tingling arms and no appetite

[sunflower1]

I've been doing pretty well peating for the past year and 3 months..
That is until about 2 months ago, when I started to feel nervous and didn't want to go out.
About a month back I started feeling very anxious and started having weird tingling feelings in my arms and legs, like my nervous system was on fire..

I took a look at my hair test and saw that I had high mercury probably from eating too much white fish and having problems with detox due to my liver..

I am now at a point where I have to force myself to eat because i have no appetite, I still have this numb/tingly feeling in my arms upon awakening and i feel nervous a lot, I'm also sighing a lot too, My sleep is broken and I'm finding it hard to get enough calories in as I can barely eat..

Fat makes me want to gag !

I'm at a loss of what to do.. Most of my food is fruit/ milk/ oj/ some beef and lamb, eggs until a few days back , they now make me wanna puke!. some white rice(not much) and potatoes.. broth, gelatin, cheese

Any suggestions. I'm at a loss as to what to do. I was ding really well before

Thanks

 

[Giraffe]

Welcome to the forum, Sunflower1!

Numb feelings in the arms are often caused by issues with the cervical spine. You might want to check for tension in the neck. Massage and breathing exercises aimed at opening the chest might help to get the lymph system running more smoothly and hence help with detox.

I am looking forward what other forum members advise for detoxification nutrion/supplements-wise.

 

[tara]

sunflower

It doesn't sound good, what you are experiencing. Wish I knew what to do about it.

My initial thoughts, as a non-expert, are:
Hyperventilation reduces CO2 levels too far. This can sometimes cause tingling and/or numbness in extremities. It can also contribute to general nervousness and disturbed sleep.
Adequate CO2 levels are necessary to keep nerves calm (literally as well as figuratively).
Lots of sighing can be a way to hyperventilate.
If you are not eating much, you are probably not running a strong metabolism, and probably not producing much CO2.
Hyperventilation can be a way for the body to protect itself from excessive acidity.

I'd consider getting a doctors opinion about it, since it seems serious, and they may get you some useful tests to help see what's going on. (You don't have to do anything the dr tells you unless it makes sense to you.)
I like Giraffe's idea about checking out cervical spine, and trying massage etc.

If it were me, I think the first two things I'd consider checking, as well as getting drs opinion, would be:
1. Measure UpH a few times at different times of day over a few days. If it tends to average below 6.2, I'd take that as a sign of running too acid. If so, see if you can get more alkaline minerals in, and keep testing to see what helps with this.
2. Are you craving other foods outside the limited menu you've been eating for the last while? If so, consider trying a bit of them and seeing if they help.
3. If you are not running too acid, I'd check breathing. See if a few short breath holds, or a minute or two of bag-breathing, help the tingling to stop. If it helps, that's a good sign that you can get improvements this way. Do you generally have relaxed, nasal diaphragmatic breathing, including at night? If not, you can improve this with practice and more quickly with simple mechanical aids.
If you tend to sleep with your mouth open, you can use either tape or a chin strap to help it stay mostly closed.
Every time you catch yourself sighing, try holding your breath briefly afterwards (preferably immediately, before you breath in again.)

The only time I've had tingling (down leg and foot) was when I had a spinal disk prolapse several years ago. It eventually sorted itself, after several (distressing) months.
More recently, I read about Buteyko method, and have made some improvements in breathing. This has been really helpful. I think I needed more food, and maybe the calcium and/or magnesium supplements to make this work, though.

 

[toddw]

You may need help with your adrenals, low cortisol. Are you consuming enough salt?
Try 2000mg of Vit C with breakfast, 1000mg at noonish and 1000mg late afternoon. B vitamins, especially b5 are important. Cortisol is supposed to be highest in the morning so a.m. is the most important time to support them.

 

[tara]

Just thinking about the mercury, are you doing something active to detox? The process of getting mercury out of the system requires getting it moving, and I think while it is moving around it can sometimes do more damage in different places, possibly including the nervous system?
I've got a mouthful of amalgams, so probably too much mercury, and I have some lead. But I've been wary of active chelation because of these risks.

 

[tara]

You may need help with your adrenals, low cortisol. Are you consuming enough salt?
Try 2000mg of Vit C with breakfast, 1000mg at noonish and 1000mg late afternoon. B vitamins, especially b5 are important. Cortisol is supposed to be highest in the morning so a.m. is the most important time to support them.

I'm not saying this would or would not be helpful to the OP, but I have yet to see Peat recommend high doses of vit-C for anything. He is sceptical about the quality - common manufacturing processes are likely to add lead contamination. And seems to think we can usually get enough from food.
I sometimes supplement a little, but I no longer take gram+ doses.

 

[sunflower1]

Thank you Guys for your suggestions.

Today I felt a little better, I was able to sleep last night and the nausea today was not as bad so I made 2000 calories or just under which the most i've been able to eat for weeks..

I booked an appointment for saturday for blood work.. so hopefully that might tell me something or at least I can rule a few things out..

If I have low cortisol and sugar helps to bring cortisol and adrenaline down, should I not be doing so much sugar then. I'm guessing around 50 % of my diet come from carbs right now and mainly the fruity kind..
I do have shot adrenals and have had for many years..

Sunny

 

[Sea]

I recommend trying a cheese pizza or a cake made without vegetable oils. These foods can make it easy to eat a lot of calories even if you don't feel hungry.

Since fat and eggs make you want to puke you might have some bacterial overgrowth that may have become worse from not fully digesting some of the food you are eating. I would suspect the gelatin or the milk over the other foods you are consuming. Initially I couldn't digest gelatin well and it made my bacterial overgrowth worse which caused a similar feeling of wanting to puke when faced with eggs or coffee mixed with milk and gelatin. Bacteria can also be responsible for your anxiety, although I don't know what the tingling indicates. After taking antibiotics and making my metabolism faster through a high calorie diet I no longer have those types of symptoms.

 

[sunflower1]

Sea, How would I find out whether I have bacteria or not.?
I've had terrible digestion all my life and since I cut out veggies things hava gotten a lot better for me in my digestion department

 

[sunflower1]

Tara ,
I will try the ph stix

 

[sunflower1]

OK I think this has something to do with blood sugar handling issues. The numbness in my arms seems to be better but last night I had a horrible nights sleep..
Yesterday I felt really nauseaous and went from 11am-3pm because I was in an appointment with only a glass of milk and a few dried apricots to eat. I came home and ate and felt even more nausea then went to work and when I got home I didn't feel very hungry so I only ate a little beef and sweet potato.. then I ate a little icecream before bed..
I had a really bad nights sleep and could not relax. I only managed around 1300 calories because the nausea was so bad. I'm about to come on my period or at least i was due yesterday .
I got my hair test back and showed high in lithium too. I think this may be from a ceramic pan..
I feel very stuck between a rock and a hard place with all of this. I know its important for me to eat but the nausea gets so bad.. I've been eating ginger and drinking a little ginger ale ..
ughghghhg
I'm having the blood test tomorrow . Will also buy ph stix today, sorry I don't have a pharmacy close and less stimulation from driving the better right now

 

[nograde]

Thiamine deficiency leads to neuropathies you describe and also causes decreased appetite. The purported "Ray Peat diet" is notoriously low in Thiamine and on the other hand depletes Thiamine in various ways (Coffee, increased metabolism, high carb). Try megadosing (eg. 4x300mg) for a few days and see how it goes.

 

[sunflower1]

Thank you. I will try that out

 

[Giraffe]

The purported "Ray Peat diet" is notoriously low in Thiamine and on the other hand depletes Thiamine in various ways (Coffee, increased metabolism, high carb).

This confuses me. I checked how my staple foods provide me vitamines. With staple foods I mean foods I really eat daily (dairy products, fruits, 10 g calf's liver, 1/2 egg). Regarding thiamine I meet the RDI. I am low in folate; all the other vitamines exceed RDI.

I agree that increased metabolism might raise needs for thiamine. On the other hand, the bioavailability from dairy products seems very good. Why do coffee and high carb deplete thiamine?

 

[nograde]

The purported "Ray Peat diet" is notoriously low in Thiamine and on the other hand depletes Thiamine in various ways (Coffee, increased metabolism, high carb).

This confuses me. I checked how my staple foods provide me vitamines. With staple foods I mean foods I really eat daily (dairy products, fruits, 10 g calf's liver, 1/2 egg). Regarding thiamine I meet the RDI. I am low in folate; all the other vitamines exceed RDI.

I agree that increased metabolism might raise needs for thiamine. On the other hand, the bioavailability from dairy products seems very good. Why do coffee and high carb deplete thiamine?

Thiamine is abundant in (whole-)grains, pork, lentils, brown rice, nuts etc. In Peat-land Orange juice and potatoes are probably the only decent sources, maybe milk if drunken in large quantities, liver and eggs are poor ones. Coffee and Tea are known "anti-thiamines", they directly deactivate thiamine. Also, thiamine is predominantely utilized in the carbohydrate metabolism. I ponder that all Peatish thiamine sources have just enough to metabolize its own carb contents. If you add lots of table-sugar to the game you could quickly become deficient. Trivia: When they gave carb-laden food to malnourished and wasted concentration camp survivors, some of them died in short time because that dramatically aggravated their existing thiamine deficiency. This became known as the "refeeding syndrome".

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

This "Peat diet" of the same foods for everyone isn't going to work, and it doesn't even seem to be what Peat recommends. Start going back to your instincts - it sounds like you need a reset. Need more details to properly help... Do you take meds or supps?

 

[sunflower1]

Last night I went into a total stress response, Numbness and insomia were back full force..
My temp on arising was 98.8/68
after breakfast 98.4/76
I'm pumping out adrenaline and could not sleep last night, I went to bed at 10, tossed and turned until 12am, woke up clammy and shaky, took half acup of milk with sugar and a sleep aid/antihistime and was then able to sleep until 6am but I feel like sit this morning. I think I'm stuck in a stress response and don't seem to be able to shake it irrelevant of what i do..
I managed to get 1800 calories in yesterday, i've gone back to eating meat as I just could not stomach, eggs, cheese or anything else.. I'm not sure how to get myself out of this stress response..

HELP !

 

[sunflower1]

I'm taking magnesium 400mg, Started B1 yesterday took2 x 300 mg
i have a multi that has low dose b vits and potassium in it

I took Doxyamaline succinae last night to sleep, half a pill of 25mg. I have b12 here but haven't started yet..

Thant's it for now..
I have a hair test that shows low potassium, slow thyroid and very low adrenals

I'm definately in a stress response of some degree. I have a history of complex PTSD so turning the stress response off has never been easy. I've had a few breakdwons in the past. I jus took a month off work to try and get this under control but nothing seems to be working

 

[Sol]

I would suggest you search the forum for Haidut's post about clonidine. I haven't used it myself, but I have given it to my mom with good results. I give her 1/4 pill every 15 or 20 days only and it's helped a lot. It's supposed to reduce adrenaline and cortisol.

 

[sunflower1]

I have low blood pressure