I feel frustrated

Patch87, your afternoon temps seem great so I would feel pretty good about that! Also, temperature is only one way to measure how your body is doing and more important is how you’re feeling. Do you have more energy? You mentioned some constipation but that might be due to a multivitamin, so how was your digestion before the multivitamin? Also, how’s your stress? Were you anxious before? Is it less? Are you doing anything to manage your stress such as meditation or EFT?

You mentioned getting 6-7 hours of sleep per night but is there any way you can get more? That might help your morning temp. Also, what about sleeping with an eye mask or in a really dark room? I have blackout blinds and that really helps. You may have already spoken to Matt about this but it might be helpful to have a little snack before bed- maybe popcorn and a date or small bit of ice cream?

You may already be doing this, but are you adding a lot of salt to your meals? That really helps me.

Also, regarding urinating I wouldn’t worry about the variance so much. I think it’s okay to urinate once every 2 hours and sometimes go for 4 hours or more. The main thing is how you’re feeling overall. If you’re pee is clear and you start to get cold then I’d have a salty starchy snack (or whatever works for your temp).

I’m sorry you’re feeling frustrated and am sending you lots of good thoughts! I know it’s easier said than done but try and think of other things. Go out with friends, read a good book, watch a funny movie, go out in nature, whatever makes you smile. I can totally get obsessed with my own progress and it helps me just to get out of my own head sometimes. I fell in love with kayaking the past few weeks and wish I could do it everyday but sadly I’m no longer at the beach.

I’m no expert, patch, and can only speak from my experience but it seems that we are in the same position- I am stuck at around 36.3 waking, but it IS an improvement by over a degree! I feel as though the first bit, changes to body, weight gain, improved appearance and mood better skin, hair etc. was almost easy, the next phase is a challenge- just to make small changes, wait and observe, tweak again and again.

For me, I suddenly got the urge to blast away at some physical exercise last week- I am following Matt’s suggestion of a thing called slow burn so I only need to do it once a week- that way I start getting an urge to do it- I have to do it because I really crave the massive exertion- whereas before exercise of that sort was a bore, even though I’ve always been very active (It’s not the same). Anyway the first day after doing this workout I leapt out of bed like a salmon ;)

I would suggest making a small change, like, drop the vitamin, see how you go, try it again, see how you go, maybe try exercise if it suits you or you feel ready, but above all, stick with it and trust your gut.

Best of luck

You are correct that the meds are well known to create all sorts of metabolic issues. Maybe 180 strategies will help, but they are no match for any drug-induced side effects, so keep that in mind. That said, sleep and stress reduction are always helpful just in terms of life.

No pressure on how to deal with your issues, and you may be aware of this already so I don’t mean to be patronizing, but I hope you’re aware there are a lot of other very effective strategies for OCD if you wanted to pursue them, such as EFT, therapy to deal with past traumas (which is often the root cause of OCD), cognitive-behavioral strategies, etc.