@NokiaDrift Yeah, I totally get That. My background is in civil engineering and architecture so this is very much a whole new world to me too. On the positive side, I think understanding the bigger picture and not getting buried in the detail can serve you well.

My general diet is almost identical to your diet that you have listed. When I heard of dr stephen’s Protocol of using glucose, it seemed to fit my symptoms so well and i ramped up very quickly to360 g a day, but after a few days I really didn’t want to drink the glucose. I think it was easy to get carried away and think I must do exactly what others are doing or it won’t have the positive benefits, but what I realised is, you really have to listen to your own body, the subtle changes to symptoms. My belief is that stress Is what is stopping my body recovering, and being unwell makes the smallest things stressful. So if you can reduce stress in all its forms, at every opportunity, you will slowly recover. An example of how thorough i try be, I live in a house with a Staircase, I try to avoid too many trips up and down the staircase each day as it causes Adrenaline which all adds up to my total stress burden, and that Burton is keeping me stuck in a maladaptive state. So I’ve decided to start using the glucose intuitively when I’m feeling stressed as a way to bring that down and heal. Now, if I’ve had to go up and down the staircase a few times, I take a swig of the glucose drink (see below) which helps bring my stress response down quicker.

I have tried to take Dr Stephen’s protocol and make it my own, to better what I currently do, Rather than checking out all the good stuff I already do. So I have kept my diet the same with lots of bone broth, good dairy, milk and fruit, But where i used to have orange juice, I now have Milk with 200 g of dextrose in it, And then, also some Collagen and salt added. I then drink it slowly throughout the day, drinking more when I am stressed or have to do something physically or mentally demanding. It seems to work, especially when holding it in your mouth and adding it absorb sublingually. So I guess I have offset the carbs slightly by stopping the orange juice, and hopefully replacing it with carbs that are more effective for the brain. I think it is really important that you don’t replace the carbs in your diet entirely with glucose. Keeping a good amount of cheese, Fruits and a bit of starch stop me from going hypo. I have found, I can still eat a decent amount of fruit and food alongside 200 g, I may start to go up if my body doesn’t mind it, Or if my demand for carbs naturally goes up.

On the vitamin B1 front, I take ttfd 100mg. I have chandler marrs’ book Which is a good reference, And also elliot overtons YouTube channel. I started at 50mg and didnt have any negative effect, so went up to 100mg. At this dose my adrenaline went down and i started getting headaches, so iv stayed there and the headaches have lessened. I plan on trying 150mg and then 200mg where hopefully ill stay. I take it in the morning as i think it can effect sleep due to the energy boost. My theory is that the need for adrenaline in My body went down and so Headaches are just my body feels like without running on adrenaline. Hopefully overtime, my metabolic energy production increases, I will feel well without stress hormones.

I hope this helps, it’s my take on the protocol, Thinking that it doesn’t need to be all or nothing. I think listening to your body and answering it with glucose is a good way to incorporate this protocol.

@NokiaDrift thank you for being so open about what led you to this point. I think one of the really amazing things about this forum is that people can speak the truth of how hard life is, and you have had quite a tough ride with that medication.

You are on the right track, and from my experience when you are going the right direction, Health slowly but surely comes back through the ups and downs.

I think the wisdom in the replies so far make a lot of sense, that food should be your primary focus. The Kate Deering book is great. I have tied myself in nots with supplements before, And I agree T3 can sometimes be counterproductive If you are not fueling your body correctly. Supplements make up milligrams of your diet, food makes up kilograms.

I too am using glucose and so far I have had really positive results. Interestingly, it has also given me additional benefits which are similar to T3, of raised body temperature and pulse. I am all the way up at 360 g of glucose, you may need less. Supplying the energy for your body needs to work properly seems to be really fundamental. Just a note, glucose depletes thiamine In the body, so it may be worth taking a good dose of vitamin B1 If you start to take higher amounts of glucose, as B1 is essential for metabolising glucose.

Something worth trying in case it Helps you too, When I’m feeling particularly stressed ie brain foggy etc. i take a slurp of my dextrose drink (270g dextrose to 500ml of milk) and hold it in my mouth letting the mix absorb through my cheeks and sublingually for a good 5 mins and the stress plummets. This may be worth a go when your arthritis flares up.

All the best, you will get there.

Just an update on my experience using glucose. In the last few days I have upped my intake to 360 g spread throughout the day and the two main things I have noticed is that my adrenaline has gone down, but My fuzzy headaches have Increased. I think this might just be my body adjusting to the change. It would make sense that if my adrenaline was going down, I may have less energy in the interim, as actually less sugar is available to my brain.i.e Less sugar being liberated by the adrenaline.

Last night as an experiment, I drank 120 g of dextrose in milk, And I had amazing dreams all night. When I woke I normally have palpitations, these weren’t there. I wonder if the milk helped buff the glucose to last longer throughout the night? Also, I should mention at the same time I used a bit of Progest-e Which helps lower the insulin reaction to glucose. (Ref michael platt, adrenaline dominance)

I think, if you spend a lot of the day like I do running on stress hormones, it can feel like you take Step backwards when you run on glucose metabolism without stress hormones, But I hope this will come good as my body re learns How to use glucose properly.

I’ve read through a copy of Dr David Stephens book recently And he suggested people land on a dose Between 40-80 Grams, 3 to 4 times a day, So between 160 and 320 grams Per day As a minimum and it can go much higher. This made me realise if I was going to do this I needed to vastly increase the amount of glucose I was taking each day.

I was trying to work out what feeling was aiming for when I knew I was at the correct dose. I’ve been exerting myself quite hard today, which caused my trigger happy adrenaline to start up with all the usual feelings of palpitations, but as per usual after I had finished exerting myself I got this 30 minutes of well-being and feeling really good. I thought, of course! This is the amount of glucose I need, I need the same amount of glucose as what my adrenaline produces in these moments of stress to start the feelings of well-being and ultimately endorphins. Although helpful, it also doesn’t make any sense for my glucose consumption to be Exactly the same amount throughout the day. It’s better to take glucose consistently throughout the day than not, but it feels ideally the amount of glucose should respond to the need of stressors and feeling To match the supply and demand. I’ve ended up dissolving 240 g of dextrose in a litre of milk to buffer it with the slightly. I keep it in a flask with me throughout the day and I’m going to try to intuitively drink the glucose in response to the stresses of the day. I think it’s may be worth upping the amount in the flask too!

Ultimately, I am hoping that this will achieve the affect that Dr David Stevens sees, with my brain cells becoming less resistant to glucose, Due to the lower levels of adrenaline needed, and therefore less lipolysis.

Also trying to combine thiamine, and co2 to create a virtuous spiral But early days with this!

Thanks @LetTheRedeemed @Mossy. Sorry this may be a silly question, do you need the pair the baking soda with an acid to release the co2 into the water or could you just use baking soda which would absorb into the body and from inside the body release co2?

@BioEclectic said in Consensus on a good Vitamin C source?:

@josh
Potential issues would be the source of ascorbic acid, if it's contaminated with metals as it often is, and would they absorb through the skin. Another concern with standard Vit-C is the toxic mold remnants from the manufacturing process and if they would cause any issues transdermally.

The same questions and concerns would apply to citric acid as well.

I'm guessing you're not using Quali-C in the bath as that seems prohibitively expensive.

Thanks @BioEclectic. damn! Didnt realise citric acid has the same issues as ascorbic acid, there goes the bath for absorbing co2, though it makes me feel so good in the morning, think ill try the co2 bin bag again.

Yeah unfortunately not using quali-c for the bath, just orally, probably cheaper to bath in Perrier.

@Ecstatic_Hamster said in Ideas for getting more CO2 into your everyday routine:

Control pause gets worse within 10 or 15 minutes of eating anything, especially protein, and especially foods you aren’t tolerant of. The CP diminishes for 3 or so hours. I have heard it has to do with ions soaked up in the process of creating hydrochloric acid for stomach digestive stage, and these ions are then picked back up into the body. I doubt this is the best explanation but it kind of explains why meat lowers CP more than eating fruit does.

It does not explain the food intolerance part.

As far as the Ray Peat diet (whatever that is) resulting in weight gain I find that when I limited sugar consumption and consumed more starch, I was able to easily lose body fat. That is the way most of the thin world eats.

Thanks @Ecstatic_Hamster i missed this earlier! Iv always noticed an initial lessening of symptoms immediately after eating i think from the pleasure of it, then followed by a worsening of symptoms about 30mins later as energy is taken for digestion. Interesting to see how this patches in with cp!

I used it for about a year gradually making my way up to 4.5 mg. It did increase my feeling of dopamine, but You do need to grade up to 4.5 mg slowly.

I was told at the time that it worked by briefly blocking your dopamine receptors causing them to overcompensate with more dopamine. If you take too large a dose straight Away your dopamine receptors will be unable to respond adequately to the stimulus.

A really good resource with many Interviews of people who have taken LDN for different conditions is the:
https://ldnresearchtrust.org/

Ultimately I stopped the LDN because I didn’t want to be on it for too long a time and I wanted to know how I felt without it. One of the good things about LDN You can stop it Cold turkey without having any withdrawal symptoms because your dopamine levels remain at a higher level post usage.

Sorry, I am unfamiliar with the use of LDN to reduce endotoxin, but it would make sense With its anti-biotic properties.

Thanks @BioEclectic yes sorry i do mean grams.

Just out of interest, I have been doing co2 Baths recently, using a mix of bicarbonate of soda, and citric acid. Well, I’ve run out of citric acid and found a spare tub of ascorbic acid (vit c). My thought was mixing ascorbic acid and sodium bicarbonate would make sodium ascorbate. Anyway, i’m sat in it now as I write this and it seems to work just as well, Skin is going pink! It seems to take more ascorbic acid than I would normally use for citric acid, But an added benefit is im sat in the bath full of sodium ascorbate to absorb transdermally plus co2?

Could this be a useful way to bypass the gut and absorb more vitamin C for say a cold, would i actually absorb that much transdermally? Avoiding the problem of bowel tolerance. I’ve heard an IV Vitamin C can go up to 200 grams, so thought would be okay from a toxicity point of view, can anyone see any issues with this?

Ah sorry newbie, my link doesnt work, but a search of “dr sarah myhill vitamin c” should bring it up.