Posts made by josh

@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.

@LetTheRedeemed

I second Quali-C, i recently took a dose of 15-20mg a day for one week to get over a heavy cold(worth noting that bowel tolerance can be reached!). Cold has now gone. I now regularly still take 5-10mg as its cold season here.

Some interesting info from dr sarah myhill here:

https://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Vitamin_C_-learn_to_use_this_vital_tool_well%E2%80%93_the_key_is_getting_the_dose_right

Thanks @S-Holmes, when you started did you put 30g dextrose in your hot chocolate? Do you use a lesser dose now you are more used to it?

Thanks @S-Holmes and @gentlepotato, your replies show alot of care and i really appreciate that :).

Thats really interesting about how Ray Peat says tinnitus is from dysbiosis in the gut, i will look into his work on this.

Thanks @gentlepotato i think you are right that i struggle to keep my blood sugar high enough through the night. During the day i eat very regularly to make sure my blood sugar stays up, but the night i am definitely still having problems with. Iv tried a few things to get me through the night without waking, and i think milk and honey with some fruit at bedtime gave my best results. Actually the glucose supplementation iv done recently has worsened my sleep i think because maybe its entering and exiting the blood too quick. Have you had any luck with anything to keep your blood glucose up through the night?

Im now trying to use the glucose supplementation in an intuitive way, like first thing in the morning or if symptoms show up.

Thanks also for the experience on how important blood sugar regulation is, it gives me hope im on the right track. Trying to work out the different effects of sucrose, glucose, fructose and lactose atm.

@gentlepotato said in Glucose loading cures everything?:

@josh said in Glucose loading cures everything?:

Is it because the HPA axis becomes more sensitive with every trauma, and more ready to switch into sympathetic mode, stress cascade and ultimately more fat metabolism, inhibiting glucose metabolism. Maybe flooding the system with glucose stops the stress hormones from needing to be activated and slowly over time this makes the HPA axis less reactive through neuroplastic pathways being desensitised.

Do you have any sources for this understanding of the HPA axis? That the HPA axis "becomes sensitive", what does that mean? The neuroplastic approach is a very mental one, often seen mentioned by people who believe in the biopsychosocial model. I'd say it's very far from a bioenergetic approach.

Sorry from a technical standpoint i am fairly unqualified. i have had an intimate relationship with trauma though over the last two years. Iv tried to take knowledge and see how it sits and feels on my own body, staying open minded.

I believe in the bioenergetic view of increased energy makes you more able to deal with stress and trauma. I have felt things that trigger me become easier to deal with as i have more resource, using bioenergetic principles. I also know triggers of hardwired stress responses to pretty innocuous things still remain as i feel the adrenaline effects of them everyday.

So from my basic understanding, i think the hypothalamus can send false flags to the pituitary, and each time the pituitary fires off the adrenals, this down regulates your metabolism. This in turn makes your HPA axis much more sensitive to firing as your resources for stressors such as false flags becomes much lower. I can see where i was confusing, in a way the hpa axis isnt more sensitive, its just doing its job, its actually due to low energy, and the hpa axis is filling in the gaps.

It funny (it really isnt) but i notice this in the morning when my temps are low im super reactive to triggers, whereas in the evening i barely react to them. Inversely if im being triggered alot, after the adrenaline has settled my temps will drop. It just shows how bidirectional the relationship between stress and energy ate.

Iv tried the 4x 25g dextrose for the last 4 days and on the first day my tinnitus went for 6hrs in the afternoon which was a big deal. The next 3 days my tinnitus didnt go. What i think happened is it is having an effect, but naturally after day one i felt a bit better, and pushed myself a bit harder, hence lost the gains, and adrenaline(cause of my tinnitus) stepped in again. Will give it time and hopefully will start to improve my brains carb metabolism. This alongside experimenting with increasing co2 which has been super helpful.

Btw i do think if you can boost your metabolism and be less reactionary to triggers. I believe we all have triggers, but this less our bodies react to these triggers the less important they become to the brain and slowly fade away like old memories, and you dont re traumatise yourself each time there is a trigger (book:the brain that changes itself). i think there is room for neuroplasticity alongside bioenergenetics, but this is only my opinion

Thankyou! @LetTheRedeemed

Sorry, the above comment is in response to the question.”Why is glucose to the brain down regulated after every trauma?”

I’m new here and have messed up the quotebox!

@Peatful said in Glucose loading cures everything?:

@Insomniac said in Glucose loading cures everything?:

@Peatful Exactly. Ray Peat doesn't even come up in the conversation. They've scrubbed him.

They never understood him.

Is it because the HPA axis becomes more sensitive with every trauma, and more ready to switch into sympathetic mode, stress cascade and ultimately more fat metabolism, inhibiting glucose metabolism. Maybe flooding the system with glucose stops the stress hormones from needing to be activated and slowly over time this makes the HPA axis less reactive through neuroplastic pathways being desensitised.

@Ecstatic_Hamster yeah thats really interesting regarding the change in your control pause length based on different foods. So co2 levels in your body fluctuate quite rapidly, how long does it take to react after eating? And how long does it last.

I notice after 20mins in a co2 bath my stomach starts gurgling, i wonder is this the time it takes for the co2 to reach the cell and improve the oxygen exchange, therefore improving metabolism and lowering sympathetic activation.

It would be interesting to to understand the timing differences between:

• eating co2 promoting foods
• co2 baths
• carbonated drinks
• b1 and other supplements
• carbonegen and paperbag

What one would be the fastest to the slowest? From this maybe you could help moderate your co2 over 24hrs. For instance, a supplement at bed with a co2 bath for a more longer lasting experience, and a carbonated drink in the morning to get your levels up quickly.

Thanks @LetTheRedeemed im an avid listener of danny, jay and mike and so will go back through especially dannys recommendations on thyroid. I didnt know t4 directly suppressed adrenaline, i was aware you had to be careful that t4 didnt induce a high parathyroid state induced by stress and liver over whelm. that was my initial reason taking t3 to balance t4. I still take t4, and can see from pulse that in the morning t4 conversion is blocked by stress hormones. The sooner i can lower my stress response in the day the sooner my pulse shoots up from i guess an almost backed up t4. I wonder if the reason t4 doesnt tend to work well for some one its own is their stress levels are just too high to convert, and they need the t3 to prime the system. Maybe when someone is suffering fatigue but their stress response is ok, they would be ok with high t4 and low t3 ratio. Anyway, i definitely found benefit adding adrenaline lowering substances with t4 to enable the body to convert.

To throw an added spanner into the mix ive been weening myself off ssri’s which i was given during my health crisis two years ago and i didnt know any better. Im down to 5mg from 50mg sertraline, but who knows what hormonal carnage thats been causing, and think is a contributor to my morning stress problem. At some point i want to try cyproheptadine to see what the other side of the coin feels like but steady does it!

Totally agree @Sugarnotsnow @LetTheRedeemed my body craves sugar in the morning so i dont hold back. I think its quenching the stress response and allowing superior metabolic function to resume. Protein and fat to early just gives the body more work to do.

Thanks @LetTheRedeemed, i must admit i have dabbled with t3, i found it aggravated the adrenaline a bit, I think because I wasn’t quite ready for it.

It seems to be this careful balance with thyroid of not increasing it too fast so you don’t spook the adrenaline into action, but providing enough to support the slow transfer to genuine metabolic energy rather than stress hormones.

@LetTheRedeemed did you find the thyroid increased the stress response first before it subsided? Thanks again