Diet and Healing

[Altostrata]

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[PupperMintPatty]

2 minutes ago, Ariel said:

@PupperMintPatty

 

 

No specific diet, as I said I make it up as I go along based on symptoms, which are ever in flux.

I've written a summary of sorts in my intro topic:

 

Ok, I understand. I used to be on Keto but quit because it was taking a toll on me mentally and emotionally. It did help but I also felt worse in certain ways. I think maybe it was too overwhelming at times. In thinking about trying it again in the future. 

[Wanttofreemyself]

49 minutes ago, PupperMintPatty said:

But you're currently doing better?

Yes I'm much better than last week. Still have lingering anxiety and depressive mood, my appetite slowly returned and libido also

[PupperMintPatty]

Just now, Wanttofreemyself said:

Yes I'm much better than last week, my appetite slowly returned and libido also

That's good to hear.

[Wanttofreemyself]

Are you feeling better or still struggling?

[PupperMintPatty]

11 minutes ago, Wanttofreemyself said:

Are you feeling better or still struggling?

I feel slightly better and tired. I usually feel better towards the late evenings/ night time. 

[Wanttofreemyself]

1 hour ago, PupperMintPatty said:

I feel slightly better and tired. I usually feel better towards the late evenings/ night time. 

That's good that you're feeling slightly better. Sometimes at night is hard for me because of sleep anxiety.

 

I'm not out of the woods yet, every time I think I'm half way decent the anxiety and depressive mood crawls back in

[PupperMintPatty]

50 minutes ago, Wanttofreemyself said:

That's good that you're feeling slightly better. Sometimes at night is hard for me because of sleep anxiety.

 

I'm not out of the woods yet, every time I think I'm half way decent the anxiety and depressive mood crawls back in

Man, that's tough to hear but I understand what you're saying. I struggle with a lot of health anxiety - Hypochondria tendencies. Lately, I've been getting a lot of intrusive thoughts of wanting to end myself and they're more difficult at night when I lie in bed. It's almost like they're louder. Probably because I don't have anything to distract myself with. 

[Mdawg]

4 hours ago, PupperMintPatty said:

Are you on any specific diet? And what do you do for exercise? I walk for about 30 minutes every day. 

No specific diet, but I favor antihistamine and anti inflammatory and antioxidant foods. No sugar, caffeine, alcohol.  I have celiac and lactose intolerance so no gluten or dairy.  No beans including peanuts and peas.  Certain fruits like pineapple and oranges can be bothersome.  No simple grains like white rice or corn.  CORN is horrible for the brain. But everything else is fair game:) 😂 my preferred method is swimming, but walking will do preferably power walking on soft earthy ground (joint pain).  I’ve recently begun reincorporating some light weight training but that’s only because I nearly had the training schedule of a pro athlete before WD.

[Mdawg]

32 minutes ago, PupperMintPatty said:

Man, that's tough to hear but I understand what you're saying. I struggle with a lot of health anxiety - Hypochondria tendencies. Lately, I've been getting a lot of intrusive thoughts of wanting to end myself and they're more difficult at night when I lie in bed. It's almost like they're louder. Probably because I don't have anything to distract myself with. 

You are not alone in having those thoughts… I do too.  I think a lot of us do.  It’s really tough.  Humans are not evolved to confront a problem such as this, it is so unnatural in an anthropological sense, and it is completely because of the actions of the drug and NOT you.  So stick with the coping techniques, and always reach out for help. ❤️

[PupperMintPatty]

19 minutes ago, Mdawg said:

You are not alone in having those thoughts… I do too.  I think a lot of us do.  It’s really tough.  Humans are not evolved to confront a problem such as this, it is so unnatural in an anthropological sense, and it is completely because of the actions of the drug and NOT you.  So stick with the coping techniques, and always reach out for help. ❤️

Thank you for replying. I really do 

 

24 minutes ago, Mdawg said:

No specific diet, but I favor antihistamine and anti inflammatory and antioxidant foods. No sugar, caffeine, alcohol.  I have celiac and lactose intolerance so no gluten or dairy.  No beans including peanuts and peas.  Certain fruits like pineapple and oranges can be bothersome.  No simple grains like white rice or corn.  CORN is horrible for the brain. But everything else is fair game:) 😂 my preferred method is swimming, but walking will do preferably power walking on soft earthy ground (joint pain).  I’ve recently begun reincorporating some light weight training but that’s only because I nearly had the training schedule of a pro athlete before WD.

Thank you for replying. Your words of encouragement truly do help. I admire you for keeping up your exercise routine as well as your diet. 

[Wanttofreemyself]

5 hours ago, PupperMintPatty said:

Man, that's tough to hear but I understand what you're saying. I struggle with a lot of health anxiety - Hypochondria tendencies. Lately, I've been getting a lot of intrusive thoughts of wanting to end myself and they're more difficult at night when I lie in bed. It's almost like they're louder. Probably because I don't have anything to distract myself with. 

I'm sorry about that, I don't have health anxiety but I struggle with ocd. just remember it's just bad thoughts that's formed through misery and anxiety. Let me know if you ever have problems

[PupperMintPatty]

Thank you for your support. I think I'm in a window today. Still experiencing intrusive thoughts but feel calmer. 

[Wanttofreemyself]

@PupperMintPatty how are you now, still in a window?

[bxeldr]

(Moved from the Intro section - original title: New information about diet and mental health!)

 

Hello all,  I want to share with everyone here some new information about the link between the food we eat and the effects on our mental health.  Here is a link to a website that has a variety of helpful info:  https://www.diagnosisdiet.com/blog-parent/category/depression  

    I am having a better day today, so thought I would try to get this info on the forum and see what you think.  I have concluded that the invention of all SSRIs and other brain drugs is in response to a primary factor.  The chemical processing of the food we consume has and will continue to plague people with mental health issues, now at epidemic levels. There are several good you tube videos talking about this.  Try telling this to your shrink!  Quite laughable!  LOL!

    I am still struggling to overcome my 25+ years of taking Prozac and Zoloft and I have learned much about this here on this site just in the past few days. It has been helpful to realize that many of the bizarre symptoms I have are caused by withdrawal from these drugs.  I was mistakenly thinking these were just age-related but was always a bit suspicious that the withdrawal could be the cause.  I had a horrible day yesterday because I had not gotten any sleep, but today I feel much better, so I thought I would put this information up for everyone to evaluate.   I do not mean to push anything on to anyone or pour cold water on anything, I have had some success by changing how I eat and just wanted to share what I have learned.  It might help in this struggle to be free.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Shep
added original title after moving from intro thread)

[rmce72a]

This is very interesting. Thank you for the info. How about eggs, potatoes, and green beans?

[bxeldr]

Rmce72a,  Eggs are really good for you, Potatoes, not so much.  Beans can be problematic, it depends a lot on the individual.  There is starting to be lots more available info on the different types of foods and the various complications.  Read as much as you can on the link I posted and there are many good you tube videos as well.  The first thing I did was stop all sugar it is the worst and it is in everything. Then stop all refined seed oils (these are in everything too) only healthy fats real butter, olive oil,  are very good, our brains are made of mostly fat, so good healthy fats are good.  I then stopped all bread, grains and flour.  I had suffered from Crohn's disease and it has since gone away after the bread stoppage.  Do not listen to the phony food pyramid crap it is a lie, and is killing us and making the corporate food industry rich.  My blood tests have shown dramatic improvement with weight loss and lowered ldl and tryglycerides, I was pre diabetic but lost 35lbs in the first two months. And feel so much better, I think my withdrawal has also been easier because of it too.

[rmce72a]

Thank you! I, too, have cut out caffeine, dairy, gluten, sugar and I think it has helped my stomach issues. I have been reading various Websites and recommendations for low histamine foods, and I have found a lot of conflicting info. Some say potatoes and eggs are ok, and others say no. Apparently egg white are high histamine. Who knew? 

 

I have also been taking AD for 25 years, Effexor 75 XR for the last 22. I was prescribed it originally for muscle and joint pain associated with allergies. I took allergy shots for 15 years but I still have allergies. I also have taken Clarine through the years to help, but Alto suggests that taking an antihistamine might not be wise in withdrawal, so I stopped taking it last week and have begun a low histamine diet.

 

Because of allergies, my diet is pretty restricted anyway, but now even more so. Until this week, I have been eating baked chicken or beef, oatmeal, hard boiled eggs (for protein) and green beans mostly. I also have been eating gluten-free bread and crackers, but reading the ingredients, I have even stopped that too. I tried squash last night for dinner instead of potatoes but had high tinnitus all evening it. I use only soy-free margarine. I have always struggled with fresh fruits and veggies.

 

Supplements don't agree with me, and magnesium make my anxiety worse. I know that my body needs more nutrition that it is getting, but I'm really not sure what to eat. I've lost 28 points in the last 7 months, and I really shouldn't lose much more. What a mess!

 

Thank you again for your valuable info. Take care.

[bxeldr]

I don't claim to be an expert in any of this, so I don't want to evaluate what anybody is eating.  There are enough people speaking out now about this, that a wealth of info is beginning to accumulate, I have educated myself about it by just reading as much as I could find.  I would have to congratulate you on the work you have done so far!  If there is one thing however I noticed is that you are eating margarine.  I think you should reevaluate this and move over to real butter.  As I understand it, margarine is not good for us.  I would also recommend you view Dr. Sten Ekberg on you tube, he has many helpful videos.

[Crochet]

Just want to give an update on my transition to the Carnivore diet.  I started dropping foods from my diet in February 2022 and am now eating only beef as of September 2022.  I eat 2-3 fatty steaks a day and lots of salt and water.  I'm doing an all-beef diet right now to try to work on my histamine issues. The goal is for my body to settle and then start to slowly introduce foods and see how my body does.  I don't plan on eating all beef for a long period of time.  I'm consulting a nutritionist at this point.

 

I'm still hiving up here and there, but I just stopped taking Claritin so I'm hoping my body will settle within a month.  I've noticed continued improvement throughout my diet changes over the past year.  I few downturns here and there that have always resolved.  My body is in a transition stage right now, so I currently have diarrhea.  This apparently is typical and should resolve and I don't find it particularly disturbing.

 

Hope everyone is doing well when using food as medicine!

 

Take care,

 

Crochet

[Crochet]

Quick update - I'm no longer doing the all-meat diet.  My period came and the usual symptoms were worse than normal.  I felt very nauseous and just ill.  My body would not let me eat meat. When I tried to, I would gag.  With this experience plus 5 weeks of sludgy diarrhea and losing about 10 lbs, I decided my body wanted me to stop.  I think some would say that you just need to push through, but I was bordering on non-functional and I do not want to go there again.  I started sipping on meat/veggie broths and ginger tea and have been feeling much better.  Because I want to use food to heal, I'm transitioning over to the GAPS diet.  I see there is another post for this particular diet, so I'll put an update there once I have more to report.  Good luck to everyone experimenting with diet!

 

Take care,

 

Crochet

[SonSetFree]

Hi Crochet, how is your diet going?   Any update on GAPS or final verdict in Carnivore?

 

son

[Crochet]

@SonSetFree Hi Son! Thanks for asking. I'm still sticking with the GAPS diet. It feels like a better fit for me than carnivore. I eat 4-6 cups of meat stock a day (chicken, cow or fish) along with the meaty bones from these animals. I eat plenty of vegetables with lots of butter or coconut oil. I make my own kefir and sour cream and do kefir smoothies each day. I make my own sauerkraut and pickles and enjoy them. I have a little bit of honey, fruit or nuts sometimes. When I started juicing vegetables and eating introducing fruit, I started to regress. I also started having nightmares where I felt physical pain in the dream, which definitely felt like my body was trying to tell me something.  So I stopped juicing and the fruit and put myself back into ketosis. I seem to do better in ketosis. For some people, being in ketosis seems to help for whatever reason, and for others, eliminating all food but meat seems to help. It's a strange thing! 

[SonSetFree]

On 3/18/2023 at 9:18 PM, Crochet said:

seem to do better in ketosis

Fascinating thanks for your thorough response!  My sugar cravings have been rough lately. I need some discipline for this kind of diet for sure. 

[Crochet]

@SonSetFree Sugar cravings are a thing and can be stronger for some people than others for various reasons. Not sure if this will work for you or not based on your situation. If I had a craving, I could usually work through it and abstain, but sometimes the craving was particularly strong, so I would dip just the tip of a teaspoon in honey and that would do the trick. The GAPS diet allows for a little sweetness from fruit or honey, so just a little bit here and there works for me.

[guile2]

I made a discovery 20 days ago exactly today. Three plant powders mixed with water took away my withdrawal 95% on antipsychotics. I was letting 6 months of invega 234mg monthly injection shots wear off and I got to a really bad point of fast thinking after the 33rd day it escalated to a great amount and at that point I started a low MG pill of invega because I knew I was heading in the decompensating direction and it was getting really bad. So since I had positive experiences with these plant powders individually I tried 3 of them mixed together. I recovered about 95% of the fast thinking every few hours I would take the plant powders and it restored a sense of normalness of mind too after about 14 days of taking it but I noticed positive changes earlier. This spurred me to buy a lot of the plants and plant powders I had experimented with before and benefitted from and also start up juicing organic carrots and beets (CalOrganic). I also started blending organic power greens from trader Joe's in my spice grinder as it's the only glass chemical polish free chopping tool I know of. I've been regularly taking these plant powders for stress - the 3 mixtures help with that also on top of curing my fast thinking. I take one other plant powder for anxiety which helps 99% of the time. You have to know what company's to buy from when you buy organic plants as medicine because so many are careless in the way they use chemicals around it and plants with bad organic fertilizers and pesticides won't help either. 

 

It spurred me to buy a lot of plants I have positive experiences with (not Marijuana or drugs for my American friends who think God created 1 plant the Marijuana and then he created western medicine). Anyway I wasn't going to share because I only have taken antipsychotics and don't know how any of this effects AD users and I don't want to be a bad influence but I thought this was an interesting personal experience of mine and I would share there are plants out there that help (not Marijuana stay far away from that plant)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[guile2]

Quote from a book: 

"Never before in human history have our systems of detoxification been under such constant strain as they are today. We are exposed to literally tens of thousands of novel human-manufactured toxins in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Add to this alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, preservatives, and artificial ingredients in food, and what you have is a real mess. When our bodies are inundated with both normal metabolic wastes as well as these potent external toxins, our detoxification organs are being asked to go way above and beyond what they are designed to do. Supporting these overburdened organs is essential. Using plants to help cleanse the body of wastes and toxins is a key strategy for prevention and healing"

[guile2]

Since Americans are dumb when it comes to plants I figure I need to say what's in my plant box picture. 

 

Cause for what ungodly reason people in America only eat plants for drugs and than eat factory man made trash the rest of the time. 

 

Well I don't want to share my plant ideas openly because pharmaceutical company's might watch this website since its public and attack the organic company's selling herbs on Amazon in order to protect their poisonous man made drug profits since they're bankrupting this whole economy selling their trash at high levels. Then of course I don't want the enterprising pharmaceutical people ruining the organic plant sellers by trying to distill the plants and sell the resulting trash for billions of dollars which will ruin the natural avenues to get the plants and raise the prices astronomically so that a person on social security like me can't afford it. Or the health food nuts that make a plant popular raising the prices to ridiculous levels and growing it unnaturally in buckets in their back yard to sell as "organic" to make lots of cash again ruining it for me. 

 

So I have to say for my American friends who are dumb when it comes to plants I own no drugs or Marijuana and do not advocate their use. 

[guile2]

I made a discovery 20 days ago exactly today. Three plant powders mixed with water took away my withdrawal 95% on antipsychotics. I was letting 6 months of invega 234mg monthly injection shots wear off and I got to a really bad point of fast thinking after the 33rd day it escalated to a great amount and at that point I started a low MG pill of invega because I knew I was heading in the decompensating direction and it was getting really bad. So since I had positive experiences with these plant powders individually I tried 3 of them mixed together. I recovered about 95% of the fast thinking every few hours I would take the plant powders and it restored a sense of normalness of mind too after about 14 days of taking it but I noticed positive changes earlier. This spurred me to buy a lot of the plants and plant powders I had experimented with before and benefitted from and also start up juicing organic carrots and beets (CalOrganic). I also started blending organic power greens from trader Joe's in my spice grinder as it's the only glass chemical polish free chopping tool I know of. I've been regularly taking these plant powders for stress - the 3 mixtures help with that also on top of curing my fast thinking. I take one other plant powder for anxiety which helps 99% of the time. You have to know what company's to buy from when you buy organic plants as medicine because so many are careless in the way they use chemicals around it and plants with bad organic fertilizers and pesticides won't help either. 

 

It spurred me to buy a lot of plants I have positive experiences with (not Marijuana or drugs for my American friends who think God created 1 plant the Marijuana and then he created western medicine). Anyway I wasn't going to share because I only have taken antipsychotics and don't know how any of this effects AD users and I don't want to be a bad influence but I thought this was an interesting personal experience of mine and I would share there are plants out there that help (not Marijuana stay far away from that plant)

 

Quote from a book: 

"Never before in human history have our systems of detoxification been under such constant strain as they are today. We are exposed to literally tens of thousands of novel human-manufactured toxins in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Add to this alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, preservatives, and artificial ingredients in food, and what you have is a real mess. When our bodies are inundated with both normal metabolic wastes as well as these potent external toxins, our detoxification organs are being asked to go way above and beyond what they are designed to do. Supporting these overburdened organs is essential. Using plants to help cleanse the body of wastes and toxins is a key strategy for prevention and healing"

 

(Disclaimer:please don't think I'm talking about Marijuana or drugs or get triggered to try those things. They are bad for you!)

[icarus]

At the moment for me I find even accidentally skipping a day of Sertraline enough to get extreme/horrific nightmares, feeling of being off-balance, and general grogginess.

 

Are there any foods people would recommend reaching for (and to be honest, any other strategies) to manage these withdrawal effects?

 

Usually these feelings go away after a day or two back taking it regularly, but during these spells of feeling awful, I'd like to be able to manage them better.