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leap7's log
I have to admit that I'm believing this vitamin A toxicity thing less and less every day. Has anyone actually got better over time with this? It seems to me that everyone just gives up at some point and leaves. This is starting to remind me of iodine megadose protocol and probiotic supplements. Every time when I have taken probiotic supplements, I have felt horrible and everyone just says that it's just a detox, but it never ends. Maybe it's just a detox that last for the end of your life, how fun is that...
@samuli I think a lot of people have lost patience attempting this. Everyone wants success overnight, or in a week, or month, this is a years long marathon. At 1.5yrs now seen the best results over any other protocol, diet, supplement. I am still not fully healed, but committed, so hopefully years from now, others will be able to stick it out. I plan to go at least 1.5yrs more, see where I stand. Being a accutane victim, not sure what will come...
Quote from Sam on June 10, 2020, 4:58 amI have to admit that I'm believing this vitamin A toxicity thing less and less every day. Has anyone actually got better over time with this? It seems to me that everyone just gives up at some point and leaves. This is starting to remind me of iodine megadose protocol and probiotic supplements. Every time when I have taken probiotic supplements, I have felt horrible and everyone just says that it's just a detox, but it never ends. Maybe it's just a detox that last for the end of your life, how fun is that...
Sam, I feel for your thought here, and think it is great that you are applying common sense to this new idea (at this point in my life, I've started to see just why people are built stubborn/skeptical... It's smart!). I don't think we should relinquish our traditional ways without very good reason, there is a reason our traditions come down to us. Now, as for "new" things, I have an easier time justifying getting rid of them.
I was going to try to tell you why, after a year, I still believe the VA toxicity thing, but perhaps I will instead put a post on my log and not divert too much from this thread.
I don't think people get frustrated and leave. I think they learn something about health, make some realistic modifications, and move on. Some come back after long periods of time with updates.
@samuli I’ve thought the same sometimes. The “detox” symptoms have been tough and make me wonder if I’m doing something wrong.
What keeps me going are what I think are definite improvements:
- My skin no longer has an orangish yellow tinge
- accessory nails that I’ve had for maybe 5+ years on my pinky toes are disappearing
- occasional days of a normal sleep schedule (not consistent)
- no longer having so much anxiety over what I eat. This might be counterintuitive, but I used to follow a Ray Peat inspired diet. What I ate was so different and strange compared to what people around me ate. At restaurants I’d be worried about eating any pufa. Maybe this neuroticism came from not getting the results I wanted and blaming it on myself. I also believe @lil-chick made a post connecting vitamin A toxicity with eating disorders that I resonated with. I definitely felt a disordered relationship with food before the detox, and even before starting the Ray Peat inspired diet. Now I feel like my relationship with food is much healthier.
- occasional jaw relaxation
- I used to sometimes feel this drugged feeling after eating dairy. It was like dizziness/ extreme brain fog. This makes me think dairy might really not be good for me.
however, some negatives I’ve experienced:
- the growth of a dark spot (freckle-like) on my nose
- “Detox” symptoms: extreme fatigue and lack of motivation to work some days. Ruminating. Occasional rage.
Some observations I’m not sure are exclusively positive or negative:
- on days where my sleep schedule is delayed, I sleep a lot, like maybe 10-12 hours. (When my sleep schedule is normalized, I sleep about 8 hours)
- On the ray peat diet, I would sometimes wake up and feel really wired, like I was ready to go full speed ahead right when I got up. Now when I wake up I feel much more relaxed and calm, like how I used to wake up when I was just a kid. I think this might be due to having high waking cortisol levels while on a Ray Peat diet.
- caffeine tolerance seems to be decreased... or maybe I never tolerated it well in the first place?
- standing up for myself more, feeling more natural in my interactions with people. However, this sometimes makes me relate less to people I have been friends with. I’ve occasionally thought of my detox experience as also being a friend detox haha.
- for the past few days I’ve been really craving an egg. I had one today and another a few days ago. One has been enough for me.
some comments on my detox experience:
- overall “detox” symptoms seem to be decreasing for me. I haven’t had days of extreme fatigue for a while. However, I do think they sync with my cycle and tend to occur during PMS. Regardless, I believe the intensity and duration of these episodes has decreased.
- other members on this forum have mentioned having increased allergies once starting the detox. I’m not sure, but from what I read, it seems like this could possibly be a good thing? Not sure. The allergies do really suck when they are intense. The allergies started around month 3 for me (when I moved to a different area) and I don’t think they’ve let up. I have days when I am completely allergy free, and days when I really suffer.
- my occasions of rage and ruminating to the point where I make myself feel sad have decreased over time and in intensity
Quote from Orion on June 10, 2020, 6:05 am@samuli I think a lot of people have lost patience attempting this. Everyone wants success overnight, or in a week, or month, this is a years long marathon.
Yep, despite the science clearly showing that if one is VA toxic then the path to healing is a multi year one. Also, people try to follow a highly restrictive diet for no good reason making it way harder to keep going long term.
Garrett Smith's latest video going over Hypervitaminosis A studies makes it very clear as do my videos that VA toxicity is common. One of my videos shows that it is near universal in old age.
A concern I have is that the idea that VA is a non essential toxin is part of the mix. This will put a lot of people off before they have a chance to understand the Hypervitaminosis A issue.
Some appropriate quotes from the science:
Vitamin A deficiency was induced in humans by several researchers with the important aim to determine the daily requirement of the vitamin for healthy adults. This proved to be unexpectedly difficult because of the large but variable reserves of the vitamin stored in the livers of healthy persons.
Also:
A very similar series of experiments was carried out in 1942 by Wald et al. (23), except that they supplemented the normal diet consumed by their five subjects before the experiment with vitamin A, likely intending to diminish the great variability in requirement observed by Booher et al. (21) by saturating the livers of his subjects at the start of the experiment. They found that after 6 mo of consuming the vitamin A-deficient diet, only two subjects showed a very modest increase in their visual threshold.
I have been on the vitamin A detox for about 6 months now.
Updates on sleep: My sleep schedule is actually still not ideal. I would say it naturally falls around 6/7 am to 2/3 pm. There were a few days that when I took biotin, I had an ideal sleep schedule - falling asleep around 11pm and waking up around 7 am. However, this effect only lasted for a few days, and my sleep schedule returned to abnormal even with biotin.
I do want to say that I have been dreaming consistently ever since I started the diet. (My recall is not the best though.) This is interesting to me, because I have read on the Ray Peat forum that dreaming is a sign of elevated serotonin and thus is not a good thing. When I was on the Ray Peat diet I would never really dream. However I dream most every night now. I'd be curious to know about your thoughts on Peat's view on serotonin.
Updates on muscles:
In month five, there was a period of time, maybe a week and a half, where my jaw muscle was relaxed for several days in a row. However, my jaw hasn't relaxed in almost a month now. I think this may have to do with detox cycles and the amount of vitamin A circulating in my system? I really don't know. (Maybe my sleep schedule also has to do with detox cycles?) I think that excess vitamin A is inhibiting my jaw muscles from properly relaxing, whether by making me deficient in things important for muscle relaxation or some other mechanism. I did catch a glimpse of my jaw muscle actively twitching in the mirror (it twitches before relaxing). I think it looked similar to the release of a muscle knot, as in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_mZRJWwPYA
This makes me think that the bulk and tension in my jaw muscles might be caused by the same thing that causes muscle knots. My jaw muscles do actually feel knotty I think.
I also started taking SunFiber last month. I take a scoop everyday. When I took it for the first time, smaller muscles in my jaw started immediately relaxing. However, I do think SunFiber is encouraging more detox. People have said that your body detoxes more A when you start increasing soluble fiber. It was after I took SunFiber that I started experiencing more fatigue. And my jaw muscles no longer relax after taking SunFiber.
I have also been doing a lot of exercises with a focus on back flexibility and strength. I actually developed muscle knots on my lower back from this. I used to never have muscle knots on my back or on any part of my body to my knowledge. This could be nothing - it might just be because I'm practicing harder and more often than I have before (bc quarantine) and I don't have a baseline of good back strength, or it might tie into this whole detox thing.
Updates on emotions:
I am definitely less emotionally volatile now. I have less moments of rage and sad rumination.
Updates on energy levels:
Around month 5 I started experiencing a few days of fatigue/low motivation. (days in which all I do is eat and watch TV, even though I have deadlines lol. I really can't bring myself to do anything else). These happen around my period I think.
I have noticed that sometimes when I take Allithiamine, it prevents me from taking a full on nap after eating a meal. Sometimes when I eat a meal I knock out for a few hours. However, when I take Allithiamine, I might put my head down for 10 minutes but then I feel like getting up again. This effect is not consistent however.
Miscellaneous: I have also felt that my pee is a little burning when it comes out, and I know other forum members have mentioned this as well.
Ever since I started the diet I think my dandruff has increased. But it's nothing that really concerns me. It's like the dandruff I had when I was a young child I think. I just don't think I had this much dandruff on a Ray Peat inspired diet.
Quote from leap7 on July 9, 2020, 5:24 amI have been on the vitamin A detox for about 6 months now.
Updates on sleep: My sleep schedule is actually still not ideal. I would say it naturally falls around 6/7 am to 2/3 pm. There were a few days that when I took biotin, I had an ideal sleep schedule - falling asleep around 11pm and waking up around 7 am. However, this effect only lasted for a few days, and my sleep schedule returned to abnormal even with biotin.
I do want to say that I have been dreaming consistently ever since I started the diet. (My recall is not the best though.) This is interesting to me, because I have read on the Ray Peat forum that dreaming is a sign of elevated serotonin and thus is not a good thing. When I was on the Ray Peat diet I would never really dream. However I dream most every night now. I'd be curious to know about your thoughts on Peat's view on serotonin.
Updates on muscles:
In month five, there was a period of time, maybe a week and a half, where my jaw muscle was relaxed for several days in a row. However, my jaw hasn't relaxed in almost a month now. I think this may have to do with detox cycles and the amount of vitamin A circulating in my system? I really don't know. (Maybe my sleep schedule also has to do with detox cycles?) I think that excess vitamin A is inhibiting my jaw muscles from properly relaxing, whether by making me deficient in things important for muscle relaxation or some other mechanism. I did catch a glimpse of my jaw muscle actively twitching in the mirror (it twitches before relaxing). I think it looked similar to the release of a muscle knot, as in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_mZRJWwPYA
This makes me think that the bulk and tension in my jaw muscles might be caused by the same thing that causes muscle knots. My jaw muscles do actually feel knotty I think.
I also started taking SunFiber last month. I take a scoop everyday. When I took it for the first time, smaller muscles in my jaw started immediately relaxing. However, I do think SunFiber is encouraging more detox. People have said that your body detoxes more A when you start increasing soluble fiber. It was after I took SunFiber that I started experiencing more fatigue. And my jaw muscles no longer relax after taking SunFiber.
I have also been doing a lot of exercises with a focus on back flexibility and strength. I actually developed muscle knots on my lower back from this. I used to never have muscle knots on my back or on any part of my body to my knowledge. This could be nothing - it might just be because I'm practicing harder and more often than I have before (bc quarantine) and I don't have a baseline of good back strength, or it might tie into this whole detox thing.
Updates on emotions:
I am definitely less emotionally volatile now. I have less moments of rage and sad rumination.
Updates on energy levels:
Around month 5 I started experiencing a few days of fatigue/low motivation. (days in which all I do is eat and watch TV, even though I have deadlines lol. I really can't bring myself to do anything else). These happen around my period I think.
I have noticed that sometimes when I take Allithiamine, it prevents me from taking a full on nap after eating a meal. Sometimes when I eat a meal I knock out for a few hours. However, when I take Allithiamine, I might put my head down for 10 minutes but then I feel like getting up again. This effect is not consistent however.
Miscellaneous: I have also felt that my pee is a little burning when it comes out, and I know other forum members have mentioned this as well.
Ever since I started the diet I think my dandruff has increased. But it's nothing that really concerns me. It's like the dandruff I had when I was a young child I think. I just don't think I had this much dandruff on a Ray Peat inspired diet.
Both serotonin increasing drugs and serotonin lowering drugs can cause vivid dreams. To say that vivid dreams are caused by elevated serotonin is wrong I think. Serotonin is probably involved with dreaming somehow though.
The muscle thing could potentially be caused by a magnesium or calcium or potassium deficiency. Likely calcium because most people here don't seem to consume it.
thank you for the update! My husband used to do lots of travel, and this is what he did when he wanted to reset his clock. He would stay up for a long time, like a day and a half, then take melatonin before the bed time that he wanted to make the new norm.
I too struggle with jaw tightness, and wonder about it. I do drink milk. My guess is it has to do with shrunken tissues that need to re-grow a bit? Perhaps part of the whole skull pressure thingy. One thing I try to do is to stretch crosswise (like a smile) often. Not downwise. And then relax the cheek, shoulders, and pretend the back of the head is getting pulled upward, while the chin is kept level. I also have a note on my computer to be symmetric.
The period makes everything go kaflouie. I wonder if VA is mobilized.
@salt How much calcium do you think we should be getting? And in what form? I took some eggshell calcium (left over from Ray Peat diet) at the beginning of the detox because I really craved it. I also drank sparkling mineral water in the first few months, but don't do so anymore. I stopped the eggshell supplementation after a few weeks or so because I stopped craving it, and I've heard people like Garrett Smith say to not supplement with calcium. I've been wondering if I should start retaking eggshell calcium.