Ongoing Digestive Issues

#1

Lifelong IBS-d and have been dealing with long haul covid for a while, so finally decided to try carnivore earlier in the summer. After the initial adjustment phase with some diarrhea, I felt amazing. For the first time in my life I was having normal bowel movements daily to every other day and I thought it a miracle.

I had experienced a few cases of diarrhea/flushouts after the transition period, but chalked them up to eating too much fat, or a food that no longer agreed with me or traveling, but didnt think much more than that. Then a little over a month ago I got bold and had keffir and yogurt for the first time in 10+ years. I dont know if thats what started it or if it was coincidence, but I had like 10-20% of stomach flu severity of symptoms for almost a week (churning/burning/cramping/diarrhea).

Since then, I have flushouts roughly once or twice a week and am having more gas/burps than I remember previously. I have removed all other food and am down to only beef and I am careful to avoid too much rendered fat or drinking water around meal times.

Is this anywhere near normal, has anyone else experienced this? I felt like I had finally found my answer initially and was so relieved, but now in some ways I feel like Im further away than ever.

Some things Iā€™ve considered:

  • Is some IBS more linked to emotions/routine/travel and will never be 100% fully fixed with diet?

  • Parasites/infection? I did eat some raw liver here are there over the summer, prob less than a pound total

  • One of the theories of long covid is that it causes major gut biome destruction. I hadnt noticed too many GI effects from this before going carnivore, but my digestion has also always pretty terrible soā€¦

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

Firstly, how long have you been carnivore? There is an adaptation period, and you may not be through it yet, and if you stopped eating carnivore and then started up again, that will only prolong the adaptation.

Infection from the raw liver is certainly a possibility. If you like liver, eat it cooked. If not overcooked (i.e., not more than about 90 seconds to a side) liver is delicious, and the cooking will kill off bacteria.

I personally donā€™t believe IBS is linked to anything but diet. The ketone body, Ī²-hydroxybutyrate, which is produced in the liver when carbohydrate intake is low or non-existent, is very healing to the bowel. Make sure to avoid polyunsaturated fatty acids and eat mostly mono-unsaturates and saturated fats. In other words, cook with animal fats and avoid oils, especially the industrial seed oils, and use the fruit oils (avocado, coconut, olive, palm) very sparingly. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are inflammatory in quantity, and those in the industrial seed oils are mostly new to the human body and have unpredictable effects.

I am unsure what to make of research into the intestinal micro-biome. Iā€™m not sure any of it is actually worthwhile. But donā€™t quote me; Iā€™m no expert. But I think a lot of the research is based on faulty premises (fat bad, carbohydrate good), so the researchersā€™ thinking may be distorted.

My version of long Covid is a return of my chronic fatigue, which keto had pretty much reversed. Bowel symptoms havenā€™t really been an issue. But of course, there is a lot of individual variability, here. What I can say is that I have almost no gas when I strictly limit my carbs; it is when I yield to temptation that I start breaking wind and belching again. This is true even when I donā€™t eat enough extra carbohydrate to kick me out of ketosis; it just has to be above a certain rather low level.

I donā€™t believe that returning to a high-carb diet is going to solve anything for you, though I may be wrong. However, I suggest giving your carnivore diet a few more months, before coming to any conclusions about whether it is good or bad for you.

One last thought: Try to keep track of your salt intake. The healthiest range is 10-15 g/day of sodium chloride, from all sources. Too little can lead to constipation (among other symptoms, which are loosely labeled the ā€œketo fluā€), and too much can lead to bowel problems at the other end of the spectrum. Also, over time, you may find yourself not wanting to add salt to your meals any longer. That is probably a year or so down the road, but if and when it happens, listen to your body. A lot of long-term carnivores find that they no longer want added salt, but it took them quite some time to get there, and not all of them did get there. Salt to taste, and donā€™t overdo it.

#3

Thank you for the extensive response! I started carnivore in the spring, maybe april or may while still eating some in season fruit, olives and avocados. Then cut all those out around mid August probably. I have eaten paleo/keto for the past 10 years with some relief of my IBS, but it had worsened, which led me to carnivore.
I have only been eating butter/ghee and tallow since I began in the spring, but have removed the butter/ghee in the past month or so without a ton of difference. I did have a little relief when I stuck to leaner cuts, so it might be a fat content issue that I can try to test out more.
I do add quite a bit of salt to the beef and sometimes supplement extra, so I will remove the supplementation for now as an experiment. Thanks for the suggestion.
I have been at the ā€˜throw it against the wall and see what sticksā€™ phase of trying anything to help me feel better with the long covid, or the IBS issues that worsened prior to carnivore. I thought I had found the magic bullet when my digestion got better initially, but I guess theres more tinkering to be done.
Does anyone of have any input on whether its better to supplement with enzymes to help ease the fat absorption, or just stick with leaner cuts and slowly add fat back in?

(Michael) #4

I had 12 years IBS-D and after 3 months carnivore resolved the issues, at least temporarily. Having said that, I still often get diarrhea if I eat too much fat (think after over a year it may be getting a bit easier to handle) and I am conscious of this both when eating and afterwards. Sometimes I need the energy and eat the fat regardless of the known outcome. In the past year, I have had many long stretches of less than ideal, with a few shorter stretches of ideal mornings. For me, it still all revolves around fat intake. For this reason I JUST bought some over the counter lipase which has not seemed to make any difference really, but as I just started, hard to discern yet too.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

The need for bile salts, or whatever, is very individual. A lot of our members whose gall bladder was removed report no trouble at all eating fat (after all, itā€™s the liver that makes the bile, the gall bladder merely stores it), others find it best to space out their fat intake over the course of the day, and some need bile salts. Youā€™ll have to continue experimenting to find what works for you. Though if you can, try to change only one thing at a time, or youā€™ll never know which change had whatever effect you notice.

I donā€™t suppose you are taking MCT oil on a carnivore diet, but if you are, the first thing would be to cut it out and see if that helps. Because of bad information out there, people often have the impression that ā€œhigh-fatā€ means ā€œcram as much down your gullet as you can,ā€ but I guess youā€™ve been doing this long enough to not fall into that trap.

In nutrition terms, ā€œhigh fatā€ means anything more than about 15% of calories, so itā€™s extremely easy to eat enough fat. As I am fond of pointing out, rib-eye contains equal amounts of fat and protein by weight, but 69% fat and 31% protein in terms of caloric value. And 69% fat is probably ā€œhigh-fatā€ by anyoneā€™s definition, lol! If you get to the point where your hunger is satisfied at the end of the meal, then you are definitely getting enough.

#6

Thanks for the reassurance, Im starting to think it might be the fat issue as well. I had a ton of trouble all throughout last night after eating short ribs for dinner and ribeye for lunch, which in retrospect seems like poor decision making haha.
Please update me and let me know if you have any progress with the lipase going forward.

#7

No MCT oil currently.
Im going to stick with leaner cuts and use fatty cuts sparingly. If that goes well, I think I will also try to add in some other lean animal sources too.

(KCKO, KCFO) #8

Welcome to the forums.

My husband battles IBS-D, so I understand what you are going through.

I will be following this discussion to learn more. Hope you get yourself sorted out quickly.

(Laurie) #9

Since becoming ā€œmostly carnivore,ā€ my BMs are usually fine. Most days I eat basically the same thing, for various reasons. Iā€™ve noticed that when I diverge slightly, my output changes too.

Looks like youā€™re well on the way to figuring it out.

As for liver, I cook it in butter, on lowish heat. I cook it for a heck of a lot longer than 90 seconds, and itā€™s never tough. I think low heat is the secret.

#10

I will definitely try that for the liver. I was trying it raw and frozen since the texture wasnt as bad and i could get it down faster.
I will keep trying to find what works best

#11

I havenā€™t had IBS so I canā€™t help with that aspect. Iā€™ve been carnivore for 2 years and my microbiome was excellent - no gut issues whatsoever, didnā€™t break wind etc.

I have been very unwell with Covid for a few months - and it really disrupted my gut in the first month / six weeks. My gut hasnā€™t quite recovered to its pre-Covid state, but it has improved with time - I am perhaps 80% of the way there.

Ever since going carnivore, I became very in tune with what my body wanted. I am not a carnivore who eats masses of organs - I like them, but I only ate them when they appealed to me (maybe once every six months). Since contracting Covid, I just wanted to eat organs - pate, liver, heart, kidney, and I even broke strict carnivore to eat black pudding (made from blood) - and did so multiple times a week. I also had major cravings for seafood, which I previously ate once a week, and broth - which I previously drank about twice a month.

I ate what I craved for a couple of months (seafood every day, organs 4-5 times a week, two pints of broth a day) and I felt better once I ate those foods, but I still wanted them again the next day.

If youā€™ve been in long Covid circles, Iā€™m sure youā€™ve read all of the theories about Covid causing depletion of certain vitamins and minerals - so in response to those cravings, I added in some vitamin supplementation (prior to this, I only supplemented magnesium).

Since adding in the vitamins, I am now back to having absolutely no interest in organs to the point of being repulsed by the thought of liver, a reduced interest in fish (back to my normal levels), and drinking much less broth.

Iā€™m not saying categorically that this theory about depletion is true (or true for everyone), but from my personal experience, I think itā€™s credible that Covid has ripped through my microbiome and also affected the storage of certain vitamins and minerals, and perhaps I need to supplement to bring them back up to a normal level. I am hopeful this is a short term issue, as I was happy not supplementing prior to Covid.

Itā€™s interesting that you mention kefir. I see this mentioned a lot in Covid recovery spaces and a few weeks ago, I was on the fence whether to try it because my gut felt problematic still - but Iā€™ve not eaten dairy in 2 years. In the end, as I was still seeing improvement in my Covid symptoms, I decided to give my body more time before trying anything else new and I think I have seen more improvement just with time.

Coffee can also be an irritant. I drank it for the first year or so whilst doing otherwise strict carnivore with no ill-effects, and then I dropped it when it started to have a bit of a laxative effect. I mention it in case you are drinking coffee.

MOOvember Carnivore
#12

In case anyone is in the same circumstances, I decided to drink kefir to see if it would resolve my lingering gut issues. The kefir I had was made from raw A2 milk.

For 2 weeks, I drank 1/2 a pint a day and progressed to a pint a day for about 5 weeks, and 1 week, I had 2 pints a day.

My gut has recovered a lot. Maybe it was the kefir, maybe it was time - maybe itā€™s both. I am fairly certain that drinking so much kefir affected ketosis.

I stopped drinking it last week and I want to see if my gut remains stable - or if itā€™s something I need to include occasionally.

(Laurie) #13

Hi @Septimius . Thank you for the update. I hope the improvement lasts!

(Bob M) #14

I have been drinking goatā€™s milk kefir, though I donā€™t think itā€™s raw. I also drink raw milk from Jersey cows, which produce A2 proteins.

Iā€™ve also been taking a triple-type probiotic, which Iā€™ve found to be helpful. And I take in other fermented products too.

Iā€™m recovering from covid, so Iā€™ll have to see what comes up (or out?).

#15

Key to it all is finding you for sure! Let us know more updates! You rock out handling what you need for you Septimius!! Lovinā€™ that walk you tackle as you need on carnivore!

unless you are ā€˜putting yourself in real ketosis numbersā€™ thru manipulation on your daily eating plan, you did not ā€˜effect ketosisā€™ ya know in that all zc people are a ketone burn body system. So will be interesting to see you on this now but I take it? you are not? checking ketones? being so long on plan now?

(Megan) #16

Hey Fangs, can you explain what you mean by this?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #17

In the absence of dietary carbohydrate, insulin drops to the point where the liver makes ketones (ketogenesis) and glucose (gluconeogenesis) to feed cells that need them. Red blood cells lack mitochondria and therefore must have glucose to live; the brain needs very little glucose when ketones are abundant, but it does need some. Skeletal muscles prefer to metabolise fatty acids over ketones or glucose; the heart muscle does extremely well on ketones, especially when there is arterial blockage.

Although people on a carnivore diet typically show a low level of serum Ī²-hydroxybutyrate, their bodies are still in fat-burning mode, because their ratio of insulin to glucagon is low. Once the skeletal muscles reactivate their mitochondria and fatty-acid metabolic pathways (fat-adaptation), the liver cuts back on the amount of ketones it produces, matching it more closely to need. Though eating more fat can raise serum Ī²-hydroxybutyrate to some degree, apparently. But the point is that when we donā€™t eat dietary glucose (better known as carbohydrate), then we need to avail ourselves of the other source of energy, which is fatty-acid metabolism (which includes ketones, because ketones are partially metabolised fatty-acids).

#18

your body can run off glucose or ketones. 2 ways of survival the universe gave us.

if you eat carbs and we know carbs are a sugar sourceā€¦your body is gonna burn all glucose first at all times. too much carbs in our bodies will make our bodies a primary glucose burn body. Anyone ingesting carbs to like that, hmm, over like 50g will be glucose burn body. When we hit into that lower 50g and down intake, our bodies start to flip into a ketone burn body.

now if we do ā€˜ketoā€™ plan and keep to say like 20 g or so of carbs we are taking away the glucose and we are making the body switch to be a ā€˜ketone burning bodyā€™ for fuel.

So our bodies, those of us who eat very very low carb, or are eating no carbs have become a ketone burn body. A person who cuts carbs to say, hmm, 100g down from their like 300g intake and are doing ā€˜cut carbs someā€™ are still a glucose burn body.

So if we eliminate carbs totally, as in a carnivore lifestyle, our bodies must be using only ketones for our fuel. All ketones change and how they function in what quantity and how thru the body will change around as we stay on plan. They normalize. At this point we are not using glucose to run our bodies, we are using the ketones to supply all function for our bodies.

that is how I describe it, Paul got way more sciency on it HAHA

#19

Itā€™s a long story, but someone Iā€™m close to has been diagnosed with a serious illness - so we were trying to get their GKI ratio in line with Thomas Seyfriedā€™s recommendations for therapeutic keto.

As they were measuring, out of curiosity, I tested my blood sugar/ketones at the same time. But Iā€™d never tested on this carnivore plan before.

Part of my curiosity was that up until catching Covid, I was super strict. I have remained carnivore, only eating foods from the animal kingdom, but throughout Covid, I have eaten what I craved. I mentioned before about my theory about vitamins/minerals being affected.

Consequently, I have had a lot more carbs (kefir, broth, certain seafoods, black pudding, sausages, liver, pĆ¢tĆ©). Whereas pre-Covid, I either didnā€™t eat those items, or they were super occasional items.

I got a ketone reading of 0.8 and wondered if the kefir was having an impact. I dropped it and over a week later, I tested againā€¦and got 0.8.

So maybe the 0.8 is because Iā€™ve been so long on plan. Or maybe itā€™s Covid. Or maybe my protein/fat ratio is off.

Iā€™ve had a bit of a weird journey. I did lose weight on carnivore, but not as much as youā€™d expect, especially as I was so incredibly strict. Then I came off some medication that I believed was affecting my appetite/weight - and I started to lose.

But then, just as I started to see progress, I caught Covid. I lost some body fat rapidly over the first month or so - I thought it was just carnivore in the background because I was eating properly. I put some back on over the last few weeks, so that makes me think it was possibly Covid that caused the weight loss (weight loss is very common apparently). So I donā€™t know if the weight gain was the kefir and other carbs (as I feared), or if my body was just stabilising again after the worst of the illness.

Being so ill, Iā€™m also now sedentary - which would also have an impact because I used to go for long walks and lift weights.

I feel a bit baffled about what to do next. Iā€™m on carnivore for the long term, I have no plans to stop. I have decided to go back to primarily steak and eggs in the new year, to stop those trace carbs building up in case they are a factor - but I canā€™t decide if I should just keep eating as Iā€™m eating, and hope that once I finally recover from Covid, my body will start losing again or if this is a sign that I should be actively doing something different.

Maybe 0.8 ketones is a sign that I should be eating a different protein/fat ratio and or different amounts at meals, as @Azi has talked about. Also, both 0.8 values were 19 hours fasted. Maybe I should test again after a meal.

I am a pretty patient person; I donā€™t mind waiting for results if Iā€™m on the right track - and I recognise that Iā€™ve had two massive confounding problems (medication for 18 months and now long Covid for 6 months). But I guess I just donā€™t want to get another year or two on and feel as if Iā€™ve not seen the progress Iā€™d hope for.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #20

Itā€™s very frustrating when our body wonā€™t do what we want it to. The urge to take charge and dominate it runs very deep in Western culture. It does seem, however, that trying to outwit two million years of evolution is tricky, since the body is a highly complex system that is designed to handle a wide range of situations. Trying to mimic the situation that will give the desired results seems to be quite a challenge.

My suggestion would be to eat in the way that makes you feel the best. For example, although I love sugar and carbohydrates, I love even more the absence of creaky knees and puffy joints, and the absence of certain skin conditions. I also really love the idea of avoiding amputations of fingers and toes, the inevitable consequence of the diabetes that runs rampant in my family. Although Iā€™m not nearly as thin as Iā€™d prefer to be, the 80 lbs./36 kg of fat I lost restored my ability to engage in certain activities Iā€™d feared Iā€™d never be able to undertake again. So the upshot is that, although Iā€™d love to be eating glazed doughnuts, I donā€™t want to go where that will take me. And I know itā€™s someplace I can avoid, if I just eat in a way that encourages my body not to go there.