This is long and I apologize for that. I wrote it as my biography and got the dreaded “too many characters” when I tried to submit it. So I’m putting it here because I don’t know what else to do. Also, I did find a topic in here about SIBO that I fit to a tee, and I’d never heard of before. So I will try to look into that, doctor willing.
I’m a 49 y/o woman who has been doing Keto woe since July 8, 2018. I’ve lost about 23# depending on the day. I have about 7 more pounds to go to get to my goal weight, give or take depending on muscle. But more than anything, I just want to get healthy and feel good again.
I have several health problems and I’m on disability and pretty inactive at the time. I’m trying to start exercising again very carefully but since I’ve been on Keto, I’m having the opposite effect everyone describes. At first I thought it was my electrolytes so I’ve been doing everything I can to get those up. It hasn’t worked. I’m completely exhausted and my muscles have atrophied, despite eating quite a bit every day and more than enough fat for satiate. I feel light headed, very weak, dizzy, heart palpations, exhaustion. I fall asleep almost every time I eat despite following my macros as close as possible. I try to keep under 20g carbs. Instead of my skin getting supple, it has totally dried out and gotten a weird texture and super wrinkly (I didn’t have much wrinkles before-lucky genes in my family for that). Although some of my old health problems have gotten better, now I’m having pains inside of me that are accentuated. My pancreas for sure. I’ve had acute pancreatitis in the past from a backed up gallstone so I plan to try to find a Keto friendly doctor to get into soon. I now have a constant ache/pain in my lower left abdomin that I didn’t have before. I drink usually well over 64 oz of water everyday according to my thirst but I’m always thirsty. Peeing all the time. I used to have low blood sugar attacks every day before Keto. That went away completely. But this now has me concerned about insulin resistance with my body’s reaction with no energy.
One thing I discovered on my own because of this diet is that my body wasn’t absorbing fat or fat soluable nutrients. I had my gallbladder removed 25 years ago and they told me I didn’t need it. That’s it. No, “you’ll need to take meds for the rest of your life” or anything. Since then I got IBS which has gotten debilitatingly worse and worse since then to the point that I was missing too much work at my last two jobs. I alternated between severe constipation for about a week to severe diarrhea (incontinence) for a few days and back and forth between the two. I went to a gastroenterologist in another town to try to figure out why I was still so sick and all they told me was that I have gastroenteritis but they don’t know why. That was like 20 years ago. None of my doctors would help me with it and blew it off when I would ask for help. One was obsessed with Me having a hysterectomy and said my uterus was causing it and that’s it (I didn’t do it).
Since Keto, my diarrhea is almost completely gone…I’ve cried in happiness over this, except for the other problems I’m having now. After reading up on Keto with no gallbladder, I started taking Ox Bile and enzymes for digestion. Over the last week my pancreas pains have decreased significantly and my constipation has improved. But I still don’t feel the energy I should from ketosis and burning fat. It takes a lot for me to get out of bed to let the dogs out. If I’m actually absorbing fat now, I know it will take at least a couple months to see it in my skin.
I’m obviously really worried there is more wrong with me and my body is not absorbing other nutrients since I now have bile and enzymes for the fat and fat soluable minerals. I’m at a loss what to do because my current doctor is old”er” and quite frankly only cares about his retirement at this point. And he constantly complains about everything being computerized now at the clinic and how much he hates it. He’s not at all interested in figuring out what’s wrong with me as was proven this summer when I was having bad chest pains and had to twist his arm to get several tests for me and he forgot to order several of them so I had to keep reminding him and call the labs. Then, he just sent me a letter instead of calling me with the results and to discuss what we would try next as I had told him I wanted to keep exploring this if those tests came back okay. They did. Pancreas is my next testing agenda since I had chest pains the last time I had pancreatitis. Also, when I had pancreatitis a few years ago, he said some enzyme or something on my liver was a little high but not to worry about it. 
Seriously? Not worry? So now my mind is thinking the worst with my liver too, especially since I’ve had to add Ox Bile and enzymes.
I’m very scared and don’t know who to talk to about this here since the doctors aren’t receptive to new and non-traditional medicine or diet. I can’t just go to another city that has more to offer because I’m on Medicare and would need a referral.
I don’t know if I should turn this into a post or what. I tried bringing it up on a Keto group in Facebook and got kicked out for posting a link to a video about Keto with no gallbladder. I’m scared of getting kicked out of groups now for posting something wrong like that. Please help!
