Antibiotic Usage And Estrogen

lindsay

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I recently had appendicitis and had to have an open appendectomy - about a week and a half ago. Prior to the operation, I had a VERY high fever - peaking at 103 F - and a resting heart rate at 123 bpm. It was bad - I couldn't eat and I had a terrifying panic attack one night when I was alone. But, after the surgery, the doctor sent me home with two rounds of antibiotics. I also began to take one grain of thyroid again after the surgery because the stress had caused very bad edema and I had to have a catscan to diagnose the appendicitis, so I thought thyroid would help with the negative effects of the radiation.

So, that brings me to the antibiotics - I couldn't eat for a week because my appetite was gone, so that might be part of the reason I lost weight, but it seems that the estrogen dominance weight I had prior to the surgery is seemingly gone after the antibiotics, despite the stress of the surgery. I had accumulated some fat on my stomach and inner thighs that I could not get rid of and it seems to have disappeared following the two antibiotics I had to take. I didn't think anything of it until I listened to an old interview with RP on the herb doctors and he mentioned how antibiotics lower estrogen and were once used for fertility.....

My question is, how long might this last post-antibiotics and is it safe to use antibiotics as a semi-regular treatment for estrogen dominance? I haven't been prescribed them in years, but man does it make you feel like a whole new person. I don't like the idea of using them regularly, but I do travel a lot and can probably get my doctor to write me a prescription for when I'm traveling (I've heard they do this if you ask). However, are there natural ways I can get the same effect? I've heard of people using activated charcoal, which has helped me in the past, but I'm not sure it works like an antibiotic. The carrot salad did not seem to be very beneficial for me in the past - not any more so than just eating more fruit or some veggies.

Would much appreciate any input. Thanks!
 

tara

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Glad you got through the appendicitis. Aside from any effects from the anti-biotics (I expect they would help reduce the load on the liver; I won't comment on safety of repeated use), don't underestimate the extra energy required for repair after the surgery, during a time when you were not eating much. It may be lucky you had that reserve fuel available to get you through those stresses.
 
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lindsay

lindsay

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tara said:
Glad you got through the appendicitis. Aside from any effects from the anti-biotics (I expect they would help reduce the load on the liver; I won't comment on safety of repeated use), don't underestimate the extra energy required for repair after the surgery, during a time when you were not eating much. It may be lucky you had that reserve fuel available to get you through those stresses.

Thank you Tara - yes, I was glad to have a little extra padding on me. The whole thing was very unwanted and stressful and my body is still healing. I've been feeding my body what it wants - which is mostly high fat dairy at this point. Lots of cheese :) But I'm still curious about antibiotics and estrogen because I felt my estrogen levels would have been higher from the stress of surgery.
 

narouz

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Lindsay-
Personally, I wouldn't think of antibiotics as a first-line approach to estrogen.
The diet would be first for me, and the carrot salad is a great idea.

If you did go pharma, look into cyproheptadine and lisuride.
Search the forums here and you'll find good stuff.

And with antibiotics: all are not created equal (equally Peatian, that is).
Again, lots of info on the forum.
But minocycline, doxicycline (got the spelling wrong but...), and tetracycline,
and penicillin are some better possibilities.

I had an appendectomy too, and it was retrocecal (this too...spelling):
had grown up behind my liver!
 
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lindsay

lindsay

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narouz said:
I had an appendectomy too, and it was retrocecal (this too...spelling):
had grown up behind my liver!

Narouz - I must give you my sympathies! I've had gallbladder disease, ovarian cyst rupture, ovarian torsion (which ended in surgery and the loss of an ovary) and nothing was comparable to appendicitis! That fever and the ensuing stomach pain, were really something else. I have a high pain tolerance, so it took me 3 days to go to the ER, but it was miserable. And like you, my appendix had moved somewhere to my mid-section and started to leak. That's why they couldn't operate laparoscopically.

Anyhow, thanks for your input - I've been meaning to look into cyproheptadine. After my ovarian tumor and removal of that ovary, my body has been a giant wreck and I just can't seem to overcome the estrogen - I went into early menopause at age 30. I take tons of Progesterone too and it's costing me a fortune.
 
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Just chiming in as someone who has suffered gut issues for decades along with a ruptured appendix four years ago...I too find relief from various issues when I take antibiotics, but unfortunately they have never provided a long-term cure for me.

My theory is that reducing the endotoxin load from my gut helps my liver to clear excess estrogen which provides the hormonal relief. Not sure if that is correct, mostly just a guess on my part based on how I feel.

This past June I used mega doses of organic raw garlic as a broad spectrum antibiotic/antifungal and actually got better and longer lasting benefits than I ever got with antibiotics.

I am traveling to Mexico this coming Saturday and plan to have raw garlic and activated charcoal on hand just in case any issues arise...just my two cents. :2cents

Hope you heal quickly and thoroughly lindsay!!!
 

SaltGirl

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As a few mentioned I think it would be better to find a good and sustainable way of dealing with the endotoxins rather than just taking antibiotics continuously. Especially if the strains then develop resistance.
 
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lindsay

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thebigpeatowski said:
Just chiming in as someone who has suffered gut issues for decades along with a ruptured appendix four years ago...I too find relief from various issues when I take antibiotics, but unfortunately they have never provided a long-term cure for me.

My theory is that reducing the endotoxin load from my gut helps my liver to clear excess estrogen which provides the hormonal relief. Not sure if that is correct, mostly just a guess on my part based on how I feel.

This past June I used mega doses of organic raw garlic as a broad spectrum antibiotic/antifungal and actually got better and longer lasting benefits than I ever got with antibiotics.

I am traveling to Mexico this coming Saturday and plan to have raw garlic and activated charcoal on hand just in case any issues arise...just my two cents. :2cents

Hope you heal quickly and thoroughly lindsay!!!

Thank you thebigpeatowski (ha! great name) - this is very helpful info., especially about the raw garlic. We have a house in a Russian town in Estonia and our Russian neighbor made me eat garlic this past summer and said how beneficial it is. I looked up it's antimicrobial properties, but that totally slipped my mind! How did you eat the garlic? I'm not fond of it raw - at least not just eating cloves with salt! :P Do you have a gel capsule form? Or maybe making an aiole of some sort?

Thanks again for the advice and sorry you too had to go through appendicitis - it's truly awful!

Also, keep your mouth closed in the Mexican showers ;) Where are you going, by the way? I went years ago, during the swine flu outbreak :) Such a fun place and there's this really awesome tequila you can only buy there! Have fun!
 
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lindsay

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SaltGirl said:
As a few mentioned I think it would be better to find a good and sustainable way of dealing with the endotoxins rather than just taking antibiotics continuously. Especially if the strains then develop resistance.

Thank you SaltGirl. I think I should have mentioned initially - I was thinking like once or twice per year of antibiotic use, not regularly. But still, I think it's best to find a more manageable solution. I just don't see the difference between relying on something like activated charcoal over an antibiotic, except that I don't need a prescription for AC. Except for, I realize antibiotic resistance would not be good. But still, is it safe to take AC regularly? It does help, but has to be timed perfectly.

I think the garlic is a fantastic idea! There are lots of anti fungal foods out there that I think I will explore - the carrot didn't do much for me, but perhaps I will revisit it. It's just that raw carrot used to make me more constipated than not. Maybe I will give bamboo shoots a whirl - except they are kind of gross ;)
 
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Hi lindsay,

Yes, they call raw garlic Russian penicillin and as far as I know there are no microbes resistant to it. I think it even has anti-viral properties. At any rate, I haven't had to take any since my June Shock & Awe treatment (thank goodness because it can be brutal). I did a very intense week-long protocol because I was desperate (chronic diarrhea along with a sort of helpless depression, neither would go away no matter what I tried). It's not for everyone, that's for sure, but by day four it made me feel like a new person. I think Peat says it's hard on the stomach. My stomach hurt for a few minutes after each dose initially, but that subsided after day three or four. I took a few cloves, like 5 grams, and put them through a garlic press into a small drinking glass. Then add a couple ounces of water and let it sit for fifteen minutes to let the enzymes develop, I set a timer so I wouldn't forget. I read that the enzymes in raw garlic can actually break up the bio-films created by pathogenic bacteria, which is something that antibiotics cannot do (perhaps why I never had lasting results with antibiotics?). When the timer went off I would stir the mixture and drink the whole thing, chewing the bits and all. I did this three times a day for a week and it was NOT easy....you have to be desperate for sure.

However, I think it's a wonderful tool to get gut microbes back in balance, especially when a person is really depleted nutritionally. My body/immune system was not able to get on top of the situation on it's own and I was getting sicker with each passing month. I'm eternally grateful for raw garlic. Given my huge improvements and lasting results (90 days so far), I would do it again in a heartbeat if I needed it. I'm guessing that my immune system is much stronger now that I'm able to get more nutrients and so will keep things in balance on it's own.

I've only tried activated charcoal (in meaningful doses) a couple of times and it was after I had already done the raw garlic Shock & Awe. I like the results, but have not used it enough to say for sure if it works as well or better than raw garlic....I just don't know. My focus now is to absorb all the nutrients that I possibly can, and so consequently, activated charcoal use has been put on hold. I will only use the raw garlic and activated charcoal in times of need.....I just don't wanna upset the balance I have finally achieved.

Also, regarding excess estrogen, when I first started Peating I used a TON (like nearly six bottles for two weeks during my luteal phase) of Progest-E. I did that for several months because my estrogen symptoms were unbearable. I no longer need the huge doses and have gone through some cycles with none at all. I can say for certain that the raw garlic (dealing with the stress of gut dysbiosis) and also a low fat diet have been huge factors for me in achieving/maintaining estrogen/progesterone balance. The Progest-E is great, but the diet and clearing the gut issues were also hugely important for me.

I would love to know more about WHY some people get appendicitis, there is so much to learn about gut flora...seems to be an untapped universe. For me, I had struggled with constipation prior to my appendix rupturing. I was eating a fairly SAD diet back then which included a lot of wheat, something I obviously no longer eat.

I'm going to Nuevo Vallarta for this trip to Mexico... been to Cabo once, which I guess got hit with a hurricane recently. I'm looking forward to finding and trying some of the foods Peat mentions (some of the exotic stuff that we don't see up here in Washington state).
 

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lindsay said:
SaltGirl said:
As a few mentioned I think it would be better to find a good and sustainable way of dealing with the endotoxins rather than just taking antibiotics continuously. Especially if the strains then develop resistance.

Thank you SaltGirl. I think I should have mentioned initially - I was thinking like once or twice per year of antibiotic use, not regularly. But still, I think it's best to find a more manageable solution. I just don't see the difference between relying on something like activated charcoal over an antibiotic, except that I don't need a prescription for AC. Except for, I realize antibiotic resistance would not be good. But still, is it safe to take AC regularly? It does help, but has to be timed perfectly.

I think the garlic is a fantastic idea! There are lots of anti fungal foods out there that I think I will explore - the carrot didn't do much for me, but perhaps I will revisit it. It's just that raw carrot used to make me more constipated than not. Maybe I will give bamboo shoots a whirl - except they are kind of gross ;)

I think a lot of stuff that has been associated with alternative health has been shown(if not proven) to have some antibacterial use. Whether that be Coconut Oil, Honey, Garlic, Cayenne, etc etc.

I know Ray peat isn't a big fan of many spices, but I personally do much better having spices in my life(plus it tastes better!) when it comes to my stomach and other issues.
 
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lindsay

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Thank you, thebigpeatowski! This is super helpful info.! If I have a need to cleanse my gut again, I will absolutely try the garlic thing - a lot of cultures incorporate raw garlic into the diet. In Russia, they pickle garlic - it's like a huge treat. I wonder if the fermentation of pickling helps along the process. I was thinking making an aioli with olive oil would help - like a tasty way of eating raw garlic, but then it's higher in fat. Still, I love aioli - it could probably even be done with refined CO for additional anti-microbial benefits!

I'm curious about appendicitis too - although I feel a lot of my issues stem back to my Zelnorm use in college. I had really bad constipation from stress and bad diet (surprise! college food) and Zelnorm was the only thing that worked for me on a regular basis - the doctors gave me samples and a prescription for like 2 years. I ended up developing gallbladder disease shortly after it was removed from the market and have had hormonal imbalances ever since, I think. I was stupid and had my gallbladder removed at the time.

Other side effects of Zelnorm, RP lists in his article - two more I've had are the ovarian issues and now appendicitis. I think it developed a sort of long term serotonin issue for me. My gut never recuperated either - I've had IBS symptoms for years (swinging in both directions). It improved taking thyroid, but not to the degree I had hoped. Now I take cascara in very small doses and try to eat right, but I'm desperate for some good starch. When I got the appendicitis, I had been experimenting with a low fat high starch/sugar diet and trying to cut my thyroid dose (eating lots of potatoes and white rice). The starch was really helping my digestion until wham - appendicitis. Could be related or unrelated. Don't know. But this week I can digest starch like a champ, post-antibiotics. I've had soaked steel cut oats and homemade sourdough bread even (I ferment it for like 2 days).

So in my case, I think low thyroid is at the root of my bad digestion and the Zelnorm just further exacerbated things for me with the serotonin. However, I've had other weird things related to digestion since I was a child - like eczema. Who knows. Bad digestion is what seems to make everything hard for me. I used to be very underweight because everything seemed to give me tummy troubles. Then with the estrogen dominance peaking, I started to gain weight adding in very few calories. It's been so frustrating. But I feel great after the antibiotics - I'll enjoy it while it lasts and remember the raw garlic concoction :) I'm laughing now as I learn more from RP because there was so many bad reactions I had to things like birth control (which I took for a few months years ago to help with ovarian cysts) - he really knows so much. Birth control also gave me digestive upset and asthma troubles (serotonin). I think so many of these things are so intertwined and figuring out how to properly manage is not easy.

Have fun in Mexico! Be sure to eat plenty of ceviche! It's my favorite food on the planet and I ate tons when we went. Now I'm always off to Eastern Europe when I can, but I'd love to go to the mountains in Mexico! Hope you have a fantastic time and remain feeling well! Cheers :)
 
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I've been seeing a few appendicitis cases around here. Maybe we should be cautious when coming out of a starch-free phase. I know I am after having high LDH and CPK of 4000.
 
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lindsay

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Such_Saturation said:
I've been seeing a few appendicitis cases around here. Maybe we should be cautious when coming out of a starch-free phase. I know I am after having high LDH and CPK of 4000.

I definitely think all the starch I was eating wasn't entirely helpful, but I've had flare ups that felt just like this without the rapid progression to appendicitis in the past. That's why I thought it was just an endotoxin issue as usual for the first 2 days because since the new year, I've had numerous incidents like this with eggs and one time, with cooked beets (which was strange). This was probably the 6th flare up (exact same symptoms) since the new year, except it progressed to infection and massive fever. In the past, I would have stomach pain, get really nauseous and sometimes vomit. This time was just sharp stomach pain - the nausea and other digestive symptoms got worse by day 3 when I finally went to the ER. In general, my body has been under a lot of stress in the past 2 years and I have gone through massive hormonal changes. I can't seem to find a happy balance in all the diet/supplementation because until my digestion improves, it's very difficult to make progress towards eating the good foods I need for overall health.
 
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Perhaps if one isn't used to starch it will travel down too far undigested. I know by experience that sensitivity to gluten rises after cutting it out of the diet. Things like that can all work together I think. Just quoting that doctor: "no, that's unrelated. Have you done physical excercise lately? [fifth time he asked]"

Small bowel infarction in a patient with coeliac disease
Changes in Peripheral Serum Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK) and Lactic Dehydrogenase (LDH) in Acute Experimental Colonic Infarction
Rhabdomyolysis, renal failure, pericardial effusion, and acquired von Willebrand disease resulting from hypothyroidism in a 10-year-old girl.
 
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lindsay

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Such_Saturation said:
Perhaps if one isn't used to starch it will travel down too far undigested. I know by experience that sensitivity to gluten rises after cutting it out of the diet. Things like that can all work together I think. Just quoting that doctor: "no, that's unrelated. Have you done physical excercise lately? [fifth time he asked]"

Small bowel infarction in a patient with coeliac disease
Changes in Peripheral Serum Creatine Phosphokinase (CPK) and Lactic Dehydrogenase (LDH) in Acute Experimental Colonic Infarction
Rhabdomyolysis, renal failure, pericardial effusion, and acquired von Willebrand disease resulting from hypothyroidism in a 10-year-old girl.

My surgeon was asking me if I had a history of bad digestion because he said that, although textbooks won't say this, he thinks appendicitis is more likely in people who have a history of bad digestive issues (fantastic doctor - best I've ever had here in the US). Funny thing is, cutting out starch and gluten did not help my digestion much because all the liquids from foods just went straight to my gut and seemed to irritate it. Eating starch helped to "soak up" some of that and keep my digestion feeling better. I was eating mostly potatoes & white rice at the time - I try not to eat much gluten. I can eat Matzo and digest them fine (have been eating for months), but not bread made with yeast. My homemade sourdough also seems to go down OK, but I am still cautious with it. If properly fermented for up to two days, the gluten is supposedly eaten by the starter in a sourdough bread. For me, my past endotoxin issues were caused by eggs when I wasn't eating any starch. I am very sensitive to egg yokes and how they are cooked. When my appendicitis happened, that day I had eaten a mashed potato and cooked carrot combo. That was it, along with some fruit. I had been experimenting with starches, but found that the things that irritated me most (aside from bread made with yeast) were oats and grits (made from corn- might have even been masa harina). Also have had troubles in the past with bananas. Well cooked potatoes and white rice I have had no troubles with. But now, I have no appetite for them.
 
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lindsay said:
My surgeon was asking me if I had a history of bad digestion because he said that, although textbooks won't say this, he thinks appendicitis is more likely in people who have a history of bad digestive issues (fantastic doctor - best I've ever had here in the US). Funny thing is, cutting out starch and gluten did not help my digestion much because all the liquids from foods just went straight to my gut and seemed to irritate it. Eating starch helped to "soak up" some of that and keep my digestion feeling better. I was eating mostly potatoes & white rice at the time - I try not to eat much gluten. I can eat Matzo and digest them fine (have been eating for months), but not bread made with yeast. My homemade sourdough also seems to go down OK, but I am still cautious with it. If properly fermented for up to two days, the gluten is supposedly eaten by the starter in a sourdough bread. For me, my past endotoxin issues were caused by eggs when I wasn't eating any starch. I am very sensitive to egg yokes and how they are cooked. When my appendicitis happened, that day I had eaten a mashed potato and cooked carrot combo. That was it, along with some fruit. I had been experimenting with starches, but found that the things that irritated me most (aside from bread made with yeast) were oats and grits (made from corn- might have even been masa harina). Also have had troubles in the past with bananas. Well cooked potatoes and white rice I have had no troubles with. But now, I have no appetite for them.

I recommend trying one month at least without any kind of starch except one carrot a day. You never know how different it feels on the other side until you do this. Cooked carrots in particular are extremely easy to eat for bacteria so they are a no-go. If you try drinking a raw egg you will notice it has no discernible reaction from the gut.
 
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lindsay

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Such_Saturation said:
I recommend trying one month at least without any kind of starch except one carrot a day. You never know how different it feels on the other side until you do this. Cooked carrots in particular are extremely easy to eat for bacteria so they are a no-go. If you try drinking a raw egg you will notice it has no discernible reaction from the gut.

I guess it's worth a try, although, I'm not sure it will make a difference - as I said, in the past on a no starch diet, I was still having digestive upset. I can definitely see a reason to cut out gluten, but potatoes? And white rice (which is pretty benign)? However, if I don't eat starch, I will have to up my protein and dairy intake, which is good - it's just WAY more expensive. I can eat eggs in various forms, but it seems poached and hard boiled are a definite no-no. The more raw the yolk, the better. However, I'm thinking that now that my appendix is no longer there, serotonin production SHOULD be reduced. I believe RP says much of the serotonin is produced in and around the appendix.
 
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lindsay said:
I guess it's worth a try, although, I'm not sure it will make a difference - as I said, in the past on a no starch diet, I was still having digestive upset. I can definitely see a reason to cut out gluten, but potatoes? And white rice (which is pretty benign)? However, if I don't eat starch, I will have to up my protein and dairy intake, which is good - it's just WAY more expensive. I can eat eggs in various forms, but it seems poached and hard boiled are a definite no-no. The more raw the yolk, the better. However, I'm thinking that now that my appendix is no longer there, serotonin production SHOULD be reduced. I believe RP says much of the serotonin is produced in and around the appendix.

That is neat, I wonder what he thinks of appendectomy. I know he does not recommend more than one small potato a day and rice certainly not daily, hardly a hundred grams of protein. White rice is basically a glucose injection for me. I can spend about a third of a "post-2008" wage (~900€) with three quarts of grass-fed milk a day (100g P), organic carrots, organic coffee, organic coconut oil, organic eggs, organic chocolate once a week, liver once a week, etc. plus various supplements (50/month?) which can be tuned down at will.
 
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lindsay

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Such_Saturation said:
That is neat, I wonder what he thinks of appendectomy. I know he does not recommend more than one small potato a day and rice certainly not daily, hardly a hundred grams of protein. White rice is basically a glucose injection for me. I can spend about a third of a "post-2008" wage (~900€) with three quarts of grass-fed milk a day (100g P), organic carrots, organic coffee, organic coconut oil, organic eggs, organic chocolate once a week, liver once a week, etc. plus various supplements (50/month?) which can be tuned down at will.

I'm guessing if I had the opportunity to ask RP ahead of time about appendectomy, he would have recommended antibiotic treatment. But I didn't want to go through with that. The surgeon gave me it as an option, but essentially, you have to spend months on antibiotics to try and kill the infection and you still feel really terrible for much of that time. And, it may or may not cure the appendicitis. I decided the short quick stress of surgery would be more easy to deal with than the long term stress of fighting an infection - especially since I'm a freelancer and have to work or I don't get paid. Plus, I would have wasted away. Also, the thought of fighting something that could potentially kill you scared me a bit. My appendix had started to leak and I didn't want to take that risk. So I opted to say bye bye to it and not have to deal with it again. I'm not happy about the whole thing, but as I said in previous musings, I had a feeling I would end up with it - SSRI's can have long term repercussions. Somehow I just knew I would eventually get appendicitis.

I know RP's dietary recommendations, but I think listening to your body signals works much better than following any dietary protocol. Besides, not all of his dietary recommendations work for everyone (like dairy - not everyone can digest it easily) - I still have trouble digesting most protein sources because I was vegetarian for years. And my lack of gallbladder makes things forever challenging. I think he makes very sound recommendations, but I don't think starch is the evil beast most people do (especially if accompanied with some good SFA's) - there are plenty of cultures who eat high starch diets in the world and do just fine on them. And in fact, people of European decent should have great amylase enzymes because we've been eating various forms of starch for years. Again, everyone is different. I seem to have very stable blood sugar (except at night when stress hormones are high) - potatoes and rice do nothing to my blood sugar, but I usually would eat them with a glass of juice or some fruit. Still, I can try to limit starch for awhile, but I travel a lot and would rather get my body accustomed to eating many foods. It's not always possible to control the diet so strictly when you are somewhere where you can't get the foods you eat at home. I think the biggest thing I need to make sure I get into my diet again is glycine. I found homemade bone broths to be so beneficial. Unfortunately, they take a long time to make, but as the season for soup draws near, I definitely plan to make a good pot of bone broth weekly. Really reduces inflammation in the gut.
 

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