nerfherder
Member
Hello Everyone,
I've been reading this site for a couple of years now. It started with migraines - after some years on a low-ish carb diet I had nasty migraines. It was like having a hangover through the night and all day, with vomiting each morning. It became clear that, as a mid-late 40s guy, something in my body was broken. It felt like aging but I couldn't blame that since I wasn't old enough.
Starting a couple of years ago I put more carbs in my diet. I haden't cooked with PUFAs for a decade, but they're always there in some of the animal fats like pork and chicken. Things slowly got better but there were still phases with vomiting migraines and they never took more than a week or two off. I still wasn't very Peat-y but something felt better. My energy levels increased a fair bit and felt less like an old guy. I worked on breathing through my nose, something that hadn't happened for a decade (i.e. before any low-carbing) and things got better there. Then one day I changed my mattress and the incidence of migraines plummeted. I still got them, but at a far lower intensity. And now months later I'm getting better at eating this way and getting more and more improvement in headaches. They're pretty much gone. But that's not why I am posting.
I had a pre-booked doctor's appointment for my migraines just a couple of days after I discovered my mattress was causing a lot of trouble, and my doctor prescribed me a beta blocker (metoprolol) since it would help with the headaches and also he had a little concern about my blood pressure being in the 130s. Now since my headaches had pretty much gone I didn't bother taking the beta blocker since I'd rather fix the underlying issue than squish the symptom. I bought a blood pressure monitor to check how it goes. On first usage my home monitor scored me way higher - something like 160! Now I know enough to be aware that my monitor might be offset from what I get at the doctor's, but it did give me some feedback. I can relax my way down to the 130s and sometimes into the 120s but if I'm stressed by anything it will go up to the 140s or so.
So finally towards my question. Is there a smoking gun that points to an obvious culprit in my health?
Why would my FFA count be really high? Similarly for hemoglobin? Do I need to do anything to repair/recover or can I just eat sensibly and things will get better in time?
I've been reading this site for a couple of years now. It started with migraines - after some years on a low-ish carb diet I had nasty migraines. It was like having a hangover through the night and all day, with vomiting each morning. It became clear that, as a mid-late 40s guy, something in my body was broken. It felt like aging but I couldn't blame that since I wasn't old enough.
Starting a couple of years ago I put more carbs in my diet. I haden't cooked with PUFAs for a decade, but they're always there in some of the animal fats like pork and chicken. Things slowly got better but there were still phases with vomiting migraines and they never took more than a week or two off. I still wasn't very Peat-y but something felt better. My energy levels increased a fair bit and felt less like an old guy. I worked on breathing through my nose, something that hadn't happened for a decade (i.e. before any low-carbing) and things got better there. Then one day I changed my mattress and the incidence of migraines plummeted. I still got them, but at a far lower intensity. And now months later I'm getting better at eating this way and getting more and more improvement in headaches. They're pretty much gone. But that's not why I am posting.
I had a pre-booked doctor's appointment for my migraines just a couple of days after I discovered my mattress was causing a lot of trouble, and my doctor prescribed me a beta blocker (metoprolol) since it would help with the headaches and also he had a little concern about my blood pressure being in the 130s. Now since my headaches had pretty much gone I didn't bother taking the beta blocker since I'd rather fix the underlying issue than squish the symptom. I bought a blood pressure monitor to check how it goes. On first usage my home monitor scored me way higher - something like 160! Now I know enough to be aware that my monitor might be offset from what I get at the doctor's, but it did give me some feedback. I can relax my way down to the 130s and sometimes into the 120s but if I'm stressed by anything it will go up to the 140s or so.
So finally towards my question. Is there a smoking gun that points to an obvious culprit in my health?
- My ferritin is relatively high but I started donating blood so I'm on that.
- My hematocrit level is 51, which is high enough that I couldn't compete in the tour de france because of potential blood doping
- Similarly the associated high hemoglobin count of 17.
- But what really stood out for me was a high Free Fatty Acid count. What causes that? Is it simply eating fat?
Why would my FFA count be really high? Similarly for hemoglobin? Do I need to do anything to repair/recover or can I just eat sensibly and things will get better in time?
