Ramblings of a madman...

[djr_81]

I guess 18+ months between posts is a bit excessive.

Living life. Eating at least one meal a day raw and truthfully more often than not the second meal is. Just having a hard time sticking to 100% raw. When overloaded with stress from work or life I find myself reaching to more readily available calories like dairy or carbs. Since I have so many allergens this starts a cycle of cravings it takes time to work out of.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the far flung corners of the internet the past few years and have found an interesting kinship with many of the folks out there who have moderate to severe corn allergies. The prevalence of it in (and on) so much we consume is frightening. For example most meat processed in the US is cleaned/wiped down with a corn based vinegar and the soaker pads in the wrapped packages are soaked with corn derived citric acid. Ghosting groups who deal with these issues on a daily basis has given me a lot of insight which helps refine my daily approaches.

For those looking for a input on diet I'm eating two meals, one at 12ish, one at 6ish. 1/3 pound (150 grams) of a moderately fatty grass fed/finished ground beef and up to 1/6 pound (75 grams) beef suet fat. A couple dashes of Redmond's Real Salt as well. Most waters have corn additives in the form of salts or are in corn based plastics. I drink a gallon of water a day from the Poland Spring opaque gallon jugs (like milk jugs). Trying to figure out a way to use a more morally responsible water source but so far none are working for me including my tap. Also drinking a couple cups of coffee a day which I can tell my body does not like but it addresses the constant sleep deficit I run.
Light to moderate exercise at this time. If this goes up I'll probably need to bump the meals to 1/2 pound servings.
Currently overweight at 215ish pounds due to the coffee and the infrequent cooked meals both of which are leading to water retention. Cut both out for a couple months and dropped down below 200 but went back to the coffee when work picked up. For reference fighting weight is 185ish.

[djr_81]

And 20 months is even more excessive.

Been nursing a flare up of Gout in my foot the last week and thinking about getting all of my shit together as this is really painful. Currently 245 pounds with limited activity to work any of that off. I've eating 1-2 of my 2 meals per day raw zero carb but the meals which haven't been are not great choices. Most are at the far limits of cooked paleo but just barely.

I felt like I needed motivation to refocus my willpower. Spent a couple hours re-reading this journal remembering just how great I can feel living deliberately. I miss a lot of the old faces although it looks like many are no longer around.

I've been eating purely raw paleo the last 6 days. Also knocking back a ton of water to clear out uric acid. As soon as this foot can bear weight again it's back to the gym. Let's see just how powerful this way of eating can be with laser focus and a foot in my ass. 

[djr_81]

Time for another update. Not nearly as encouraging this time.

I had been struggling with the pain in my feet all of January right up to 2/10. I did try to clean up my diet to strictly zero carb raw paleo (grassfed ground beef and suet fat). I was in constant pain and nursing myself along with NSAIDS (Aleve), icing, and cream for gout. Not having insurance all of this was self diagnosed and addressed the best I could (really regret not going to a doctor sooner). The week before 2/10 was particularly busy and I got very little sleep, lots of coffee, lots of stress, just a perfect storm to crash my system. I spent the weekend fasting and then trying a couple other foods to see if something would help (squash, dandelion greens, beets).

I had what I believe was an acute reaction to histamines on February 10th. I hadn't had any of my meat since Thursday. I had a small meal the morning of the 10th and had all the hallmarks of food poisoning. Cold sweats, racing heart, nausea, disorientation. A number of the signs of an anaphylactic reaction. I felt miserable and had no idea why. After a lot of testing I've had a really good allergist diagnose it as a Mast Cell Activation issue. I haven't been able to eat my grassfed beef (or suet) without a flare and subsequent joint pain in my feet and ankles.

I've been trying to find other safe foods but I've basically been living on a dozen hard boiled eggs every day for the last two months. I think I pushed myself way to hard for way too long and the stress of that as well as dietary indiscretions and 6 weeks of NSAIDS may have wiped out my gut bacteria. A lot of the good bacteria help break down histamine as does DAO in the gut. If my intestinal lining is leaky right now it would explain the extra sensitivity. I'm working my way to try and heal up my guy and repopulate with good bacteria. Hoping the sensitivity lowers as things are healed. I'd love nothing more than to get back to eating raw paleo but it is definitely not working for me right now.

The other really difficult thing that has shown up with all of this is a severely heightened sensitivity to smells. This was slowly building before the acute episode (since at least November) but didn't present as a problem until this whole crash. Now different chemical or strong natural scents can give me trouble breathing, coughing, headaches, sore throat, brain fog, etc. It's not as bad as what I've read some others with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities deal with but it's still really difficult. I'm actually living with my parents right now as I can't deal with the smells at home. We have a dog who is mostly housebroken but did enough damage over the years that I can't tolerate home right now. We pulled all the carpet and OSB subfloor out already. We have an enzyme spray coming this weekend to try and get a handle on it. It's a real pain as I need to carefully research everything to avoid possible scent triggers.

Now looking for insight from the group.
Plan to use "Restore" which is a humic acid solution to help heal the gut lining as well as "Gut Pro" probiotics. Also thinking about using slippery elm to help feed things as a pre-biotic (dried me out some each time I took it but may be worth the discomfort). I have marshmallow root as well as may trial that. I also have N-Acetyl Cysteine to help build Glutathione. Any other recommendations?

As far as the chemical sensitivity I've picked up a copy of a Dynamic Neural Retraining Program. This may help based upon the concept that the sensitivity is from limbic damage in a "fight or slight" state which is reinforcing itself each time it's triggered. The program has exercises to encourage alternate pathways for the processing of the trigger scents and reduce or eliminate the physiologic responses.

Lastly, thoughts on the possibility of mold being a co-factor in this whole thing? We had a spot on our house where the gutter was leaking which caused a hole in the siding. Water got in and caused mold issues in our closets. We had visible fuzzy tan/green mold in our closets, bedroom, and a couple spots elsewhere with poor ventilation. We had a general contractor come out and repair the damage but in hindsight no proper containment was done and we didn't throw out anything that wasn''t mold damaged. This was maybe October.

[Susadele]

Hello djr,
did you ever look into vitamin b6 deficiency? There are some conditions in which the need for b6 is higher than for other people. I am asking because histamine reactions, mast cell activation syndrome, sensitivities, smell sensitivy is all very much related to b6 issues. Ground beef gives reactions to many people with these issues because beef itself is already aged and ground it gives even more surface for histamine buildup.
There is science about it, a not so uncommon issue. Depending on the root cause you will find other common nutrient deficiencies that might be involved in these issues.

Just in case you or anyone else ever considers the above as
ones own issue after researching or maybe even doing some testing on it:
If supplemented, the experts and experienced advice to use the p5p form of b6.
In general I think it is better to solve health issues with whole foods, but I came across more and more people and conditions which question if diet can solve it alone. Still, in my opinion, just with all supplements, caution and listening to the body is necessary.
Here on the forum I think it was PaleoPhil who reported in his journal of his experiences with p5p.

[djr_81]

Hello djr,
did you ever look into vitamin b6 deficiency? There are some conditions in which the need for b6 is higher than for other people. I am asking because histamine reactions, mast cell activation syndrome, sensitivities, smell sensitivy is all very much related to b6 issues. Ground beef gives reactions to many people with these issues because beef itself is already aged and ground it gives even more surface for histamine buildup.
There is science about it, a not so uncommon issue. Depending on the root cause you will find other common nutrient deficiencies that might be involved in these issues.

Just in case you or anyone else ever considers the above as
ones own issue after researching or maybe even doing some testing on it:
If supplemented, the experts and experienced advice to use the p5p form of b6.
In general I think it is better to solve health issues with whole foods, but I came across more and more people and conditions which question if diet can solve it alone. Still, in my opinion, just with all supplements, caution and listening to the body is necessary.
Here on the forum I think it was PaleoPhil who reported in his journal of his experiences with p5p.

Thank you Susadele. My folate (B9) was low when tested (2.4, low is around 4) so I've tried a multi-B which flared anxiety. I'll source just a P5P supplement and see if that's better tolerated. It's interesting in that I've wondered if part of the ongoing issue is anemia. B6 is a cofactor needed for proper red blood cell function. Thanks for the insight.

The full scope of the situation is we have confirmed a lot of mold in our home and are working on selecting a company to perform remediation. My wife, dog, and I are no longer living in the home as it is causing marked health issues.

I think I had been treading water dealing with it for a couple years (my guess is the "gout" I thought I had developed is related to inflammation from the mold) but as the mold spread to where we can see colonies it's releasing more MVOCs/Mycotoxins. This triggered development of chemical sensitivities which are turning out to be the most difficult aspect to address. I'm also convinced my gut is damaged/leaky and that's contributing to a Candida overgrowth also perpetuating the cycle. I've read some research indicating Candida may have a synergistic relationship with mold perhaps even feeding on the mycotoxins produced. Possible connections between it and aldehydes from chemicals in the environment too. My fungal skin issue (Tinea Versicolor) which flares when Candida gets bad has also been flaring after mold or chemical exposures.

[Susadele]

Ah ok, so mold probably is the main cause for your issues. Maybe working on that solves the problems and all my writing about b6 doesn't apply to you.

What form of b9 / folate was in that b-supplement? Oftentimes folic acid is used, but some time ago it was identified as harmful (a lot to read about it in the internet) which is why one should use a supplement with the natural form of b9 like folate or methylfolate, if one chooses to take a supplement at all.
The usual form of b6 in your b-complex supplement can also be harmful (again a lot of research about it in the internet). It takes the body a lot of other nutrients like zinc etc. to convert the b6 to its active enzyme form p5p. If you don't have enough of these other nutrients, it builds up in blood etc. Which is why usually p5p is recommended as a supplement. Anyway, just like everything, too much p5p in the cells can cause issues. Which is why I recommended caution with that as well, though it is largely well tolerated.

Did you research on why your b9 levels were low? I don't know about the accuracy of such tests though. Could it me mold related? Was your diet low in b9? Did you take other supplements, medications etc that decreased your b9?
And I'd probably research if the p5p could interfere with b9 status. Or if you are deficient in sth which is neccessary to increase b9.
Maybe you even crave some food high in a certain nutrient that could give you a hint and balance it all out again longterm.

[djr_81]

I tried Methylfolate from Jarrow brand. It didn't seem to help.

My diet had been fairly limited the last 10 years. It was a good quality grass-fed/finished ground beef with lots of supplemental suet from the same animals. The occasional organ meat as well. The last 5 years I've had varying degrees of success eating this way but also indulging in various SAD foods. I think the stress of work as well as the mold working on me in the background messed up my gut and made me crave more carbs. This would just perpetuate the issues I had prior to raw paleo (I believe there was issues with Candida as well as leaky gut and food allergies/intolerances).

With my diet basically limited to farm eggs at the moment I'm sure I'm getting deficiencies in a number of things.

I haven't found a good link yet on the low folate and how it is involved with mold. It is used to detox so that's probably the link.

[djr_81]

Hello djr,
did you ever look into vitamin b6 deficiency? There are some conditions in which the need for b6 is higher than for other people. I am asking because histamine reactions, mast cell activation syndrome, sensitivities, smell sensitivy is all very much related to b6 issues. Ground beef gives reactions to many people with these issues because beef itself is already aged and ground it gives even more surface for histamine buildup.
There is science about it, a not so uncommon issue. Depending on the root cause you will find other common nutrient deficiencies that might be involved in these issues.

Just in case you or anyone else ever considers the above as
ones own issue after researching or maybe even doing some testing on it:
If supplemented, the experts and experienced advice to use the p5p form of b6.
In general I think it is better to solve health issues with whole foods, but I came across more and more people and conditions which question if diet can solve it alone. Still, in my opinion, just with all supplements, caution and listening to the body is necessary.
Here on the forum I think it was PaleoPhil who reported in his journal of his experiences with p5p.

I'm going to source out the B6 now. Also a good zinc supplement. I've been reading through a ton of stuff and came across Pyyrole Disorder. I'm going to ask my primary if we can do a urine screen to check it out. It basically reads as a textbook for disparate health and mood issues I've dealt with since childhood. It's also directly proportionate with stress wherein elevated stress will lower your other stores until you crash. It also simply explains why I did so well on a muscle meat heavy raw paleo diet. Muscle meat is loaded with B6 and zinc. There seems to be dissension as to the validity of Pyyrole Disorder but it's worth a shot to see if it helps me feel better.

"The common clinical symptoms in patients with pyrrole disorder are anxiety (fear); poor stress tolerance; sensory hypersensitivity to light, sound, smell and/or touch; mood and emotional lability; social anxiety and/or withdrawal; poor dream recall; and commonly, explosive temper and aggression. Clinical signs are pale skin (china doll appearance), stretch marks, and white spots on the nails due to the commonly concomitant zinc deficiency. An adverse reaction to omega-3 fish oil can be an important piece of the past medical history raising clinical suspicion for the presence of pyrrole disorder."

[djr_81]

Still trucking but this shit's a bitch. Some days I don't want to wake up but that passes. I've lived through worse than this and I'll do so again.

Some thoughts on sulfur deficiency then my thoughts after. Both quotes are by Susan Owens who runs the "Trying Low Oxalates" group on Facebook.

The signs of sulfur depletion – An essay written in 2001 – Susan Costen Owens

I've been tucked away reading a whole new batch of papers on sulfur deficiency...these are from studies where they ON PURPOSE removed cysteine and methionine from the diet (some leaving 25% in and others taking it down to zero). Adverse results were very rapid and very curiously affected the immune system in exactly the same way as mercury toxicity is reputed to do: impairing natural killer cell activity and T cell function. One study talked about AIDS, a disease involving elevations of non-specific IgE like you see in mercury toxicity. AIDS involves a high urinary loss of sulfate just like autism. They found by supplementing n-acetyl cysteine, that much of the worsening of the disease that did not respond to the drugs we all have heard about could be averted. Success was measured by monitoring the functions I just mentioned in the immune system. In fact, the reason they started this therapy was that they had calculated from the amount of
sulfate being dumped in urine that their patients with AIDS were losing systemically as much as almost five pounds of cysteine from their systems annually. Yikes!

(Some people cannot tolerate N-acetyl cysteine, perhaps because their enzymes that make this conversion are arrested by elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor...a cytokine of inflammation. Several studies looked at alternatives to cysteine, including methionine and something with a long complicated name that goes by the trade name procysteine.)

One of the most measurable effects of sulfur deficiency (from many, many studies) was a loss of glutathione levels in organ systems, and for that reason a lot of the studies looked at ways to restore glutathione levels in various tissues after sulfur starvation. Glutathione is made up of three amino acids, and the critical one for its function is cysteine. The liver has been shown to be the last organ to get deficient in GSH during sulfur starvation, so it starts to horde sulfur in the form of cysteine within GSH. After a certain degree of systemic sulfur starvation, the liver itself will begin to release glutathione into the blood, actually raising the levels in the blood for the benefit of the other organs. This elevation of GSH in the blood is a marker of seriously advanced sulfur deficiency.

One of the most interesting studies found that if they added up the equivalent amount of sulfur that was missing from sulfur-deficient chow by adding in an equivalent amount of inorganic sulfate, then when the animals ate this sulfate-enhanced but sulfur-amino-acid-lacking chow, blood levels of sulfate remained just as low as before, and to their shock, every bit of that added sulfate was immediately dumped into the urine. This was from ORAL inorganic sulfate.

Other studies (many of them) found that inorganic sulfate added to the blood was quite effective at restoring systemic levels of sulfate and was very effective at protecting organs like the liver from sulfate starvation or the toxicity of drugs that require sulfate for detoxication.

Just to emphasize a point, inorganic sulfate added outside the gut apparently effectively restores sulfate levels, but it may not restore glutathione levels, for the body needs sulfur in the form of cysteine to make glutathione. Sulfate is one of several products of cysteine, and so are glutathione and taurine.

Putting this information together suggests that some sort of signal in the intestines is likely to regulate the action of the sulfate transporters in the kidneys. They must be turned ON and highly expressed in order to reabsorb sulfate properly, but having lots of free sulfate in the intestines experimentally turned these transporters OFF, by inference.

In autism, sulfate is being dumped in the urine instead of being reabsorbed DESPITE low plasma levels of sulfate...This means the transporters are mostly OFF, and that the usual rules for sulfate regulation have been broken. The dysregulation of the systemic sulfate regulation may be coming from an inappropriate signal from the intestines, and I think it is quite likely, considering other findings in autism, that the usual trigger for this inappropriate signal may happen when the intestines are inflamed. The cells of the intestine, and the ileum in particular shed sulfated GAGs during inflammation. These GAGS may be broken down by macrophages into
inorganic sulfate...possibly giving the body the impression that there is TOO much sulfate around in the intestines which could lead to an excess, so it needs to dump some.

A study found that if BAL or other sulfhydryl-containing drugs that have been found to diminish the toxicity of acetaminophen (supposedly by supplying the ingredients needed to make sulfate) were used in rats made sulfur deficient by diet, these drugs did not restore organ GSH levels rapidly, as they wished they would. But this same study only looked at very short term change (2 hours) even though other studies made it clear that the whole conversion process takes longer than that to go from cysteine or methionine all the way to a useful end product. Inorganic sulfate, in contrast, once it enters the blood in inorganic form is instantly
bioavailable for cells all over the body to use for detoxication or other sulfation purposes.

This same study also did not look at plasma levels of sulfate or organ levels of sulfate...organic or inorganic. There is some chance sulfate supply may be deemed more urgent than glutathione levels, and the sulfate pathway might have been getting preferential use of the sulfur in these drugs. Obviously, we need another study to iron out that issue, especially to understand all that may be happening when we use sulfur containing alpha lipoic acid to treat symptoms we are assuming are being caused by low-level mercury toxicity. The report I saw from the DAN consensus also casts some doubt that chelation is the only thing going on.

I found another most curious parallel. Last fall I read a study about some factory workers exposed to mercury on the job. They experienced a loss of color vision that was restored in the affected workers a year after they cleaned up the factory of mercury...This improvement came without chelation being in the picture at all.

What amazed me was a parallel study I've found (referenced below) which shows the very same color blindness occurring in simple sulfate deficiency when there was no exposure to mercury at all. In parallel, this color-blindness was completely reversed when sulfur levels were restored.

One thing this slew of studies convinced me of is that restricting sulfur amino acids in the sulfate deficient could really backfire UNLESS the equivalent amount of sulfur is restored in some other way that is tolerated. This chemistry is SO important that the body will break down muscle in order to supply the sulfur it needs when deficient, and this deficiency sets in only DAYS after the diet has been restricted of these critical amino acids.

In studies of imposed sulfate deficiency, the usual marker that indicates that some line has been crossed is when there begins to be either a dramatic weight loss or a failure to be able to gain weight, and a failure of young animals to grow. This type of sudden onset of rapid weight loss was something that happened to the Dartmouth professor who had dimethylmercury poisoning. She did not begin to have ANY SYMPTOMS WHATSOEVER until four months after her exposure to mercury, and her FIRST adverse sign was a rapid weight loss which was followed a full month later by neurological symptoms and then coma and death after they started chelation.

When the body borrows sulfur from its own proteins, it leads to having wimpy muscles, and the rest of the protein (the non-sulfur part) tends to be converted into glucose. If other things are still churning along nicely, but that glucose is not burned off, it can lead to weight gain in FAT at the same time as muscle loss. That may explain why my father who later was cachexic (rapid weight loss) was obese in middle age, and why my sulfate-deficient daughter in her infancy got fat AND hypotonic, and could not grow, all at the very same time. This also may explain why she skinnied down after we started her on regular epsom salts baths, started getting taller, and in the very same time frame began to develop muscle tone and muscle strength.

I do not know the cause of my daughter's sulfur deficiency, but I feel my homework after doing this study in the literature is to be sure that I cover the other angles of sulfur deficiency...ie., making sure that if she cannot use cysteine properly, that I somehow help her get GSH in her system, and that I also make sure she is not taurine deficient. These other important downstream products of cysteine may not be helped by the epsom salts baths.


References:

Eltjo J. Glatzenburg et al: Effects of variation in the dietary supply of cysteine and methionine on liver concentration of Glutathione and "active sulfate" PAPS and serum levels of sulfate, cysteine, methionine and taurine: Relation to the metabolism of acetaminophen. J. NUTR. 113:1363-1383, 1983.

Hartmut Jaeschke and Albrecht Wendel. Diurnal fluctuation and pharmacological alteration of mouse organ glutathione content. Biochemical Pharmacology. Vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 1029-1033, 1985.

Raoul Breitkreutz et al. Improvement of immune functions in HIV infection by sulfur supplementation: Two randomized trials. J Mol. Med (2000) 78:55-62.

Cavalleri A. Gobba F. Reversible color vision loss in occupational exposure to metallic mercury. Environmental Research. 77(2):173-7, 1998 May...." A dose-related subclinical color vision impairment was observed in Hg-exposed workers compared to the referents. Just after the survey, working conditions were improved. Twelve months later the workers were reexamined. Mean HgU was 10.0 microg/g creatinine and in no subjects was the BEI exceeded. Color perception was significantly improved compared to the first examination and, furthermore, no differences were observed between exposed workers and referents. The results add evidence that the color vision loss observed during the first part of the study was related to Hg exposure and, moreover, show that this effect is reversible.

Essay on the relationship between mercury toxicity and sulfur depletion - 2003
I think the reason for this is that the sulfur chemistry is very gradually depleted by the presence of mercury because of effects on transport. Mercury, which functions as an imposter thiol (but one that cannot produce the benefits of the real McCoy) ends up affecting reabsorption of thiols, disulfides, and sulfate, and keeps them from gaining access to the appropriate compartments in the body. This depletion comprises the very machinery cells use to manage sulfur, because it takes sulfur to manage sulfur. That's worth repeating. IT TAKES SULFUR TO MANAGE SULFUR. So, the more severe the deficiency, the more incapable the body may be to do the appropriate thing with sulfur when it finally gets some.

That is an awfully good reason to never let this problem get bad or worse...but I'm afraid the strategy of cutting out sulfur almost completely to avoid negative responses seen on higher dosages could be a formula for acquiring much more severe problems, and I want to emphasize that you can tell this is probably what is happening if you see ANY losses occurring in lean muscle mass or weight or growth.

So, I reemphasize that starting VERY LOW with sulfur supplements and gradually increasing the dose may be the way to go if you have been severely depleted. The measure of severe depletion, again, is the loss of lean muscle mass, failure to grow if you are a child, and an inability to gain weight in a fashion that is appropriate to your age.

There appear to be some conditions of sulfur deficiency which encourage the loss of lean muscle mass but which do not involve the loss of fat. That may may occur because of excess gluconeogenesis (using protein to make sugar) and may cause a sulfur-depleted person to gain visceral fat (around the middle) but have very little muscle underneath their fat.

As we get more basic scientists to help us know the method and order that things fall apart in deficiency, then we will be much better equipped to know which sulfur support is needed at which step to make gaining back health an orderly and relatively painless process. Unlike a vitamin deficiency, which affects ONE chemical and all of its functions, sulfur depletion affects a myriad of molecules and thus a myriad of regulation.

Those who have been watching the reports on the war in Iraq have probably heard the term "command and control" a lot, and know that the goal of the military in the Coalition is to disable Hussein's command and control while hurting as little of the rest of Iraq as possible. There is a sense in which sulfur's main function is command and control, because it manages so much of the energy metabolism in the mitochondrion, and through sulfated GAGs regulates how chemicals move towards and across membranes, and how mobile cells move across surfaces, and regulates hormones and neurotransmitters and cytokines and all sorts of things. With insufficient "command and control" being provided with sulfur, the organization of the body's chemistry begins to fall apart. In diseases where this accelerates
(where cachexia begins and cannot stop) the complete shutdown of the whole body chemistry is certain if the process does not stop.

Again, the study I think EVERYONE should read to understand how mercury toxicity changes things is the paper written by the doctors of the professor at Dartmouth who spilled dimethylmercury on her hand and got a whopping one-time dose of mercury. She was perfectly fine for two months...so the extremely high levels of mercury which her body was clearing at a reasonable rate, did NOT disable all her enzyme systems, or make her lose brain function. She felt so fine it didn't even occur to her to go to the doctor or to get chelated. But, by the third month, she started losing weight, and she still didn't go to the doctor. (This was likely the sign that her sulfur chemistry was now so depleted that it needed to go borrowing from muscle.) That weight loss continued for another month until finally, she began to have neurological symptoms. Those symptoms scared her into going to the doctor, but amazingly, the MRI's in her brain at that point were still normal! But, in just a couple of weeks after she had been chelated successfully (mercury was coming out in huge quantities), she went into a coma, and soon died,
and at that time her autopsy showed huge changes in brain structure. Her doctors concluded that chelation at the stage where she had come to them (after neurological symptoms appeared) was totally useless. But, they never tried to replete her sulfur chemistry because the idea did not occur to them that sulfur depletion was part of mercury toxicity.

But we in the autism community didn't do like those doctors did, generally. Protocols were set up that included some sulfur repletion, but not particularly with the view that the sulfur depletion was a primary problem. But as things have proceeded, you are seeing doctors more and more including normal physiological forms of sulfur in their methods of treatment.

It is very clear that there are other ways to become sulfur depleted where mercury is not a factor at all, like in chronic infection. It is also clear that the methods that have been used for chelation are likely to do some significant rearranging of the sulfur chemistry, but how that works precisely is still unknown. This issue will be very straightforward to address scientifically if the appropriately trained basic scientists can get the proper funding to see how it works.

Susan

I seem to be exhibiting sulfur deficiency. This presents as an "allergy" but it's the body's response to a nutrient it's low in (I get swelling of hands/feet, anxiety, and breathing distress). At this point there's marked muscle catabolizing going on with probably 60% of my upper muscle mass used up by my body. This is representative of advanced sulfur deficiency. It's picked up in speed the past 3-4 weeks. My best guess is that a combination of factors resulted in a perfect storm that set me up for my current predicament. I've been managing a very stressful construction project for the last three years which gave me sharp stomach pains at times. Additionally my diet strayed from my best choices (added more cooked food especially higher oxalate foods (like French fries) and quite a bit of alcohol. Additionally we had the mold overgrowth in our home which was the nail in my health. This likely drained all/most of my glutathione stores and also kept me from rebuilding them.

I've begun transdermal Glutathione patches. I'm also starting up a multi-vitamin patch and a B-vitamin patch. All with the intent to work around gut issues currently being experienced. All patches are from PatchMD and those I've used had a notable effect. My studying on these topics indicates the B-vitamins are necessary co-factors to both increase uptake and use of sulfur as well as clearing of oxalates from the body which directly compete with said sulfur compounds. Of note is the utilization of B6/P5P in this process as recommended by Susadele previously.

My thinking on this whole topic has been getting fleshed out. I experienced a tremendous boost in my health when I began eating raw paleo 10+ years ago. I believe I had spent a couple years eating low carb then no carb addressing personal issues with oxalates without realizing it. I just felt better without fruits, vegetables, and grains in my diet. I believe I was lower in sulfur than optimal and the eating of raw quality grass-fed beef helped top up my levels over the year. I think this also topped up glutathione stores resulting in my resilience to getting sick and easily bouncing back when I did get sick. I also think the period detox so many of us experience may have been dumping of oxalates from my system.

While thoroughly frustrated with how this whole thing has been I am invigorated to come out the other side not only stronger but with a more robust understanding of my personal underlying issues and maybe add back in some low oxalate plant foods to find nutrition from elsewhere. On the bright side our house has been remediated and we're making slow but steady progress rebuilding from all the work that was done on it.

And the beat goes on.

[djr_81]

I'm doing electrolyte foot soaks with Epsom salts (in moderation, still very sensitive to sulfur as I rebuild), magnesium chloride, potassium bicarbonate, and sodium bicarbonate. 1-3 teaspoons, 20 minute soak in warm water. Seeing some real progress with these. I believe much of my underlying issues are mineral dysregulaion. To support the soaks I'm also using vitamin patches including a multi, a b with increase doses, and a glutathione. I have a CoQ10 coming as well as it was the cheapest way to supplement zinc in patch form. My digestion is slowly getting better doing this although the heavy sulfur content in everything (eggs, chicken, beef) is a bit much at times. I also started drinking potassium bicarbonate with P5P B6 in my water today and have noticed a real benefit from it. We will see how the week goes.

Oh, I also found a great functional medicine doctor in the area to start a professional's involvement. I had testing sent out for a GI MAP as well as a Dunwoody Labs allergy & intolerance panel. We're going to figure out gut issues and build a more robust diet plan. Really pushing hard to get back to raw beef for all meals but that's till too inflammatory in my system right now (pseudo gout?). I need to figure out if I have coconut issues as coconut water would be a great way to work on getting the potassium numbers up higher.

Some great detox info really helping me:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/135981539816730?view=permalink&id=1181801885234685&_rdr

"http://commonsensehome.com/improve-liver-health/
http://balancedconcepts.net/liver_phases_detox_paths.pdf
LIVER INFO
Phase One of detoxification, called Oxidation, the liver uses oxygen and enzymes to burn toxins. This process makes the toxins more soluble in water so they can be more easily excreted from the body by the liver (blood) - kidneys(urine). Most environmental toxins are fat-soluble to start with, and therefore difficult or impossible to eliminate without the liver's help. The chemicals produced in Phase One can be more toxic than those which originally entered the body.
Other pathways: Reduction, Hydrolysis, Hydration, Dehalogenation.
There are six pathways in Phase Two (Conjugation) Detoxification. Each pathway is responsible for converting a different set of substances (e.g. estrogen, thyroid hormones, heavy metals, histamine, phenol, salicylates, biliruben, nicotine, bacterial toxins, caffeine). (The liver cells add another substance (eg. cysteine, glycine or a sulphur molecule) to a toxic chemical or drug, to render it less harmful. This makes the toxin or drug water­soluble, so it can then be excreted from the body via watery fluids such as bile (liver-gallbladder-stool(poop)) or urine (liver(blood)-kidney).
The six conjugation pathways are called:
1.  Amino Acid Conjugation pathway (same as Glycination!)
2.  The Glutathione pathway
3.  The Sulphation (sulfation) pathway
4.  The Methylation pathway
5.  The Glucuronidation pathway
6.  The Acetylation pathway
Examples of Liver Detox Pathways:
1. AMINO ACID conjugation pathway (GLYCINATION) - SALICYLATES and benzoates are detoxified primarily through glycination. Benzoate is present in many food substances and is widely used as a food preservative (some jarred garlic). Patients suffering from xenobiotic overloads and environmental toxicity may not have sufficient amounts of glycine to cope with the amount of toxins they are carrying. It is involved in the detoxification of some antihistamines and decongestants. Amino acid conjugation is inhibited by a low protein diet.
2. GLUTATHIONE pathway - It plays a key process in participating directly in the neutralization of free radicals and reactive oxygen compounds, as well as DNA synthesis and repair, protein synthesis, prostaglandin synthesis, amino acid transport, enzyme activation, etoxification of methylglyoxal, a toxin produced as a byproduct of metabolism, and maintaining exogenous antioxidants such as vitamins C and E in their reduced (active) forms.
Glutathione exists in both reduced (GSH) and oxidized (GSSG) states .... "It supports T-cells and protects against viruses, maintains the structural integrity of the gut and is the primary means of detoxifying and eliminating heavy metals and other toxins." .. "Some of the main substances conjugated by glutathione include paracetamol, penicillin, tetracycline, mercury, lead and substances such as AFLATOXIN and ethyl alcohol." Glutathione is attached to the toxin to make it less harmful.
http://moldinspectionpro.com/glutathione/
http://www.tvernonlac.com/copper-toxicity.html (pyroluria and glutathione)http://www.50symptomsgone.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The_Path_Newsletter_Aug_12-9.pdf (aflatoxin and glutathionation)
Note: Looks like severe low levels in vitamin B6 and zinc as seen in pyroluria and some with oxalate issue or/and high levels of mold mycotoxins as seen in toxic mold illness can cause significant drops in glutathione production because the body is trying to detox too much which can lead to leaky gut and possibly vit C turning bad (pro-oxidant and maybe into oxalates?), etc. Heavy metals inhibit the replenishment of glutathione. Cruciferous vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc.) are very helpful in enhancing glutathione. This pathway can be inhibited by deficiencies of selenium, vitamin B2 and zinc.
3. The SULPHATION pathway detoxifies excess neurotransmitters, steroids, thyroid hormones, phenol, SALICYLATES, and excess bile acids. This pathway is often burdened by frequent use of non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS - Ibuprofen). We can support this pathway through an increase in high sulphur foods (e.g. egg yolk, broccoli, onion, garlic, or MSM). Note: If you are low in sulfate, this pathway won't be able to process SALICYLATES and phenols and they will backup in the liver causing problems. Some phenols can be produced from yeast in your gut. Therefore, taking probiotics and epsom salt baths can help with this pathway!http://www.livingnetwork.eo.za/chelationnetwork/food/sulfates_sulfation_feingold/ . .. " Sulphate conjugation binds
substances such as artificial food colourings (salicylates), heterocyclic amines and steroid hormones and transforms them into a more soluble form that can be excreted in the urine or bile. " Sulfur is attached to the toxin to make is less harmful. "Sulfation can be enhanced by amino acids like methionine and cysteine, taurine, glutathione (Free Amino Acids), MSM, garlic, onions and cruciferous vegetables. Red Yeast Rice aids sulfation. Vitamin B1 and B2, magnesium and molybdenum also aid sulfation, although excess molybdenum and excess B6 inhibit the sulfation process. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs inhibit sulfation. N-acetyl-cysteine
(mentioned earlier) can also enhance sulfation." The sulphation process is inhibited by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, tartrazine (yellow food dye), steroids, and a molybdenum deficiency.
4. The METHYLATION pathway detoxifies estrogen, dopamine, histamine and heavy metals (methyl groups) and allows them to pass through the liver and out of the body safely. To support this pathway we can increase our intake of choline (avocados/eggs/non-GM soy lecithin) and B vitamins. Methylation attaches toxins to methionine. This process occurs in every cell of the body and helps the body get rid of excess hormones and neurotransmitters, including steroidal hormones like estrogen, adrenaline, dopamine, melatonin, histamine and serotonin. It also helps eliminate homecysteine, a compound associated with increased risk of heart disease. A variety of chemicals (amines, phenols, etc.) are also eliminated through methylation. Besides the amino acid methionine, methylation can be enhanced with B-vitamins (B6, B12, folic acid and choline), betaine (a compound from beets), which is also found in Protein Digestive Aid as betaine hydrochloric acid), magnesium and SAM-e. Magnesium is essential for the methylation enzyme. A folic acid or B12 deficiency will inhibit methylation. "SAM-e is a valuable supplement for liver detoxification as it also helps the body produce many methyl-based substances, including: carnitine. creatine phosphate (used in ATP energy production), epinephrine (adrenaline), posphatidyl choline (a nutrient that protects the nerves). Because of this SAM-e may help a variety of liver diseases, inflammatory disorders, depression and elevated levels of homocysteine. It may also reduce intestinal inflammation and protect the brain against free radical damage." Methylation process is inhibited by a folic acid or vitamin B12 deficiency caused by a lack of green vegetables (folate) or some animal product (B12).
5. GLUCURONIDATION pathway " removes hormones such as testosterone, oestrogen, and steroids; fatty acid derivatives, bilirubin, and bile acids. Many commonly used substances, such as SALICYLATES(aspirin), menthol, synthetic vanilla (SALICYLATES), acetaminophen, morphine, diazepam, digitalis, benzoates, benzodiazepines, phenols, and pesticides are detoxified through the glucuronidation pathway." ... " Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, steroid hormones, some nitrosamines, heterocyclic amines, some FUNGAL TOXINS, and aromatic amines. " "It also removes "used " hormones, such as oestrogen and T4 (thyroid hormone) that are produced naturally by the body."
Gilbert's Syndrome is an inherited impairment of this pathway ( jaundice and elevated levels of bilirubin). The blockage or slowdown of this system is associated with gallstones.
Note: glucuronic acid is derived from the carbohydrate - glucose.
Glucuronic acid is a metabolite of glucose that can be attached to toxins. Attaching toxins to sugars is called glucuronidation. This pathway is used as a back-up for sulfation or glycination. It is used to eliminate chemical and bacterial toxins, excess steroidal hormones (like estrogen), toxins from FUNGAL infections and a variety of chemical toxins such as nitrosamines, aromatic amines, alcohols and phenols.
http://www.50symptomsgone.com/wp-contenVuploads/2015/08/The_Path_Newsletter _Aug_ 12-9.pdf
http://www.modernherbalmedicine.com/articles/the-low-down-on-liver-detoxification-2.htm1?page=3
6. The ACETYLATION pathway -
acetylation attaches toxins to the compound acetyl Co-A for elimination. "People who are chemically sensitive are usually slow acetylators. Slow acetylation enhances the toxicity of drugs because it prolongs their life span in the body. Acetylation is used to eliminate excess histamine, serotonin, sulfa drugs, PABA and chemicals like sulphur amides and hydranzines. Nutrients that enhance acetylation include: pantothenic acid, Vitamin C and the amino acid thiamine. Deficiencies of B2, B5 or C inhibit acetylation."
http://www.modernherbalmedicine.com/articles/the-low-down-on-liver-detoxification-2.htm1?page=3"

And some Potassium Deficiency information:

https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTYyODg3NDQ1MDpWSzoxMzI5MzE1NjMzODE2NjQy

Here's what I've been thinking and writing about lately. I'll try to summarize it succinctly.
Without realizing it, I was severely deficient in potassium. Our diets tend to be 2:1 in favor of sodium. They should be 5:1 in favor of potassium. That's an order of magnitude of 10. Potassium deficiency has deep and far-reaching consequences.

1) Weakness of the sodium-potassium pump.
This means the cell "voltage" is low, and the mechanism by which minerals, vitamins, hormones, and neurotransmitters enter the cell -- and metabolic waste exits -- is impaired. I've suffered from edema in the past, and since becoming chronically ill with oxalates and mold sensitivity issues a few years ago, I have episodes where my face and eyes will swell dramatically.

2) Balancing Na (sodium) and K (potassium) in the body is the governance of 86.
Na-K balance is of vital importance -- sodium and potassium need to track together for all kinds of things, including heartbeat and alkalinity -- and if they're off, it will deplete 86. Low 86, in turn, will incline a person to endogenous production of oxalate. AGT is an enzyme involved in oxalate metabolism, and it runs on 86. I have a double mutation at AGT (++), so I already needed extra B6 (and had problems with oxalates), never mind with an added potassium deficiency.

3) Low cell voltage (a weak Na-K pump) and low B6 (oxalates issues) were contributing to mineral dysregulation. Not just copper, which is becoming increasingly known for being dysregulated, but all my minerals. When the pump is low, cellular transport is diminished. When there are oxalates around, they can bind to minerals and trap them in tissues. These effects have been amplified in recent years as a sadly poetic consequence of our use of Glyphosate, whose mechanism is one of mineral chelation. We've altered the world's microbiome, and in turn, we've damaged our own.
What exactly is dysregulation? Dysregulation means you're both deficient and toxic at the same time. For instance, a person with calcium dysregulation might present with classic symptoms of deficiency -- irritability, depression, brain fog, irregular heartbeat, muscle cramps, numbness or tingling in the hands, feet, or face, even seizures -- along with idiopathic "calcifications" that would appear to be excess calcium, but would in fact be the calcium that should have been available to the body. My mother, I realized, has almost ALL the symptoms of calcium dysregulation. They've been giving her beta blockers for an irregular heartbeat for 20 years without ever stopping to ask WHY her heartbeat was irregular.

Dysregulation is possible for all the minerals, and is responsible for all the diseases. Bechamp was right; Pasteur was wrong. It's not the pathogens. It's the terrain.

In fact, the pathogens' role, in a sense -- a very real sense -- is to let us know what's wrong with the terrain. It could be that each pathogen corresponds to a mineral that's dysregulated. Blastocystis ( commonly misdiagnosed as "yeast") = copper. Lyme = manganese. Human papillomavirus = calcium. H Pyori = iron. HIV = zinc. We've been thinking of illness in terms of the "you catch something" paradigm. But what if we all have everything already, and when a microbe morphs into its pathogenic form -- e.g. when Blastocystis becomes amoeboid -- it's to let us know what's wrong with the terrain? Remember: If you lock 10,000 people in a building with Lyme-infested ticks, not all of them will come down with Lyme. But if you test 10,000 people with full-blown AIDS for Lyme, all of them will test positive.
What if ALS is calcium and lithium dysregulation? There are already clinically proven links to disrupted calcium homeostasis in ALS, and without lithium, there'd be nothing to protect against calcium-dependent neuronal death. What if MS is cobalt dysregulation (i.e. the body can1 use cobalamin to myelinate the nerves)? What if HIV is zinc dysregulation (with zinc disabled there'd be no defense against viruses)?

But I digress, and these are topics for another, longer paper. Let's get back to potassium and oxalates.

I knew I needed potassium, but any time I mentioned supplementing with K, anyone within earshot would fly into a panic. Then I read "Potassium, Your Invisible Friend" by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, and decided to give K a try. Not the laughably insufficient 99 mg potassium pills. Real potassium.

Potassium is not appropriate for people who are taking potassium-sparing diuretics or people with kidney disease.
This is not intended as health advice. I am sharing my personal experiences.

I did my research first. I'm cautious by nature, and I was additionally cautious about potassium because I've had low blood pressure and low blood sodium my whole life.

In the U.S. there's a lot of potassium-phobia. In the U.K., the National Health Service advises the following: "You should be able to get all the potassium you need by eating a varied and balanced diet. If you take potassium supplements, do not take too much because this could be harmful. Taking 3,700 mg or less of potassium supplements a day is unlikely to cause any harm.”

The amount required by the body is roughly 4,700 mg. I knew I was far below that -- especially in light of my very low-oxalate diet.

I bought a bag of potassium bicarbonate off Amazon and started taking a couple of teaspoons a day. I ramped up to that amount, as I did not want to shock my body, which has grown accustomed to operating in a state of potassium deficiency.

The effects have been astonishing. I can feel my body's cellular voltage coming back. I can feel that I'm able to use my minerals again. It's an unmistakable feeling of energy -- like a battery.

I sometimes use a teaspoon of potassium chloride salt instead of bicarbonate, if I feel a little lightheaded. But for the most part, I have not felt lightheaded, which was surprising.

Here's what I think has been happening: In the presence of low potassium, my body has been excreting sodium, in order to keep the ratio closer to where it should be. This would explain the persistent "idiopathic calcium" I seem to excrete in my urine (the body will excrete calcium whenever it excretes sodium). Hmmm ... sending sodium and calcium to the kidneys all the time, might that set me up for anything? ... And if you're wondering: yes, I have kidney stones on both sides of my family.

Best of all, with more potassium on board, it's freed up some of my B6 for other things, instead of constantly compensating for wildly imbalanced Na:K. My mood has improved (B6 is necessary for the synthesis of serotonin, dopamine, and GABA); I've lost weight (B6 is required for blood sugar regulation); my eyes and ankles are less swollen (because B6 regulates Na:K low B6 can lead to edema); I sleep better (B6 is necessary for melatonin synthesis); and I remember my dreams (the litmus test for B6 sufficiency). In fact, I've even begun to wonder if low B6 might be responsible for my Pyroluria (in addition to being a symptom of Pyroluria). B6 is necessary for heme synthesis. So what about this: the body gets ready to make heme (assembles a pyrrole ring), but then there isn1 enough B6 available, so the pyrrole ring is disbanded, and the pyrroles bind to zinc (and more B6) on their way out.
B6 is required for more bodily processes than any other nutrient and its role in human health and disease is well worth studying. This goes double for anyone with oxalates issues.

Want more? Even though this post is already so long?! (Thank you for still reading.)

Many of the symptoms of autism -- another illness that's been linked with oxalates -- look a LOT like hypokalemic sensory overstimulation to me. (And I'm not the only one - I'll paste a link.)

Same goes for ME/CFS. Some aspects of it look very similar to hypokalemic sensory overstimulation. Which would explain the intolerance to mold (some molds produce oxalates, which upregulate AGT and further deplete B6 and potassium), as well as the orthostatic intolerance (aldosterone could become dysregulated because the body needs to maintain blood pressure, but it does not want to retain sodium and excrete potassium -- in fact it very badly needs to do just the opposite), and also the exercise intolerance (anything that produces more acid -- exercise produces lactic acid -- will further skew Na:K, which the body is desperately trying to keep in balance in order to maintain heartbeat, etc.), and the profound fatigue (when the body, in an attempt limit acid production, begins to resist even its own cellular respiration). Also, copper would appear to be dysregulated (low ATP), plus the Na-K pump has serious implications for brain function (in particular the Purkinje Neuron in the cerebellum).

[djr_81]

So the potassium and B6 while helpful are very stimulating. I'm assuming this is pushing the adrenals. Woke up at 1:30 and couldn't fall back asleep notably with some breathing difficulties. I think I'm going to have to pulse this stuff and maybe take the B6 mornings only to limit it effecting my sleep. I've used the extra 4 1/2 hours to do more research. I'm not sure how accurate or appropriate the 5:1 K:Na ratio really is. I'm going to use a 1:1 ratio today with electrolytes and see how I do. 1 part Potassium bicarbonate, 1/2 part sodium bicarbonate, 1/2 part sea salt "sole". I also started my morning with 1/4 magnesium threonate dose as well as 1/8 teaspoon molasses in case blood sugar is having trouble regulating. Progress just a little more diagonal than purely forward.

I did have some homemade chicken stock with chicken then a half pound raw beef last night. And applied epsom salt, potassium chloride, and magnesium chloride spray on the soles of my feet. All things I've done to better success previously so still thinking the potassium or B6 were the issue.

[djr_81]

Time for another update.

Tried to balance things myself for a couple more weeks after the last post. I had the results of a new allergy test come back and I had developed an IgE allergy to chicken egg yolk and albumin which was not surprising with that being all I ate for months and regular pain in my stomach. I switched it up the next day and trialed some roast lamb but went way too aggressive (at least a pound and a half) and my body freaked out. I think I had been pushing a histamine overload or maybe my adrenals were worked up but ended up going to the hospital. Spent 6 hours in the emergency department including one episode of nearly passing out, another of full body dumping of sweat, and lots of ups & downs in vitals. They kept me a couple days in observation as my chest hurt during the whole ordeal. The only thing they found wrong other than elevated cholesterol was low sodium and set me up on a a total of 4 IV bags of saline to get me to normal levels.

After getting out of the hospital I went through hell dealing with at least mild re-feeding syndrome. The months of eating eggs, and my body's slowly increasing inflammation to them, meant I'd been on starvation rations for a very long time. The most eggs I ate in one day was 24 so 1,680 calories at most and many days were lower. I spent close to a week feeling like smashed ass struggling to keep my b vitamins, especially thiamine, up while getting food into me. I'm on a rotation diet right now as I have no safe foods (beef is a low level allergen at the moment). Cycling different fishes along with some fruits and some veggies. Trying to eat low histamine and low-mid oxalate as both are bothering me right now. Based on my reaction to coconut right now there's probably a salicylate intolerance as well.

I've been hitting my caloric needs, or exceeding them, for over a week. I was down to 162 pounds at the lowest. Today the scale read 180.4. My functional medicine doctor has me on an elemental liquid diet for breakfast. This is a powder based drink with reduced aminos for proteins. You mix with water and an oil and sip it slow. It absorbs into the stomach and upper intestines giving the lower intestines time to reduce inflammation (like intermittent fasting without the fasting). I'm having wild frozen supermarket fish for lunch with any number of fruits or veggies (apples, Bartlett pears, squash, arugula, watercress, etc.). Dinner has been salmon from Vital Choice which is frozen within 30 minutes of catch so as low histamine as possible. The is eaten with more fruits or veggies, usually the same as what was eaten for lunch. I'm supplementing with lots of fats from oils (flax seed mostly, some pumpkin seed, also have MCT to trial). I also have been eating a ton of sunflower seed butter which I think I'm craving for the biotin (B7) which is probably low. I'm pushing to start getting more raw foods into things beyond fruits and veggies but I need to do that with red meats. Freshwater fish have thiaminase in them which deactivates thiamine. Some saltwater fish does as well but I'm less worried about that. I have been cooking the swordfish I'm eating at lunch time less and less.

So, time for some conjecture on what happened particularly since my symptoms recently in the hospital were fairly similar.

I believe I have underlying issues with oxalates. I can tenuously stretch this all the way back to when I was a baby and had a horrific reaction to Amoxicillin. There are limited oxalate degrading bacteria in the human body and most prominent is Oxalabacter Formigenes. This bacteria is easily wiped out with antibiotics and so far they have not been able to provide a pill to rebuild it. I've read it's soil based so I suppose you could rebuild a colony eating the right soil but that's kind of iffy.
When the body is unable to degrade oxalates in the intestines and doesn't immediately bind them with calcium to excrete in the stool a portion of them will be absorbed into the body. With a healthy intestine this will be a modest amount. With a leaky gut the amount increases significantly. These oxalates wreak havoc in the body. They bind with the body's minerals like calcium and magnesium, the crystals can lodge all over the body (frequently they present as kidney stones and pseudo gout). They're a poison and the body tries to deal with them.

I spent a lot of my teenage years and early twenties dealing with extensive inflammation, brain fog, bad stomach, and other issues. At the time I attributed all of these issues to candida which may have been part of the puzzle but definitely wasn't all of it. I think I was loaded up with oxalates. I also think, based on how I'm navigating good versus bad carbs now, that there's some degree of fructose malabsorption at play as well.

Going zero carb raw paleo made me feel fantastic. I had already spent the past couple years moving further and further into a carnivore diet so the "dumping" I would experience from not having oxalates would be minimal. I did deal with some adaptation issues but these were mostly from the increase in fat of the diet and getting my gallbladder used to making enough bile. I'm sure I went through cycles dumping out oxalates that were left over but nothing super brutal.

For at least the last 5 years I've been pushing myself very hard for work. At first this was easy but the longer I did it the more tired I would be and the more coffee I drank to make up for it. I also found myself craving the fast calories of carbs and would indulge that more and more frequently. Often times they were "healthy" choices like almonds but all of these things were bad choices for my body.

Coffee runs down the body's store of thiamine as does stress and a bunch of other things. A thiamine deficiency can present as "wet" or "dry" beriberi and is surprisingly more common that you would expect. Wet beriberi's signature initial symptom is edema in the shins. Over time edema will present through the feet and lower extremities and eventually it leads to congestive heart failure. Most people would never get this far as another process it's involved in is the conversion of glucose from dietary carbs into ATP for cellular energy. A process which I had little dependency on seeing as so much of my energy was coming from ketones.

To my best guess I was flirting with thiamine deficiency for a couple years. The mold we had in our house was a constant stressor on my system so I wasn't going to easily rebuild thiamine stores. The coffee, the carb binges, the push to work as hard as I was, and the lack of sleep all contributed to a perfect storm. The weekend before I got sick I had fasted for 24 hours then gone to the supermarket and picked up a ton of vegetables. I figured that the "gout" in my feet was never going to get better if I was still eating my beef and I needed to find another solution. I believe that last binge ran down the limited thiamine stores I had and the initial issues I had in the office that Monday were a crazy blood sugar episode. I also believe with the limited thiamine and how hard I pushed myself I was dealing with re-feeding syndrome and didn't know it. I struggled for a week to right myself with wild swings in how I felt. Without supplementing thiamine I was going through periods where I couldn't breathe at all. I was probably dealing with minor congestive heart failure and none of the doctors really considered it. I did eventually find eggs were a better choice (low carb load) and found my footing for a while. Without digging deeper though this was set to fail as well which it eventually did.

So, I'm alive. I've putting weight back on. I'm following an intensive protocol from my functional medicine doctor (who is absolutely awesome). I'm taking a ton of supplements every day which doesn't thrill me but is helping me regain my health. I'm also on a couple psych meds to help with the anxiety (Klonopin and titrating up Zoloft) which thrill me even less and I plan to titrate back down as soon as I'm able to prove to myself and everyone else I'm good. My autonomic system, vagus nerve, and limbic system are all jacked up but I'm making progress getting them all back under control. Still sensitive to chemicals but that's getting better. And hoping to move back into my remediated and somewhat rebuilt home over the next month or two. Fucking 2020.

This whole ordeal is reforging who I am as a person. Coming out of it I'm going to invest the time and energy to get some form of certification in health coach, food & nutrition, or something else I can help others. If I can help other people avoid the bullshit I've been going through I'd like to do so. I'm also working to get to the root causes of my issues with food so I don't have to worry about my health in the future. I will find some carbs which work well for me and eat a balanced raw paleo diet. The raw paleo aspect is still absolutely the right way to go we just need to make the right choices.

TD: I will bet you money the issues which have come up for you in the past with going raw zero carb are the result of cutting out oxalates in your diet leading to dumping. There's a couple week "honeymoon" phase and then all sorts of unpleasant issues can start up. Everyone handles it differently. Part of the hell I went through the last 7 months was a result of having been increasing my oxalates for the couple years prior then going cold turkey on the eggs.

GS: Pork is one of the highest sources of thiamine there is. Your instinctive craving for pork to heal certain issues may be driven by this. It's powerful medicine.

It's good to be back. I'm physically at 80%. My diet is maybe 40% raw and rising. I hope by Christmas to be a new man.

[djr_81]

Ran some numbers today on macro & micro nutrients. I'm confused as the values completely turn conventional medicine's imposed values on their head. I ate a pound of meat and a decent (maybe 3oz) portion of fat for years and thrived on it. I did have some aerobic difficulties but could sustain maybe 60-70% speed forever without lactic acid buildup and anaerobic gains at the gym were steady. Yet here I was surviving (thriving) on 65% of my caloric needs per day and some nutrients were completely absent while most were very low. I'd do it again in a heartbeat but make some very deliberate additions to things to keep my nutrient levels where they should be.

In hindsight I would very specifically add in a lot of organ meats. I shied away from these in the misguided belief that they were feeding systemic Candida because I'd get brain fog, joint pain, and other issues after consumption. From a more informed position now I believe one of two things was happening.

1. I was experiencing the "paradox effect" wherein the more deficient in a nutrient you are the more intensely you experience issues while taking it. Your body has been running so efficiently in processes that use that nutrient to try and cover the spread that once it gets an adequate supply it does not know what to do with it. All sorts of processes try to happen at the same time. You really have to titrate up slowly when you've been missing things from your diet for so long.

2. Lots of my history points towards poor handling of oxalates. The nutrient density, particularly of B vitamins, in organ meats may have triggered dumping of oxalates from my body which would make me feel worse in the short term but if continued to follow through would ultimately clear me of sequestered "poisons" and I'd feel much better on the other side. Just one more thing for the body to detox.

Learn from my mistake. Lots of diverse organ meats. Also plant matter is not the enemy once you find some you can tolerate. In my case I think I have issues with fructose so should have looked harder at some of the low fructose nutrient dense veggies. A little arugula or some butternut squash with my meat and fat would have gone a very long way.

And now we rebuild.

[djr_81]

If anyone wants the spreadsheet let me know. I'll gladly share it in Excel. I'm a numbers guy and this is important to do a gut check on once in a while.

[djr_81]

Making progress but it's slow. I'm still eating a cooked paleo diet. Heavy in fish and squashes with lots of pumpkin & flax seed oil as well as sunflower seed butter. Hoping to start moving onto some red meats soon. 6+ months of just cooked eggs did a number on my system. I think it exacerbated fatty liver and definitely pushed my cholesterol up very quickly. It seems to have impacted bile flow but I'm making progress on that with bile salts, taurine, and pushing my fat intake up each day. Still using mostly omega 3 unsaturated fats but looking forward to the pivot over to some saturated fats.

Based on the experiences I am having with the current diet I'm thinking a lot of the issues I've been dealing with this year are compounded versions of the issues which lead me to raw paleo over a decade ago. The brain fog in particular can be very difficult although I seem to be getting a better handle on this with some of my supplements. I still think there's oxalate involvement but this may be more than just that or it's possible that's what set me up for other issues. I'll continue to unravel it as I heal back up.

Some of the most positive gains have been through frequency therapies on Youtube. Two channels I'm using frequently and noting good effects. In particular there appears to be quite a bit of brain involvement in everything and both channels have good videos to tonify the vagus nerve or address the amygdala.

Bioresonance:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgMgef-nxELn8jaHV01w_Gw

Sapien Medicine:
https://www.youtube.com/user/projectvampireTV

I'm also looking long and hard at rife machines but don't have the money right now for one. Given the marked improvements I'm noting through different frequency therapies though it seems like it would be money well spend if/when I get there. In the meantime I'm just going to leverage free tools while I continue to improve with diet changes and focused supplements.

[djr_81]

Currently living with my cousin and her family. Home was a bust (still too reactive to any residual mold or mycotoxins) and we are working to sell it now. Living an aesthetic life at this point with enough possessions to fill maybe 9 cubic feet. I am missing my wife (she's with her sister and our dog) but surprisingly ok with the way life has been going right now. I'm seeing continued slow improvement even though some days are much rougher than others.

I sent out my Organic Acid Test on Tuesday. Looking forward to getting a final answer regarding oxalates in a couple weeks although I'm pretty sure I know the answers. I'm also expecting my B1/Thiamine to be low and probably producing some oxalates endogenously as a result. I'm thinking B6 is probably doing ok.

I've started muscle testing myself this week. A simple tilt test. So far the results are better than I've been getting struggling along on my own. I'll keep it up for a while and see how it goes.

I'm also working back into more raw foods. I've started having my fish rare or raw. I also trialed some lamb the other day and just seared the outside since it was supermarket meat. I've also used a couple liver capsules from Ancestral Supplements. I have had some flaring of edema in my feet and ankles. I'm not sure if this is purine influenced or something else. There are a lot of issues that arise due to oxalates so if those are in play that could be contributing. My initial hypothesis is it's peripheral edema as a sign of thiamine insufficiency when I'm dumping oxalates.

Looking forward to getting past this whole ordeal and back to real health. I'm grateful for the wealth of knowledge this has required I learn and the possibilities it opens for me as a career if I pursue it but I'm ready for the ride to be over.

[djr_81]

Another update.
I had a colonoscopy Wednesday. Apparently I have what is known as a redundant colon where I have extra length which results in more twists and turns than normal. All resulting in drier stools and constipation. I also have a lot of diverticula which I assume are from the years of poor stools as a teen and into my twenties. This also explains for me part of why going raw low carb was so beneficial. Less fiber, less volume, more fat, and large fasting window all contributed to better treatment of my colon.

Continuing to make progress getting back to raw low carb. I'm making progress by way of cooked lower carb. Since my body seems intent on developing issues with foods right now I'm still having to rotate everything. As a result it's hard to keep enough on hand raw to meet my needs. I've been sourcing out a lot of different animal fats which have been rendered into tallow or lard. I've transitioned off of the seed oils to animal fats. I'm still eating a lot of fish but gradually reducing cook time (swordfish I'm eating raw, salmon is still lightly cooked). I've also begun incorporating animal proteins into things, This week I had lamb (super rare), duck (cooked), pork (cooked), and have bison thawing for dinner (raw). I'm still eating different cooked winter squashes almost every day. I'm also getting in things like arugula & cabbage. I trialed a mango the other day and did ok with it but too much sugar gives me issues so I'm limiting how much fruit I eat.

I'm continuing to supplement as I am very depleted in nutrients from the 6 months of just cooked eggs (as well as however long I was having issues from the mold beforehand). The basis of everything is a good multi (I use a patch right now), a solid B complex (Thorne), a mineral pill, and lots of magnesium. I also take other things like Ancestral Supplements liver, kidney, and brain as well as taurine & choline (Citicholine, AGD Choline, and phosphatidyl choline). Eventually I plan to be getting as much from Whole Foods as possible but I can feel the difference with proper supplementing and I'm not going to get that from food yet.

"Mold" still seems to be an ongoing issue. I'm kind of coming to the conclusion I appear to be colonized with something. There's something called Hell Toxin which occurs in some individuals who have been exposed to toxic mold. I fit a lot of symptoms and treatments/cleaning processes work so I'm running with it. At the root it seems like an opportunistic pathogen which either gets a foothold as the result, or creates, a heavy metal imbalance. There's also oxalate involvement (one of the more effective cleaning tools is Barkeeper's Friend-Oxalic Acid). I've had great success with epsom soaks and EM-1 (a soil inoculant with roughly 80 bacteria strains). I'm leaning towards my chemical sensitivities having involvement in this. Also the POTS I get from mold hits could be flaring of the internal colonization when threatened by exterior mold. I've read some conjecture on Hell Toxin coming from either Wallemia (the mold we had the highest levels of) or Candida auris (As I work in hospitals in NY my exposure risk would have been fairly high). I'm going to keep going down this rabbit hole and see where it leads.

I have been having more success with my chemical sensitivities. I went to the supermarket on Friday and had no issues whatsoever. I actually didn't even realize this until 6 hours afterwards. My mood and anxiety in general seems to be doing better than it had been as well.

[djr_81]

I ate dinner (raw bison steak & arugula with 3 tablespoons bison tallow) and an hour later I’m starving. I then had a pound of fatty ground bison meat and feel so sated. There’s something magical about raw animal fat that you don’t get with cooked fats. So nourishing for the body. I’m super grateful to continue having success reintroducing animal foods back into my diet. This is how we heal folks. <3

[djr_81]

Biotoxin illness. In my current situation mold was the precipitating factor in a body overloaded with a toxin load. The last couple years of on again off again edema was an indication of an overwhelmed system which I ignored and even burdened further by using NSAID pain relievers and topical pain reliever creams which both added additional burden to a liver already overloaded. Other incidental issues like histamine & salicylate intolerances, oxalate issues, and copper dysrehulation all stem from an overloaded system. I’m beginning to think I’ve been dealing with this close to thirty years and the time spent focused on eating raw paleo, getting in LOTS of sweat inducing exercise, and getting out into clear environments all let me get another ten plus years of excellent health in before it came crashing down. And now we rebuild.

B1/thiamine is a linchpin. Body stressors including mold run it down and it’s used to support so many processes. B2 & B3 to support (B3 to take some burden off B2).All of the minerals and metals are super important. Zinc, copper, iron, molybdenum, iodine, selenium, manganese, boron, lithium. The other Bs are important but if you overdo them without the little Bs in place you can induce deficiencies. I pushed B6 too hard and ended up tanking thiamine inducing “B6 toxicity” with peripheral neuropathy.

I’m still pushing to get back to raw meat. I’m convinced there is fungal colonization. Cold raw meat has exacerbated issues at times. I need to work more warming foods back into the mix and I’ll get back to tolerating more raw meat. I am eating some raw fruits and veggies. I’m going to give raw cabbage juice a go and see how that works healing the gut.

I kind of wonder about the mechanics of high meat. I wonder if the bacterial mix is diverse enough it helps displace a monoculture fungal or bacterial overgrowth. Basically super probiotics.

My words of advice are to continue to pursue better health even when you feel great. And don’t let up on a healing diet.

[goodsamaritan]

Brother, I too suffered from fungus / mold infection.

Mine was mold in the walls of leaking water pipes, living under mango tree and santol tree, and in a previously flood submerged house.

I solved my problem via consulting with https://www.bervinj.com/ in 2016.  And moving to a new home. 

(not an advertisement).

I'm sure in 5 years he knows much more.

[djr_81]

One great thing to come out of this is much deeper body awareness, energy awareness, and the ability to muscle test. More and more synchronicities are occurring in my life. Just kind of floating along with it enjoying what I can of the ride.

My muscle testing indicates is Aspergillus Versicolor colonization. I had noticed over the summer that my clothes when washed made the water green and had a moldy smell to it. I’ve also realized more recently that dead skin I scrape off in the shower has a green tint and occasionally green fibers. I’ve also had those fibers in mucus from my sinuses and chest. Mainstream medicine is useless with this kind of stuff. I think colonization is a more common occurrence than acknowledged. My best guess in my case is either something genetic or epiginetic which predisposed me to reduced clearance of General toxins (I suspect I’m on the spectrum with reduced utilization of B6). Additionally a rough childhood probably predisposed me to dysautonomia with poor thiamine retention. At least that’s my theory for now. No sense dwelling in the past.

[djr_81]

Brother, I too suffered from fungus / mold infection.

Mine was mold in the walls of leaking water pipes, living under mango tree and santol tree, and in a previously flood submerged house.

I solved my problem via consulting with https://www.bervinj.com/ in 2016.  And moving to a new home. 

(not an advertisement).

I'm sure in 5 years he knows much more.

Hey GS. I figured if anyone gets it you would.

I’ve been doing some healing with cooked pork (loaded with B1/thiamine) and a number of Epsom flushes to clear out bilestones. Each time I do either I think about you recommending them.

We are moving. We remediated but I’m still very reactive even outside the home. Until I clear myself out I can’t see us living there and that could take years. Market is up now so even gutted we should at least break even. We will find another home to adore in a few years. Health is number one.

[goodsamaritan]

My fungus mold infection was cured by the knowledge of:

anti-fungus / mold diet, food: italian seasoning, garlic, onions, there are cooked recipes, I cured a friend of "cancer" with these raw.
raw spinach, blanched broccoli

pure turpentine! (from pine trees)  not more than 1 tea spoon a night.  not one drop more than 1 teaspoon.

absolutely no wifi while infected. wifi agitates the fungus mold to produce 600x more toxins.  either you have pain or itches.  hook every computer to ethernet lan cables.  phones connect via 4G / LTE.

absolutely no alcoholic beverage.

consumption of lots and lots of various probiotics, various brands, various forms, therapeutic doses.

[djr_81]

Going to be dumping some info here. This is cross-posted from the "Mold Avoiders" group on Facebook. It's not as coherent like this but hopefully will help someone. Hopefully some day I will be able to look back on it for posterity sake.
-----------------

So I’ve been mulling this whole thing over much more closely.

What if many chronic illnesses are the result of a dysbiosis of fungi to bacteria as the results of the increased use of antibiotics. There are plenty of studies out there that track the increased of chronic illness since they began prescribing antibiotics (mold toxins usually) but little to nothing on the connection with the mycobiome. We’re starting to see identification of SIFO but that’s as far as it goes.

Certain species of mold can produce mycotoxins within the host. Some can also produce oxalates within the body (I’m still not sure on the function-mold food?). These increase oxidative stress on the body, reduce redox atopsis & autophagy, and down regulate “less” critical processes in the body so we can escape. Vitamins B1/thiamine takes some of the hardest hits as a result of this oxidative stress.

Additionally any of this occurring intracellularly like oxalates reduces the number of viable cells in the body to support processes so each viable cell has to take on a greater percentage over the overall nutrient & process burden. We can store less of what we need, and do less of what we need, because of aberrant cells.

CFS->Low redox/high oxidative stress->poor thiamine/B1 utilization->Reduced ATP/cellular energy.

PEM->Low redox/high oxidative stress->poor thiamine/B1 utilization->Decreased lactic acid clearance.

MCS->Low redox/high oxidative stress->poor thiamine/B1 utilization->Insufficient B6 activation->Slowed/stopped clearance of toxins from liver.

Burning Skin/Hypersensitivity to stimuli->Low redox/high oxidative stress->poor thiamine/B1 utilization->Insufficient B6 to move potassium into cell (hypokalemia).

Even something like Alzheimer’s, which they are finding may be linked to oxalate buildup, could be tied back to fungi not controlled by bacteria.

Sundowning could be agitation from fungal overgrowth getting more active at night. I think a lot of us experience worsening at night?

I’m also looking at Scandinavia. Reduced sunlight and increased CFS. Could the vitamin D from the sun help control fungi internally? Dr. Seneff feels certain it supports BACTERIA in the gut. This also highlights the “November Effect” and it’s correlation to day length/light exposure. Ventilation is obviously a big part as well.

Lastly what if the ‘Rona is so dangerous to some seemingly healthy folks and not others because of underlying fungal dysbiosis. Traditional Chinese medicine indicates it’s a damp condition which would exacerbate the virus. Especially since it specifically seems to respond well to thiamine as an adjunct support. Hell, folks probably go into massive oxalate “dumps” and those mobilized minerals tear stuff up.

Obviously I’ve been busy thinking...

I’m seeing a LOT of parallels in my symptomology now to where I was as a teen. At that time I ultimately got on top of it with an animal based diet, lots of anti-fun gals, and lots of exercise. The animal based foods were supportive to warm my damp constitution which was making it habitable to fungi (although eating it raw probably hampered that some). Eating keyogenic limited sugars for the fungi (and oxalate intake). The exercise was key. I assumed it made it easier to process fat , which it probably did, but it also warmed and dried the body making it inhospitable to fungi. Each time I’d stray from diet I had flared though which show I was limited in my view on how to properly reestablish balance. Then living in a water-damaged building for four years undid the limited success I had had keeping things in check.

I’m eating a wider Whole Foods diet and adjusting to warm and dry my constitution now. Also taking some herbal antifungals, using appropriate supplements, and taking binders. And my list of safe foods has increased exponentially from just beef a year ago to probably two dozen in regular rotation now.

It’s about balance. Antibiotics upset that balance. The increasing toxins in our world upset that balance. Our all-or-nothing approach with diets upsets that balance. Gotta increase Yang to balance the Yin excess but just to balance otherwise you can kick up bacterial issues.

Oxalates and salicylates feel like they have an antagonistic feel to them. I’m finding anti-fungal foods frequently have elevated salicylates. I think “salicylate intolerance” is our dysbiosis reacting negatively to something ingested which irritates the fungus. Sulfur intolerance may be the same.

I’m beginning to wonder is oxalates and salicylates are different thermal extremes of stored energy. I’ve read many posts by Althea Black (I thought she was a member here but can’t tag her) over the last year where she spoke very forward thinking and abstract thesis on time and our interrelationship with it. In one post she spoke to oxalates being stored energy. I’m beginning to intuit this as well. I’m intuiting a lot as time goes on which was freaking me out in the beginning but I’m coming around to it being positive changes and not psychosis. Mold really is an interesting experience and all things considered I’m now grateful for it as it’s pushed me to grow a lot in a short amount of time. It’s been hell but worth it.

I believe it’s sub-clinical dysautonomia. The body is in some degree of fight or flight and it has difficulty resetting. The more compounded issues the more this is aggravated until the individual is perpetually in fight or flight (or freeze). The body uses thiamine amongst other nutrients to regulate stress. There has been great success by many in overcoming issues driven by underlying dysautonomia through high dose thiamine. The big issue is it doesn’t “stick” and the thiamine becomes a maintenance dose instead of a treatment course. I agree there is more to it especially understanding why it doesn’t stick. For what it’s worth the reason programs like DNRS work is by calming the fight or flight response so the body can start back up other processes secondary to immediate survival but critical to long term health like sulfation or methylation. My issue with those programs is sometimes there is immediate danger and you should be listening to your body.

Maybe CIRS is the body’s response to adjust a flaring damp constitution (internal infection quorum flare) by retaining sodium. It just confuses me as mold seems inhibited by an alkaline PH and not acidic. Now that I think about it though sodium isn’t inherently acidic or basic it’s just heating. The issue arises from a lack of negative ions to bond with sodium to produce basic compounds.

I just realized borax is sodium borate. An alkaline salt. One many have found success with. Some have used it internally as medicine.

Sodium bicarbonate. Also a compound of sodium and a base (carbonates). This is part of a much touted Candida cure.

Is our low stomach acid compounded by the body’s repurposing of sodium elsewhere to address immediate issues? Ultimately resulting in a cascade of nutrient deficiencies due to reduced digestion and subsequent malabsorption? Eventually it’s self perpetuating.

Malabsorption could induce a poor generation of Metallothionein due to lacking substrate. This leads to copper dysregulation as zinc unbalances. Iron precipitates out in the body adding to electromagnetic sensitivities. Additionally the body’s ability to clear heavy metals is reduced and they begin accumulating. Parasites flare up to sequester these metals and preserve the host as part of a wholistic bid for homeostasis.

I am starting to think I’m also guilty of reductionism. Everything above rings true but there’s more at play than just an imbalance of constitution. I’m starting to read more into TCM and much of this is retreading of millennial old thinking. It’s important for humans as a species to not lose that connection with source and the balance of all but it’s short-sighted to think it can be so simplified.

https://www.easterncurrents.ca/.../02/25/diet-and-dampness

Being completely candid here there's a lot of intuition and muscle testing involved in my framework. My experiences over the last year have significantly heightened underlying energy awareness. I'm not going to get into that here as much of this group is science minded but there's a strong involvement with the less measurable. Perhaps from the duration of time one lingers closer to death. I will say as I get stronger I feel a deep connection to the "source".

Everything is just vibrating energy. It's how that energy is able to flow or not flow which enacts changes.
I've been conjecturing that sodium is fire/positive current and potassium is water/ground. Calcium could be air/positive attenuation and magnesium earth/ground attenuation (I'm less comfortable with these two but feel confident in the synergies based on support of sodium/potassium in the body). How they come together creates the form. In my instance I'm an air dominant constitution but my damp state is keeping me muted. I always felt like I was an earth/water constitution since I was younger but I think that was underlying imbalances coming through.

The long and short of it is COVID feels like a global shift. It's time for each of us to sink or swim. Not only am I planning on swimming but I'm going to toss life preservers to anyone I can while I'm at it.

Maybe calcium & magnesium are the "time" aspects. Modulation of anabolic and catabolic states. Regeneration & decay. Air feeds fire to burn quicker. Earth added to water slows it. A work in progress.

[djr_81]

I realized today the reason why COVID is so virulent in some is traditional Chinese medicine’s views on damp/wet conditions. We have been seeing an increase in dysbiosis of the microbiome commensurate with the increased use of antibiotics. Antibiotics induce a fungal dominance when they take out bacteria which would normally balance them out. This can imbalance the individual towards damp/cold (yin/estrogen dominance). The danger is this new environment hospitable for fungus which produce oxalates in the host adding to oxidative stress on the cells. Even when not producing oxalates impairing redox the load on the system clearing aldehydes impairs detoxification. And runs down a very limited supply of molybdenum in the body.

This is why I’ve struggled this year. I’m very much a wet/cold constitution. I have been for a long time but eating no carb, caloric restriction, and getting exercise kept the cell load reduced, autophagy high, and the exercise was somewhat warming. I got really sick fall/winter 2019 and it set this cascade in motion. Might have involved COVID, might have been something else. Either way that lead to the current predicament.

Hopefully understanding the change in battle tactics now I can start making better headway. Keeping positive and as stress free as possible is key as nutrients, like B1, get run down when stressed. When that gets too low detoxification in the body slows, toxins build up, and it becomes a negative feedback loop. That’s why I had such issues with chemical sensitivities. Ongoing toxin load from things like mold, histamines, phenols, and salicylates we’re hitting a roadblock in my liver. You need B1 to activate B6 to perform sulfation amongst other detox pathways. Unfortunately with the winter I’m inside more, less sunlight, and now starting in on anti-fungals. My chemical sensitivities are flaring again. I need to slow things down a bit, clear out my liver, then pick up speed again.
Just keep swimming...