Yuri recovery

[rawlion]

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

What do I have to do now?
 
1. Stop looking for a treatment

2. Stop listening to my obsessive and intrusive thoughts

3. Go to bed early at night

4. Do not go to the doctor, do not take medication, do not read books that are related to my disorder and do not collect information about my problems

very simple!

[lex_rooker]

With all due respect but I can’t agree that my problem is just mental.

I think that we often forget that our minds have tremendous power over our bodies.  What we think, very often expresses itself in both our behaviour and our physical health and well being. 

I've made myself sick on occasion and I assure you that even though there was no organic basis for my illness, I was quite physically ill - complete with skin rashes, diarrhea, and vomiting.  I've never done this on purpose, but I've had it happen spontaneously when under very high mental stress.

I wouldn't discount the mental aspect to quickly.  Not only is it a viable explanation for what you are experiencing, it is also very difficult to overcome because it goes to the very core of our being.

Lex

[wodgina]

Yeah, stress/buried emotion tend to effect my body as much as drinking coke and eating Macca's

Especially when I get caught up with being successful...building wealth and all that supposedly unimportant stuff!

and.. Number 5. Do your housework and ask for nothing in return

[DameonWolf]

My Theory: I could see intermittent fasting triggering a lot of bad stuff. When you fast, you essentially tell your body to begin massive clean up. When you interrupt that clean up, BANG, your channels that we're starting to move out crap got clogged. One way trip to disaster. Can take a while to recover.

[rawlion]

hello friends

I'll give you a rundown on my latest developments.

Exactly one month ago the Whole Desiccated Bovine Thyroid Concentrate Capsules from Nutri-Meds™ arrived. At that time I was driven into a corner by my health problems. Frankly speaking I didn’t pin much faith on them. I was skeptical about their effect mainly because I tried eating raw thyroid and failed to notice any difference. However, just one week after starting on rather low dose, I experienced some positive changes. First and foremost, my long lasting constipation subsided. My bowels became regular and moved with ease. I was able to slightly increase my food intake as a result. I still couldn’t eat enough. However, there definitely were some positive signs. The presented evidence filled me with enthusiasm.

I believed that that was only the beginning and with increasing the dose there will be more improvement. I thought that eventually my digestion will get optimized and will work at its full capacity. But most of all I hoped I would be able to raise my body temperatures.

Last weekend I went to a sauna. I was subjected to hot steam around 80-100 Celsius and still failed to sweat at leas a bit. Whereas excessive sweating is one of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism I may conclude.

I also noticed that when I take thyroid supplements and stay at home all day long I am able to maintain my body temperature at around 98 (36.7) F. However, when I go outside, the temperature inevitably drops to 97 (36.1) or even less.

Now it has been one month since starting thyroid supplement. The problem is that despite considerably increasing the dose there were no further improvements. My whole progress is limited to that initial boost. Most of the time I have low body temperature and tremble like an aspen leaf. Here and there I experience the “previous” heaviness in the gut despite I am very careful to not overeat (3-4 oz of food at a time is my current hard rule). But considering the changes I experienced at the beginning I might assume I have to pursue with thyroid as it seems to be the right direction.

In the first place I need to find out and adjust my optimal dose. The complete elimination of symptoms and a mid-afternoon temp of 98.6 are indicative criteria for the correct amount.

For the thyroid supplement which I have got the recommended use is “one capsule daily or as otherwise directed by physician or qualified health care practitioner”. Somewhere in the internet there were suggestions about two capsules daily at most. However, when talking about standardized prescription desiccated thyroid Armour, it appears that most end up needing 3-5 grains at the minimum when finding optimal dose. Armour prescription letter states that maintenance dosage is 1-2 grains. One grain of Armour is allegedly equal to four capsules of Nutri-Meds… This is the first dilemma, i.e. how much to take…

The second one is adrenals related. “Those who are already on thyroid medication and experience strange symptoms when raising the dose, say it can be due to sluggish, low-functioning adrenals, which means low cortisol production. And since cortisol is needed to help the receptors on cells receive thyroid hormones from the blood, patients with sluggish adrenals and on thyroid medication can start having strange reactions to the thyroid medication as they raise. They can also find themselves with a high free T3 and continuing hypo symptoms, since thyroid hormones will build in the blood serum without adequate cortisol.” < http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/things-we-have-learned/ > With that said it is obvious that too much thyroid or raising too fast may put additional stress on the adrenals and subsequently worsen the situation.

Finally, it is important to know how fast to raise. More experienced patients reported that when they fail to raise from a starting dose within two weeks or less, their hypo starts to return with a vengeance due to the hypothalamus/pituitary/thyroid feedback loop. So it is bad to either raise too fast (too much strain on adrenals) or too slow (feedback loop).

Certainly there is plenty of food for thought…

[Nicola]

Yuri, Lynnhopes has quite a bit of "ideas" on your topic:

http://zerocarbage.com/showthread.php?tid=401

You could post and ask...

Nicola

[goodsamaritan]

A book I recommend that summarizes most of the things I know is Food is your best medicine by Henry Bieler MD. http://www.amazon.com/Food-Your-Medicine-Henry-Bieler/dp/0345351835

Instead of running through my whole website Cure Manual, just read that 1 book and you will be given a better insight into how to solve your current health issues.

[wodgina]

sounds like a placebo effect especiall as you tried raw thyroid in the past and it did nothing. I find it hard to believe your current regime will do any more than deplete your bank account.

[rawlion]

Okay, let’s put all the symptoms, possible illnesses and unsubstantial complains aside. In my case there is only one undeniable evidence so far and that is uric acid kidney stones. I’d like to go into details here.

At the time the stones formed and created ureteral obstruction I was already eating rawpaleo diet for one year. Actually the stones incident put en end to my two months plus long zero carb trial. Back then I was searching how to deal with my possible hypothyroid and consumed raw bovine thyroid daily in the amount of 4-5 oz.

I can only speculate what could have led to the stones formation, however, there seem to be two contributing causes at most:
   1. excessive purine intake
   2. ketogenic diet
My diet prior to the accident was definitely very high in purines. Apart from usual pound of muscle/organ meat and some suet/marrow I was also consuming thyroid and liver which both yielded around 1500 and 500 mg of purines daily respectively. I was getting roughly  However, it should be noted that the overall contribution of foods high in uric acid is debatable – figures of between 5% and 15% are common.

Kidney stones is probably the most cited side-effect of the Ketogenic Diet. I fall inside it pretty well. Also I wanted to refer to this discussion: http://www.karlloren.com/diet/p75.htm According to Aajonus:

“Ninety percent of what Kaplan says is true for cooked food diets, including the Atkins diet. No one has developed kidney stones on my Primal Diet because uric acids do not excessively form nor collect when eating raw meat.

The low-metabolism occurs on a low-carb/no-carb diet because of the glucose is consumed as the body tries to reduce the toxicity generated from being cooked. Humans require little glucose from carbs to produce health when the diet is raw with meats and fat.”

Until I found out the hard way I thought that raw natural whole foods can’t hurt. Now I realize that under certain conditions they may be quite damaging.

Finally, I wanted to answer the question why my “raw” treatment of hypothyroidism didn’t work. As I mentioned before, I was rather skeptical about thyroid supplements. I was convinced that if it was the case I would have noticed some changes from eating plenty of raw thyroid. Besides, my thyroid lab came normal and even in upper range. However, I have to admit that my conclusion was a bit premature. You see, the supplement letter to the prescription drug Armour (natural dried porcine thyroid extract) under the dosage and administration section recommends for hypothyroidism a therapy, “usually instituted using low doses with increments. The starting dose is 30mg. most patients require 60-120 mg and that is maintenance dose.” Not quite what I was doing by eating up to 5 oz or raw bovine thyroid. But, according to this letter, “administration of thyroid hormone in doses higher than those produced physiologically by the gland results in suppression of the production of endogenous hormone.” It seems obvious that I triggered thyroid suppression therapy by consuming hefty amounts of raw hormones…

[DameonWolf]

Your case has had me pondering for quite a while. One of the facts I MUST bring to light here is the assumption that your kidney stones formed in a short period of time. The reality is you really don't know how long it took for them to form, they could have been forming your entire life. You definitley maybe right in thinking your diet triggered them, but it's also possible they were on their way out inevitably.

[JaX]

Hi Yuri.. Just came across your last few posts, and while I don't want to come off as negative, I have to say that I honestly think you are completely over-analysing and adding a huge stressor in your life as a result.

Has something happened in your life over which you had no control? And have you because of this uncontrollable/unexpected event looked for, and found, something over which you DO feel a sense of control - and it's completely consuming you, because you need that sense of control all the time?
That is common psychology.


I'm not saying it's bad to have a hobby, or even a distraction, but you are clearly analyzing too far, you are adding unnecessary stress in your life. Something like nutrition and health is something involving way too many factors for our brain to ever fully comprehend, you have to understand you can't measure your own temperature in different environments and ask yourself "why you didn't sweat at the sauna" and make conclusions about the health of your body or organs based on that. It only adds stress to the mind which stresses your physical body as well. It can become a nasty habit that is difficult to get rid off.

Much of what you are experiencing is pure placebo.

Maybe you need to reconnect in a new way in your life?


Please let me know what you think of what I just said.

[wodgina]

 in yuri's very first post he declares he was healthy until the passing away of his mother pushed him towards raw veganism...primal...raw paleo. The diet thing for him has sprung completely out of control.

[reyyzl]

Have you considered the pemmican+liver+water diet?

Might be dangerous for you because of the three weeks of lethargy, and your extreme reaction to lack of sweet, but the problem seems to stem from carbohydrate addiction. - by William on 10-23

    That gets rid of carbohydrate addiction?  How so?  Do you have good pemmican recipes?

[rawlion]

Hi Yuri.. Just came across your last few posts, and while I don't want to come off as negative, I have to say that I honestly think you are completely over-analysing and adding a huge stressor in your life as a result.

Has something happened in your life over which you had no control? And have you because of this uncontrollable/unexpected event looked for, and found, something over which you DO feel a sense of control - and it's completely consuming you, because you need that sense of control all the time?
That is common psychology.


I'm not saying it's bad to have a hobby, or even a distraction, but you are clearly analyzing too far, you are adding unnecessary stress in your life. Something like nutrition and health is something involving way too many factors for our brain to ever fully comprehend, you have to understand you can't measure your own temperature in different environments and ask yourself "why you didn't sweat at the sauna" and make conclusions about the health of your body or organs based on that. It only adds stress to the mind which stresses your physical body as well. It can become a nasty habit that is difficult to get rid off.

Much of what you are experiencing is pure placebo.

Maybe you need to reconnect in a new way in your life?


Please let me know what you think of what I just said.

I agree with you. Most of my life I used to take everything to the extremes... Diet was not exception.

As regards over-analysing I think I can't stop doing that. This is partially because I have brilliant memory. I recollect certain things from the past and they make me wonder why the difference is so huge now and why it was like that back then. The case with sauna was no different. I clearly remember how I reacted to hot exposure a couple of years ago (I sweated a lot) and that it is absolutely different right now.

However, I think there is one way out. If somebody can suggest a natural and painless remedy for COMPLETE memory loss I would readily give it a try. I will forget this uncontrollable death of my mother, all the dietary tips and other unhealthy contributors to my downfall... But, if I succeed, I won't report about my progress here...

Honestly, I have no idea how to reconnect...

thanks for suggestions

[JaX]

You can't cause yourself complete memory loss, and even if you could, would you?

We are all dealt different cards in life, you have to play the ones you're dealt as well as you can.

If you want to get over something that has happened, or forget something, the only way is diversion. You need to fill your entire day, every single minute, with something that diverts you attention completely from stress or anxious thoughts and bad memories. You need new skills.

I'll explain it in scientific terms, if you need it: the more you focus on something, the more neural pathways are created in the brain for that specific skill or memory, and they get better and better at carrying impulses - you train yourself to feel "stress" or a certain memory, and you can become very good at it. That makes it extremely difficult to just "let go of a memory" or "get over something" because it's not enough to sit back and relax and try to block out thoughts, that's impossible. You don't need to stop your thoughts, you need to REPLACE them, that's the only way. When you preoccupy yourself completely with a new set of skills, your new skills will lead to new differing memories, which will slowly make new neural pathways in the brain, and there will be less and less activity in the old neural pathways, which means, with time you will get increasingly better at not thinking your old unpleasant thoughts.

The thoughts you are predominantly thinking (over analysis) are a habit. And since the brain needs activity constantly, and you seem to have a very active brain and good memory, it's impossible to stop thinking, instead you need to provide something else to use brain energy for, this will then become a new habit.

The human mind can only focus on one thing at a time. Remember that.


You have to figure out what you want to do..
Do something which preoccupies your thinking and will create a new skill in your life.
It could be a new project, new job(s), a trip to a country far away, hitchhiking on a different continent? Something radically different from what you have done so far, to break the old mind pattern.


If you want to stop over analyzing nutrition then a good place to start would be spend less time online and reading about all the factors, vitamins, you know.. (but remember, REPLACE that time you read about nutrition with something else)

Good luck

[wodgina]

You don't want to completely rid your memory because there are good memories too.
I've gone through something very similiar and there is hope. At the moment you may be in pain and and when your in pain that's all you can think about.

Seeker's advice is on the money. You can 'rewire' your brain away from health/nutrition and the tendency towards introspection to look outwards to new hobbies, sport etc it can take time (6 to 8 years) you'll never be the same as before your life changed but you can still be happy and healthy.

You have to think of today as the first day of your life, change your life, turn off the internet, stop reading books and move forward.

Good luck.

[William]

There is always http://www.healself.org/. It works.

reyyzl, it gets rid of carb addiction by replacing carbs with fat. No cravings for me.
Pemmican is just powdered very dried beef mixed with tallow. Keep it simple.

[wodgina]

I wonder how Yuri's getting on.

[reyyzl]

   Hi William, I do find staying far away from carbohydrates and having plenty of raw fat around does help.  I haven't really eaten pemmican yet.  I'm kind of scared of it.  I like raw food.  I think it works better for me.

    I have tried Dr Bernarr DC's ways, consulted with him, et al.  He probably has helped many people, but his ways did not work for us, nor I assume for many others.  Has he gotten into food now?  Is he practicing dry fasting?  What's his weekly caloric intake recommendations of recent?  Has his particular energy medicine ideas helped you?

There is always http://www.healself.org/. It works.

reyyzl, it gets rid of carb addiction by replacing carbs with fat. No cravings for me.
Pemmican is just powdered very dried beef mixed with tallow. Keep it simple.

    Hi Yuri,  reading all you went through and seeing your recovering is inspiring that to continue to try everything possible even with whatever limitations each of anyone has, we may get 'there'  eventually.  Besides myself, my family shows no interest in raw foods nor paleo.  I have gotten one to try unpasteurized Amish butter and unheated honey on the skin, which worked so well and so caused only smiles and healing, but that's it, no more using it since that time several weeks ago.

    Are you doing well Yuri?  Sorry I haven't been around lately.  Warm wishes to you (-:  What did you do for the holidays?  We miss you on the boards, I do.

[William]

   

 >   I have tried Dr Bernarr DC's ways, consulted with him, et al.  He probably has helped many people, but >his ways did not work for us, nor I assume for many others.  Has he gotten into food now?

It is a water fast until very hungry, then raw food - apparently he approved of my pemmican at the time, as he did not say anything about it.

>  Is he practicing dry fasting?

It is always a water fast.

>  What's his weekly caloric intake recommendations of recent?

He didn't say anything about calories.

>  Has his particular energy medicine ideas helped you?

I don't know anything about energy medicine; just followed his advice.

   

[letifer]

Hi Yuri,

I just read the entire thread and wanted to offer some advice since I am suffering from similar symptoms as you. I think the greatest commonality between us is stress (and the resultant fatigue, brain fog, dark circles, lack of joy, etc. ). Stress is absolutely deadly whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual.

One thing which I always find a lack of mention on health sites is the value of sexual abstinence.  I would strongly suggest you avoid sex (no more than a couple times a month),masturbation,porn, and sexual stimuli. This was hugely beneficial to me. It is still not clear to me whether the main benefit comes for nutrient preservation (semen is rich in various minerals and fats) or the abstinence from orgasm (orgasm changes the chemistry of the brain; releasing prolactin so as to lower dopamine is one example.). I don't mean to say that you can't/won't have a sex life, only that sex/masturbation/orgasm can exhaust you tremendously when you are in an already weakened state. You need all of your energy to heal. As a search term I suggest "sexual exhaustion". There are forums dedicated to people trying to heal themselves, mostly through diet, lifestyle, supplements, and correcting hormonal imbalances.

Have you tried yoga, meditation, or deep breathing? I find that it helps with calming the mind.

The other thing I would suggest is to get a hair mineral analysis done. I have gotten two done and both came back with heavy metals. Heavy metal toxicity can wreak all sorts of havoc on you body and mental faculties.

Now some of my suggestions are not strictly diet related so I hope I am not violating any forum ethics by expanding the topic beyond the scope of diet.

[rawlion]

Dear Friends!

I apologize that I went missing. Things did not come around as they were expected and I didn’t have any opportunity to update my Journal. But I really missed you. Now I’ll try to catch up on all events.

Finally I saw the old year out. 2008 was by a country mile the hardest year in my life. Yes it was much more difficult, painful and distressing than 2006, when I lost my mom, my physique and my health in general. But I still cherished a forlorn hope for recovery.

January and February were bitter, titanic struggle. I was making every effort to at least put on hold my rapid decline by adjusting my supplement regimen and refining my diet. I was trying to understand how particular food or pill affected me and draw appropriate conclusions. I was upping my adrenal support, lowering thyroid and vice versa. I was increasing and decreasing my carb intake while looking for the least offensive sources. I was experimenting with digestive enzymes and Betaine HCL. But I got nowhere. I was chasing lost, hopeless cause.

This past winter was definitely the worst winter I have ever had. No matter how many clothes I wore I was still horribly frozen… I can’t describe accurately enough how it feels to experience such torturing coldness. It is just unbearable and brutal. Even now, when outside temperature reaches 35 C [95 F], I am dressed in a jacked. For such odd behaviour I was arrested by police yesterday. They obviously have failed to discern real causes

At the end of February I took a big decision. I left my job. Acute symptoms persisted and I couldn’t perform my duties anymore. In fact, I could barely get from home to office and back. It was an uphill task for me. There were no alternative. I just was sanking deeper and deeper into my misery.

Then I put all my remaining strength into finding a specialist/doctor who could have helped me. I came prepared at each visit. Whenever I was given an opportunity to express myself I was trying to explain that I might be suffering from adrenal fatigue and/or hypothyroid. I presented lists of symptoms. Nobody took me seriously. I was ejected everywhere – from my local clinic to the Institute of Endocrinology. Ordinary doctors, specialists, professors and even doctors of medicine took a dim view of me and my problems.

I was completely lost… I heavily lacked support and understanding. I was wasting away. I wished I was put out of my misery. There seemed to be no escape from that. So I decided to live out my remaining days in the countryside.

On April 16 I packed my things and went home… The only good thing about that was that there was no internet, computer or even TV in the village. The total rest beckoned.

Just days before this date arrived another portion of magic pills from the US. I spent nearly 300$ on these adrenal and thyroid supplements. When I was ordering them they seemed to be my last hope. But I changed my mind when they were being shipped. I got them too little too late. When I collected the box at the post office I didn’t even open it. Straight into the bin. Bang! And don’t tell me that I’m nuts. I know that. So this was exactly my defiant mood when I was facing imminent trip back home.

Due to the lack of desirable effect from the cortisol/thyroid supplements and worsening symptoms I got out of patience with them and decided to stop them altogether. I started weaning off in Kyiv and by the May 1, when I was already in my village, I was completely off any hormones. With each reduction in dose I gained more and more confidence that I don’t need them at all. As far as my symptoms were concerned I didn’t notice any significant changes. Maybe that was because it could hardly be any worse than that. To my great surprise, there was a slight improvement in my body and rising temperatures. Slowly but surely, I was moving towards my goal, that is to get off any medications and continue self healing. However, I definitely became less stable emotionally. I had reoccurring attacks of anxiety, hopelessness, despair and depression. In general I felt strange. I was trying to calm myself and remain upbeat. Until the first accident happened.

After about a week in the countryside it got even worse. Well, I took cold, developed pneumonia, and that was nearly the end of me. I didn’t even care when my body temperature rose beyond 103F. I had no desire to fight for my life. I wished the quickest possible dispatch. But the following day the temperature dropped to the ordinary LOW. I don’t know why, but I persuaded myself to go to the drugstore, buy some antibiotics and kill the bugs in my lungs. In about 7 days I was back to my normal BAD.

Since I realized that in the village I wouldn’t be able to get any meats I decided eschew them altogether. April was my meatless month. I went on native familiar diet consisting of cooked potatoes, eggs and dairy. 6 April was my first day in ages when I ate the cooked food. Ha, boiled potatoes tasted so strange… It brought some childhood memories.

Over the four following weeks I never touched any sugar or fruit, except on two occasions when I had extreme fever and ate some honey. I was very strict with myself, eating four/five small meals each day. Dynamic Duo, i.e. Starch and Protein, were always consumed together, with some fat to taste. My staples were eggs, cream/butter and potatoes. I aimed at 2500 kcal daily. I averaged around 50-60 g of protein and 120-150 g of carbs. The rest was fat.

During another four following weeks I made some changes. I exchanged eggs for meat and experimented with other sources of starch, namely buckwheat and brown rice.

As a result of this cooked adventure, which lasted two months in total, my digestion has not improved at all. Eating caused me real discomfort. However, I have noticed that my stomach pains were not as severe. The bouts of violent diarrhea became less frequent. But stools were poorly formed and runny. Dull, nagging pain under my left ribs remained. I felt sleepy all the time. My eyes were swollen, dry, red and weary. At the same time I felt a bit stronger in my muscles, despite they were always sore.

On the 1-st of June I was taken on a week-long journey to the Black Sea coast. During the first three days I was successful in getting meat but the following three were absolutely bare so I had to fast. It was a screamingly hard experience. I had to check with my diary whether it was actually me who did intermittent fasting for nearly a year… I felt like I was going to die, honestly… It cost me a great deal of effort and maybe much, much more…

Before I went to the countryside I had donated blood. I did it because I though it would correct my ferritin levels if they were excessive. Two months later I contacted the clinic to learn with a surprise that they had found HBcAb in my blood. Quite a piece of bad news. It actually meant that I might have been infected in the past with hepatitis B or had either acute or chronic infection. Further tests had shown that my HBsAg antibodies were pretty high. That might indicate that my body developed immunity to HB V and that I had had it in the past.

On 25-th of May I woke up buzzing. That was the anniversary of a BIG day. Four years ago we[LFC] famously won the European Cup for the fifth time. It was THE most incredible night in my life for several reasons. We completed the most amazing comeback of all time, I was accompanied by an absolute beauty of a girl… Now I live on my memories only. Until the spring of 2006 I had almost perfect health. Then I made this BIG mistake of raw veganism. Somehow I survived. At the beginning of 2007 I took rather courageous step, i.e. RAW Primal Diet. It was a revelation. I was back to my life. Now I can’t stop asking myself why on earth did I try that damned intermittent fasting. It ruined me big time. This was the second biggest mistake of my whole life but it might prove to be decisive. Or not?

The diet is just such a small thing in the complicated matter of health, wellbeing and happiness. Every time I saunter through the town and see those careless boys and girls with coke and hamburgers in their hands I kindly envy them. Honestly, I wish I never knew all these nutrition details and healthy eating habits. I realize that I will never be FREE.

[Ioanna]

Welcome Back!!

How are you/where are you now?

I realize that I will never be FREE.

You're too smart to be satisfied by some false sense of 'freedom' that stems from ignorance.  You'll earn your freedom, and that will be the real meaning of FREE.

[goodsamaritan]

Wow....

[William]

Intermittent fasting works for me, I think because I eat a lot of animal fat - this is the raw zero carbohydrate diet.
It also keeps me warm when others are complaining of the cold.

If you are up to reading, here is an inspiring story from one who believes that carbohydrates are poison (i agree with him):http://tiny.cc/qTDcg
http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/Bear_s_Words_Of_Wisdom_about22.html

Personally, while I am no longer free to live and eat as I once did, I am free of depression, drugs/supplements, doctors and can be confident that the damage of years of innocense will be healed.