Things were going well then I had a bad experience.

LoveBlood

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First post here, hoping to get some opinions on what happened the other night.

I'm a 23 year old guy coming from a hypothyroid background and for a few weeks I'd been eating a diet of roughly 1/1.5 litres of 2% milk, .5/1 litre of oj, between 80-160g of sucrose, a few pasture-raised eggs a day, 50g cocoa, around 4/5 cups of very strong coffee (around 3/4 tsps of coffee per cup) and 200g liver twice a week and 12 oysters twice a week, I also took 5/8 tbsp of gelatin a day and carrot salad daily. Was also consuming around 5+ tsp of salt a day and keeping a temp of 36.5/37c (usually 36.9/37.0) and heart rate of around 80/90 throughout the day, supp'ing niacinamide, D/E/K, 2 aspirin, 3/4 tsp eggshell calcium, occasional sodium bicarbonate with oj.

Had been feeling really good, highest libido I've ever experienced (previously low) mental clarity, concentration, ambition, creativity, calm but energised, feeling happy.
Tuesday night I had a massive crash from nowhere, shaking hard, tension in my jaw, felt like I was gonna faint/die, heart beating hard, scared as hell, had a weird faint feeling in my heart area and felt as if i was totally empty inside, feeling of unreality, my testicles actually shriveled up tight (now that's some fright, huh?)

I was trying to figure out if I'd dehydrated myself and this is a stress response? am I overhydrated? my hands and feet were cold but I hadn't peed in a few hours, as I lay in bed shaking, telling myself that I'll feel much better by the end of this episode of SG-1 ;) I ended up peeing almost totally clear three times within an hour or so.

Thinking about it, I had experienced the hollow feeling when in bed the previous night and had trouble sleeping, had to get up and have some eggs with sugared milk because I felt totally empty. I think I was also becoming a bit too hyper over the previous day or so, occasionally gnawing teeth to a rhythm and sometimes pacing around, perhaps this incident had been building up.

Do you think this was simply too much caffeine or could something worse be at play?

Since then I've gone to Matt Stone style "Eat For Heat" eating and because I was so freaked I totally stopped having coffee/sucrose/salt/supps the past few days because I was scared of the episode I had on Tuesday night and the hollow feeling scared me, haven't actually felt "full" even after eating a lot. I still find myself getting scared/uneasy from time to time, adrenaline? This is the kinda stuff I used to feel some time ago during my raw vegan and water fasting experiences, but back then I felt a ton worse, that's pretty much when my health problems kicked off (low libido, hair loss).

Sometimes I'm getting *really* hot after food and feels like my heart is beating too hard at times, sometimes it happens when I just get up and start walking around. Kinda feeling scared to eat because I don't know what the right thing to do is.
In the days since then I've occasionally been getting the totally empty sensation and pooping more than regular but the empty feeling has pretty much stopped, I'm guessing metabolic rate is still quite high, body is pretty much warm all the time, toes get slightly cold on rare occasion.
Any idea what happened? I'm thinking that possibly I pushed my body too hard, or simply too much caffeine, or I increased metabolic rate too high (hyperthyroid?) for my consumption level (2.5/3k calories) causing that empty/hollow feeling, kinda running on empty.

Right now being totally rid of the anxiety is primary concern. What's the verdict, people? :?
 

Swandattur

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Hopefully someone more knowledgable will give you some advice. Maybe as you said, it's that temporary hyperthyroid deal that Peat talks about. I got a little hyper in a good way when I first started making changes in my diet. I've had some bumps in the road, too, but I think I figured them out. Hope you feel better.
 

4peatssake

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LoveBlood said:
First post here, hoping to get some opinions on what happened the other night.

Hi LoveBlood!

:welcome2 to the forum!

I'm not sufficiently experienced nor qualified to address your situation - I am still actively working through my own issues - but your experience may be worth asking Ray Peat about. I think I would ask him, if it were me. There are also people here with more knowledge and experience, who as Swandattur mentioned, should be able to help.

Meantime, welcome aboard! :wave:
 

pboy

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That happened to me...something similar a few years back...im not sure exactly why it did but it was bad, and prolonged for almost a month or two.
I was eating a ton of cacao but somehow I think that was just maybe a small contributor, where as the main issue was just nervous overload. I was getting into
health / nutrition research, going to college, in and out of job, getting excited yet being really stressed and jacking myself up all the time.

I'd just suggest this: Stop all supplements for a bit, limit caffeine / cacao but definitely don't completely stop eating them...just be more intelligent with when you eat them
in larger amounts...like if you know youre going into a situation that will require patience that you don't particulary enjoy don't have too much cacao or caffeine, but if you're about
to do something enjoyable where you're more free then consume as much as you enjoy. When it comes to food...don't think about it so much, its more about what you aren't putting in, not so much as you MUST put in such and such. The Peat diet is more of an eat these foods to sustain yourself without hurting yourself idea, not really an 'eat all these for their particular health benefits and nutrients', but moreso 'just eat these cause they wont cause problems in the short or long term and will keep you in a metabolically healthy state'. You're more resilient than you probably think and stress is a big factor in causing confusion and unrest ect...sometimes a little less is more. Chill with the supplements, use caffeine more intelligently, stay hydrated, id say you don't need to much salt but use it according to taste...that's the best indicator, and ultimately eat what will taste good when youll enjoy it but don't feel the 'need' to eat anything you don't particularly feel like at the time

Hope you feel better man
 

Rayser

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LoveBlood and Pboy: Have you been supplementing thyroid?

The very hard heartbeat and some of the other symptoms (usually accompanied by shortness of breath) are signs of too much T3. So yes: Hyperthyroidism.
They usually disappear after 30 minutes or an hour and are usually triggered by either too much T3 supplementation or something which increases the thyroid function dramatically. For instance a lot of iodine or coconut oil at once can activate T4 which has been stored in your thyroid tissue for months. This would be the infamous "thyroid storm".
You, LoveBlood, have been using a lot of salt and a lot of thyroid stimulating substances. So it's entirely possible that you caused a thyroid storm. Especially if you have been supplementing, too. The good news is that this happens only once because the stored T4 is used up during the storm.

Another thing I have noticed: This feeling of emptiness is most likely low blood sugar. If you feel it when you go to bed, sugared milk is a great idea. Eggs are not.
Especially since you mention that you've been eating "a couple of eggs" every day. Eggs lower blood sugar very, very potently. Ray Peat fainted after eating eggs once and so did a friend of mine. When the blood sugar is low and you eat eggs, you cause hypoglycemia. Maybe you find some similarities with Thomas' story?

Thomas said:
My background is a condition of two years of suffering with ill health. After a antibiotic treatment something happend and my system got out of wack. I first thought I would have gotten Candida and tried to starve it out. I was following a mainly protein/fat based diet. And after 3 month my body broke down. I got very afraid! Something happend which I didnt understood and still dont.

I lost about 35 kg in 3 month, a lot of the sympthoms I had where brainfog, itchy eyes, rectal itching, stomach pain, constant diarre, malnutrion, intestinal transit-time of 4 hours, UT irritation, a feeling that I would pee in my pants.

Long story short. As all my sympthoms got better I thought I am soon healed from that terrible situation. How wrong I was I noticed, when in the middle of nigh,t I was awaken with a flash. From deep sleep I suddenly was full awake. I knew something was wrong and it felt like I would die. A strange sensation of my was blood boiling, or millions of ants running under my skin, mixed with a feeling of getting a heart attack, my spirit leaving my body. I had a feeling that my upper body was sinking down in the pillows while my legs would start to flow up. My chest got tight and I got a feeling of a coming heart attack. A terrible fear of death entered the room. I noticed all and said to myself. Keep cool, breath, count, breath and check. I had a feeling of a racing heartbeat but when I counted it with a clock it was normal. Very strange! I thought that I am on my way to get nuts.


Rayser said:
What you describe as panic attack sound very familiar. Only I know it as hypoglycaemia. I believe that every diet without sugar is a recipe for disease. When I was were you seem to be right now I started using salt therapeutically and sugar. Salt one to three table spoons a day to lower Parathyroid Hormone and help my thyroid function recover and sugar to normalize the metabolism and repair cells.

Signs and symptoms (from Wikipedia)

Hypoglycemic symptoms and manifestations can be divided into those produced by the counterregulatory hormones (epinephrine/adrenaline and glucagon) triggered by the falling glucose, and the neuroglycopenic effects produced by the reduced brain sugar.

1. Adrenergic manifestations:
Shakiness, anxiety, nervousness
Palpitations, tachycardia
Sweating, feeling of warmth (although sweat glands have muscarinic receptors, thus "adrenergic manifestations" is not entirely accurate)
Pallor, coldness, clamminess
Dilated pupils (mydriasis)
Feeling of numbness "pins and needles" (paresthesia)

2. Glucagon manifestations:
Hunger, borborygmus
Nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort
Headache

3. Neuroglycopenic manifestations
Abnormal mentation, impaired judgment
Nonspecific dysphoria, moodiness, depression, crying, exaggerated concerns
Negativism, irritability, belligerence, combativeness, rage
Personality change, emotional lability
Fatigue, weakness, apathy, lethargy, daydreaming, sleep
Confusion, amnesia, lightheadedness or dizziness, delirium
Staring, "glassy" look, blurred vision, double vision
Flashes of light in the field of vision
Automatic behavior, also known as automatism
Difficulty speaking, slurred speech
Ataxia, incoordination, sometimes mistaken for "drunkenness"
Focal or general motor deficit, paralysis, hemiparesis
Paresthesia, headache
Stupor, coma, abnormal breathing
Generalized or focal seizures

Not all of the above manifestations occur in every case of hypoglycemia. There is no consistent order to the appearance of the symptoms, if symptoms even occur. Specific manifestations may also vary by age, by severity of the hypoglycemia and the speed of the decline. In young children, vomiting can sometimes accompany morning hypoglycemia with ketosis. In older children and adults, moderately severe hypoglycemia can resemble mania, mental illness, drug intoxication, or drunkenness. In the elderly, hypoglycemia can produce focal stroke-like effects or a hard-to-define malaise. The symptoms of a single person may be similar from episode to episode, but are not necessarily so and may be influenced by the speed at which glucose levels are dropping, as well as previous incidents.
 

key

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Could be allergic reaction to a food you were eating, I've experienced something similar. How often do you eat? Do you workout?
 

Swandattur

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I had one other thought. Actually the symptoms sound like a panic attack, which in turn is probably caused by stuff like low blood sugar or allergy, which can be caused by hypothyroid. Sounds exactly like panic attacks. Use the paper bag breathing. That should help, because when a person is feeling nervous or scared they breath rapidly and don't get enough carbon dioxide, and that just makes thing worse. As another poster said ease up on the caffeine and cocoa for now. Take an easier going approach to the diet. Take it easy. Do relaxation exercises; that will help on your breathing. Follow the advice given in the above posts.
 

Rayser

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Swandattur ist very right about the bag breathing!
But I doubt this episode has anything to do with low thyroid.
I think it's hypoglycemia caused by the eggs at a point when he was already experiencing hunger.
During sleep blood sugar decreases further due to darkness and the increase of stress hormones.
His symptoms match hypoglycemia exactly.
 

Swandattur

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I thought that when you have hypoglycemia then you probably have a little thyroid trouble caused by poor diet, stress, or endotoxin. Somewhere in all that is the deal with trouble storing glucose as glycogen? Mainly, I just realized the poor guy was having panic attacks which are very scary. I've had them before, and I could have used more help at the time if anyone had known how to help me right then. Later I got help, but I had already fallen down into an abyss of depression. Fortunately, I think most people handle it better than that. I hope LoveBlood is okay.
 

Rayser

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Swandattur - A friend of mine works in an emergency room and has to drive around with the ambulance every week for a night. He says they get calls about "heart attacks" and "strokes" all the time which turn out to be "panic attacks". You know how they treat them? Glucose intravenously. I asked him once how he could tell apart panic attacks from hypoglycemia. He can't he told me. But it didn't matter since the treatment was the same.

Hypoglycemia can occur when your thyroid is perfect (If it happens to Ray Peat, it can happen to everyone). Many drugs cause it, eggs can cause it, skipping meals or high estrogen levels, stress in every form of course.

Look at the list of symptoms of hypoglycemia ... There were (or are) times when people were diagnosed with mental illness and locked up in institutions. The drugs they received there, the meals 3 times a day - many never got out again.
 

Swandattur

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Wow! That's very interesting. Where do you live? I hadn't heard of that being done. Eggs really do a number on insulin, I guess. They never seem to do the job you expect from protein. In fact yesterday after eating 2 eggs I got progressively hungry/empty. Nothing helped until I ate some meat. I appear to be allergic to most dairy and to gelatin right now. I have read that histamines may play a role in panic attacks. I had my first panic attack in the dentist office after getting a shot of anesthetic. Before that I was never particularly nervous at the dentist. Since then, I tell them to leave off the epinephrine in the anesthetic.
 
J

j.

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Rayser said:
Swandattur - A friend of mine works in an emergency room and has to drive around with the ambulance every week for a night. He says they get calls about "heart attacks" and "strokes" all the time which turn out to be "panic attacks". You know how they treat them? Glucose intravenously.

I was one of those once. The first thing they did was to measure my blood sugar, and it was fine. So I think there can be other reasons.
 

Rayser

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Swandattur said:
Wow! That's very interesting. Where do you live? I hadn't heard of that being done. Eggs really do a number on insulin, I guess. They never seem to do the job you expect from protein. In fact yesterday after eating 2 eggs I got progressively hungry/empty. Nothing helped until I ate some meat. I appear to be allergic to most dairy and to gelatin right now. I have read that histamines may play a role in panic attacks. I had my first panic attack in the dentist office after getting a shot of anesthetic. Before that I was never particularly nervous at the dentist. Since then, I tell them to leave off the epinephrine in the anesthetic.


I live in Germany, my friend in New York city (at least he works there).
In fact most ambulances use sugar as a first aid tool because it works for shock and injuries, too.
It's like you say: Eggs are not for hunger. They contain many nutrients we don't get anywhere else but they also come with PUFA and lower blood sugar. You should never eat them without drinking OJ. Ray Peat says he needs "a quart" if I remember correctly. I always drink half a litre. Some before I eat the eggs.

I have the same problem with every kind of anesthetic. It makes me highly depressive, even paranoid. Started a few years ago at a dentist. After two shots I started to hear voices and they were saying really means things about me.
I noticed a year ago that I can control the symptoms by eating loads of sugar before and after the anesthetics. I still don't do them anymore. The last root canal I had without. And you know ... it was nothing. Like that big bad neighbors dog you always hear through the door and imagine it will bite your head off one day. And then you see him and it's a poodle.
The root canal was not pleasant but not a tenth of the pain I had every time with migraines.

Ray Peat thinks low blood sugar is worse than high blood sugar.
I once saw a grown man, a body builder shake and cry and hyperventilate and prass out after using bromocriptin. It lowered his blood sugar so dramatically that all the fighting was useless.
 

Rayser

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j. said:
Rayser said:
Swandattur - A friend of mine works in an emergency room and has to drive around with the ambulance every week for a night. He says they get calls about "heart attacks" and "strokes" all the time which turn out to be "panic attacks". You know how they treat them? Glucose intravenously.

I was one of those once. The first thing they measured was my blood sugar, and it was fine. So I think there can be other reasons.

I'm afraid some are really something else but I found that even at "normal blood sugar levels" or what the WHO calls normal you can have symptoms of hypoglycemia which can be reduced or disappear when you use a lot of sugar.
Sugar would be helpful in every stress situation.
I think measuring blood sugar to see if sugar is needed is as helpful as measuring TSH to see if thyroid supplement is needed. Sometimes it's right. Most times it's not.
And since sugar doesn't have any unpleasant side effects (no, sugar does not lead to weight gain) it doesn't hurt to try it.
 
J

j.

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Rayser said:
j. said:
Rayser said:
Swandattur - A friend of mine works in an emergency room and has to drive around with the ambulance every week for a night. He says they get calls about "heart attacks" and "strokes" all the time which turn out to be "panic attacks". You know how they treat them? Glucose intravenously.

I was one of those once. The first thing they measured was my blood sugar, and it was fine. So I think there can be other reasons.

I'm afraid some are really something else but I found that even at "normal blood sugar levels" or what the WHO calls normal you can have symptoms of hypoglycemia which can be reduced or disappear when you use a lot of sugar.

One of the things I did was I drank Pepsi, which has sugar (not the HFCS kind), and then it got much worse. Although I guess one could say the caffeine maybe caused that. I think there are gut issues that can result in panic attacks. There is a minority of researchers who believe that. I read that in one place in Australia, they treat panic attacks by doing a stool test and then giving antibiotics.
 

Rayser

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Antibiotics for panic attacks?
I have read several case reports and post in panic-attack-forums about antibiotics causing panic attacks.
To me it made perfect sense since antibiotics lower blood sugar.
Are there any studies for this Australian idea?
 

Rayser

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j. said:
One of the things I did was I drank Pepsi, which has sugar (not the HFCS kind), and then it got much worse. Although I guess one could say the caffeine maybe caused that. I think there are gut issues that can result in panic attacks. There is a minority of researchers who believe that. I read that in one place in Australia, they treat panic attacks by doing a stool test and then giving antibiotics.

I was not aware there was Pepsi with sugar instead of HFCS. Do they still make those?
 

andvanwyk

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Its possible to overdo it with the liver. 400g per week is an incredibly large amount. Lamb and calf liver have huge amounts of copper ... Yes copper is good but you can easily overdo it with that amount of copper. Its also potent with other nutrients that you could possibly overdo.I started getting bad panic attacks last year after esting 50g chicken livers everyday for 4 months. Personally i try not do more than100g ruminant liver in a week or 200g chicken livers... Too potent (but in correct amounts extremely healing)
 
J

j.

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Rayser said:
Antibiotics for panic attacks?
I have read several case reports and post in panic-attack-forums about antibiotics causing panic attacks.
To me it made perfect sense since antibiotics lower blood sugar.
Are there any studies for this Australian idea?

This is the website where I first read about it.

Anxiety Disorder and Panic Attacks may share common Biological and Psychological causes. There are many forms of anxiety. While some are related to stressful events others seem to occur for no apparent reason. However every effect has a cause. In anxiety and panic attacks, the cause may vary from person to person. Slight abnormalities in the balance of some brain chemicals (neurotransmitters) may play a role. This is probably why antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications are useful in treating around 40% of cases.

However, recent research evidence implicates abnormal levels of commensal (usually occurring) gut bacteria that can cause the release of high levels of trace amines and toxins, both of which can trigger abnormal neurotransmitter activity in the brain. The underlying causes can be teased out and treated, leading to more effective long-term outcome.

Link
 
J

j.

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Rayser said:
j. said:
One of the things I did was I drank Pepsi, which has sugar (not the HFCS kind), and then it got much worse. Although I guess one could say the caffeine maybe caused that. I think there are gut issues that can result in panic attacks. There is a minority of researchers who believe that. I read that in one place in Australia, they treat panic attacks by doing a stool test and then giving antibiotics.

I was not aware there was Pepsi with sugar instead of HFCS. Do they still make those?

Outside the U.S. I think is typical. In the U.S., it's called Pepsi Throwback.
 

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