Keto / Carnivore update

[[Ma...]]

Memantine is still useful I just don't recommend taking it for long periods of time and to keep the dosages as low as possible. It is especially useful if you are not doing a ketogenic diet, where long term use may be helpful during benzo tolerance. I mentioned before that I think it helped alot and prevented things like tinnitus.

 

When I was on benzos I wasn't able to prepare my own meals but I was on quite a cocktail though. I couldn't boil lentil pasta without over boiling and making a huge mess. Couldn't imagine what foods to eat and was completely learning disabled too on all the crap I was taking.

 

Nobody helped me either not that I expected them too. Maybe I did. I had a friend who told me to try keto and I attempted to over and over again and just kept failing miserably and went back to carbs do to fear.

 

Another issue I'm trying to fix is becoming a smarter shopper. I waste alot of money at Whole Fools. I went to the dollar store the other day and bought the same water I was getting at Whole Foods, Crystal Geyser for a dollar. Thrive Market wants a membership fee but they seem to have much better deals than Whole Foods. I think I will use my friends membership or something. I just want to become a food baron.

 

 

[[...]]

Memantine is still useful I just don't recommend taking it for long periods of time and to keep the dosages as low as possible. It is especially useful if you are not doing a ketogenic diet, where long term use may be helpful during benzo tolerance. I mentioned before that I think it helped alot and prevented things like tinnitus.

 

When I was on benzos I wasn't able to prepare my own meals but I was on quite a cocktail though. I couldn't boil lentil pasta without over boiling and making a huge mess. Couldn't imagine what foods to eat and was completely learning disabled too on all the crap I was taking.

 

Nobody helped me either not that I expected them too. Maybe I did. I had a friend who told me to try keto and I attempted to over and over again and just kept failing miserably and went back to carbs do to fear.

 

Another issue I'm trying to fix is becoming a smarter shopper. I waste alot of money at Whole Fools. I went to the dollar store the other day and bought the same water I was getting at Whole Foods, Crystal Geyser for a dollar. Thrive Market wants a membership fee but they seem to have much better deals than Whole Foods. I think I will use my friends membership or something. I just want to become a food baron.

 

Thrive market seems like a good place , I was out off by the membership , but it might  be worth it . I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon . Whole foods is way too pricey ..not that I can get there , I don't do grocery stores , not yet !

 

Do you think memantine really helps at all with glutamate blocking ? At say 3 mgs ?

 

[[Le...]]

Hey Data_guy I’m super sorry about your sleep and everything getting messed up again

 

When you say you ate carbs for a week, which carbs did you eat exactly?

[[Da...]]

Hey Data_guy I’m super sorry about your sleep and everything getting messed up again

 

When you say you ate carbs for a week, which carbs did you eat exactly?

 

Hi Lena,

 

I've tried most varieties. I've had bad reactions to fruit, vegetables, bread, avocados, oatmeal, rice etc. Essentially every carb you can think of, including the ones that are supposed to cause the least allergy problems. Seems my body has a problem with glucose. It feels as if I drank 20 cups of coffee or smoked crack cocaine or something. I actually ate a few raisins yesterday and had to sit and listen to a talk for 90 minutes and could not sit still at all. Unfortunately I also had a squeaky chair, so I think I annoyed quite a few people.

 

I'm not sure why this happens, TBH I haven't really put too much effort into looking into it, but I assume it is causing my nervous system to release an unusual amount of dopamine and norepinephrine, since I get quite a bit of muscle tension and feel the need to move (ie go for a run), even on very little sleep. My skin also seems to tighten up on my face, so that at times it feels as if it is being stretched. It actually helps me look not quite as exhausted, but it also seems to affect my vision, making it more difficult to filter light. The effect also lasts quite a long time, usually the majority of the day. If I eat too much (very easy to do), I get a sort of icy, dysphoric feeling in my brain which takes quite awhile to abate and renders things extremely unpleasant. I assume this is more harmful than eating a diet which avoids these symptoms. Currently I have to restrict things to: zero lactose cheese, meat, fish, eggs, small bit of avocado occasionally. I am also going to start taking multivitamins. I'm not sure whether I'm deficient or not, and I know the evidence for benefit is not there, but I doubt I am getting the appropriate levels of nutrients in the current diet.

 

Interestingly, I will get a craving for carbs on a regular basis. Basically, I don't think my body functions too well on a ketogenic diet, especially a meat-based one, and I have gotten to the point now where if I get zero carbs over a period of more than a few days I will begin to feel lethargic and depressed. I'm still trying to figure out how often and how many carbs I need to eat to keep my mood and functionality relatively stable. But if I eat too few carbs, I find this just increases the craving and if I go to eat a meat / ketogenic meal shortly after this I will be disgusted at what's in front of me and just eat carbs (usually raisins) instead. I try to avoid eating too much, but I don't resist the urge to eat them, since I like to think the urge is somehow adaptive. I'd like to know what my ideal diet is to avoid any further damage, but I don't think there is the science to provide that answer yet, so I have to just go with trial and error. I kind of suspect that eating too many carbs can result in excitotoxicity, due excess dopamine and norepinephrine release, which results in the dysphoric feeling, but this is just a hypothesis. Near the end of my taper and afterwards, I found that many drugs and supplements had an effect on me that lasted much longer than the purported half life of the substance (stuff like tryptophan, melatonin etc.), which I also suspect is a sign of damage. Seems my nervous system takes longer than it should to return to homeostasis after being administered any psychoactive substance. I am going to make an appointment with a neuropsychologist to see if they can diagnose this as nervous system damage so that I can be assured of continued disability payments. There was one recommended to me by a lawyer I contacted, but they are far away and fairly expensive, which is why I've resisted so far. But it appears this is going to go on for quite some time. I will continue to update about this.

 

Hope you are doing well, Lena. Please feel free to update here and let us know how you're doing (what your current symptoms are and what stage you're at in withdrawal, diet, exercise tolerance etc.). I always find individual cases interesting.

[[Le...]]

My individual case has some extreme elements... one day I may have the time to type it. Maybe what you need to do with your diet is be as simple as possible. There’s a lot of funny things about the zero carb diet. I’ve been doing it now for six weeks and I’m just now finally starting to feel pretty great. I have bad reactions to carbs now (I only tried milk one week in, but after that I’m not trying again). I also react badly to ground meat and organs because of histamine intolerance. You should look into that - I suspect many people damaged by benzos have some level of it. In my adaption phase, to help the process I only ate yummy cuts like ribeye and Tbone, after 3 weeks or so I was use to it and began eating a lot of ground meat and the occasional organ. Everything went to shit again for awhile, until I figured out organs are histamine liberators and ground meat has elevated levels of histamine. Once I cut them out I was back to no symptoms except fatigue and a few other bearable withdrawal symptoms. No more panic attacks or insomnia (well, I still had pretty broken sleep, but I was sleeping!). I do supplement minerals (vital nutrients multi mineral) I occasionally take digestive enzymes with HCl and lipase (to help with digestion during the transition and while our bodies are weak especially if you have low stomach acid) I occasionally take a probiotic which I think is magical (megasporebiotic) and I liberally salt my food and sometimes my water (there is evidence that no salt is a good option too because salt may throw off our electrolyte balance but when I tried to give up salt I to began have extreme hard palpitations and my body would not allow it, now I’m doing well with a lot of salt plus the mineral supplement and like 3Ls of water a day). So glad I didn’t have to give up salt because that would have sucked lol.  After being diligent about everything, I was coasting along really great only eating salmon from frozen (so no histamine) and very fresh non ground meat, then I ate butter and had a shit time of it. Not as shit as if it would have been if it was a histamine reaction, but a reaction non the less.

Oh and adding fat is very important. I always aim for around 70%. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of grass fed tallow from grasslandbeef.com. It lasts a long time when stored properly in the fridge/freezer. That’s how I avoid butter.

 

The reason we have symptoms when we add carbs back in I think is due to our microbiome and who knows why else but there’s probably other reasons too... you should look into that.

 

I’m not too worried about vitamin deficiencies right now. I think I’ll be fine for a long while. I plan to not rock the boat at all in 2019 and just stick to carnivore. I’ll get blood tests in the summer to see if I have deficiencies, but across the board, every long term carnivore I’ve seen who gets their blood work done doesn’t seem to have deficiencies.

 

I think the simplicity is good for our healing bodies.

 

Check out this subreddit it has TONS of info and you can post there too - there’s always people willing to help and share their opinions and experiences.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/?st=JRDKTSIY&sh=1465c23b

 

 

[[Da...]]

Thanks Lena,

 

Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things. I salt my food and water pretty liberally as well, although I've been backing off lately. I get worried about my blood pressure during periods of extreme insomnia since it's difficult to exercise much during these periods. I survived on the carnivore diet exclusively for about 6 weeks before I started to feel pretty terrible. Mind you, I was only eating beef during that period and had to go to a funeral on the other side of the country (during which I slept about 5 hours total over a 4 day period). This really messed things up and I didn't recover my sleep pattern for almost a month.

 

The grass fed tallow is a great idea. I was just making my own from free fat I grabbed at the butcher's.

 

I took a probiotic early on in the withdrawal, but I stopped because I heard a microbiologist interviewed saying that it seems taking one actually delays the repopulation of the microbiome. I will try to find a paper on that for you.

 

I hope you're doing better than you were a couple months ago. Sounds like it was pretty rough. Look forward to the write-up of your story

 

Edit: here is the study I was referencing: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(18)31108-5.pdf

 

Post-Antibiotic Gut Mucosal Microbiome Reconstitution Is Impaired by Probiotics and Improved by Autologous FMT

 

Highlights

•

Murine gut mucosal probiotic colonization is only mildly enhanced by antibiotics

•

Human gut mucosal probiotic colonization is significantly enhanced by antibiotics

•

Post antibiotics, probiotics delay gut microbiome and transcriptome reconstitution

•

In contrast, aFMT restores mucosal microbiome and gut transcriptome reconstitution

 

The bad news: probiotics slow down microbiome reconstitution. The good / gross news: fecal matter transplants allow it to occur within days.

[[Le...]]

Thanks for the link I’ll read that right now. Yeah I’m not 100% sure if the probiotic is nescesay right now, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting and it’s sometjing that has worked great in the past.

 

Dang well I wish you luck with whatever you do next! Are you planning to continue eating carbs or try to stay carnivore?

[[Da...]]

I think I'm planning on eating carbs. I went to bed around 8pm tonight and woke up at 11pm, completely awake and unable to get back to sleep. Weird thing is that I have no idea why. I hypothesized that my brain needed carbs, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Now I'm thinking it may have been too much protein. This can definitely cause insomnia. I'll have to test it tomorrow. Just hoping to get back to sleep at some point tonight.

 

I did well on the carnivore diet before, it really minimized symptoms that I couldn't get rid of, like benzo belly, but it seems to have served its purpose, and now I think I need to figure out some other diet.

 

[[Da...]]

Hey DG... doing Keto now; it's been about 2 weeks. Don't feel awesome but it may help in the long run. Also microdosing LSD every 3rd day. Don't love that but maybe it's doing something in the background.

 

Hey Colley,

 

I hope it works for you. How are you doing now? What are you symptoms? Do you have any support groups where you are? I think I saw a benzo support group that meets once a month somewhere in BC...forget where you're at though. There are also Psychiatric Survivors Groups. Neither is perfect, but you might find they help. Good to have some social contact, and they often have experience with withdrawals.

 

Mamoon, I'll get to your post a bit later. Right now I haven't slept for 36 hours

 

I'm not doing great.... 27 months still not working. Symptoms are depression, health anxiety, morning fear / depression, fatigue, some tingling in arms, tinnitus, and I've currently been getting sick with a cold almost every 3 weeks now. I think my immune system is to blame for most of this. I've had thyroid and blood work of course but something is up.

 

36hrs is a long time to go... however, there is some evidence out there that staying up for a full night and day can help ease depression. I'm sure that's not what you're aiming for in this regard but just thought I would mention.

 

Hey Colley,

 

That's terrible that it's been so long for you. I believe Eastcoast had a fairly extreme experience and she said she continued to heal even after 3 years, and now she's doing pretty great. I'm sure this will be the case with you. I'm not sure about the microdosing LSD. Have you left your CNS alone for an extended period during withdrawal? (Like 6 months+)? I have a theory that all these neurotransmitter drugs are not good for you. I don't think a single one of the psych drugs can be taken long term without impairing health, which is supported by the animal research (they seem to result in weight loss, reductions in fertility, and maladaptive stress responses). I found I only started getting better once I stopped f'ing around with drugs and supplements to try and sleep. I wish I had just avoided them, but I didn't really know better.

[[Da...]]

Hey DataG. I agree with everything you said about experimental compounds but I have found a few things that seem to help as far as a few peptides and some other things. Nothing has helped like keto though. One thing I want everyone to know is our bodies desperately need carbs on keto in the form of indigestible fiber which nourishes the gut microbiome. The gut microbiome is the bedrock for neurogenesis and BDNF derived mechanisms. Not eating too much animal protein is important as well. I would say these are the most important things people need to know along with getting macronutrients and balancing fatty acid ratios while on this diet.

 

There is just something attractive about taking something that can potentially regenerate cells in the hippocampus with NSI-189. I've had some success with peptides like BPC-157, P21, Semax, Selank and GHK-Cu but I can't say how much anymore. All I can say is these peptides have improved my life without any obvious pitfalls besides money spent. Peptides like BPC-157 can have a dramatic ability to heal the gut btw. I'm holding on to the NSI-189 for a while until I completely come off of gabapentin and phenibut so I'll have more time to fully research its efficacy. I just go by anecdotal info and blind faith I guess with some of these nootropics. I've always been a risk taker as well and a pretty big idiot while on benzos so there is no doubt I have made plenty of mistakes. It's just tempting to think that there are natural or synthetic substances that can favorably change our epigenetic's and cut a few corners or just enhance neurogenesis which is something that we want. I've always stressed before because I know from personal experience that you need to be doing everything else correctly before considering taking something experimental, just for safety reasons. NSI-189 still may be useful for cognitive dysfunction and neurogenesis to a certain degree based on the results unless it is all BS. I'm more than likely going to try it and find out next Fall. I'm the resident rhesus monkey here and I've hyped it up enough by talking about so I feel like I have a moral responsibility to try it out now. I'm sure NSI-189 is much safer than benzos and gabapentinoids or memantine. Coming off memantine has been no picnic.... I'm starting to feel differently about it worried that it has caused some problems. I sincerely hope after a few months of not being on it and doing well on keto I won't need it anymore or will be able to use much less for short periods of time at least. I just want to get on the other side of this taper. Maybe my brain just is not good at making decisions. I guess the desperation of being majorly depressed makes you just take more stuff. Maybe I just like taking drugs still. I need to figure it out.

 

Hey Mamoot,

 

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I understand the risk-taking thing. I was one myself in the early days and boy am I paying for it. Although I thought the street drugs were more risky, turned out the prescription drugs would do much more damage.

 

The claim that some compound causes neurogenesis was popular, but it's extremely unlikely that any of these compounds do that, and if they did, it would have been widely publicized and the stock of the companies who created them would have skyrocketed. But last year a study came out in Nature which should put a stop to those claims. It seems adult neurogenesis doesn't really occur at any detectable level in humans after the age of 13. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25975. The claim was made repeatedly for SSRIs by the medical community, and of course after the paper in Nature all you got was silence.

 

There's nothing wrong with taking risks, just make sure you are properly evaluating the magnitude of the risk you were taking. I suspect most of these drugs failed clinical trials for good reasons. We have a fairly lax regulatory process, so a compound has to be pretty useless or dangerous to fail in clinical trials, and of course most do anyway because it's almost impossible to improve on the body's evolutionary wisdom. I'd say you're lucky to have escaped major damage as it is (if you have). Memantine is a dangerous drug that is really only given to Alzheimer's patients who are a few years from death. In this study, it induced a worsening of neurologic symptoms in MS patients: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19092106, so if you are worried about MS, I would refrain from using Memantine again.

 

One important thing to know about drugs is that for any drug on the market, you'll find a more than 5 to 1 ratio of positive studies to negative studies. This is because something like 85% of medical research is funded by the pharmaceutical companies, so they will just keep doing studies to find marginal benefits of their drugs, and publicize them by having scientists they pay cite them in research (positive drug studies are cited about 4 times more often than negative ones in research), as well as making sure they show up well in database search results.

 

I agree about the gut microbiome, it is very important for the health of the nervous system, so it was pretty distressing to me that I couldn't eat fibre for quite awhile without having a bad reaction to it.

 

The Jilz Crackerz sound a bit too much like Jizz Crackerz. Have you checked the ingredients?? 

 

 

[[Ma...]]

Hey. No worries. I wouldn’t necessarily call memantine dangerous but I never took more than 5mg. In the study you linked MS patients were taking 30mg/day. I suspect anyone would feel like shit taking such an overkill amount off memantine.

 

I’m not convinced it is dangerous but I don’t want to call it benign. It is definitely much safer, less toxic and easier to tolerate than most of the shit I have tried and that is a fact. The drug is a noncompetitive, low- to medium-affinity antagonist of NMDA glutamate receptors in the brain. It isn’t like taking a bunch of PCP or DXM as far as risk. But like I said before, it probably causes reversible and possibly long lasting changes regarding epigenetics. You are right to think that drugs are dangerous. All compounds come with some risk but that doesn’t mean you can’t extract benefit. You do need to know what you are doing obviously. I’m more in the camp of less is more now. I’m trying to get away from this mentality of thinking I need something based on fear. From fear of possible neurodeg. diseases to the psychogenic brain damage I think I must have that I assume just exists in my mind.

 

I saw a neurologist yesterday for the first time. I scheduled a brain MRI and he drew some blood. He ordered the IgG/IgM, Western Blot to look for Lyme as well. So I’ll find out soon enough. I think it will make things way easier to not have to live with these fears anymore and make it easier to taper and make better decisions.

[[Ma...]]

Looks like he ordered an autoimmune disease panel too as well as TSH. I got my thyroid levels checked recently and they were normal but it will be nice to see again. This is pretty exciting and scary to finally see what's up. If everything comes back normal I'm going to be very grateful. Just seems like I have done too much stuff to be normal though. Getting an MRI of my brain terrifies me.

[[Da...]]

I think the MRI will probably be ok, Mamoot. Your cognitive function is quite good and it would tough to function at that level with a hole in your brain.

 

I was hoping I could convince you to stop experimenting, but looks like no dice. It would be interesting if you took a short break from it, at least, something like 6 months, to see if you notice an improvement. How long has it been since you took an extended break from this stuff? I am a bit worried it could be exacerbating the depression. Even antidepressants, although I think their claims of efficacy are dubious, can exacerbate depression, in both the short and long run. Do you think that's a possibility?

[[Ma...]]

Well I’m glad I have some of  your confidence that my mri will be alright. Sure feels like there is a hole in my brain sometimes. I want to stop taking memantine. Definitely daily use of it. It will be a game changer to have no major health problems and it will make me re examine how I experiment with other compounds. The majority of the peptides I had were from Ceretropic and they closed last summer. I don’t really plan to use more because honestly I can’t afford to anymore. Don’t really trust vendors anymore. Ceretropic was different. I talked to the owner all the time on Reddit since the beginning he opened and closed shop.Now I just use stuff like CBD some herbs and more natural stuff but I do have the NSI-189. I have no plans to use any within the next year. I was desperate when I made plans to use it. Maybe things will change. You do make a valid point about why I shouldn’t mess with it. It hasn’t really shown to be super helpful in the trials.

 

Edit: so far TSH levels are normal again. they were 1.16uIU/ML.  The NM autoimmune disease panel came back normal as well. Still waiting on the Lyme disease results though. Not sure if it takes longer for the lab to process it. I read that having high lipids can affect the test results which isn't sitting well with me since I eat alot of fat.  https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/hw5113#hw5171

 

 

[[Le...]]

Data_guy look into diatomaceous earth. Might help your gut.

[[Da...]]

Thanks Lena.

 

Mamoot,

 

I think they are referring to cholesterol and triglyceride levels, right? You are eating a pretty healthy diet. Even though it is ketogenic, this doesn't necessarily translate to blood higher lipid levels. It can actually improve lipid panels if you are eating right and exercising.

 

Do you mind if I ask what your symptoms are right now?

[[Ma...]]

Mostly low motivation and depression and anxiety. I have so much shit wrong with me I can't keep track of it to be honest. I'm fucking insane. I feel mentally drained. Worried about the Lyme results right now. I may have some degree of facial palsy or Bell's Palsy but I'm not sure because it isn't super apparent. It was obvious in my new drivers license photo. My neurologist commented that it looked asymmetrical in my drivers license. I should of asked him what he though about it. My eyelid just droops a little. It has for a while I guess since right around benzos and right around the time I got bit by that dirty motherfucking tick. I broke my 5th phalanx a year ago and it still hurts. The MTP joint was so inflamed that my toe drifted downward. I guess the ligaments that were holding my toe in place got inflamed and something happened with that. I limped around for months. I broke my toe after losing about 13K when the cryptocurrency market crashed. I was devastated and extra clumsy that day while in a heated text message argument with my friend who convinced me to invest money in ripple. I wish I never listened to that Polish jag off. He cheated his way through university and became a mechanical engineer so I believed in him to a certain extent but ultimately he always looks for short cuts in life and is someone you shouldn't put your full trust in. It cost me a toe. Anyways, when my gait returned to normalcy after limping around for 6 months my knee started hurting. Then my hip started hurting after going to a chiropractor. After taking an X-ray my hip was tilted and crooked. So the chiropractor adjusted it several times and basically fucked it up. It still bothers me a little to this day. My right elbow is bothering me too. So, I have joint pain in my right knee which may be related to the toe break on my right foot, hip pain from what I explained above, and mysterious elbow pain. My right pectoral muscle is tight as well. Combined with the possible facial palsy issue, and other sxs it seems that Lyme disease is a real possibility. It sure would explain a whole lot but if I do have Lyme I think my body did a good job defending myself against it because it could of been a whole lot worse. I worry about MS too. I also have sciatica. My left heel burns with neuropathy too.

[[Ma...]]

I actually do have a list of all the symptoms I've experienced. I gave it to my neurologist. If you want I can post it on this thread. It's kind of long though.

I think I have Lyme based on some stuff. Unless my meds are causing all these sxs. I started keto to taper off the rest of everything in hopes that it will keep me more healthy stable. I wasn't planning on doing keto forever.

 

[[Da...]]

I actually do have a list of all the symptoms I've experienced. I gave it to my neurologist. If you want I can post it on this thread. It's kind of long though.

I think I have Lyme based on some stuff. Unless my meds are causing all these sxs.

 

Sure, Mamoot, I'm interested to see what you've been through with all those meds. I think the word in the withdrawal community is that the more psych drugs you go on and off of, the worse reaction you tend to have to new ones, or old ones you previously tolerated. I know that I don't remember having any withdrawal reaction to the first ADs I tried, then I had a wicked one to Remeron, which kicked off this mess for me.

 

Gabapentin and Phenibut can certainly mess you up huge, if your signature is still accurate.

[[Ma...]]

There may be more symptoms. I started writing this list before I started keto. Since then things are way better though. But this is what I've noticed to varying degrees since coming off benzos. Yes still on gabapentin and phenibut and suffering with tolerance wd and an array of sxs

 

Symptoms:

 

Neurological/Psychological

 

Cognitive impairment/dysfunction

Confusion

Severe cognitive fog

Problems verbally communicating

Difficulty speaking

Depression

Anxiety

Intrusive thoughts

Fear of brain damage

Fatigue

 

 

 

Physiological

 

low body temperature

High blood pressure

Fatigue

 

 

Physical

 

Pain

Neuropathy in the right side of the heel of left foot

Headaches

Issues with balance

Tongue numbness and pain

weakness

Clumsiness

Right Knee pain and possible swelling

Right Elbow pain

Left Hip pain

Possible facial muscle symptoms related to facial palsy, like crooked smile and squinty eye

Discomfort in the right eye

Eye pressure

Nausea after exposure to heat stress, usually while lowering/tapering meds

Difficulty tolerating hot baths and sauna, which cause neurological symptoms, like strange headaches, confusion, dizziness.

Inability to tolerate heat stress well while reducing/tapering gabapentin and baclofen too quickly.

Moderate fatigue and inability to function without 7 hours of sleep

Candida

Exercise intolerance (much worse while tapering meds)

Frequent urination at night

Occasional trouble swallowing at night, hyper salivation, throat feels closed up

Tremor in both hands (usually while tapering meds)

IBS

Constipation: (inability to go more than once a day

Only able to go to the bathroom after taking meds in the morning. Unless I’m eating a special diet bowel movements suffer because of lack muscle contractions in large intestine)

 

Possible mucus in stool. I notice a white film that floats to the top that looks like saliva with tiny air bubbles but no visible thick mucus. It might be steatorrhoea

 

Sensory

Loss of taste and smell

 

Visual

Worsening of astigmatism in right eye (told by optometrist)

Eye pressure, occasionally starry/sparky vision when tilting my head to quickly or a certain way.

dry eyes sometimes

 

[[Ma...]]

Lyme disease came back negative. But one of the bands on the Western blot was reactive though. However, you need 2 out of 3 bands to be considered positive. Here is something I pulled from the internet. Not really sure how to interpret these results yet. I was reactive at the 41 kDa band.

 

The band at 41 kDa, which corresponds to Bb’s flagella (the whip like organelles used for locomotion -- Bb has several) and is one of the earliest to show up on the Western blots of Lyme disease patients. But for some reason it is also the most commonly appearing band in control subjects. This may be due to the fact that many people are exposed to spirochetes at some time in their lives and so their sera might cross react with this protein.

 

Several studies have shown that the first band to show up on a Lyme disease patient’s IgM blot is usually the one at 41 kDa, followed by the OspC band and/or the one at 39. The OspC and 39 kDa band are highly specific for Bb, while the 41 kDa band isn’t. That’s why the 41 by itself isn’t considered adequate.

 

https://www.lymedisease.org/assets/Understanding-Western-Blot-Lyme-disease-test.pdf

 

Component Your Value Standard Range

Lyme Disease Antibody IgG, WB Negative  Negative

18 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

23 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

28 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

30 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

39 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

41 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

45 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

58 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

66 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

93 KD (IgG) Band Nonreactive 

Lyme Disease Antibody IgM, WB Negative  Negative

23 KD (IgM) Band Nonreactive 

39 KD (IgM) Band Nonreactive 

41 KD (IgM) Band Reactive 

As per CDC criteria, a Lyme disease IgG Immunoblot must show

reactivity to at least 5 to 10 specific borrelial proteins to be

considered positive; similarly, a positive Lyme disease IgM

immunoblot requires reactivity to 2 of 3 specific borrelial

proteins. Although considered negative, IgG reactivity to fewer

specific borrelial proteins or IgM reactivity to only 1 protein

may indicate recent B. burgdorferi infection and warrant testing

of a later sample. A positive IgM but negative IgG result

obtained more than a month after onset of symptoms likely

represents a false-positive IgM result rather than acute Lyme

disease. In rare instances, Lyme disease immunoblot reactivity

may represent antibodies induced by exposure to other

spirochetes.

@ Test Performed By:

Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute

Jon M. Nakamoto M.D., Ph.D., Laboratory Director

27027 Tourney Road

Valencia, CA 91355-5386

CLIA #05D0550302

[[Da...]]

Mamoot, sorry it's taken me so long to respond, I've been having quite a bit of difficulty with insomnia and the sensory sensitivity and lassitude that accompanies it.

 

Those are some pretty rough symptoms. Sorry you've had to experience that. I don't have quite that many, but you don't need much for it to be hell.

 

I've been going through a wave since early January. I never really re-established my normal sleep pattern after trying to force carbs into my diet. Basically I have been sleeping less than 4 hours for over a month. I've had a night here and there of 4 hours sleep, but I mostly have been sleeping 2-3 hours. It's getting tough to take and I'm getting pretty depressed. I expect it will resolve itself as these episodes usually do, but the last time I had anything this severe was back in October. I could probably avoid stretches like this if I were more careful, but I get lulled into thinking that it's no longer possible, even as the downward spiral begins, I'm generally not too worried about pulling out of it. Seems I only start to get worried once it is too late.

 

Seems we may have some similarities. I also have a tendency to disregard risks and have a long history of it. I have really had a tendency to push things during withdrawal. I played dodgeball in month 5 and paid a pretty heavy price for it, but I continued to play whenever I could. I will try and post a comprehensive list of my past drug use in the coming days, but I'm afraid I may forget a few pharmaceuticals. I certainly don't remember what taking them was like, and I wasn't quite as conscientious about writing things down back then, unfortunately.

 

Mamoot, if you are free of identifiable medical conditions like Lyme, what would your next best guess be as to the cause of your symptoms? Could all of these symptoms be attributable to psych drugs? I know most of them can cause mental disorders, including the ones they are supposed to treat, and many of the possible side effects were never even reported or were miscoded in the original clinical trials. Even just the SSRI side effects, collected together are something like 30 pages long (here, for example: http://www.psychiatric-drug-effects.com/downloads/Antidepressant%20Physical%20Adverse%20Reactions.pdf). The risk taking could in part be the result of behavioral inhibition from the sedatives. Has that trait increased at all over the years?

 

Hope you get some improvement soon.

 

DG

[[Ma...]]

Hope you resolve your issues soon DG. Sounds pretty damn rough sleeping so little. The next step is this brain MRI Thursday. I watched an informative YouTube video about MRI's and identifying MS on them. Some young MD gave a little powerpoint lecture. Just preparing for when I read my own MRI because you best believe I'm getting a copy on DVD and popping that bitch in the second I get home. I realized that brain lesions are not even my biggest fear, but any signs of atrophy are. Any brain atrophy will be devastating. I do believe I can reverse it though if there is a little so not all hope will be lost but it will probably put me in a deep depression and reduce my overall morale. I already lack enthusiasm. I want to get excited for life again and feel good about things and that will be hard to do with any depressing news about my brain. I took benzos, gabapentin, phenibut, suboxone, memantine and stacks of other substances like tianeptine, peptides, other shit, and more shit, all at the same time. Not sure if that put any holes in my brain. Seems only God's grace can save me but I don't really have much faith in God or gods. Maybe I will just end up getting lucky like I always have but I feel like my luck is running out. I avoided getting this MRI this long for a reason. I just hoped that anything bad that happened while pollydrugging would just reverse and I'd heal and then the MRI would be normal. Unless the cocktails of stuff I took were safe or even helped me but that seems like wishful thinking. I didn't abuse anything, I just took alot of different stuff but it was so stupid and I wish hadn't now. I can't assume the worst case scenario either and think that I melted my brain into a chocolate bar. A normal MRI seems like a miracle from where I sit.

[[Le...]]

Hey Data_Guy, I was sleeping pretty decently and then I decided two have 1/2 a cup of white rice just to see what would happened and now I’ve only been sleeping 4 hours a night as well... so weird. I quit eating carbs so hopefully I start sleeping again... are you still eating carbs?

[[Da...]]

Hey Data_Guy, I was sleeping pretty decently and then I decided two have 1/2 a cup of white rice just to see what would happened and now I’ve only been sleeping 4 hours a night as well... so weird. I quit eating carbs so hopefully I start sleeping again... are you still eating carbs?

 

Hi Lena,

 

Sorry you haven't been sleeping. I know it isn't fun.

 

I am still eating carbs. I've tried to stop, but then I feel bad after a just a couple days of eating meat.

 

Interesting story from a couple days ago. I had gone to the gym to workout, but I had basically been feeling lethargic all day. I started to workout, but it just wasn't happening, so I left, realizing I was hungry. I ate a decent amount of food: eggs, avocado, cheese, chicken. I was still hungry, but the thought of eating more keto stuff made me feel sick. So I ate a bunch of raisins. Surprisingly (to me), I didn't really get hyped up. I still felt lethargic. In fact, when I got home, I fell asleep at 6:30pm, but I woke up at 9pm and was wide awake. I tried to go for a walk to burn off some energy. I even ran a bit. I ate a keto meal when I got home and waited to see whether I would fall back asleep. Two hours later I was more awake than ever, so I decided I should go for a run. My legs were pretty heavy and sore from exercising and not sleeping, but I was able to keep up a pretty good pace for 5km and my legs did not really get any more tired or sore than they'd been.

 

Coming up the elevator to go back to my apartment, I looked sort of sick and insane in the mirror. Someone you would probably want to run away from, if you didn't know me. This was around 3am. I did end up getting a bit drowsy around 5:30am, but I wasn't able to go back to sleep, unfortunately. I have no idea what carbohydrates are doing to me, but they are having an effect on my nervous system equivalent to a fairly strong psychopharmaceutical.

 

I slept better last night, around 4 hours for the first time in a week, so hopefully I can build on that tonight. I will try to avoid carbs except in the first few hours of the day, but it seems I need to eat a few every couple days just to function normally.