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Joel's Log
Update:
Blood values:
21/10/2020:
Vitamin A: 400ug/l (200 - 1000 norm)
Coeurloplasmin: 0,16 (0,2 - 0,6 norm)
Condition:
Relatively unchanged. Due to my chronic illness ME/CFS, it is difficult to assess what exactly comes from Accutane/Vitamin A. I think the dry eyes almost certainly, which I only have at night when my eyes are closed. The dryness varies a lot, I think it increases with a higher fat diet, but not always, but seeing low fat is not good for me either. So the dry eyes are not much better than before the diet, when I ate normally. They were only just a lot worse for a while, I suspect it was Phosphatatidycholine Liquid intake, but I'm not sure - I'll test it again. So I have not yet observed any extreme progress, fluctuating in the condition like before the detoxification. My hair would feel rather thinner and worse (but this can have umpteen reasons). My skin still dry, but I noticed that especially on the face, I can be remove skin sebum with the fingernail after a warm bath or shower, which maybe means that my skin is a bit oily again and not quite as dry anymore, but I don't know for sure whether that wasn't the case before the diet, I never paid attention. Dry elbow and very dry face skin after shaving beard still the same.I have very low sex hormones, not sure if these are related to Accutane or ME / CFS or both. Well, I definitely had the hope that if it comes from Accutane, my values would improve with the diet, but hormone levels unchanged or rather worse.
So the bottom line, overall I haven't been able to establish any clear improvements through the diet so far, but I can't really judge it from the overall situation either. My very flu-like condition/feeling, which I only have since the ME/CFS outbreak is still very severe and the same. So I don't think it will change with the diet anymore, because I didn't had it in the months after the Accutane end.
In spite of everything, I maintain that I suspect that Accutane played may a part in my outbreak of the disease and that the diet is not a fault at all, but also has no noticeable influence on my condition, since I did not have any deterioration from food ever, which is rich in vitamin A before the diet.
Regardless of my not improving condition, I will stay on the diet until next summer, my current diet and planned diet until summer 2021:
Breakfast foods:
almond milk, spelled flakes, millet flakes, oat flakes, honey, buckwheat sprouts, sunflower seeds, apples, bananas, grapes, pears, pineapples, blueberries, dates, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts , Almond butter, millet bread, spelled bread, white egg, applesauce/-juice, coconut- (rare)
Lunch & dinner:
Basmati rice, whole grain rice, rice pudding, quinoa, rice noodles, potatoes, cucumber, radishes, rump steak, chicken, turkey meat, black&kidney beans, onions, garlic, ginger, cauliflower, kohlrabi/cabbage, parsnips, celeriac, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, beetroot, artichokes , salt, pepper
( Of course I only eat a some foods from the list and not all every day, for example for breakfast only one kind of fruit - either apple, bananas or beeries. At noon and in the evening I often eat several vegetables)
Oil / fat per day:
• 1-1.5 tablespoons -> Omega 3 oil (walnut-chia-thistle-linseed oil)
• For bread and pan: sunflower / olive oil (75ml for one bread (2-4days))
• almond butter, nuts, seeds
• 400mg vitamin E capsules from rice oil a day
My plan:
I will continue the diet and hope to reach a value of <100 ug/l by summer 2021, so I would have brought my value from 670 to <100 within 16 months, which is significant and should have a significant influence on my condition, and it should have an impact on my complaints. But even if I don't reach that <100 level, I'll stop. Then I will return to normal nutrition and only avoid the real vitamin A/retinol bombs, as I have recognized the danger of Vitmain A and I will have a lifelong respect for it and feel a very very deep remorse for the 1 year of taking Accutane. But from personal experience, reports etc. - I dont believe that vitamin A is to 100% a poison, I think small amounts are necessary to support the body. Mindfulness of vitamin A will remain.
Thanks for reading and thank you Grant for your help, informations, insights and the whole work!
Joel
@joel your ceruloplasmin is crazy high. No copper test? High ceruloplasmin like this means your body is in stage 3 of chronic/adrenal fatigue, general adaptation syndrome or how you want to call it... Once that ceruloplasmin drops and copper becomes biounavailable like in my case. It will be much harder to recover... Do you have symptoms of high copper like racing mind, nervous energy, emotional, unstable mood, impatience, higher blood pressure, water retention, pounding heart etc..? Is it hard for you to just be calm and rest? How is your sleep? You can keep doing low A, but I think it's not the cause of chronic/adrenal fatigue. It looks like you eat a lot of copper rich foods. It's not good for you. You need to keep protein from meat/beef high and keep copper intake around 2mg a day. Your zinc:copper ratio should be 10:1... If you push it to the point of ceruloplasmin deficiency. Your CFS will be 10 times worse.. I was 5 years at home. Not able to do nothing. Just walking outside and thinking about suicide. Not fun... I see you were taking copper supplements? Drop it.. You probably need more chromium, molybdenum B vitamins especially B1. Things that most people are deficient in. Nobody is deficient in copper. It is in every food basically..
@are Thank you! 🙂 Yes, I am curious how my value will be next summer ;D
I know the blood value is not as meaningful, but at least it does not fluctuate extremely, but decreases continuously, which I think is a good sign and speaks for more meaningfulness than values with much fluctuations.
@jiri I think you are wrong, 0.16 is less than 0.2 and therefore my value is slightly decreased.Except laboratory / medicine values differ from mathematics. Unfortunately, it only says conspicuously and not whether the value is too high or too low. But I thought 0.2-0.6 is the same as 0.20-0.60 and I got 0.16 ... hope I'm not wrong.
My copper serum value (which is of little informative value - I know) is slightly lowered. I had the assumption that my copper value and therefore also my ceruloplasmin is reduced due to my long term intake of zinc and/or the copper intake in the intestine is reduced as a result. Try to take zinc at a longer distance from food now and take an additional 2mg supp of copper from time to time.
@joel Sorry I read that wrong. So if it's already low you are stage 4.. Serum copper test doesn't have little value when you test also ceruloplasmin at the same time so you can see how much is that copper is free unbound. You didn't answered my questions about symptoms. So if your copper and ceruloplasmin is low. You should start to have copper deficiency symptoms. But you will not solve this by taking copper + eating high copper foods. You don't understand this. Copper is maybe the strongest neurostimulant and it will keep your adrenals depleted/exhausted. It is not about taking more copper. It is about giving the body chance to relax and recover. So your ceruloplasmin will go up again. Which is impossible if you pound more copper. Also by taking zinc when your serum copper is already low doesn't help you at all. It only make copper deficiency symptoms worse. You should start taking zinc, vit C, some molybdenum only during "copper dump" where the body will dump copper to the blood. You can see that dump on blood test when that copper will be crazy high and you feel it. I talked about it before.. Do what you wan't I can't convince every single person with this issue. I am just saying my experience. I was there. Taking copper, eating high copper foods. It doesn't work like that..
Vitamin A 02/13/21:
0.30mg/l (Norm: 0.30-0.90mg/l)
I'll probably quit the diet in the next few weeks. After almost a year I don't see any improvement....in my dry eyes either (which only have at night and are made much worse by cannabis and phosphatidycholine, don't know whether there is another cause for this beside VitA, possibly autonomous nervous system&co).
Unfortunately I also got more symptoms night sweats,numbness, drowsiness etc.
in that year and levels for example TSH and cortisol have worsened.
It was worth a try with my Accutane history but I think I should now realize that I have to concentrate on other things.
I will probably test phosphatydycholine infusions soon, I have read a lot of positive things about it and I am curious what effect it has on my dry eyes.
Primarily I will try this for my disease (M.E.), but it can possibly help with many different health problems.
I can tell you how it went, maybe someone wants to try it too.
I would be interested in how it affects a body that clearly has a VitA Toxcity.
All the best to you and good health!
Hi Joel,
I don't think reducing VA has to be all or nothing. If you think you are VA toxic, I'm betting that is going to affect what you choose eat. Even if you aren't as low as Grant.
I've never gone down to Grant's levels of low VA.
I've made slow progress, and enough to make me realize that it is my issue, or one of my issues. But really is it very slow progress. I may not look better to others but I feel better inside. And I have some new symptoms too, which all I can do is blame on detox. I think those symptoms were going to come anyways, but that by going lower you do start doing some hard housework.
Yes, well, but at some point I have to stop unless you believe that vitamin A is entirely a poison. What I wanted to say is that I don't think VitA has much of an impact on my current symptoms. otherwise the drastic reduction that I achieved this year would have had to change a lot, at least according to my decreased Vitamin A blood values.
@areena
I feel your point and I am also not 100% convincend to give up but in the otherside one year should be enough to see at least a little progress provided VitA is really a problem and in addition my VitA blood levels decreased a lot, too. For example my hormone levels are very bad and I thought maybe due to Accutane/VitA, they didnt get better at all in this year, furthermore they got worse...I found studys which shows that VitA os needed for testosterone&co. I still know that much VitA is very bad, but I dont think its a poison in general. Its always important to look in all directions.
@joel Just wanted to let you know I completely sympathize with you and your struggles with your diet. If you read my last update in my log, you'll see that I ultimately ended up with severe symptoms (like messed up hormones, etc) after following the diet for 1 year and 3 months. I think our situations are quite similar. For some reason I'm under the impression that we're around the same age? I'm 21. I'm going to stop the diet, and look for other solutions.
@leap7 Hey, thanks for your message. Yes i'm 22 years old. I took Accutane for 1 year and about 9 months later I got sick with ME/CFS in the meantime I was doing well. But I want to try the VitA Diet, after reading a lot negative things about Accutane. Will stop in the next few weeks too, 1year should be real enough to see an improvement.I. read the entry from you. Did you also take Accutane, or do you have an illness, or how did you get on the VitA diet and what your symptoms? Did you have clear symptoms after eating VitA? I never had, which was maybe a sign that it wont do much in my case. Greetings