Don't want to be carnivore anymore, help

(E P) #1

Please be kind… I know this is a polarizing topic.

Hitting 3 years on keto this weekend! :tada: My rheumatoid arthritis is…sleeping. I’m med-free, but it takes less and less to spike inflammation.

Over the 3 years, I’ve become less and less tolerant of both carbohydrates and spices. When I started, I felt amazing on 50g carbs of veg and berries and put hot sauce on everything. It was so easy! About 18 months ago, I started carnivore to recover from a postpartum flare. Lately, even 25g carbs or some chili flakes cause RA flares. Also, constant diarrhea/constipation, magnesium deficiency caused peripheral neuropathy, LDL tripled, gained 20 lb, etc… it hasn’t been a carefree 18 months of “just eat the meat!”

Why is my immune and digestive system getting MORE reactive? That doesn’t seem like root cause healing.

Is it the microbiome? Indigo Nili (YouTube and blog) fixed her SIBO using the Davis Supergut protocol of l. Reuteri cultured dairy and recently got off keto altogether after 12 years. I never heard of such a thing before…anyone else have experience of getting healed enough to tolerate a less restricted diet?

Does anyone have theories why the immune and digestive system can get more reactive instead of healing? Please don’t bite me…I am NOT trying to start a keto v carnivore war, just looking for light at the end of a tunnel that seems to be narrowing.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

If you want to go back to eating carbohydrates, take it slowly. Gradually add small quantities over time, so that your system can re-accustom itself to the load. Many people have found, after cutting their carbohydrate burden. that they had sensitivities they hadn’t noticed before, because the symptoms had formerly been lost in the general malaise.

I, too, find that eating carbohydrate gives me arthritis flares, long before I eat enough to be kicked out of ketosis. When you get a reaction, what is it that you have eaten? Do leafy greens cause a problem? Grains, especially wheat? Could the carbs you’ve tried have been high in oxalates? For example, I experience oxalate dumping about two days after drinking a cup of herbal tea.

Plant foods contain an amazing number of toxins, from oxalates to the solanine in nightshades and potatoes, to the cyanide in fruit pits. Even caffeine is a natural insecticide. Nor is it surprising to find that one person’s sensitivities to these toxins vary from toxin to toxin and are not the same as another person’s sensitivities to the same toxins.

I don’t know what to make of the intestinal biome. A lot of the research seems shoddy to me, and the conclusions seem over-enthusiastic. Bikman claims that our metabolic health dictates the biome, not the reverse. For example, SIBO is generally related to excessive carbohydrate intake, and lack of carbohydrate generally resolves it.

In this connection, however, you might try periodic fasting, which should help kill off unhelpful bacteria. I would also expect fasting to help with arthritic inflammation.

(Bean) #3

Yes. I can manage a significant flare with a 24-36 hour fast.

I can intentionally trigger one with high carbs and eggs. I needed to do that last week for some blood tests (long story).

@E_P Maybe track in Cronometer for a week? See if any nutritional deficiencies or trends show up?

Another thought is to look at the autoimmune protocol food lists- consider adding plant foods that are on those lists first? (Nightshades are common triggers, for example). FWIW I can do tiny amounts of cooked asparagus, cabbage family, and onion family. Occasionally a few cooked haricot verts or a small amount of raw carrots. I have added those back slowly, so progress? ETA- I did do a few rounds of probiotics and aggressively manage histamine.

Anyhow… right there with you. Two flares in two weeks and I can’t get back into ketosis. Holiday + stressful week + cracked ribs not quite healed.

(E P) #4

Fasting does put down a flare fast, it’s a wonderful tool! Thinking more is better, I did 3 months of 3 24 hr fasts per week (as recommended in Megan Ramos’ book), carnivore in between, which ended up being a mistake since I averaged 1400 kcal/day. Cold, exhaustion, insomnia, and weird menstrual cycles resulted. Still bad digestion. Still reverse dieting out of that hole using Cronometer very carefully.

It’s hard to know for 100 percent certain whether it’s the individual foods or the carbs, but the carb level setting me off is very strongly correlated. I started off with the AIP (gluten, A1 dairy, nuts were bad) and have tested my carb reintro foods in isolation in small amounts before trying a larger dose. The last “carb trial” was berries, avocado, and A2 raw goat milk/yogurt. I eat A2 manchego daily with no issues, and an avocado or handful of berries in isolation is no problem - it’s maintaining that carb intake over a week or so that causes inflammation to build. @beannoise I will check the AIP list again though, good idea!

…exactly. Still in ketosis during a “carb flare”. @PaulL Maybe you’re right that there was general malaise at first so I just didn’t notice. That first year, I was just delighted to see the rheumatoid nodule go away! But at least I had regular digestion and cycles back then, can’t say that now. It sounds so whiny, but the 3 year anniversary coming up is making me wonder about the long term, since multiple things are worse than when I started.

(Joey) #5

@E_P Wouldn’t dare flame you for your honest and open post. Sounds like you’ve been trying to do everything right by your health … and yet.

One thing that put a bug in my mind is your mention of being postpartum about 18 months ago. Needless to say, you know firsthand (unlike me!) how a pregnancy puts a body through a hormonal tsunami … and if you’ve been breastfeeding for a period since then, the storm continues for a while longer beyond the common lengthy period of readjustment.

In short: It’s possible that your pregnancy has thrown a wrench in the metabolic landscape you’d grown accustomed to, and that it will take more time for things to recalibrate back closer to what worked well for you in the past.

Just spitballin’ here. :vulcan_salute:

(Bean) #6

This, plus pregnancy sounds like thyroid. I had a goiter/ hypo that was triggered by my last pregnancy. Worth having it checked if you haven’t? ETA- What salt are you using. I know iodized salt isn’t always the first choice for carnivore, but necessary for hypothyroid.

(Bean) #7

These could both be high histamine. So it may be that together your “bucket” is overflowing. Maybe consider doing your test with lower histamine AIP carbs?

(E P) #8

@beannoise, I never considered histamine, that’s a great lead to look into! Thank you so much. Thyroid looked fine even by functional med ranges, although they did everything except free T3 so maybe worth another test. I do eat sardines daily so some iodine there.
Best wishes for you during your flare - so awful to have to get sick for a test.

@SomeGuy you may well be right! Pregnancy and breastfeeding for most of my keto/carnivore time must be a big factor in immune and metabolic function. Intense life stress during the carnivore time, too. A little patience and time to recuperate wouldn’t hurt me none. That does give me hope.

(Bean) #9

Sending healing thoughts your way!

(Edith) #10

I’ve mentioned several times over the years my own experience with a seven month trial I did with carnivore, oh, must be about four years ago at this point? I felt great at first. Around the five month mark my histamine reactions to foods got worse and worse. Beef was the worst. Within about 30 -60 minutes of eating beef I would have terrible stomach cramps, explosive diarrhea, and itching.

I reintroduced vitamin C into my diet. There is a very low carb, high potency source of vitamin C called Camu Camu if you want to stick as close as possible to carnivore. I ended up adding some berries back into my diet. Within a few weeks of adding vitamin C containing foods to my diet, my histamine troubles were back to their normal lowish levels.

I know that carnivores say one can get enough vitamin C from eating fresh meat. My body needed more than meat can supply. I have added other foods back into my diet since then, but I do find if I go overboard, I start having joint trouble. I mostly stick to meat, fruit, arugula, cabbage, and lettuce. Nightshades are a definite no-go.

(E P) #11

Thank you so much for sharing, @VirginiaEdie. After @beannoise suggested histamine, I looked it up. Everyday I eat eggs and bacon or sausage, cooked-ahead ground beef, sardines, vinegar, and aged cheese - all on the histamine lists. Maybe my congestion isn’t seasonal allergies after all? Either way, how encouraging to hear a different success story than restricting further still!

(Edith) #12

That’s what was happening to me the longer I was following strict carnivore.

My right eye used to water all the time. When I cut down on histamine containing food, that went away.

(Bean) #13

I guess I could say that I’m not carnivore anymore if that is interpreted strictly, but my plant foods are toddler-sized portions of (mostly) cooked plant foods selected from the AIP list that are lowest in plant toxins. Maybe 3-4 times a week.

I also cook into and out of my freezer. I generally don’t buy refrigerated beef. I had a lot of trouble with the stuff in the case at the butcher shop, too.

I supplement a minimal multivitamin (so some vitamin C), multi-mineral/ calcium, and just added dehydrated beef kidney tablets back again. I notice when I don’t have it. Kidney is an organ meat that I just cannot eat. I was a farm kid and sheep kidneys taste and smell like a warm sheep pen that hasn’t been cleaned. Liver, on the other hand is yummy. I tried straight up pork DAO tablets, but the kidney tablets work better if I take them consistently.

Good luck finding what works for you.

#14

It’s only polarizing for people that think their WOE is their religion.

When you don’t eat things, you sensitize to them. When we’re not keto, if we ate tons of fat, we’d wind up on the toilet in most cases. That goes away.

When we stop eating tons of sugary carbs and crap for a while, then eat them again, we feel like death for days after.

When a vegetarian of years eats meat they feel like death because they haven’t had to process it in a while.

Our stomach acid, digestive enzymes, gut biome all change around how we eat, and it doesn’t take long depending on what we do.

Carnivore is basically fiber free, fiber is what feeds our gut bacteria in most cases. Without it, a lot of it dies off and then digestion takes a hit.

Supergut is new, the original was Super SIBO yogurt (also Bill Davis) the different IIRC was the addiiton of a second probiotic. I did it, helped a lot, but I was also doing more than that. If you have a yogurt maker, it’s definetly not going to hurt, but I’d grab a proven synbiotic like Seed that you know will start repopulating your microbiome and not have 90% die before it ever makes it anywhere like most probiotics do.

Take digestive aids like Betaine HCL and a broad spectrum Digesting Enzyme. The NOW Super Enzymes is a good one and it’s cheap. Once you’re giving your gut / digestion some help, slowly add things back in. Go slow on the fiber.

We’re all different, but in my 4yrs of strict keto and being basically fiber-less I did a ton of damage, never pooped right, strained a lot, had to finally get a coloscopy over it, did some physical damage over it. Doc just said eat more fiber, he was cool with low carb, but said get the fiber in. Literally within a week of supplementing fiber in a was going regularly again. YEARS, and that’s all it was. Now I get it from my low carb bread (647).

You can also do food sensitivity and gut biome testing to see what’s actually going on. Without that you have no clue whether your gut or immune system is the problem, you just know you feel like crap.

I was diagnosed lactose intolerant twice, by differnt docs, I’m not. I was called Gluten sensitive, and the bad colonoscopy pushed that one over the edge, I have not Gluten issues as far as my immune system or gut in concerned. But I only know that from actually testing it.

Everlywell has a decent food sensititity test and Viome has a good biome one. Both can be purchased with HSA/FSA money. Wouldn’t do either while still carnivore though, that’s like doing a glucose tolerance test while being strict keto, you know there will be a false over reaction to it.

(KM) #15

That’s actually a really good point for sensitivity testing as well. If you go down to a lion diet as a baseline for too long, it becomes more likely that you will react to anything you test, because you’ve lost the bacteria to cope with it.

(E P) #16

All this is so helpful. Great points (and consensus) about how strict carnivore could be sensitizing and about going super slowly with any reintro trial. Great idea to pick something off the AIP list to slowly try first.

@beannoise and @VirginiaEdie - so interesting that you both ended up with histamine issues, and so encouraging that you both found a way to manage! We tent-camped last night and the hay fever was awful, which I never had before. Maybe the pollen could stack with a high diet histamine load? Swapping to low histamine meats for a week to find out.

@lfod14, thank you so much for all those specifics! So many great tools. You fixed yourself! What does your diet look like nowadays? How long did the transition period take?

#17

This, I can relate to. I remember we used to say, “don’t blame fat for what the sugar did”. I found that working through a few stressful years socially, at work, mentally and physically since a recent pandemic that is being obscured by silence and history into Disney’s foggy Forgettingland, sees my check point, with medical results data, that I did some damage between 55 and 60. Part of the amnesia was the stress eating, or slips off plan. Because I have been on a low carb keto animal-based WoE baseline. I keep thinking that if I hadn’t have been, then things may have been a lot worse.

This could be conjecture. Except this year I have been working on reducing stress for the past 5 months. It’s a difficult task, as I reckon I am addicted to a challenge or a fight. So, staying calm and quiet takes some work. But it’s working. There is progress up the snakes and ladders game board again while maintaining the low carb WoE basics.

The fixes needed may be outside the healthy diet? My bet is some of them will be. In this group we are eaten up by diet focus when many of us have it locked in as almost instinctive to reveal another aspect of life to deal with. You can see by year 60 things get quite tangled. Check your age square on the chart below.

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(E P) #18

@FrankoBear thank you for the wisdom! I hope your health is improving with your more peaceful lifestyle changes. You’re so right, diet isn’t the only lever. I got a Garmin about 5 months ago and am making quantifiable strides in sleep, stress, steps, and intensity minute scores - pseudoscientific, but fun to see charts and graphs.

@VirginiaEdie and @beannoise, the allergy symptoms are indeed less severe with all the high histamine stuff cut out and added vit C. How quickly/drastic would one expect to see changes to support the histamine hypothesis? It’s still pollen season, that can’t be helped! Hopefully the gut-rebuilding protocol helps, either way.

(Edith) #19

Its been several years since my carnivore trial. I don’t remember exactly how long it took to right my system with the vitamin C, but I don’t remember is being that long. Maybe a week or two? Definitely within a month. I was already eating as low histamine as I could since at that point I seemed to be reacting to almost all meat. Grass fed beef was actually the worst. My theory is that it is aged longer than conventionally raised beef since it is not as tender and therefore has more histamine, but I don’t have any proof.

(Bean) #20

Yes, I agree. A few weeks at most- but I’m still actively managing it. I no longer have outdoor allergies in any noticeable way. I’m tapered off of daily antihistamines, as well.