Glucose loading cures everything?
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@CrumblingCookie said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
In other news:
I'm still doing the dextrose after 6 months. At >250grs daily over 4-7 servings.
It's keeping me afloat. But it's not leading me to recovery.Do you have any more detail to share on this? I'm curious what your experience is (benefits, drawbacks). It seems you are one of the few to have found it worthwhile for sticking out for six months.
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@jjk_learning
Trying to capture most of the benefits and limitations of taking dextrose, in my case:Glucose hasn't made me a happier per se. However, when confronted with adverse events I now mostly feel and think more indifferently disappointed "meh"s instead of any "argh!".
I had been having symmetrical jerks moving down my spine reaching into my shoulders and arms and at bad times as far down as into my legs every few seconds throughout the days. Against which rasagiline proved insufficiently effective. Which I could only keep at bay by injecting thiamin-HCl every 10-14 days.
With dextrose I don't have these jerks at all. But they gradually return as soon as my dextrose servings are overdue or used up much more quickly by stressful events, environments or activities. The latter would include mere common daily errands. I.e. this is in the context of my thresholds having become abysmally low.
E.g. if I leave house in the morning without having loaded-up with glucose, those jerks return and my hand and arm starts twitching painfully etc. in an increasing manner.
With dextrose my heart rate is significantly lower and calmer and I can sleep and not tense up. As my glucose fades throughout the night, after 5-6 hours at the latest, I still wake up from a sudden violently high heart rate >150/min. I can calm that down with another serving and maybe doze off again c. 40 minutes thereupon.
I don't want to rely on glucose oxidation throughout the whole night. Of all times this is when accumulated extra fats are meant to be burned off in a continuous, orderly fashion.
I have less nausea with sufficient, regular dextrose than without dextrose previously but that is not completely absent either. Put simply I haven't had to spontaneously throw up anymore since on the dextrose. Also, I've experienced the dextrose hugely and quickly helps in alleviating the narcotics burden post-surgery. Which is a benefit I'm not too keen to have to appreciate many more times.
Blood sugar wasn't tracked by me. All I know is that in the past, for years I used to have 95-99mg/dL in the mornings whereas a few months ago it was 82mg/dL one hour after 70grs of dextrose. So I probably have lower BG when consistently taking dextrose.
That's more or less what I mean with the dextrose keeping me afloat yet not being curative. It'll probably remain an essential nutrient to go along with whatever actual remedy eludes me.
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@CrumblingCookie Thanks for sharing! Great you're seeing so much benefit, especially with what sound like very little side effects?
May I ask how much you're eating, and your macros?
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@the_black_jew said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes watch out for choline overload with nicotine and mitolipin together
I would like to read more about this. Any links you can share?
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@happyhanneke said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes
Do you have any positive feedback from the glucose loading?Also where did you get the low dose patches? 7mg is the lowest I have seen but I would like 2 or 3 mg.
Thanks
Here is a link to the nicotine patch discussion:
https://bioenergetic.forum/post/36299 -
So friends. My husband and I got covid over Christmas (family member brought it with them) and true to form, I have long covid again. Husband is 95% well. My conclusion is that people with lifelong CFS/ME, even though mostly controlled, will be way more susceptible to complications than most. My post covid anxiety is back, and just as before, it peaks right at sundown. I'm able to control it using magnesium and Mexicola if I take them 10 or 15 minutes before the sun sets. If I forget, I go ahead and take them but will have to sit or lie down for a while until they take effect.
We're still using dextrose, but in small amounts. Again, my husband responds to it really well and I make sure his bottle of lemon/glucose water is full when he is in a stressful situation or has to do any public speaking. I feel like it helps me but I wouldn't say it has cured my chonic conditions.
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@S-Holmes sorry to hear you got covid again. One can take a long time to recover after it, so you might see a clearing after a while, but very wise to do extreme rest for now. I think it's smart to approach covid the way one would mono, so take it easy for at least three months. Hope you get better soon!
Do you ever test for EBV? It's one of the virus' that can reacivate after covid, and if it has you might benefit from some herbs.
I'm still just doing glucose, because I want to keep it simple, but if I am gonna add something at some point olive leaf extract is high of my list. Often mentioned for EBV.
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@gentlepotato said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes sorry to hear you got covid again. One can take a long time to recover after it, so you might see a clearing after a while, but very wise to do extreme rest for now. I think it's smart to approach covid the way one would mono, so take it easy for at least three months. Hope you get better soon!
Do you ever test for EBV? It's one of the virus' that can reacivate after covid, and if it has you might benefit from some herbs.
I'm still just doing glucose, because I want to keep it simple, but if I am gonna add something at some point olive leaf extract is high of my list. Often mentioned for EBV.
I likely have EB or GB. I haven't been tested because what's the point? They're both autoimmune conditions and I'm already doing everything I know to do for CFS. The next thing I'm going to try is higher dose vitamin D, along with all the other things I'm already taking.
I really appreciate everyone's input. Doctors have no answers so I rely on my smart friends for information and assistance.
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@gentlepotato said:
May I ask how much you're eating, and your macros?
My diet is poor. Definitely too little protein. Are you having any specific thoughts?
In the first two months I was eating beef&lamb carnivore with then increasingly more rice for simple yet delayed carbohydrates. But I grew to dislike the fatty bits ever more and the metals as well.
It was either the high amounts of iron etc. from those months of carnivore or the glucose itself: My face skin has aged much since last year.
Unsurprisingly with the regular dextrose loading my utilization of fats is strongly inhibited:
Whenever I eat a chunk of cheese (due to protein+calcium cravings, I surmise) I don't even ever feel satiated by it and it all goes straight to weight gain in fat deposits.Probably the best way to eat with the dextrose would be like a bodybuilder's diet: Rice as complementary carbs, rich greens for the fibres, the vitamins, the calcium and lean poultry for protein. Along with a lowly dosed (100-200% RDI) B+C complex. Along with potassium chloride or potassium sulfate or a mix thereof in amounts according to taste.
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@CrumblingCookie Thank you for sharing this. It is encouraging to hear the help that dextrose has provided even if there are more improvements to be had. Thank you for taking the time to detail it for us and best of luck in your continued experimenting.
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@CrumblingCookie said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes said:
The next thing I'm going to try is higher dose vitamin D
Don't. It's a trap.
Oh no! Why? I took 50,000 IU's on Saturday, 40,000 on Sunday, 30,000 today, with plenty of magnesium and vit K. Feeling a lot better so far. I'll probably go on a winter maintenance dose of about 10,000 IU a day.
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The immunological shift from those 120.000 IUs will last for several months. It's kind of like parts of your building are on fire and you turn off the annoying sprinklers and alarm bell so you can move back in and redecorate the unaffected offices and corridors. Which you can keep up with such high doses but woe upon you when you stop. Or anyway over the course of time.
By showing strong immidiate short-term benefits you have essentially confirmed the magnitude of chronic inflammation from persistent infections acting out within your tissues.
@jjk_learning Thanks. It's rough.
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@S-Holmes said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
I likely have EB or GB. I haven't been tested because what's the point? They're both autoimmune conditions
I’m not sure what EB og GB is, but EBV is epstein barr virus, so a virus, not an autoimmune condition. I’m not sure it there is benefit to testing other than validation and perhaps picking herbs.
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@CrumblingCookie said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
My diet is poor. Definitely too little protein. Are you having any specific thoughts?
I’ll share my experience, because it seems that eating well and enough is very important for me.
I’ve just crossed the 6 month mark, and I’m not fully healed at all, but I’ve never followed the protocol. I’ve been using glucose as a Peat-ish tool, and I think it’s a game changer for my body.
For context:
I’ve had undiagnosed ME/CFS since 2006. The first time it was mentioned was in 2020, after I got a lot worse from covid, and I got diagnosed in 2022.I’ve been between 95% and 99,9% housebound since March 2020. I’ve been very isolated by my symptoms, and have rarely had days where I don’t crash. I found RP in April 2021 and saw benefits fast: It helped my sleep, and eventually a lot of other things. Summer of 2022 I was a little bit less fatigued (95% housebound and the most social I’ve been), but later that fall I contracted covid again, and I never recovered back to the baseline I had before that.
In May and June last year I was experiencing the worst PEM (activity induced increase in symptoms) I’ve ever had. I’ve planned my food around activity, but no matter how much I ate adrenaline was non stop for days, which happened a few times with fairly normal activity (although it was way outside my normal range).
So that’s where I was before glucose.
Here are the things that got worse after started glucose:
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Horrendous tinnitus: I’ve probably had tinnitus before, but this is next level. I think it was worsened by running out of vitamin K2, and it’s now mostly better, but still have some moments and stretches where it’s wild. I think it has to do with intracellular calcium, and that makes sense for ME/CFS as well. Fingers crossed it will recalibrate.
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My sleep has been worse since late September: My sleep has been mostly very good since 2021. It was amazing in July and August, because I was finally tired at night, and in September it was the best I can remember.
I’m not sure what caused it to change, but here are some thoughts: 1) I was woken up twice in less than two weeks by the fire department and police. I live in a very quiet neighbourhood and have never experienced something like that before. Turned out to be nothing, but might have played a part in my hearing becoming more sensitive. 2) the tinnitus issue started around this time. 3) I might have eaten less protein than I need.
The sleep was really awful for about a month, then not great, then some good and some bad nights. Now I have more really good nights, and I have started waking up a little rested again in the last few weeks, which I consider a good sign. Crossing my fingers it’s moving in the right direction. I’m not sure if any of my emotional or cognitive interventions of 1) were helpful, but as I’ve upped my protein and started taking K2 again I’ve seen improvements.
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Very dry skin on my hands: I’ve had issues with it sometimes, but it’s usually not one of my most prominent symptoms (as long as I don’t bake every day - had to quit my original education as a baker and confectionary). It got better in December, but still has not fully healed.
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Not sure this needs a point, but before I started waking up a little rested at the start of the year I was very exhausted for a few weeks. Not very surprising really, with my starting point, and five months of more of less “acute reinfections" and immune responses. Cognitively I was very exhausted, so I haven’t been able to update here.
Immune reactions and benefits
I’ve also continued to have immun reactions, but I don’t think that’s negative - even though it’s been exhausting. I've had immune responses that have indicated 2-4 rounds of shingles, a lung infection, bronchitis, overlapping symptoms of infections in the lungs/bronchial tubes/throat and sinus several times, what I assume is an immune response to infection in the brain (which might also be an explanation for the tinnitus and sensitive hearing). I’ve also felt a mouth sore coming, but the body has won all of these battles, and like the shingles the mouth sore didn’t break out fully, and healed abnormally fast.I still have some waves of this, but mostly lasts an hour or so, and happens in the evening or at night. I might have another round of chest infection starting now as well.
And despite all these infections/immun reactions and the terrible sleep, I have more energy than I did before the summer. For a few weeks, I think it was in November/December, I was able to go for more walks and increase how many steps gradually. Not far, but a lot longer than I’ve been able to for a long time. I’m usually better in the warmer months and it’s winter here now, so I am curious how my body will react to spring this year.
It seems very clear that my adaptive immune system has been activated, and in my glucose + Itaconate shunt hypothesis that makes perfect sense. My hope is that the first month was a sort of taste test of how I will start to feel when it's not activated all the time. I think that after a month of consistent use pathogens also got more energy and started reactivating, and so the immune system had to do some maintenance.
Wounds I’ve had, that have not healed for years, have started healing, and my hair is growing out a lot thicker. Nails are stronger, and I think I have less grey hair as well (daily oyster powder seems to have affected that before glucose too though).
I crash a lot less, and have more time for all the small parts of my day. I’ve been able to meditate more, knit more, and rarely feel that a day just rushes past me - which was most days before glucose. So I’m hopeful!
The glucose and the food
I’ve not added anything else except for glucose, because simplicity is very important for many people with ME/CFS, so I’ve wanted to see how far it can get me. (People with ME/CFS appear to have trouble breaking down carbs.)I've been taking a tbsp every hour approximately, so 12-14 tbsp a day. (Also did a bit more for a few weeks, because I wanted to see what happened, especially with the sideeffects above, but it didn’t help any of the issues. I think consistency is more important than quantity.)
I’ve been checking my blood glucose, and it’s not increased. I checked twice a day (morning and two hours after a meal, one after glucose) until some time in the fall, and then my GP and I decided I could test twice once a week. The HbA1c (long term blood glucose) is also within range; nothings changed.
At 12-14 tbsp a day I have around 140 grams of glucose/dextrose a day. I eat 2500-2700 calories a day, 60%+ carbs, and I've been trying different ratios, but now I’m at around 20% protein and 16-18% fat.
My sense is it's been very important to eat enough food overall, and enough nutrient dense foods, when taking large quantities of glucose. I think i’ve said this before, but simple carbs with very little nutrients are efficient fuel, and that means the system will work fast, and that means one can become deficient faster, if one doesn’t have enought nutrient dense food.
I've been aware of that since I started in July, but slacked a bit and landed around 100 grams for a while. I've upped it to 120+ recently, and it seems to have helped my sleep.
I’ve been tracking with Cronometer every day. I’ve not used it consistently before, but I tend to not eat enough if I don’t track. I’ve lost weight too btw, while being housebound and eating 2500+ calories. I’m not sure if it’s because something is off in my body (I do have a very severe illness), or if its just a sign of my metabolic health getting better.
I’ll try to share some more musings soon about the more metabolic side of all this. Now for some more glucose!
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