?One of my recurring objects of thought has been the slowness with which raw knowledge is assimilated. For example, I have been thinking about Broda Barnes’s work on the prevention of heart disease with thyroid extract. He did solve much of ‘the riddle of heart attacks,? but recent statements by the Heart Association show that the dominant forces in the health business haven’t learned anything at all from his work, which he began 50 years ago. His work is clearly presented, not hard to understand, and it is scientifically so sound that no one challenges it, at least not on the scientific level. It is ignored, rejected by people who choose not to be bothered to read it. How many people have died from heart disease, since his work first became available? (And how many more from cancer, tuberculosis, and other diseases he showed occur mainly among hypothyroid people?)?
~Ray Peat
Like myself, Ray Peat was highly impressed with the work of Broda Barnes when he came across it. Ever since, with a deeper understanding of the hormonal and biochemical systems and their relationship with the cellular metabolic rate, Peat has been a firm believer that the preservation of a high level of metabolic intensity is the key to health and resistance to disease ? both infectious and degenerative alike. I too have seen very little to sway me away from what is far more compelling than some dumb theory out of left field about villainous saturated fat or carbohydrates or gluten being the root cause of rising rates of many diseases.
Peat often mentions Broda Barnes and the Barnes method of assessing thyroid functionality ? the morning temperature test. While I have recommended this simple home monitor for ages, and it is a decent overall indicator ? especially when you see it rising in response to diet and lifestyle manipulation, Peat offers much more insight about how to get a better overall assessment of the level of thyroid-generated metabolic activity.
This is actually an incredibly important concept, as body temperature and even metabolic rate are not the be-all end-all in assessing the health of your thyroid hormone system. For example, adrenaline is a powerful stimulator of the metabolic rate. Go into any ?health food store? and you are likely to see walls filled with ‘thermogenic? weight loss formulas like Lipo-6, Slim Quick, Arson, Hydroxycut, and countless others (most of them made by the same company, Iovate). The term ‘thermogenic? refers to the ability of these stimulant-laced pills to increase heat production in your body.
And yes, even anorexics with very low thyroid output often wake up in the morning, with adrenaline peaking, with a high body temperature and high pulse rate (two of the most prominent indicators of metabolic rate). Eating, however, makes body temperature and pulse rate drop like a stone. In a sense, when adrenal hormone levels are lowered, the true output of the thyroid gland is revealed, and shown to be extremely low. In fact, testing your body temperature and pulse before and after meals is actually a pretty decent way to tell whether or not your adrenal glands are overactive. If pulse and body temperature drop, your adrenal glands were likely way too active prior to eating. All I have to do is eat low-carb for a couple of days and then have a big carbohydrate meal to trigger this ? or even just skipping breakfast or a hard workout will do this.
If you don’t feel like monitoring, just assessing how you feel before and after the meal is very revealing. If you feel tired and sleepy and brainfogged (like when needing a cup of coffee to boost adrenaline) after eating, odds are your adrenals were overactive prior. Feelings you might feel prior to eating in a high adrenaline state are mental focus, nervousness or anxiety, jitteriness or irritability, and the big one ? cold hands, feet, and tip of your nose (blood rushes away from the extremities when adrenaline surges).
According to Peat, this may be a better indicator of true thyroid function than an actual body temperature reading because of the interference you can get with the adrenal hormones on a body temperature reading. My real world experience thus far suggests that this might be the case. JT and I both for example, had healthy body temperatures on diets that destroyed our health via signs and symptoms of adrenal fatigue (and in JT’s case, actual diagnosed severe adrenal fatigue). My body temperature actually fell when I initially started doing RRARF, while the health problems I incurred on a low-carbohydrate diet vanished. Eat to keep fingers and toes warm and you might just find your health improving.
Peat also points out that Colorado, where Barnes was a medical practitioner, made the body temperature reading that Barnes relied upon more accurate ? as the weather there is cool enough most of the year that low thyroid function would indeed surface with low body temperatures. In warmer weather, body temperatures could still be held at 98.6 F even in a hypothyroid state, due to the ease of maintaining a higher body temperature in warmer weather.
This comment is both true and false. For starters, Denver ain’t that cool. One year I lived there saw 60 days over 90 degrees F. You also can maintain body heat just as well wrapped in warm clothes in cold weather as you can in shorts and a t-shirt in warm weather. And in today’s day and age, no matter where you live, odds are everywhere you go is relatively climate controlled with air conditioning and heat. Climate is something that humans have managed to distance themselves from pretty well at this point. And Barnes’s subjects were taking their body temperature first thing in the morning, covered with blankets and toasty as can be.
But, I have noticed myself, as I do not use air conditioning in the Matt Cave, that my body temperature gets extremely warm late in the afternoon as I sit in my shorts and sweat in 85-degree heat. My body temperature, while just under 99 degrees F in the morning (rectal, huh huh), climbs up close to 100 degrees F when I am physically feeling hot and sweaty. After a MAXercise session the other day when I was feeling even hotter my temperature sprang up to 100.7 F! So yes, if you feel hot, body temperature will be artificially elevated. But most people do not feel excessively hot when taking a morning basal body temperature reading, so I find this to be somewhat of an irrelevant point that Peat is all too fond of making in interviews.
Peat prefers to look at all of the indicators as a whole, which is a fantastic idea. Barnes was a medical practitioner. He had a lot of hands on experience with diagnosing and treating patients for hypothyroidism. But he certainly did not possess the vast knowledge of human physiology and hormonal interactions that Peat seems to possess. According to Peat, one of the best tests is simply seeing how much oxygen and carbon dioxide you inhale and exhale. The more oxygen you take in, the higher your metabolism. But if carbon dioxide is low, you are in a high adrenaline state (burning fat for fuel instead of glucose lowers carbon dioxide levels, and adrenaline favors fat burning while thyroid-generated metabolism favors more glucose oxidation, yielding greater carbon dioxide levels).
Calorie consumption that is abnormally high or low for your body weight is yet another indicator that Peat believes should be taken into consideration when trying to get the best overall assessment.
Anyway, the point of this post is simply that Peat acknowledges the work of Broda Barnes as being highly significant. Few could argue that it is not. But Peat has looked deeper into the big picture and has a much broader understanding of the many factors, thyroid hormones as well as thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), adrenal hormone interaction, and other factors involved.
Body temperature is just one tool in the bag. It is not the only tool. Assessments of the warmth of your feet and hands, sleep quality, the number of hours you can comfortably go without eating, pulse rate, sex drive, energy levels, fatigue after eating, bowel frequency, water consumption (should be high), calorie consumption, reflex quickness, blood glucose levels ? both fasting and postmeal, menstrual regularity ? anything and everything should be used in making an overall assessment of your health and self-diagnosing what may be needed to rebalance your ?body chemistry? as Melvin Page called it. With those in mind, you can use nutrition and lifestyle change to the fullest.
Taking all that into consideration, you can use something like this program on how to raise your metabolism wisely, paying close attention and tweaking meal frequency, carbohydrate, fat, and protein levels ? as well as even levels of salt or experimenting with starch vs. sugar and vice versa in restoring and/or maintaining your health. Most find this approach to be much more effective than they thought it would be. Simple changes often make a big difference. Drastic changes often lead to excessive blogging, ruin your health, and make your parents and remaining friends (the ones that weren’t so weirded out by your fanaticism they stopped calling you) worry about you.
Matt's on fire! He's like Moses, coming down from Mount Sinai with his face shining like gold!
Anyways, maybe I'll ask a question– so what is adrenal fatigue? Is it lack of cortisol or adrenaline? Both? I know a lot of hormones come from the adrenal glands.
Very interesting about adrenaline and body temperature. I'm very thin but have suffered being cold most of my life, and I think I avoided eating because food just shut me down. In other words, I had more energy when I didn't eat, or just had something light and sugary. I think I've been running on adrenaline for most of my life.
Hi Jared. I was diagnosed with adrenal exhaustion. My condition was caused from too much stress. I have read, however, that adrenal exhaustion finally happens because for a long time the thyroid wasn’t right and so the adrenal glands, that are secondary storage pots of hormones, pick up the load. Coldness and finding not eating helps are serious issues. I suggest a complete thyroid adrenal workup at a reputable lab you can do online yourself and take the results to someone in alternative, or holistic medicine that specializes in endocrine issues. In my case, I was so bad I had to go on certain nutrients and bed rest for several months. I missed the first year of my daughter’s life because I was pretty severe. My doctor said I was close to dieting from this. So, yes, adrenal exhaustion should never be taken lightly.
Really liked this one. I was gonna quote my favorite part, but I'm gonna be good :-)
And you probably have a hunch which part lol! :-)
Plus, I wanted to be the first comment but Jared beat me to lol!
JT, I'm curious as to how you improved your adrenal exhaustion. Did you end up having to take actual cortisol to get back on track or did careful lifestyle and eating changes get you going again?
I'm still confused as to whether the sugar and fruit transition is ideal for a person suffering adrenal exhaustion.
I am running 99's but I swear it's the hot flashes. Don't really see myself as metabolic dy no mite!
Hot Hag xoox
i was diagnosed with adrenal burn out about 3 months or so post partum with my first baby. my chiro used the hair test. i was also sort of diagnosed with Raynaud's syndrome when i was i think in early college. the doctors did not have a clue why my fingers and toes would turn blue and purple, go numb and then turn completely white. so they just guessed at Raynaud's. i have been searching for a remedy ever since.
i did begin to suspect thyroid a few years back when my research that spawned off of my newly acquired WAPF knowledge led me to all kinds of thyroid and adrenal info. but of course i really had no idea what to do other than perfect my WAP-inspired diet and down a crap load of supplements and CLO. i don't know what to believe now. i still have numbing episodes happen with my feet and hands, but not nearly as much as i used to. i actually really hate cold weather now and esp snow b/c the worst of it was when i would be on a family ski trip and it was so incredibly frustrating and painful. so i convinced my husband to move us to SoCal so i could have the weather i needed and maybe i would heal.
but, the other cause of it or maybe in conjunction with thyroid is emotional trauma. i gleaned this little tidbit from one of Dr. K's only two books published in english. he basically devoted one sentence to that idea and then the rest of the book told me that my previous diet sucked and that was the cause of my woes. i can totally see the emotional thing being very fitting for me and if i can ever really truly do a RRARF style episode, then i may be in business.
Perfect timing for me, Matt. I was still taking dessicated thyroid and adrenal, but am trying to scale back (recover from my supplorexia, LOL), so I stopped taking my raw adrenal a couple nights ago. I have been soooo sleepy.
Also, my temp should have gone up above 98.2 by now (by Friday or Saturday), and it hasn't. I did have a bit of emotional stress last week, just like taxes last month, so maybe my temperature spike was just held off by that. Or maybe without the supplemental raw adrenal, my temps won't be as high during this luteal phase.
Anyway, thanks.
Matt, haven't read the article yet, but I wanted to post this comment from the last one since I really want you to answer it:
"BTW, about the effects of dieting, what do you think of it when the body can't tell it is doing it? Recent Stephan Guyenet's posts have been very interesting, and in some ways appear to contradict your recent findings. What's your opinion? Most experts seem to think, anyway, that excess fat in itself is harmful."
I would never criticize any person's choice of checking temperature, but you might dig a non-invasive yet accurate way to check: the temporal artery thermometer. Swipe it from forehead across the temple. http://www.exergen.com. No, I don't work for them, just have 4 kids.
More articles! NOW!!!!!!
I ripped my pants!
Although Josh (of East West Healing) doesn't like the term "adrenal fatigue" as he stated in a recent video, he is well aware of my condition. I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue by a Chek practitioner in 2009.
Lots of fruit is in my plan right now, Tyler.
I've been going to the market every other day just to keep up (they cut my watermelon for me).
I'll assume, at least for me, that fruit is a good idea for adrenal recovery.
I discovered that taking thyroid, eating sugar, and taking pregnenolone all made me feel more tired than energized. Taking thyroid tends to keep my temperature lower, but raises my morning temperature. For me it's become important to be able to distinguish between the stress energy and the calm, relaxed thyroid energy.
Taking my temperature under arm is easiest for me. In Barnes' Hypothyroidis, he says that ten minutes under-arm should give the same reading as if taken orally. Do others find this to be the case as well?
What's your thought on Peat's dismissal (sorta) of adrenal issues in his last chat with Josh and Jeanne? He mentioned that animals could live without adrenal glands. Also, he said that pregnant animals could live as long as they had progesterone, but after having a litter, the next stress would kill the mother. This is something I'd like to know more about — I would like to see the original studies.
Good post, what I still don't get are Peat's theories for those with low cortisol. The ideologies look incompatible:
The problem is that for people with Adrenal Insufficiency in that the adrenals cannot produce enough cortisol the diet Peat suggests doing stuff that brings that down further. That is fine for those with high cortisol but….
Can anyone explain (Jannis maybe) how Peat's ideologies are compatible with those who struggle to produce catecholamines?
@Andrew Pregnenolone seems to be making me tired and relaxed as well. Maybe I just need to get used to the lower cortisol levels. Haven't tried thyroid yet.
How much pregnenolone are you using ?
Matt's thermometer:
http://www.play.com/LargerImages.html?r=TOYS&productid=15267650
ANDREW-
"Taking thyroid tends to keep my temperature lower, but raises my morning temperature"
I've had a similar experience. I wonder what the deal is with that?
Matt,
Good post. I'm glad to see you are switching focus from external to internal cues. This is huge, good job.
Tyler,
My adrenal deficiency was pretty severe, so I had to use hydrocortisone for a while. I tried the Peat diet with this condition and it only made me worse. It was very bS for me in this state. I only got better once I pretty much did the opposite.
Btw, I don't think there is really anything wrong with the adrenal glands, seems like the real cause of adrenal fatigue is some sort of HPA disfunction.
Chris,
Good point. From my experience, Peats diet is not compatible with the condition of chatecholamine depletion or low cortisol.
Lisa,
Are you sure that you have low cortisol and not high cortisol? Sometimes practitioners will still call it adrenal fatigue even when the cortisol levels are high, they just think it is in the early stages.
If your problem is the inability to lose weight, I would wonder if high cortisol was the issue.
How do you feel when you consume a large amount of fruit or sugar, by itself, and especially in the morning?
Ray Peat says a lot of things, but when you follow his references, they often don't support his statements. Most of what he writes is semi-made up off the top of his head. He's just another internet crackpot who gets an audience by making unsupported statements that sound like they just might make sense.
Don't be a sucker folks.
His references are sometimes sketchy, but you mostly can find others that support what he says. It's hard to follow up on unreferenced claims about other scientists though, which I've found kind of annoying.
Associating Ray with internet "crackpots" though is just stupid.
i disagree with last anon, Ray Peat is definitely not another internet crackpot. on the other hand, why don't we root trough all his materials to see whether his claims have any validity. this whole attitude of worshipping him without checking his references doesn't sit well with me. it's ray may right?
I asked this in another Ray May post, but all the action is here now so I'll try again:
Does anyone know what Ray's take is on optimal meal frequency?
Also, what seems to be the meal frequency of choice among the healthy traditional societies that have been studied? They haven't been influenced by the 3-meals per day Industrialization mantra.
@Chris
If carbs lower cortisol it doesn't mean they lower it in adrenal fatigued people. If they always lowered cortisol everyone eating a high carb diet would get adrenal fatigue. Most who have problems have a low carb or low calorie background. Carbs might lower cortisol in people with high levels, and elevate levels when they're low.
Michael-
from wholehealthsource kitavan interview
"How many meals a day do Kitavans eat?
People on the island eat mostly two meals a day. But nowadays, breakfast is mainly comprised of tubers (yam and sweet potato and greens all cooked in coconut cream and salt) and dinner is the same with the inclusion of fish as protein most often. In between these two meals, lunch is seen as a light refreshment with fruits or young coconut only to mention these two popular ones. In between the morning and the evening, we mostly eat fruits as snack or lunch. Generally speaking, there are only two main meals per day, i.e breakfast and dinner."
@ RC: I have low cortisol – Fruit and fructose on their own make me feel shaky and I can notice the drop in stress hormones. Even when mixed with protein etc.
Whereas starch settles me and makes me feel normal, whether on its own or as part of a mixed meal.
Michael,
…Frequent meals…
@Chris
I think the recent post about sugar Jannis made on the proline blog was interesting. The study he referenced showed higher stress hormones, adrenaline I think, which could also explain the shaky felling.
Chris-
Sounds like a glycogen storage issue. Those with glycogen storage diseases have to eat starch and cannot eat anything containing simple sugars or they run the risk of fatal hypoglycemia – like those with hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI).
But there are other factors. Fruit has more potassium than starches with the exception of potatoes. Those with hypothyroidism have trouble retaining sodium, and potasssium could probably exacerbate that.
RC is right about it being impossible to think of carbs as "contraindicated" for someone with adrenal fatigue. Carbs raise metabolic rate in the right context and could easily help to regenerate adrenal function in some cases. But it's hard to say what the right nutritional prescription would be. It's been my understanding that taking the load off of the adrenals as much as possible is the best way to actually restore their functionality if it is, indeed, adrenal fatigue. But this is of course a psuedoscientific way of looking at things. Not much is really firmly known about restoring adrenal function as adrenal fatgiue isn't even recognized by western medicine.
El66k-
Weight loss induced when you don't even know you are losing it or restricting calories, don't experience hunger, etc. is probably much more lasting and much less harmful (maybe even beneficial) than traditional "intentional" weight loss. Stephan is right if that is what he is concluding. There are many known dietary alterations known to trigger spontaneous lowered calorie consumption.
Sheila and Andrew-
I suspect that, just as Peat says, that morning temperature is highly influenced by the adrenal glands. Catecholamines are generally at maximum in dawn and pre-dawn period, which would give someone with low thyroid a misleadingly high reading. I imagine that taking thyroid would lower the morning stress hormones and yield a lower morning temperature more indicative of the true level of thyroid activity.
Jared-
Most adrenal testing is done by taking salivary cortisol tests throughout the day and mailing them in to a laboratory.
Dumb newbie question, on gelatin:
I have some unflavored Great Lakes gelatin. I'd like to give some to my son. Must it be mixed in a liquid? Or can I sprinkle a couple teaspoons onto his morning pancake, which I don't think he'll notice? (Fussy eater. He does drink juice with breakfast – I just don't think combining gelatin with his pear juice is going to fly…)
Thanks for the thoughtful response Matt. Low glycogen makes a lot of sense as I do tend to feel my best when I take it easy with exercise and eat lots of carbs – therefore allowing muscle glycogen to increase its stores. Will see how it goes now that I have toned down the exercise.
Steph-
i think he'll notice when his lips are stuck together :D. dissolve it in warm water and it mixes easily into another liquid. i like gelatinous mashed potato personally
Matt,
I doubt that he has a glycogen storage disease. I don't know about that disease, but I had the same experiences when I started eating a lot of sugar. I think some people just have problems to compensate the higher initial insulin reaction of sucrose as compared to starch.
Normally the shakiness disappears very quickly, and the people handle this better the longer they eat sugar regularly.
I found that eating a raw carrot immediately made the hypoglycemia dissapear. So, it might also have something to do with endotoxin.
Another interesting fact is that women normally handle sucrose much better than men, and don't tend to get hypoglycemia from it.
Matt, "Those with glycogen storage diseases have to eat starch and cannot eat anything containing simple sugars or they run the risk of fatal hypoglycemia". Why is that so?
Jannis, " I think some people just have problems to compensate the higher initial insulin reaction of sucrose as compared to starch." Doesn't Peat says that sugar provokes a LESSER insulin response?
Oy, thanks terpol! Not exactly savvy in kitchen chemistry here. I'll try your way.
Hey Jannis,
I have been eating Ray Peat style the last couple of days. One thing that strikes me is the incredible freezing I experience when I commence eating sugars in the morning (seems to be less conspicuous with meals later in the day). My suspicion that it was hypoglycemia is falsified by the fact that the freezing starts immediately after the ingestion (several seconds to one minutes) after the ingestion of (for example) orange juice.
Another thing that was causing my quite some trouble is hard cheese. I can well tolerate some cheese if I combine it with a lot of sugar, but as soon as the ratio is altered in favor of cheese, I see myself facing major depression a few hours later. I have yet to experiment with other dairy products. Do I maybe suffer from genuine dairy intolerance, unlike what Peat thinks of as intolerance remediable by exposing your body to it?
liebe Gr??e
Marcel
Marcel,
Did you ever measure your blood sugar when you are having the depressions?
As for the freezing in the morning. I had exactely the same experience. But it disappeared after a few weeks.
I don't know if this symptoms are caused by an increase or decrease of stress hormones. It might be that sugar in the morning decreases cortisol and adrenaline, if they were high during the night. But all the studies I have seen on this show that sucrose increases the production of catecholamines.
Like Marcel, I have also been having problems with dairy the past couple of months. Mostly really bad gas, bloating and depression. I tried many different high quality brands of milk and cheese. Seems like I do better when I minimize dairy and eat lots of starchy grains. I'd love to know what you guys think about the whole gluten thing in more detail. Am I just making things worse by continuing to eat grains and minimizing dairy?
Thanks.
Marcel,
I've had problems with hard cheeses as well, even though I'm fine with milk. I've thought before that the high histamine content of some aged cheeses might be part of the problem, sort of like hypothyriod people and red wine.
–Andrew
"Seems like I do better when I minimize dairy and eat lots of starchy grains. I'd love to know what you guys think about the whole gluten thing in more detail. Am I just making things worse by continuing to eat grains and minimizing dairy?"
Hi Anonymous
for what its worth, those that are pro-grains will say favourable things or cite suitable studies and those anti-grain folk (or certain grains) will say unfavourable things or likewise cite (un)supportive studies.
Also with dairy.
The more one can work to make oneself less dependent on dietary experts, scientists, studies, doctors, dietary plans etc, and observe how one's own body functions in response to foods and to stresses in life, the more one engenders a trust in the inbuilt processes of bodily intelligence, which frees up energy to live and enjoy life.
Ray Peat recommends that epilepsy sufferers should take thyroid, progesterone cream and include a daily raw carrot salad dressed with coconut oil, olive oil and vinegar, along with adding lots of good quality protein to their diet.
If it works, this seems like a pretty simple strategy to cure what must be a terrible thing to have to live with.
I wonder how Ray manages to use coconut oil on salads?which are conventionally cold. The oil solidifies quite hard below 76 degrees. I guess you need to eat coconut oil salads during summer weather when the oil is fluid in the jar, and let the refrigerated salad components warm up awhile before eating.
Matt seems to make a complete pie meal when he eats Key Lime pies, and I have the impression that Ray does the same with ice cream and other high-calorie sweets. If I eat a lot of commercial cake or pie on top of dinner, I will suffer painful cramps on the tops of my feet for about 20 minutes in the early morning hours in bed?with toes pointed involuntarily upward. When I eat a moderate dinner (a very-high calorie dinner without sweets can also bring on cramps) and no junk?I’m always cramp-free. Normally, I don’t eat junk after dinner (or at all), except when I occasionally forget and let my guard down–and with almost unvaryingly painful results. I haven’t figured out the metabolic mechanism yet.
Lymph said:
“If I eat a lot of commercial cake or pie on top of dinner, I will suffer painful cramps on the tops of my feet for about 20 minutes in the early morning hours in bed?with toes pointed involuntarily upward. When I eat a moderate dinner (a very-high calorie dinner without sweets can also bring on cramps) and no junk?I’m always cramp-free. Normally, I don’t eat junk after dinner (or at all), except when I occasionally forget and let my guard down?and with almost unvaryingly painful results. I haven’t figured out the metabolic mechanism yet.”
Clogged arteries.
Hi Matt,
I thought I read that in another blog post that your body temp is typically around 97 degrees-or was that a while ago?
Heat the coconut oil in the microwave for instance
Jannis-
No, I don't think Chris has a glycogen storage disease either. But obviously there are some huge metabolic differences if sugar is deadly and starch is stabilizing to blood sugar for someone with a glycogen storage disease.
J.R.-
Fantastic comment. Flawless. Poetry.
Andrew-
I have had times when I have an acute allergic reaction to hard cheeses but not other dairy products as well. It's been a long time, but I can remember how bad it was when I was eating pretty low-carb and trying some Aajonus Vonderplanitz-approved no salt raw cheeses, and wow – the roof of my mouth with get inflamed and I could feel my throat starting to clench a little. It was optimal food though, setting me up to live "free of disease" until like age 150, so I kept eating it for a while haha.
But I don't have that problem now. I do notice that the more carbohydrate I consume with an "allergen" the less of an allergic reaction that I have, which is right in line with grandmaster Peat who says…
"Adamkiewics has shown that allergic reactions to a given substance will decrease from 100 percent to zero, when the blood glucose increases from, for example, 50 mg % to 150 mg% or more."
Matt, are you suggesting that eating more carbs is the answer to treating allergies?
My children and I have been doing GAPS for seasonal, food, and animal allergies. (My seasonal allergies began not long after a round of antibiotics when I was a teenager. ???) Our seasonal allergies almost completely disappeared but we have not had success yet with reintroducing dairy. I would really like a more balanced approach to healing, but I am stumped.
Do you have any suggestions? Or are the answers to this question found in one of your books?
Also, I don’t know how to transition away from the early intro stages to anything else without shocking our bodies. Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I certainly cleared up my seasonal allergies with an increase in carbs 10 years ago. There are multiple paths to the same destination sometimes. One annoying thing I found with carb restriction was that many things that improved in the first 6 months got worse later on. I attributed this to the surge of adrenal hormones that happen during the initial low-carb honeymoon phase.
Anonymous – This is the first time I have taken my body temperature since last year. Last year it was running in the 97.5 range most of the time, with spikes over 98 after eating big for a day. But I have been taking rectal temps because I'm tired of the inconsistencies of oral and armpit temperatures. Armpit temps especially are very unreliable as I am constantly sweating in the Florida heat with no air conditioning, and the perspiration in the armpit skews the temperature. Rectal temps run considerably higher, but are perfectly accurate and consistent.
On the dairy allergy thing, I know that the thrust around here is toward healing the body such that allergies are eliminated, but in the case of celiac it's worth noting that dairy intolerance/allergy frequently co-occurs. I have definitely noticed frightening depression/psychosis from (conventional) dairy, especially whey protein (tryptophan?) I think I did better with raw goat dairy when I tried that, though.
It's also worth noting that celiac correlates often with low thyroid, go figure…
Yes, I can heat the coconut oil; but it may just harden once more upon contact with the cold salad ingredients. Or I can heat everything, I suppose. Just didn’t seem too palatable heated, but I’ll give it a try.
My god, there is so much conflicting information out there on adrenal issues, and so much conflicting info right here in these responses, that it makes no sense to me anymore to even listen to any of it!! Listen to your body folks, and go from there–it’ll tell you what to do, if you’re not so stuck in your head from reading all these so-called experts that you can’t even hear it anymore. There, rant finished, but really……
JT
How looks your diet ? Do you eat also cheese?
Could you give your Email to contact with you.I have more questions.
Thank you,