something I was able to connect to my experience.

- your health today can be different than your health next month, what hurt you last month, can fix you this month, dont think in absolutes, the body seeks balance at all times, too much of something feels as bad as too little of something.

- i took in so much fresh squeezed OJ that i went from 150 lbs to 210 lbs, with absolutely no change in diet and no exercise, i eventually began losing weight, exercise made everything worse, heal the body with sugar, once healed it will start working again, Ray Peats genius understood the natural approach of losing one pound per week, i was on average 3.5 lbs a month loss. I had gotten so fat i couldnt bend down to tie my shoes, clipping my toenails was difficult. Not one shred of cellulite, not one stretch mark, i was 99% PUFA free in my food intake. im currently at 168 pounds, one time the elevator shut down in my building, i was so scare to go up 8 flights of steps, when i did, i was definitely tired, but no heavy breathing, i was amazed, i was barely using my body, yet somehow my breathing was just fine.

- never sit after a meal, you are wasting a precious opportunity to kickstart your metabolism

- waking up at 3 am. Pound some orange juice. First i feel horrible as my adrenaline/cortisol lowers, wait a little longer for my thryoid to kick in, start feeling warm, right back to sleep, just like Ray said. There can be other factors that prevent sugar from working, insomnia is one, insomnia can be temporary, it takes weeks to solve if you stick to Rays methods. Starches helped with my insomnia more than anything. Supplements first help, then hurt, thats always a possibility, use your tools, dont let your tools use you, use logic, you pour water to drink, its a great thing, if you keep pouring water it can eventually drown you.

- not one ounce of water, never felt dehyrdated, nothing better than water from fruit juice.

- melatonin helped me get thru the insomnia phase, everything has its short term and long term effects, learn what does what to you, become a ninja with that info, no such thing as good or bad most of the time, just solve the current problem, better to take away the stress of not sleeping and the health benefits can outwiegh the risks. always test out what happens when you stop taking something,

- When you are high energy, you get away with things and your body will do for itself, i couldnt take vitamin d, yet my levels went up from 14 to 26 with no sun or pills. You will absorb every bit of protien you ingest. If you know how to raise your temps right, your body will get what it needs from the food.

- stress is the anti energy, more powerful than you can imagine, had a bad phone call? drink sugar, your gonna need it.

- i beat resltess leg syndrome, like Ray said in a simple comment, excess serotonin in the gut, got kicked out of a facebook group for saying this, I strongly belive the medical industry controls online groups to keep the truth out. i was immediatley told in a group i did not have SS based on my symptoms, others came to my defense and all but confirmed my symptoms were similar to theirs. the person who said i didnt have SS never replied.

- high temps does not always garuntee you will feel good. The body has processes, something you did 2 days ago an affect you today.

- everything is energy, even good things, having too much fun and hearing great news, can result in lowerd blood sugar,

im tired and need rest, if anybody happens to read this and has questions feel free to ask since im sure im missing so much, but its been a 3 year journey for me, since april 1 2020.
 

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