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Is this the right approach? Doubts arising.
Thanks all for answering.
I still have dry eyes (Meibomian Gland disfunction) from Accutane and skin issues (but I think I had those since I was little). I thought accutane had destroyed my meibomian glands, but I went the other day to the best ophthalmologist in my country and apparently my glands are intact, the only thing I have is inflammation in the area, that is why I have dry eyes, so he gave me some immunosupressant drops (he also prescribed vitamin a drops to use overnight, I have read many reviews on Internet on these drops and apparently people have very good results. Obviously I am not using these drops, I am too scared now).
All my problems seem to come from an over-reactive immune response, if I can normalize the immune system response I think I can achieve health.
The problem I see with this path of healing is that in my opinion if you are on a healing protocol of any type, you should see improvements rather soon (months). Thinking that this is a process that is going to take years (I used to think this way) no longer satisfies me as the answer to why we are not seeing big improvements. Also many of you have made drastic changes in your diet and even lifestyle, so there are other variables besides vitamin A that can account for any minor improvement (for example, if you quit dairy to avoid vitamin A, maybe that was your problem, but not necessarily due to the vitamin, maybe due to the protein... most vegetables also cause autoimmune reactions in sensitive people).
I do not know, I think we should focus on other healing protocols rather than vitamin A. At least for me, this is not the path I am going to follow from now on.
PS: I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT. The main empirical evidence that made me change my mind on this theory comes from Paleomedicina group. Here, they use a carnivore diet which relies heavily on pork and organs (I have read that they can eat aroung 500 grams/1 pound of liver per week). Yet, they have publications with cases of curing autoimmune: Crohn's disease among others). How could Grant's theory explain this contradiction?
Quote from Gonzalo on September 28, 2021, 2:59 amThanks all for answering.
I still have dry eyes (Meibomian Gland disfunction) from Accutane and skin issues (but I think I had those since I was little). I thought accutane had destroyed my meibomian glands, but I went the other day to the best ophthalmologist in my country and apparently my glands are intact, the only thing I have is inflammation in the area, that is why I have dry eyes, so he gave me some immunosupressant drops (he also prescribed vitamin a drops to use overnight, I have read many reviews on Internet on these drops and apparently people have very good results. Obviously I am not using these drops, I am too scared now).
All my problems seem to come from an over-reactive immune response, if I can normalize the immune system response I think I can achieve health.
The problem I see with this path of healing is that in my opinion if you are on a healing protocol of any type, you should see improvements rather soon (months). Thinking that this is a process that is going to take years (I used to think this way) no longer satisfies me as the answer to why we are not seeing big improvements. Also many of you have made drastic changes in your diet and even lifestyle, so there are other variables besides vitamin A that can account for any minor improvement (for example, if you quit dairy to avoid vitamin A, maybe that was your problem, but not necessarily due to the vitamin, maybe due to the protein... most vegetables also cause autoimmune reactions in sensitive people).
I do not know, I think we should focus on other healing protocols rather than vitamin A. At least for me, this is not the path I am going to follow from now on.
PS: I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT. The main empirical evidence that made me change my mind on this theory comes from Paleomedicina group. Here, they use a carnivore diet which relies heavily on pork and organs (I have read that they can eat aroung 500 grams/1 pound of liver per week). Yet, they have publications with cases of curing autoimmune: Crohn's disease among others). How could Grant's theory explain this contradiction?
Have you checked your vitamin A levels? If they are high/normal -maybe you should ask yourself.
Yes, it is possible to stop the detoxification process with a large amount of vitamin A in food and see improvements, I am sure.
In my opinion, it is strange to talk about failure with this diet if you have not learned your vitamin A level. It's not just a diet, it's a purpose
@jaj, thank you for this hint. My present food is very low in salicylates but I am not sure if ascorbic acid which I take a lot of - contains any. I have a suspicion that my tinnitus is worsened by the ascorbic acid. I feel totally stuck, because without it my mouth becomes a field of blood blisters.
I did check them around 1 year after beginning carnivore diet, they were low, I was below the range but I do not know the exact figure, not as low as Grant though. Still, I have not eaten any vitamin A in many years (only eating meat, when I eat fat it is always very white and it is not from cows which are older, but from veal which are 12 months old, so I doubt they accumulate in their toxins any significant amount).
In these years doing carnivore diet I have tried to reintroduce some foods for experiments. I have not had any problem with high vitamin A foods (recently I ate manchego cheese everyday for a week), but I did have a flareup reintroducing things with zero A (like for example, sugars). My flareup is an immune reaction. Among other things, I get folliculitis (scalp, face and legs get whiteheads), it is a bacterial infection and I am sure it has to do with immune response (I always had atopic dermatitis which some consider to be due to an inadequate immune response and it is very common to get skin infections easier, it is related to asthma and hay fever).
@orion your experience is important to me, I know you have researched a lot after Accutane. You said you are on 3 year mark, have you resolved all your symptoms? If not, what makes you think that being on the same path a little bit more will make any difference? What I am trying to say is that if this theory was correct, your problems should have banished. Before doing this diet, what kind of remedies did you try? I am sure your diet right now is much less inflammatory than before, so it may not be the vitamin A that is the culript. I think we need to focus on other protocols to SOLVE our problems, clearly this one is not bringing fruits (although yes I know you have improved, I am not sure it is due to A though). I say this because I do not want to stay on this path and in 3 years things are the same, but still trying to fool myself and say: "This is a long process, it just needs more time".
Well, if you have been eating only beef for several years, and it did not help you... It is difficult for me to think of a safer diet in terms of various toxins than a diet of (one) beef. Perhaps you just don't have enough carbohydrates for happiness. Or copper. co I could also suggest that some of your supplements are causing problems, for example if you are taking omega-3.
Although the diets of predators are a mystery to me. All these strange problems with apples, what's going on with them?
What if you ate some other poison in high-ish amounts for your whole life. You'd have some symptoms of acute poisoning, like nausea or runs or rashes. Despite your body's efforts, poison would end up circulating around the body and damage would be done.
When you finally got off the poison, the acute symptoms would diminish, but I'd imagine that lingering poison might circulate sometimes and give symptoms.
Your body would do it's best to detox and fix things up, but who knows if some of your organs would ever be the same.
Years after getting off the poison, you may see slow recovery of the organs over time.
I think an example of this might be Dr. Ron the Naturopath. He realized that cod liver oil was killing him, but he was an older gentleman and couldn't turn things around before his time came. (He actually thought that the reason was the *rancidity* of the cod liver oil, I don't think he ever thought it was the VA). Here is a blog post he wrote before his death:
https://www.drrons.com/product-blog/Too-Much-of-a-NOT-so-Good-Thing
He died the next year of heart failure at age 71.
Personally, I think it comes down to whether you believe that you can be poisoned by the plant pigment we know as VA. For me, my acute poisoning symptoms are so much better that I *believe VA is a toxin*. I am left with what I consider to be long term detox left to do, and damage to recover from that may take the rest of my life. But I can totally see how some might not believe that VAs are poison. Maybe they AREN'T poison to some people. I don't rightly know.
I also know that there *are* loads of other poisons out there, it's a toxic world, LOL. I worry much more about toxins than about germs.
I'd like to add that because I know I'm in this for the long haul, I don't eat an extremely limited diet. I just try to keep my VA intake lowish. It's many times lower than before I read Grant's work.
Quote from Gonzalo on September 28, 2021, 4:39 am@orion your experience is important to me, I know you have researched a lot after Accutane. You said you are on 3 year mark, have you resolved all your symptoms? If not, what makes you think that being on the same path a little bit more will make any difference? What I am trying to say is that if this theory was correct, your problems should have banished. Before doing this diet, what kind of remedies did you try? I am sure your diet right now is much less inflammatory than before, so it may not be the vitamin A that is the culript. I think we need to focus on other protocols to SOLVE our problems, clearly this one is not bringing fruits (although yes I know you have improved, I am not sure it is due to A though). I say this because I do not want to stay on this path and in 3 years things are the same, but still trying to fool myself and say: "This is a long process, it just needs more time".
@gonzalo I have committed year long experiments to pretty much every diet and supplement, you list it I have tried it. I have done 1 year zero carb carnivore, milk diet, potato diet, fruit diet, high carb, low carb, high fat, low fat, HTMA, electrolyte protocol, short and very long water fasts, and every supplement under the sun(vitamins, minerals, hormones...), and more 🙂
I will stick with this because I enjoy the food, and I slowly see my sleep, skin and mental state improve. Hair shedding is the only symptom with no improvement or change, but that is a complex issue for males.
Most seem to show up here with VA serum levels at ~60 when beginning low VA, and anecdotally from users posts, it seems to go down 1-2ng per month, so that means getting VA down into the 10-20ng range, or 0ng like Grant will take, ~3 to 5 years. I think some might get relief quicker, some like us accutane users maybe longer?
I will continue for another 2yrs, then go from there. For me there is really nothing left to try, I have tried it all and nothing worked, usually short positive gains, then it will always backfire. Is this the solution for all, I am not sure, but for now it seems to working positively for me. Like you though I wish that this would provide overnight success stories, cured in a week would be awesome. But maybe the liver does need time after it is empty of VA to starts some major healing...
@orion I think mineral balance is the key and the core of everything. Apart from toxicity of any kind. Minerals runs the show.. Unfortunately it is so hard to get balanced again mainly because it's hard to even test for it. So you know you should do.. I think I am still copper toxic, vit A toxic for sure. I need to do new tests again.. What is suck is that my bile flow is still almost zero and excess copper can be eliminated mainly with bile.. Btw I agree on low vit A diet. I also enjoy it. I was always rice/meat kind of guy and I was eating vegetables and basically all high vit A foods only because "you should" lol..
@jiri yes i do agree with minerals theory, I tried a couple years of HTMA, but that was on high VA foods, so nothing came of it, it might be better to try it now. But it is money I'd rather not spend right now, and I slowly make improvements without it so far... time will tell.