dang it I’ll be humming that for days! I mean gurgling it.
Done with carnivore
FrankoBear
#22
This is a good report and list of observations. Thanks for sharing it. I hope you get back on track toward better health. What you have learned is part of the dietary foraging we on this forum are engaged in. We hunt, we dig, we try, we taste, we observe, we reflect, we contemplate, we dig deeper sometimes, and we gather wisdom along with prickly mistakes. We are modern hunter gatherers.
Meerkatsandy
#23
I had that reaction once, my husband and I went for a dinner to a restaurant (and I just remembered which one, go brain!) and after I had my dinner, my nose was stuffed for about half an hour. I didn’t have anything spicy, so it was definitely something they were cooking with. I will have to sacrifice my breathing and test again 
And I remember what I ate, so I will have to re-order the same…
I’m histamine intolerant, so I cut out all oxalate-rich veggies, spices, fruits, nightshades, etc. Testing for reactions is much easier on keto, we don’t eat such a variety of foods as pre-keto.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#24
Maybe what you ate contained a lot is histamine. When I eat a food with too much histamine, my nose quickly stuffs up. Tomatoes are one of my biggest culprits.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#26
Of course, the trouble with histamine is that a food can be high in histamine one time and not so much another time depending upon its age.
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#27
Tomatoes are strange. Raw (fresh) tomatoes don’t seem to cause a problem. Sometimes cooked tomatoes cause a problem, but it depends on the dish. Chili can sometimes be a problem, and sometimes not.
For me, I have idiopathic cardiomyopathy. There is some evidence that this might be an autoimmune disease. If it is autoimmune, then carnivore could possibly help, considering it has a good track record with other autoimmune diseases. That’s why I think that getting allergic symptoms from food might be a bad thing.
As for hot/spice food, I ate bland, low fat food for years. So, I added hot sauce to it. I even started buying hot sauces, and have had many, many different types. I’m the person who can win the T-shirt after eating the “Wings of Death!” off the menu. But I have to wonder if that was good for me, particularly combined with high wheat intake and other food that causes leaky gut and all kinds of other problems.
I still have problems with plants. For instance, I can no longer eat raw sauerkraut (but cooked seems OK), zucchini (zoodles), etc. I think that may be the same for other plants, but just to a lower degree. I find even chocolate to be questionable.
So, when people say a plant or spicy food is good, that may or may not be true, depending on the person. I personally question whether eating a food and getting immediate allergic symptoms is a good thing. And I don’t think you need to eat plants that give you mucus, as I’m sure out bodies make plenty of mucus without that trigger. When I was high carb, I was taking two 24-hour allergy pills every day during the seasons. Now, I take none. But I’m not sure I should encourage myself to eat something that immediately causes basically the same thing. Maybe because I eat it so rarely, that’s what holding my allergies at bay?
Meerkatsandy
#29
I run into trouble if I push it (a few days of higher histamine foods and I deplete my tiny pool of DAO) or sometimes I stumble upon something that causes an instant outbreak…I’ve also noticed the quality/origin of food makes a big difference.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#30
I realized almost a year ago part of my trouble with food was caused by histamine intolerance. It was causing anxiety and some of my heart palpitations. This past May I gave carnivore a try. I will admit, it was not perfect. I did use seasoning. It seemed to improve some lingering problems with my joints. (I have a thread about my trial) I gave it a go for about 5 or 6 weeks until I went on vacation.
Unfortunately, I’m just not a nose-to-tail person, so I have introduced some greens and some berries. So far they seem okay. I still have to watch histamine. Certain foods are worse for me than others. I know I’ve had too much histamine because my nose stuffs up, sometimes I get itchy, and I wake up with heart palpitations and anxiety during the middle of the night.
One thing I think carnivore may have done for me is possibly heal a leaky gut. Before I tried carnivore, the list of questionable foods was growing. Symptoms were almost always a racing heart and heart palpitations. After my 6 week stint, I have found I can eat foods I was reacting to previously. Now, I’ve only had them in small amounts. I haven’t gone crazy with anything, but I don’t get the reactions I was getting before my trial. Another thing I was working on at the time was getting my electrolytes in order. That has also made a big difference.
Fun fact: I’ve noticed since cutting vegetables way back, my sense of smell has improved.
As always, I am a work in progress.
Polly1
(Polly)
#31
That is really interesting to hear Virginia. I cut out all grains a long time ago in order to control arthritic pain. Despite eating low carb I cannot tolerate grains even after 5 years off the grains. Perhaps I should consider carnivore. Tried it briefly in July but caved fairly quickly.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#32
I have to admit that I did find carnivore a little mentally stressful. If I took a few bites of something that wasn’t strictly carnivore, I would feel like I was cheating. I don’t “cheat” on keto, because keto is so very flexible as long as I’m within my carb tolerance. On carnivore a bite of lettuce or a strawberry would make me feel guilty.
I have been having some joint and back issues lately, so I may try being more strict again and see if that helps. Hum… I may even experiment this week. My husband will be out of town. It is always easier to experiment with just me. 
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#33
Oh yes, one more thing: We gave up gluten years ago and a few years ago I went off dairy for my joint troubles and skin problems. Tolerance to those foods did not return as a result of my carnivore trial.
Meerkatsandy
#34
Keto has done wonders with my symptoms, I feel like a whole new person. I think that wheat was the last straw for me, I believe that I developed non-celiac gluten sensitivity and my body was one big mess. It took me about 6 months of keto to finally feel normal.
I removed all high-histamine and oxalate veggies from my diet, cold cuts and cheese are an occasional indulgence, no nuts and chocolate, I don’t drink teas, spices to the bare minimum…so far so good
I dress my salad with ACV every day and I haven’t had any reactions, phew. I’m looking forward to winter and sarma (sauerkraut and minced meat wrapped in sauerkraut leaves, our local dish), it’s a definite test for histamine 
SporkyDonkey
#36
Yes I’ve come across this before. Notice I mentioned I never had issues on regular keto, only after going carnivore. Also notice I never blamed ketones or ketosis for the gout, or even purines.
About to have my first salad in ages.
Tmdlkwd
(Troy)
#37
Just reading this article from a magazine
This may be helpful with Gout?
The Amazing Benefits of Celery Seed Extract😄
DianeElaine
(Diane E Matters)
#38
I did carnivore for almost 12 months. I ended up with gout. I do not eat any turkey or pork now. Grass Fed Beef and hormone free chicken sets well with me now that I am doing keto living again. I feel good again so I’m happy. Like you, I started listening to my body and it was scary what was happening to it once I was eating carnivore.
FrankoBear
#39
I had a 21 day animal products carnivore try out working from a base long term ketogenic diet.
It was an enjoyable way to eat. I stopped vegetables. But kept dairy and eggs. I kept roasted coffee beans (Is carnivore also applicable to beverages?). The coffee was double espresso strength black coffee brewed on a stove top through an Italian coffee pot. Usually I’d add a splash of medium chain triglycerides, but they are from coconut oil so I just had the black coffee straight up.
Meal times were 11 am and 5pm. Morning was 3 or 4 eggs + 80g hard cheese + bacon +/- smoked salmon, cooked in butter. Beef bone broth 250mL. Afternoon was 250g -300g beef (usually a steak) + egg cooked in butter. I drank mineral water and added Himalayan pink salt to the meals to a nice salty taste. I continued supplements of 150mg elemental magnesium twice daily as magnesium citrate and 500mg nicotinamide (a form of Vitamin B3) twice daily.
I returned to ketogenic eating that includes seaweed, some berry fruits and seasonal fruit, avocado (from a backyard tree), olive oil , avocado oil, macadamia oil, some macadamia nuts, and a rare green salad or some cooked vegetables once weekly. The green salad is rare for me to eat, it is not made up of rare green vegetables.
First thing to note was my waist line shrunk very quickly with the carnivore test. I remained weight stable over the 21 days. I did drink more water (rain water and mineral water). This increased drinking may be implicated. I felt energetic. My fasting blood glucose taken in the morning went from about 5.0mmol/L (90mg/dl) to being around 6.0mmol/L (108mg/dl) during the trial “carnivore diet”. But later in the day, between meals a spot blood glucose was usually under 90mg/dl. Usually my daily, morning, fasting blood ketones are about 0.5mmol/L. In the carnivore test, they were just detectable at 0.1mmol/L.
Unfortunately I stopped as I redeveloped some increased heart rate and palpitations. I also did develop some joint pain in my right shoulder and occasional a ‘pins and needles’ type itchiness in my hands and finger joints. The heart palpitations did respond to dosing to diarrhoea (dosing to gut tolerance) on magnesium orotate. So I didn’t relapse into atrial fibrillation. All that has calmed back down on ketogenic eating with some plant inputs.
I did get some blood tests done when my heart started to go wonky as I was interested to see if there was anything “during an episode” that may show up. My blood glucose was 8.4 mmol/L (152 mg/dl) on that test, which indicates I was stressed and likely had increased cortisol. I had a normal urine test taken at the same time, but the urine pH was 5.5, which is acidic.
Other urine numbers normal. My blood ketones were 0 mmol/L. The doctor I consulted with in this experiment noted that my blood creatinine was elevated outside of normal, suggesting kidney problems. Other blood parameters were in normal range, except my serum magnesium was in the lower third of normal. I have to get a follow up blood test because of that high creatinine result.
Back on keto, I feel fine. My water volume drinking has reduced.
During the experience Sally Norton (1) popped up on one of the podcasts I listen to. She is the researcher interested in plant anti-nutrients and, in particular, oxalates in plants. One of her anecdotes was of patients of hers who eat an oxalate free diet (close to carnivore and carnivore is definitely oxalate free (except for glycine supplementation)) who are so keen with the oxalate elimination diet they approach it zealously. And they end up in an emergency room with atrial fibrillation, as one example. The mechanism being that oxalate is highly electrically bound to minerals to form calcium oxalate or magnesium oxalate. Calcium oxalate nanocrystals can grow into macroscopic crystal conglomerates, or stones (think kidney stone, more common, spikier, but different to a uric acid kidney stone).
In my case an n=1 hypothesis, one hypothesis of a potential many, I probably should say “guess”, may be that I went on to carnivore that acted like an oxalate free diet. My body started to shed oxalate. The oxalate bound magnesium from by blood. The low magnesium created an arrhythmia. As part of shedding oxalate my urine production went up, I drank more, I lost more urine, I lost minerals, creating a deficiency in magnesium. I choose magnesium as central to the cause & effect because of the symptomatic response to taking high doses. The elevated creatinine may be purely due to increased dietary protein? I may have had increased creatinine production from increased creatine use by heart muscle in the few days of experiencing increased heart rate arrhthmia? Or it is an indication of actual kidney damage. The last being unlikely as urine concentration was normal, whereas a dilute urine is expected with kidney dysfunction. But I have to recheck to see if they ran an eGFR test.
I do have a susceptibility to heart arrhythmia, from previous biohacking experiments. It can be due to genetics. It definitely responds to very careful micronutrient management on a low carb ketogenic WOE. With that susceptibility in mind, and a possible persistent risk of being magnesium depleted, the change in diet toward carnivore did unmask an underlying issue or borderline disease state. So it is definitely worth doing a carnivore diet trial.
An elimination diet can change things that includes the release of toxins stored in body tissues.
Maybe this experience has been encountered by others?
Oxalates