How to stabilize blood sugar during COVID illness?
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@ThinPicking All I know is that I have never been this sick and for this long in my 64 plus years. It is also different in that it went directly to my lungs, and incessant, severe and wheezing coughing for weeks on end, sometimes wondering if I would pass out for want of air.... Definitely severe acute respiratory distress. Anyway, salt is super important, for sure! I have been consuming probably close to 3 TBSP baking soda throughout the day, with my o.j. I literally ladle in bits at a time, so the CO2 won't all be released into the air. I do also add NaCl to my gelatin, and sometimes to my milk with sugar.
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Thank you for taking the time to do your replies. In response, I can only send you some Ray Peat quotes for an email thread of when I was experiencing severe insomnia. It brought me to the conclusion of what I am currently doing, after trying to eat regularly, 4 meals a day with protein and coconut oil and my fiber meal, and failing miserably while having this severe respiratory illness. (When I got sick, nothing worked, including digestion!)
Ray Peat: Have you tried having a large amount of carbohydrate during the night? The morning stress results from failure to maintain glucose oxidation during the night. A fat free diet might help you to increase glucose oxidation efficiency.
Ray Peat raypeat@gmail.com
Feb 14, 2022, 5:01 PM
to meEliminating fats (ice cream, coconut oil) for a while might improve your carbohydrate metabolism and lower the stress hormones. Some people have good results from starchy foods at bedtime.
Ray Peat raypeat@gmail.com
Feb 14, 2022, 6:52 PM
to meNo, I think the fat late in the day is likely to be most disruptive to good sugar metabolism; increasing calories of carbohydrate can lower stress hormones.
Ray Peat raypeat@gmail.com
Feb 15, 2022, 7:35 PM
to meTemporarily (4 or 5 days) cutting out eggs and cheese, and limiting coffee to mornings, and increasing calories from carbohydrate should improve the depth of your sleep, as your metabolic rate increases. It should raise your temperature a little.
Ray Peat raypeat@gmail.com
Feb 16, 2022, 2:27 PM
to meI think the amount of fat in 1% milk would be o.k.
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@RPadmirateur said in How to stabilize blood sugar during COVID illness?:
All I know is that I have never been this sick and for this long in my 64 plus years. It is also different in that it went directly to my lungs, and incessant, severe and wheezing coughing for weeks on end, sometimes wondering if I would pass out for want of air.... Definitely severe acute respiratory distress.
You'll get well. Do you have observance of a heart in your midst. Or non-poetic, is someone looking after you?
If not and if not already, consider getting checked out. ARDS protocol's more sane now. We're not in a "crisis".
@RPadmirateur said in How to stabilize blood sugar during COVID illness?:
Anyway, salt is super important, for sure! I have been consuming probably close to 3 TBSP baking soda throughout the day, with my o.j. I literally ladle in bits at a time, so the CO2 won't all be released into the air. I do also add NaCl to my gelatin, and sometimes to my milk with sugar.
If you're going to continue liquid-only like this, perhaps just record the weights of sugar and salt you're adding. Paired with the amount of milk or orange juice you can make them a bit more physiologically accurate, so you're not creating an unmanageable osmotic stress and making this worse.
I'd rather you eat though. Honestly.
Don't go anywhere.
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@RPadmirateur, was Ray aware of your bloating? I’m wondering if a food you’re not digesting well could be affecting your blood pressure/pulse pressure and blood sugar? Have you tried cutting out the milk and having just sugared OJ and homemade gelatin/salty gelatinous broth or cutting out the OJ and gelatin and having just sugared milk?
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@ThinPicking Yes, thank you, someone is looking after me. And yes, I do measure the sugar and baking soda. I am trying to eat more gelatin, plus I tried some cheese and solid fruits ,and space intake in 4 meals, with sipping a bit of o.j. between meals, cut back on sugar in milk. It is turning out badly, with systolic b.p. back in the 170s. I have been taking 4 1/2 - 5g of aspirin, spread throughout the day, up from my usual 1500mg.
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@Jennifer Thank you for your thoughts. This has been a process, and I have been eliminating things as I went, since nothing seemed to digest. Today, I added some cheese, (Asiago, naturally aged with animal rennet), and that has elevated my b.p., but it could be more that I haven't eaten as much sugar...I am not sure. I have tried different milks and different orange juices, but I haven't tried omitting either the milk or the oj. That is something to consider. Overall, the bloating this time around has lessened as I heal/ am less in crisis.
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@LucH I have been thinking about and trying the "ideal order of foods: fiber – proteins (with fat) – carbohydrates. The fibers ingested first considerably reduce the glucose peak caused by sugar." I used ground white button mushrooms and hard cheese + gelatin, (homemade) for the protein with fat, and whole fruits for the carbohydrates, plus 1% milk My systolic b.p. is back up in the 170s. I do have experience with a CGS monitor in the past, when I also had b.p. issues with insomnia, and the spike, as well as the dips, did, in fact, cause a surge in blood pressure. I just don't know how to get in more sugar without creating these surges, since it seems that not assimilating enough sugar during times of stress, (current COVID infection), is what raises my b.p. Also, I know from experience that starches are completely OUT when I am under stress...I simply cannot digest them.
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@RPadmirateur said in How to stabilize blood sugar during COVID illness?:
it seems that not assimilating enough sugar during times of stress, (current COVID infection), is what raises my b.p. Also, I know from experience that starches are completely OUT when I am under stress...I simply cannot digest them.
First for covid:
Vit K2 (with D3 if moderate dose, otherwise seperated if 5 000 UI D3).
Vit E (2 tocols minimimum) : 3 x/wk 400 UI (Now Foods Gamma)
CO2 (bag breathe or a mix with baking soda => See Yerrag.
Zinc 30 mg.For the stress:
bisglycinate magnesium 300 mg 3x/d.
Breath exercice (sophrology) or EFT (Emotional freedom technique).
WalkingFor carbs
If your digestion is not optimal take a supplement enzymes.
But the pH for starch (potato, rice, wheat, cakes) is quite different from proteins.
If there is more than 125 ml liquid, it's going to be much more difficult to obtain the right acidity for assimilating proteins.
Moreover we have an amount lactase enzyme limited (milk lactose). Variable (...).
For glycemia, the most important meal is the breakfast: Impact on the whole day as far as insulin spike is concerned.
Your menu is well balanced as far as Ca and P are concerned, thanks to milk.
Hard cheese is high in phosphorus but milk has a good ratio (1 / 2.2 for P / Ca). => Compensation.
If too far from the ideal ratio, it's a source of stress (PTH).
If bloating, I'd make smaller meals. 1/3 carbs and 2/3 proteins. Or the contrary. We call that weak protein when 1/3.
Or you eat every 2H30 - 3H00 on a different model. No protein when you eat starch.
You have to find the easiest way by successive tries.
When eating proteins at the evening meal, I'd take betaine HCL to optimize the acidity required for proteins. Once a day. No need at midday.
=> I take Doctor's Best - betaine HCL, with pepsine and gentian bitters. 120 caps. -
@ThinPicking I may have made some assumptions regarding your comment on osmotic stress.
Please tell me more about possible osmotic stress with a milk and o.j. diet. I add 1-3 TBSP of white sugar for each cup of milk. If I am daring enough to try a bit of coffee with it, I add 3 TBSP, and I also use that concentration before bed and during the night. Otherwise, it is between 1 and 2 TBSP per cup of milk. As for the o.j., I generally drink 52 fl oz per day, (1.6qt.), adding a total of 3 TBSP to it as I go, sprinkling it on a ladle. Lmk what you think. Dr. Peat recommended 200 - 300 g white sugar to be added per day when under great stress with systolic b.p. elevation, but he never asked me how much milk total I was drinking. (These days, it's just under 2 qts.) -
@RPadmirateur said in How to stabilize blood sugar during COVID illness?:
@yerrag Thank you for your reply. I try to take a CO2 bath in a bag daily, (although many days, I am simply too tired). I also take baking soda with my hourly orange juice and bag breathe a few times per day. Interestingly, my blood pressure split is exacerbated by the CO2 bath. Not sure why, maybe I stay in too long and get too hot, which could be a stressor. I am still trying to figure it out.
One of the things I could not figure out is how the body determines the blood pressure we need in our daily life. What conventional medical wisdom has instilled in our gullible minds is that higher blood pressure is detrimental to our health. We can either run with that idea, or we can reject it.
I did, and continue to do so. It has helped me a lot, as I don't jump quickly into conclusions where say a supplement is good only when it brings down my blood pressure, and conversely, bad when it increases my b.p.
An example is the use of methylene blue increasing blood pressure. People observe that effect to be the downside of taking m.b. But is that really a downside? When you take mb, it tends to increase your metabolism. When metabolism is increased, won't the internal demands for fuel such as sugar and oxygen be increased. How else can more nutrients be supplied but by increasing the flow rate of blood thru tour body, and how else can this be achieved but by increasing pressure - blood pressure?
By following this false precept of modern Talmudist-hijacked medicine, we do more harm to ourselves when we fail to see the effect of always associating lower blood pressure to being healthy.
I have continued my body to function well under high blood pressure levels to such extent that nurses taking my b.p. would be aghast and would recommend each time that I go to the ER. Inam amused and not alarmed as the nurses are. I have no headaches whatsoever nor any chronic condition that even requires me to be on any prescription medication, and my metabolism is on the 99+ percentile as a result. I am very much immune to respiratory infections and have no allergies.
Lest I be accused of not being honest, I have to own up to having an acute case of heart failure where I was revived after my heart stopped for 15 minutes. I am still recovering from that as plenty of dead red blood cells are still in my system, and a slow and steady process of unclogging my lymphs and detoxing is underway. And I do it my way so as not to cause more harm than if my let the hospital and insurance system manage my recovery. Still, I own up to taking a substance in the wrong way and that caused my acute condition. Mistakes do happen, and I am glad I made the mistake as I own up to it and resolve the situation and not bury it, which I don't trust our doctors to do (even if the doctor is a good man, he would be a fool to subject himself to a potential lawsuit under the Talmudist-designed shyster system of justice).
I want to be clear though that I don't take high b p. for granted. I have to find the root cause for why the body has to adapt to a poor state by increasing b.p. I have figured out the root cause, and that is not even half the battle. Eliminating the cause is much harder, but I am on my way. Given that this is a one-man effort on my part, flying solo takes time. I wish I had some guidance from prior records of past best practices in the history of medicine, but the system lords have been burning books and throttling search engines in order to keep us befuddled and lost. So it's not an easy task to be different, even though directionally correct.
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@yerrag If I felt good having high b.p., that would be different. I feel terrible and my sleep is poor. Also, R.P. indicated in previous emails that a split systolic/ diastolic, (high systolic and normal to low diastolic), is caused by excessive cortisol and adrenalin. Also, now that I am no longer running a fever, I struggle to get my temps into the 98s, even up to 98.0 in the afternoon, even with taking Cynomel, 1/6 every hour, if I can manage it. My guess is that COVID simply increased every inflammatory substance in my body, and my intestines are highly inflamed and unable to handle what I put in them.
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@Jennifer After a night of coughing, bloating and gas from trying to introduce solid foods, I am following your suggestion. This morning, I just consumed orange juice with baking soda and homemade gelatin with salt. I had noticeable irritated bowels, but that many have been a layover from the day before. Still high systolic b.p. This afternoon, I am just consuming milk with less gelatin, (salted), than I was doing with the o.j. Still high systolic b.p. I don't know what else to try.
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@RPadmirateur, maybe try a different juice such as apple or grape or even coconut water with added white sugar? I know many Ray Peat followers who experience(d) intestinal irritation and bloating from OJ. And if by homemade gelatin you mean from powdered gelatin, maybe try gelatinous broth instead? I know quite a few people who get bloating from the former, but not the latter. The only other things I can think of are vitamin K—Ray suggested it for high BP in an interview (maybe try kale broth?)—your thyroid dose—optimizing our dose of NDT dropped my mum’s dangerously high BP and stabilized my blood sugar (I had hypoglycemia)—or anti-microbials like IdeaLabs’ CamphoSal or Penicillin VK—intestinal bacterial overgrowths are common among those with poor thyroid function.
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It escaped me that your lungs are not well. That is probably what you need to fix. Not only to ensure oxygen supply as I had stated earlier, but also to have the ability for the lungs to deactivate serotonin.
I think it helps to clear your lungs of phlegm that is interfering with your breathing as well as any possible bacteria.
You will sleep better and get the rest you need to be able to heal and recover. But as long as the lungs are compromised, sleep is going to be hard as the serotonin will be keeping you from sleeping well.
It was only after I resolved my lung issues that I started to recover last year from an acute bronchitis. Before I recovered, it got worse for me as the lungs affected my heart, and I had heart failure. It was touch and go for awhile as I recovered in fits and starts. But I learned well enough from that, and this is a perspective I share from surviving that experience.
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Selenium and lung inflammation
You could give a try with selenium, as Dr. Klinghardt stated in an old interview. But only with a nebulizer, not with a spray. Device to be found in a pharmacies.
Note: Proposed for people suffering from asthma.
Two ampoules of liquid selenium (2 mg), twice a day (morning and in the evening)
Labcatal selenium 2 mg, in nebulizer.
Selenium gives miracles on asthma; 3 weeks delay anyway. But it hasn't worked for everyone (feedback from my forum readers) when the pathogen/intruder remains in place. -
This isn't the gospel but. For the way it's transported the sugar concentration's not a big deal for much but GI discomfort. It's the salt I'd watch, including the bicarb.
Experiment with it. Record meticulously your BP and a description of how you feel. And anything else you're already measuring. Vary the concentration between hypo, iso and hypertonic, and see what happens.
The circulatory is quite malleable but seems to have resting states it can pattern in to around behaviour. Which is a function of activity as much as it is what you're eating and drinking. Blood volume in some kind of proportion to vascular dilation.
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@Jennifer Apple juice is too high in pectin, and, unfortunately, the grape juice that I could get without citric acid added is no longer available. Ditto for coconut water. But excellent ideas! It's just that anything with added citric acid causes intestinal irritation, at least for me. And I hear you on the powdered gelatin, I cannot do that either, unless I am really healthy! I do make my own gelatinous broth. My working diagnosis is that the stress of the illness/ adrenalin response, over sensitized me to the T3 I was taking, and at the same time, because I wanted the antiestrogen, anti-cortisol effects of aspirin, as well as aspirin's ability to limit G.I. absorption of tryptophan in the 2+ quarts of milk I have been drinking, I had increased it, (most days, 31/2 - 4 g), up until yesterday morning. Yesterday morning, I stopped all aspirin and Cynomel, because of aspirin causes unbinding of T3 from the protein carriers in the blood, essentially causing hyperthyroidism. http://content-assets.jci.org/manuscripts/106000/106905/JCI72106905.pdf Although I do not have signs of hyperthyroidism except about 10-30 min after drinking milk, o.j. and consuming a small amount of heavily salted gelatin, (my heart rate elevates about 12bpm more than normal), and I get really warm. I think I simply don't have the fuel and the nutrients for the hyperthyroidism to continue, so adrenalin/ cortisol kicks in and my b.p. shoots up. This is a working hypothesis. If it turns out to be true, I will post it as a separate post. I just stopped taking the aspirin and the T3 yesterday morning. I see varying information on the half life of T3, anywhere from 24 hours to 2 1/2 days. And I have not found anything in terms of the length of time that it takes for aspirin to have this globulin knocking off effect of T3. Lmk what you think. Your other recommendations are all good. I have stopped all oral supplements, including PenVK and Doxycycline, as well as the oral vitamin K, due to the intestinal upset, as of yesterday and today, (PenVK was prior to the Doxycycline). I am still going to supplement with topical vitamin K and D, and I rub Progest-E into my gums. Thank you for the reminder for the vitamin K! I might be a bit deficient, even though I was supplementing, and that might help with the BP. As of today, simply drinking less o.j., and a little more sugared milk and gelatin seems to be working. I log when I finish these drinks and start them again an hour later. My bp still goes up by the end of that time, but short of an I.V., it might just be a waiting game. Check out the link and lmk your thoughts. Thank you!
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@ThinPicking Right now, I am just going by taste. The heavily salted broth is very soothing. I have stopped the baking soda, because it may have been contributing to my intestinal irritation....not sure, so many variables. Please read what I wrote to Jennifer and lmk what you think.
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@yerrag I am thinking I need to try cyproheptadine, for its anti-serotonin effects. Yes, serotonin is deactivated in the lungs. Was cyproheptadine part of your healing regime? In a nutshell, how did you heal your lungs?
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@LucH I think the pathogen is irradiated and I am dealing with the aftermath of the effects of the inflammation. I have a new working hypothesis. Please see my response to Jennifer.
