What Am I Doing That's Making Me Feel Better?

[messtafarian]

After a couple of months of going to doctors, I sort of gave up and went into a fugue state. I've been up in my bedroom, really nearly bedridden ( well ok i can't say that, my HQ is my bed but I pad around to the fridge and bathroom and so on) for about two months. I took a crapton of supplements and finally gave up on those too including pregnenolone. The only things I've been taking are a chewable multiple with copper, etc; topical progest-e, and about 200mg extra B1 chewable, when I think of it.

Months, I'm talking. I would sleep when I wanted to, hours at a time, shower every couple days, and just sort of drift.

Then I got this craving. I started eating Rice Krispies. I mean like boxes of Rice Krispies but that's not the weird part; the weird part is that the only thing that would satisfy me would be to take the Rice Krispies, put them on a paper plate and plop big chunks of KerryGold Irish Butter on top and put it in the microwave until the butter was melted. Then I would douse this mess with salt.

I could not get enough of this. I wanted absolutely nothing else. I fed myself plates and plates and plates of this stuff for days basically just heading back downstairs to the microwave every two hours or so. I must have been eating about three thousand calories a day of buttered Rice Krispies. When I slept I'd take about 4 mg cyproheptadine beforehand. No caffeine at all, no aspirin, no coconut oil. No exercise, just me going back and forth to the microwave and watching Netflix. That went on for about a week.

Suddenly I realized I was feeling a little better. Not *great* -- but my weird nerve symptoms were almost gone, my stomach was working a lot better, and then I checked my pulse. I know we like fast pulses in the Peat world but mine had been running somewhere between 95-105 for months and when I stood up I'd get POTS. Checked my pulse this morning and it was suddenly...60, at total rest. When I stood up, 82.

Normal. No dizziness, no twitching, no crazy sweating.

I somehow got a lot better than I've been in 9 months eating Rice Krispies and butter. Now the question is, what in the hell did I do right?

 

[sele]

I love it when I see posts where people are feeling better and healing themselves. Congrats!
There seems to be many things you're doing right. Cyproheptadine lowers serotonin. Lowered serotonin reduces torpor.You're probably getting better sleep from it,too. Anything that improves your sleep quality will take you closer to better health.
Cyproheptadine increases appetite. You may start to gain weight.

 

[Tarmander]

That is great! Sometimes you just need some down time and to do nothing. I remember I was in a very stressful job for two years and I tried everything to make it manageable. I did supplements, I napped all the time, I did everything I could think of to get myself on the right track. Eventually I just quit and laid around for about a month and a half, and that did more then any of the supplements or anything else I tried ever did.

 

[Giraffe]

Messtafarian, you mentioned elsewhere that you skipped breakfast or had it very late. Could it be that you did not get enough calories? ... Do I sound like Tara now?

Nutrition fact for Kellogs Rice Krispies: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/bre ... als/1551/2

Good to hear that you feel better now!

 

[messtafarian]

I actually have gained weight -- about 15 pounds in three months. It doesn't feel good, I feel puffy and gross. On the other hand, I would take that fifteen pounds over whatever was going on before, and if I *hadn't*gained weight I would have been really worried. In March I lost about ten pounds because nothing I ate would stay in me longer than 15 minutes and would just come out the "other end".

I did wonder that about the calories. Or whether I just was not digesting anything at all that I was eating. The only thing really wrong with Rice Krispies is that it has way too much iron in it.

 

[tara]

Messtafarian, you mentioned elsewhere that you skipped breakfast or had it very late. Could it be that you did not get enough calories? ... Do I sound like Tara now?

My first thought reading the post was - yay for lots of easy to digest calories.

 

[Peata]

What the others said, easy digestion, plus maybe the short chain butyric acid in the butter calmed inflammation in your gut and the rest of your body. It's supposed to help metabolism.

The Rice Crispies are mild carrier, a filler, the same as crackers, toast, chips, etc. But they are low fat, low fiber, and rice is pretty easy on most people from what I understand. Of course the salt is good for the adrenals.

Glad you are feeling better. That's awesome.

 

[messtafarian]

Thanks!

Funny thing about the butter -- I have really been craving it and it seems to be very soothing for my digestion but I've never had the same experience with coconut oil. I will eat it, and I use it, but it feels harder on my intestines and on me in general. Wonder why butter feels helpful and coconut oil doesn't.

 

[mangolife]

There really is something about butter that's infinitely soothing.

Also, are rice krispies a good Peaty food? I love those little bastards. Anyhow, glad to hear you're feeling better!

 

[messtafarian]

Rice Krispies are low residue, which is a Peat Yes, and he names rice as one of the safest starches. He advocates a mostly NO starch diet though for a lot of reasons. The only thing I think he'd mention is that all prepared cereals are fortified with iron, and he might say at those levels it's a somewhat dangerous amount.

 

[mangolife]

That's alright, then. I think I have a higher starch diet than most Peatarians, anyhow - but it's okay, because I do really well on it. I'll get some Rice Krispies tomorrow, then! The iron shouldn't pose too much of a problem, since I drink plenty of coffee to block iron absorption. I suppose the other fortified minerals and vitamins aren't a problem, then?

 

[answersfound]

Certainly the cyproheptadine. After all it is the wonder drug.

 

[messtafarian]

That is no joke. It really is, I don't know if I could live without it now.

 

[InChristAlone]

Man I wish this would happen to me! Cypro tends to completely knock me out if I start using it regularly even at low doses and I have to function as a Mom.

So you were getting a lot of synthetic vitamins plus iron, do you think all that iron is what made you feel better? I wonder if you will continue getting better. Sometimes heavy metals can increase hemoglobin which makes us feel good for a time. Were you doing a Peaty diet before the rice krispies? Some people are just not going to thrive on a high fruit/calcium diet as I've seen from some of the people I've talked with.

 

[messtafarian]

I have a different sense of Peat than I did a couple years ago. I used to think that there was a
Peat Diet and now I know it was really not his intention for everyone in the world to drink two gallons of milk every day etc. I wish I had had a more global sense of that a long time ago because it probably would have saved me a lot of frustration.

There are two takeaway points just to begin with. One is, starch molecules in an unhealthy gut can be really allergenic and damaging; and two is that PUFA are just not good for anybody and cause disease. His recommendations - or statements, I guess -- sort of stem from one major idea which is that a whole lot of the food at the grocery store isn't even food at all. I don't think a "high fruit, high calcium" diet matters, it's just adequate nutrition with food that is food.

I don't think Peat would think Rice Krispies are food. But it probably doesn't leave residue in a damaged gut and raises blood sugar probably just as well as a fruit salad :).

 

[answersfound]

Man I wish this would happen to me! Cypro tends to completely knock me out if I start using it regularly even at low doses and I have to function as a Mom.

So you were getting a lot of synthetic vitamins plus iron, do you think all that iron is what made you feel better? I wonder if you will continue getting better. Sometimes heavy metals can increase hemoglobin which makes us feel good for a time. Were you doing a Peaty diet before the rice krispies? Some people are just not going to thrive on a high fruit/calcium diet as I've seen from some of the people I've talked with.

I have gotten the same response with cypro. My theory is that it will make you a zombie while you're on it, but once it clears out of your system after a day or two, you feel great...maybe it has to do with dopamine being wiped out

 

[messtafarian]

I don't think dopamine is wiped out with cypro. I had a catecholamine test while I was on it and had high dopamine. What it will do is strongly antagonize serotonin which will strongly inhibit cortisol. If you've been running on stress for a long time like most people you suddenly just want to sleep forever.

I don't think I have the same zombified response to cypro anymore, but I've been on it a couple months now.

 

[tara]

When you all talk about low dose cyproheptadine, are you talking 1/2 - 1mg? I could tell an 1/8th of a 4mg tablet had some effect on me.

 

[tara]

Another thought about butter. I don't know if this applies to you messta - seems as though you've had some fairly complicated things going on - so this is speculation, not confidence.
Nerves need good myelin sheaths to support efficient function. I think you may have had concerns about vagus nerve function, and maybe other nerve function? Myelin is mostly fat. I think severe undereating can result in damaged myelin sheaths. I imagine that maybe severe difficulties with digestion, or with converting sugars into fats on a low fat diet, or some other part of the process of turning food into myelin might also cause some degradation in this system. Maybe this could be part of what was going on, and loads of butter filled this gap for you?

 

[Peata]

This came from body ecology site. Twenty health benefits of butter.


Butter is rich in the most easily absorbable form of Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health.
Contains lauric acid, important in treating fungal infections and candida.
Contains lecithin, essential for cholesterol metabolism.
Contains anti-oxidants that protect against free radical damage.
Has anti-oxidants that protect against weakening arteries.
Is a great source of Vitamins E and K.
Is a very rich source of the vital mineral selenium.
Saturated fats in butter have strong anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties.
Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster
Vitamin D found in butter is essential to absorption of calcium.
Protects against tooth decay.
Is your only source of an anti-stiffness factor, which protects against calcification of the joints.
Anti-stiffness factor in butter also prevents hardening of the arteries, cataracts, and calcification of the pineal gland.
Is a source of Activator X, which helps your body absorb minerals.
Is a source of iodine in highly absorbable form.
May promote fertility in women.
Is a source of quick energy, and is not stored in our bodies adipose tissue.
Cholesterol found in butterfat is essential to children’s brain and nervous system development.
Contains Arachidonic Acid (AA) which plays a role in brain function and is a vital component of cell membranes.
Protects against gastrointestinal infections in the very young or the elderly.