Yup, that is definitely a symptom I’ve seen mentioned. I believe @FrankoBear even posted a picture of his peeling legs.
Oxalates and possible reason some people get sick on carnivore
barefootbob
#63
It was pretty weird. I’m over 4 months in. I noticed my heel was peeling but I thought it might be my sandal strap rubbing it but there was no pain involved, then my feet started peeling like I’d been sunburned. Weird stuff and I’ll be glad when it’s out of my system. Also have had some weird joint pain in a shoulder I injured years ago. That seems to be diminishing. I thought I’d irritated the old injury by overdoing it but now I’m not so sure.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#64
I’ve also read that the oxalate crystals like to deposit in places that have been injured so… maybe shoulder trouble is related?
Cheryl's 90 Day Carnivore Challenge: Started on Nov 01 going through to Feb 29, 2020
SlowBurnMary
#65
I agree about the compromised microbiome issue - and I think gut transformation is the most promising areas of health & healing really.
Susan Owens has amassed wonderful non-medical resources and it’s good that lots of info-sharing is going on. Everything’s not for everybody, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and we live in a time of ever-increasing complexity - so I’m personally very intrigued with how we can heal a huge range of issues through both nutrient density and nutrient assimilation within a good degree of dietary cultural diversity.
Some of my favoraties are superfoods & spices (adaptogens like Ginger, Turmeric, Cinnamon) and traditional mineralizing remedies whose usages go back around 6000 years. I think to many in high tech industrial culture (especially the more privileged in the world) foods-as-medicines can sometimes seem just too simple to be powerful, frankly. It took me many years myself to understand such traditional medicines as foundational relationships with one’s own region, family culture, and land.
And I’ve learned a that comprehensive remedies can be deceptively simple in their humble appearance. Such as (to name a few) Lemon, unpasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar (and other live-fermented wonders like red wine and pickled veg), Living Clay (calcium bentonite, used internally and externally), Coral Calcium, Charcoal, Aloe Vera, and even raw Milk from pastured non-hybrid cows. These traditional medicines have varying protocols related to their absorption and adsorption qualities.
The histories of usage related to all these is a continuing area of my own study - 1) many are cheap if they’re regional 2) they heal root causes of issues 3) they’re applicable to non-industrial settings throughout the global south. Obviously the profit margin for the single earth-sourced remedies is very small compared to standardized pharmaceuticals and/or nutriceuticals which practitioners both conventional and functional are selling.
I also really appreciate the work of Grace Liu PhD (Pharm.D) - all about gut healing & digestion as the path of restoring a warrior gut (focused mostly on athletes and those who’ve gotten in gut trouble after 6-7 years of longterm strict keto or carnivore). She tests for specific bacteria strains to compose customized probiotic support, primarily from soil-based organisms, involving many more organisms than the commonly known ones. This is one of her presentations:
Her supplier for her own probiotics is Custom Probiotics (founded by Harry Bronozian, a chemist and chemical engineer) a huge line of probiotic strains & combos that most folks have never heard of and one can order directly from CP at a huge savings (though these are pricey, each bottle is a 4 month regimen supply).
There’s also the vast research of Microbiologist Norm Robillard PhD, who I learned about via Dr. Michael & Mary Dan Eades (authors of the LCHF/keto classic Protein Power) also focuses on gut motility related to excess fermentation, and ways to restore balance - with a lot of SIBO cases. His book Fast Tract Digestion is another great resource.
Since I had a very delicious bulletproof coffee today (with cacao butter, irish butter, MCTs) and fasted from protein & carbs for about 20 hours, I found it easy to write out my flow on this - hoping some of it can help you or others.
VirginiaEdie
(Edith)
#67
Hi @FrankoBear ,
I’ve given your question about oxalates and metabolic acidosis a lot of thought and done some research, although probably not to the extent you do research.
I read through the article listed by @amwassil. I found it quite interesting and wanted to mention some thoughts and questions I had from the article.
“The consumption of industrialized diets with a low content of fruits and vegetables, together with a high consumption of products of animal origin and cereals, are characterized by having a positive PRAL, …”
The article mentions animal products and cereal having high PRAL. Does this matter if one is only eating animal products and no grains? (Again, low carb or no carb maybe having different physiological needs or responses where PRAL is concerned?)
“The metabolism of the potassium salts found in fruits and vegetables, including citrate and malate, leads to the consumption of hydrogen ions and, consequently, to an alkalizing effect. Considering this, the concentration of potassium in the food reflects the alkalizing capacity of fruits and vegetables, although the potassium content of the food can be affected by the cooking method, being significantly reduced after cooking the food in water.”
Animal foods have a fair bit of potassium in them as well. Wouldn’t the potassium in animal foods also have an alkalizing effect? Also, many of the plants listed in the table showing low PRAL levels are actually considered high oxalate foods.
“The presence of oxalate in the food prevents the metabolization of potassium and the subsequent production of alkalis, contributing to the production of acids due to oxalic acid.”
“Some foods rich in oxalate are beets, spinach, Swiss chard, blackberries, cherries, grapes, raspberries, among others. It is important to consider that the composition of micronutrients will determine a negative PRAL, however the publications suggests not to include them in the diet due to the oxalate content.”
Spinach has the most negative PRAL of the vegetables listed in the table, but as we know, it is also very high in oxalate. Many of the vegetables listed in the table are medium to high oxalate. Does that negate the negative PRAL? Cooking the vegetables in water can remove some of the oxalate but it also leeches out the potassium. Does that also negate the negative PRAL?
Looking at the table provided, the PRAL isn’t as negative for the fruits and vegetables as the animal foods are positive. Considering that many of those plant foods are. medium to high oxalate, would that actually shift them more towards neutral? If so, then neutral plant foods would have no effect on alkalizing the animal foods.
I looked up metabolic acidosis (MA): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_acidosis
There is acute and chronic MA. They seemed to be caused by health problems, particularly kidney problems. Acute acidosis can be caused by excessive amounts of organic acids. Oxalates? Isn’t that one of the problems that can be caused by reducing oxalate too quickly? If so, the MA is caused by oxalate dumping as a result of removing them from the diet, not carnivore causing the MA. But… over time, can the carnivore diet cause kidney damage, and therefore chronic MA in the long run?
I’m definitely dumping oxalate from changing over to carnivore. I also believe the problems I developed over my two years on keto were a result of eating a lot of oxalate containing foods: “healthy” greens, almonds, peanuts, berries, etc.
I definitely want to see if carnivore will help me get rid of my joint, especially back, pain. I’m willing to have a more acidic diet (if that is really a problem) over the relatively short term and give carnivore a try. Maybe once the dumping is down to a minimum I won’t need carnivore anymore. I’ve seen posts on the Trying Low Oxalate Facebook (TLO) group who mentioned similar problems to me, one of which was becoming more and more intolerant to all kinds of foods. They felt that lowering their oxalate load improved food tolerance. For example, some people who were intolerant to dairy found that after some time, they could once again have dairy in their diet. I wouldn’t mind not having to be so paranoid about dairy, that’s for sure.
I haven’t had a chance to read up on bicarbonate enough to make a post about it. That will be for next time.
Anna-no-banana
(Anna )
#68
If you dig enough on the old posts on Trying Low Oxalate Facebook (TLO) group you might find my posts about my struggle with oxalates and then so many other foods. I was a raw vegan for two years and screwed myself royally eating lots and lots of high oxalate foods, and green smoothies daily. When I started to realize the diet was causing me harm, I switched to Paleo, and started to eat high amounts of baked good using almond flour and other seeds and nuts. That diet didn’t last long because I started to realize that I was having issues with so many foods. The first thing I dumped was gluten, and that made it a little better but then I realized I was having issues with foods that were high in salicylates and phenols. I started having allergic reactions when I took aspirin (a major source of salicylates) with my eyes and my face swelling. My nose would run non stop when I would die my hair or eat certain fruit. Plus I had IBS, and abdominal pain. I kept a detailed food diary and started to notice more and more foods bothering me. I had to give up all foods that are seeds, which included all beans, including coffee beans and chocolate, and all nuts. I had to give up eggs and dairy, which made me start eating meat, needing some source of protein. I went on a low Salicylate diet. Besides all of this crap I was dealing with, I also was dealing with my migraines, so I was also on a migraine diet, which eliminated foods high in amines. Very frustrated I decided to go on an elimination diet and figure out which food was really bothering me, and in what way. Which food triggered migraines, which food caused face swelling, which food gave me gut pain and IBS, which food made my nose run, etc.
I seemed to be allergic and reacting to everything I ate. So on January 2017 I started out eating chicken breast, white rice, green beans and pears. These are the foods that most people do not react to. About a week later I got super sick with fever, a very painful UTI and two days later just before my mom was about to drag me off to an emergency room, found about oxalate dumping. Ate some oxalates right away and started to improve. Dove into research on food sensitivities and oxalates and after just 6 months of counting the oxalates in my food, and lowering them very slowly, I stopped having issues with salicylates. I’ve been on a low/med oxalate diet since then. I avoid most of the high oxalate foods, some that I love too much, I will just have a little bit. I’m always mindful that this issue with oxalates might never go away, and I should just avoid high oxalate foods. I can now eat eggs, and many of the foods that I could not tolerate. Although dairy is still a problem for me. I also made this situation worse by being a carboholic all my life. Now I realize I have an issue with mild D-Lactic Acidosis, and when I feel crappy, I drink sodium bicarbonate in water every few hours and take NAC supplements. That seems to help, plus avoiding lactate, foods rich in lactic acid, foods that contain lactic acid, foods fermented with lacobacillus, and probiotics contains strains that produce D-lactic acid. Also, no sugar and very little fiber since that’s what the microbes like to eat. I’m getting better all the time, and going keto has definitely helped. Considering that 2014/2015 I had such brain fog and fatigue, and was in so much pain daily with joint and muscle pains and migraines that for 6 months I stopped driving and working, and I thought I would never recover. I’ve only been keto 2 months but slowly I feel like I’m returning to normal. I am 99% sure that a mild D-Lactic acidosis is causing my migraines. The last piece to my puzzle was that these microbes also feed on magnesium supplements and as a migraine sufferer, I have always supplemented with lots of mag. I am no switching to a topical mag. Since I continuously do research on this subject, I’m sure I will continue to find new info that will help me. The rabbit hole is very deep and the medical establishment doesn’t seem to have a lot of this info, and it’s not studying this.
FrankoBear
#70
I agree Paul. Symptoms (like epidemiology) just aren’t enough. Verification through testing, serial testing, or triangulation of grouped biomarkers are an important next step on the observation of the symptoms.
It would be good to identify the calcium oxalate crystals at the time of the symptoms.