It seems that the ketogenic diet is making me ill.
Urinating 2-4 times a night (disturbing my sleep) when sometimes my urine is very cloudy.
Dull ache in lower and middle back most of the time.
Recently getting very hungry (which I did not get before, main reason doing the keto diet…… no hunger)
When using electrolytes for keto diet my blood pressure goes very high and I get palpitations even if I go to a low dose. Just 4 grams of himalayan salt a day will elevate my BP. I take 100 mg of Potassium Losartan, so I’m getting my potassium. As well as 2 other hypertensive meds.
So I’m in a catch 22, thus the keto diet is not for me.
Bottom line I’m getting bad back ache, I’m hungry, not losing any weight and peeing a lot, constantly constipated, feeling tired (Not much fun). Not a sort of diet I would recommend to anyone.
Having said the above I’ve lost 22 kilos in just over a year. This has put my type 2 diabetes in remission and my edema in both my legs has completely gone. So that’s a positive.
Unfortunately my triglycerides have gone up and I have had to increase my statins from 10mg to 20 mg. I did stop taking statins for 3 months and my cholesterol level went high……
Triglyceride to HDL ratio 2.7\0.9 = 3 mmol/L
Serum total cholesterol level 6.9 mmol/L
My next blood test will be next month so I’ll know more then. I have to take statins I don’t want to but I have CHD. I am starting to believe that there is some sort of internet conspiracy regarding statins and sodium. Most keto blogs say take more salt, if I take more salt my head throbs with high BP. I’ve been on low salt for over 25 years. I must average 2 grams a week.
Which leads on to my rheumatoid arthritis and auto immune problem. I was hoping that my inflammation would be reduced but nothing has happened. My shoulders and elbows are stiff and ache sometimes very bad in the morning. And my low white blood cell count hasn’t really changed that much.
Somewhere they are doing research into auto-immune, triglycerides and rheumatoid arthritis. I feel that I still need to lose another 20 kilos to get to my target and I do not know what to do about it.
Any suggestions?
It seems that the ketogenic diet is making me ill
Is CHD chronic heart disease? Have you had your kidneys checked recently? Frequent urination, mid back pain and cloudy urine are worrisome symptoms, especially since kidney disease and heart disease are intertwined. I’m sorry you are feeling bad.
I would agree. I don’t think a keto diet is causing cloudy urine, back pain or urinary frequency. I think this is related to your diabetes and would strongly encourage you to have your kidney function and a urine culture checked.
I am not a doctor, but my understanding is that your back ache and your shoulder and elbow pains may well be caused by your statins.
You don’t say what sort of foods you are eating on your keto diet, but if you are still consuming things which are not “real food” that may be a contributor to your problems.
The ultimate diet for inflammatory conditions seems to be the carnivore diet. In your shoes, I would definitely give that a whirl.
If you return to eating the SAD you will gain weight, your diabetes and oedema will return and you will still have the other issues you describe. Carry on with keto, but change to all real food and try eating only beef, or lamb with small amounts of herbs, spices and seasonings such as salt and pepper for 6 weeks and see where that takes you.
So now I’m eating anything I want like bread and sausages with wheat in them and I’m getting a good nights sleep, not having to go to the loo during the night and my bach ache in the morning has gone. My urine is very clear now. I did eat proper food whilst on keto, eggs, cabbage, broccoli, coconut oil, olive oil, hard cheese, beef, pork, chicken, lettuce, celery, occasionally almonds and macedoine nuts. I only drink small amounts of double cream in my coffee and keep religiously to 120 fat, 90 protein and 20 carbs. Having only two meals a day, breakfast at 10:00-11:00 am and late afternoon meal at 16:00 - 18:00. I was not hungry and felt OK. But three months ago I started to wake up having to go to the loo at night and seeing cloudy urine in the mornings. Now just after two days off keto I feel a lot better. Wots that about then? My shoulder ache is arthritis, confirmed by my doctor as he gives me steroid injections. I was hoping the keto diet might help me with my arthritis.
Unfortunately the NHS in the UK does not recognize the Keto diet. So if I went to my doctors they would immediately say stop what you are doing (Keto) and go on a low carb low calorie diet i.e friut, veg, low fat pulses, no rice etc. Which I think I’m going to have to do. The low carb diet seems similar to keto but one doesn’t go into ketosis.
My latest keto problem suggestion is oxalates. Many foods that we start eating on the ketogenic diet contain oxalates: especially leafy greens and nuts. Your symptoms sound a lot like oxalate toxicity.
Clearly you’re aware that’s not what most people experience while eating this way. This “sort of diet” is helping millions get healthy and feel great.
Sorry you’re subject to government run healthcare, but you gotta research and think for yourself. The only one that truly cares about your well being is YOU!
Sounds good to me. So what’s changed? Aside from continuing statins which can absolutely cause the back pain as well as in all joints as well as the lethargy. forcing in 4g of salt is a lot! There’s a chance you’re one of the people who can be sensitive to that, and if you were would also explain all the nightly bathroom trips trying to get rid of it. Have you posted a large sample diet for us to see? You flip flopping on diets and breaking/fixing certain things so it goes without question that something in the diet is to blame. Have you tracked all your intake with something like cronometer so you can see everything including nutrient intake? Also, your cholesterol really isn’t that high. Only thing you can bet on for sure is bringing back your diabetes and slowing gaining back your fat loses. You don’t HAVE to eat keto but even the way most people go about low carb adds in many of the foods that are the problem in the first place.
I’ve been taking statins for over 15 years and have had no adverse effect. Why do people want to blame statins ? I have no problem with them, end of story. Nothing has changed, I was eating regular keto with no hunger and slowly losing weight which was fab and then out of the blue it all stopped. My regular diet did not stop. And then this weeing at night started accompanied with back ache. I’m now not in keto my back ache has gone and it seems my weeing has stopped and now I get a good nights sleep. You guys tell me, You guys seem to be the experts…
Interesting as I have had my gallbladder removed (2006) due to gallstones… There could be a link…
I’ve been taking statins for over 15 years and have had no adverse effect. Why do people want to blame statins ? I have no problem with them, end of story.
How do you know you have no problem with statins? Read The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr Malcolm Kendrick and ask yourself why you are taking these drugs.
There is also evidence that statin consumption can pre-dispose you to type 2 diabetes mellitus. How do you know that your diabetes was not caused by the statins?
If you want to avoid being in a prolonged state of ketosis, you might want to consider the Harcombe Diet. Dr Zoe Harcombe has written a number of books and has some sound principles for healthy eating and weight loss. She has a website for the more educated reader which gives a lot of the science we should be aware of when making decisions about what we eat and also a diet club with a forum where support is offered to help and encourage people on their journey to better health. Her diet club can be found here
http://www.theharcombedietclub.com/forum/forum.php
@lfod14 was right when they said
Also you would be surprised how receptive some GPs will be to the ketogenic diet and similar because many are now following it themselves or doing something similar. There are regular posts in social media about how pleased people are to find that their doctor endorses and encourages their low carb healthy fat diet.
Good luck with whatever route you decide to take.
Just stop sending me links about how bad statins are. I’ve spent days, weeks, months, watching, reading all about it,. It’s like some sort of Vampirism or Alien UFO conspiracy… don’t you guys get it???. It’s a load of BULL. STATINS ARE GOOD FOR YOU.
Ta for the link regarding “Harcombe Diet” i’ll look into that. My local NHS medical centre has no time for ketogenic diets. I’ve discussed this a few times with my GP with no interest whatsoever.
That makes it a pretty easy decision. You gave keto a good 1 year shot, and you think that keto causes symptoms you don’t like. If you feel better off keto, it’s a no brainer. Keto isn’t for everyone.
You didn’t give any details about your diet, and it’s possible that there might have been something in there, but realistically if you feel healthier off keto, you shouldn’t be doing keto. Good luck with those last 20kg. 
That’s my 2 cents.
I get it. You don’t want to hear that message, so we’ll have to agree to disagree on the point. However, you cannot say STATINS ARE GOOD FOR YOU, you can only say “I believe statins are good for me” (adopting your use of capital letters rather than shouting it, you understand!)
The mechanism by which statins may do good is unclear. There is a probability that they reduce inflammation and that is a good thing. However, reducing cardiovascular disease by lowering cholesterol is simply not possible because cholesterol does not cause CVD. I belong to the school of thought which says that there are better ways to reduce inflammation than popping a pill, any pill and particularly not a statin. You must do what suits you or what you believe works best for you and we must all do the same. The important bit is that we take possession of our own health and do what we can to improve outcomes rather than relying on anyone else.
Why can’t I say statins are good for you? I have evidence. Obviously you haven’t watched the video link
ABOUT DR. BREWER Dr. Brewer started as an Emergency Doctor. After seeing too many preventable heart attacks, he went to Johns Hopkins to learn Preventive Medicine. While there, he went on the run the post-graduate training program (residency) in Preventive Medicine. From there, he made a career of practicing and managing preventive medicine and primary care clinics. His later role in this area was Chief Medical Officer for Premise, which has close to 1,000 primary care/prevention clinics. He was also the Chief Medical Officer for MDLIVE, the second largest telemedicine company. More recently, he founded PrevMed, a heart attack, and stroke prevention clinic. At PrevMed, we focus on heart attack, stroke, and cognitive decline. We serve patients who have already experienced an event as well as those who have not developed a diagnosis or event. Dr. Brewer provides services via telemedicine or in person if you’re in the Lexington, KY area. We find a lot of undiagnosed Pre-Diabetes or Insulin Resistance. Treating unrecognized risk factors like Pre-Diabetes allows reduction of risk and prevention of disease. If you are interested in becoming a patient, please visit our website: https://prevmedheartrisk.com/ You can’t reverse arterial plaque; right? No, that’s not right. Please help us fight heart disease & stroke! Help us translate this video. http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_vide… ABOUT THIS VIDEO: I’ve focused on lifestyle, especially diet, most of my career. I started as an ER doc, but realized quickly that lifestyle, especially diet, is a major cause of most disease, disability & death. But in my late 50s, I ran into a problem. I found plaque in my arteries on a CIMT (Carotid Intima Media Thickness test) equivalent to a 73 yo man. My BMI has remained less than 25 my entire life, and mostly less than 23. So obesity was not the problem. Like many patients, I’d put off medications, including statins. After finding the plaque in my arteries, I decided to try the right statin, and Niacin. And I made a few more tweaks in my lifestyle. It worked. I reversed 20 years’ worth of plaque in my arteries. ( If you’re thinking this was a CIMT technical variation, I thought of that. I had several serial CIMTs over that two year period. They stayed on the same trend line; so this appeared to be true plaque regression.) So I did this video to “give the medication devil his due”. I continued to age into prediabetes, or Insulin Resistance (IR). (It could have been due to the statin. But that’s not likely; the statin was only 5mg of Crestor.) Over half of adults already have IR. Even minimal increases in blood sugar and insulin levels causes plaque and CV Inflammation. The major goal of this channel is to warn others to check for plaque and CV inflammation, usually due to prediabetes, or IR. Most of my patients come to me with it, and therefore with plaque. Unfortunately, the standard practice to screen for diabetes is test using FBG (Fasting Blood Glucose) and Hemaglobin A1c. These often miss mild prediabetes. But mild prediabetes does most of the damage, creating plaque and CV inflammation prior to the patient knowing there is any danger. Most people think they don’t have a problem. This vid from John on my channel can help you understand how prevalent this silent killer is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lshFa… Upon discovering my blood sugar problem, I returned my focus to lifestyle & diet. I went from a plant-based/pescatarian to low carb. I have tended to keep my carbs below 100gm/day. (I don’t worry about - in fact, I push- fiber carbs, like broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.) The science is clear that you can reverse plaque. This is especially true for plaque less than 3 years old. We have several videos covering the science in this area. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysifM… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkWIy… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbac… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoZ4g… My arterial age steadily decreased over a 2 year period to those of a 52 year old. I’m feeling good. And I can show you how to decrease your arterial age.
We can say that statins have some benefit for secondary prevention in male patients, assuming that those patients either don’t experience or can handle the side effects (myalgia, etc).
With the 5-year NNT >100 for primary prevention, it doesn’t seem worth the downside risk for me personally (or others in my family whom I have advised), but it’s a personal decision that each patient must make for him or herself.
The statistical trickery used in pitching the statins is also worth viewing with a critical eye - quoting relative numbers when promoting benefits and absolute numbers when mentioning risks and side effects, for example.
Just a thought: Is it possible that after your time on keto you actually didn’t need the statins any more, and therefore the combo of keto and statins may have caused the trouble?
I haven’t watched the video, but just from the transcript you provided, he adjusted his lifestyle and added niacin as well as statins.
Is this your evidence that statins are good for you?
If you weren’t feeling good on Keto and feel better having stopped, I think you should do what works for you and I hope that you continue to improve! But blanket statements like “statins are good for you” can be very misleading to folks who come onto the forum for information.
Statins & CoQ10: (aches and pains after taking statins everyday; esp. in the morning? CoQ10 deficiency?) The statins, not the ketogenic diet?
“…It might be worth trying the statin and seeing if it does lower small LDL (if you do make sure you supplement with CoQ10 which is an essential co-factor that we make using the same pathway as Cholesterol). …”
I have two patients who have completely reversed their RA. One by eliminating gluten (meaning ALL grains not just wheat - no “gluten-free” garbage, no oats, no corn, no rice etc.- and no processed foods since gluten is added to the majority of them. The other patient had to reduce other high lectin foods as well - nightshade veges, seeds, etc. By “completely reversed” I mean not only are they now asymptomatic but their lab values are completely normal. (One of them was actually considering medically retiring because her RA was so bad.) So that’s one suggestion.