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Neil's Log
@pinetreefire Your post is very relatable. This whole forum is filled with people just like me. I hope you figure it out.
Did you start eating loads of red meat on this diet? I still only have read meat every other day or every few days. Because for years I thought I had some kind of problem with iron, because if I ate too much red meat, or iron fortified foods my symptoms would get worse. Although my ferritin levels were not too high, and I would cut out high iron foods long enough to start getting symptoms of low iron. I wonder if because iron will build up a lot faster than vitamin A depletes, if it is not best to moderate iron intake and have lean chicken, and lean turkey, which seem to be pretty low in vitamin A. It seems to be low enough for me to go into detox mode anyway.
Quote from Neil on November 17, 2020, 3:57 amI'm not going to go into too much detail. I just want to make a note I've been on a low vitamin A diet for a few weeks now. After about 3 or 4 days on this diet I got the weirdest feelings in my muscles like they were filled with liquid. It felt like my blood was really thick. It's far too intense to be my imagination, but it doesn't hurt.
I'm hoping I'm going through detox symptoms but I think that might be wishful thinking. My eyes are yellow all the time, and my spleen aches. I have an overwhelming sense of dread. I also have about a million physical symptoms that I had before starting the diet. A new one is that is I have slightly stinging eyes, but I think it must be impossible to have vitamin A deficiency this quickly, especially after the insane amount of milk I used to drink. My skin was super dry before starting so I'm not too concerned about that.
I come to this forum and see people say how I should avoid just about every food under the sun and it makes me feel like suicide might be my only option. This low vitamin A diet is my only hope. Hopefully I will report back with some progress.
buckle up , this is not a sprint , this process is a marathon , and for me it is a forever lifestyle choice now .
Having depression , rage , anxiety and suicidal thoughts is common in vitamin A toxicity , if you want to see light at the end of the tunnel . I would suggest you go 0 vitamin A i.e beef and black beans diet for 3 months ( and NOTHING ELSE . period ), you will see tremendous improvements and this will act as a motivator for you to keep on going even if it means to be going on for years .
This is something that happened to me , and it has been a big motivator for me
Stay strong !
@r-2 Hi and thank you for the welcome. No way am I just going to have beef every day. For years I thought I had iron toxicity, you know why? Because eating lots of foods high in iron makes my symptoms way worse. Although the thing is my ferritin was not too high at at all. My theory is that my liver is so full of vitamin A or whatever, that there is no room for the iron. And Iron levels will raise much quicker than vitamin A levels will come down.
I'm having red meat every couple of days or every other day, and lean chicken breast and turkey breast the other days. The fact that I seem to really be showing detox symptoms makes me think it is low enough to detox. Also without carbs I will waste away. I'm already 11 1/2 stone and I'm 6'2 and I'm really struggling to maintain weight.
BTW, I'm a decade younger than @ourania, and I want to be her when I grow up.
@lil-chick, Well, what a coincidence! I was just thinking how good it would be to be you! Ten years younger, ten years earlier on that vA adventure! I can tell you may be suffering but the rats have not nibbled at your brains yet. I may sound OK but I come from a very bad place.
There is Hope.
Hugs
The more I read about BPA, the more I realize that my skin pain sensations and tinnitus are because I had my mercury fillings replaced by white composite ones. Things were improving in one respect since getting mercury fillings removed, but the tinnitus started a couple of years after and increased along with pain sensations. First it was just my thumb that hurt when I was flossing, then it became painful to sit. It often feels like I have sunburn. If it's my white fillings then I think there is no hope for me. I hope I find the courage it takes to commit suicide. I just want this constant anxiety to be over. My life is hell.
Thank you @are. I will write my whole story later. See if anyone has been through something similar.
I would like to hear more of your story.
Are you using pain meds? Don't be a hero, @neil. 😉
When I had my first vomiting attack at about 12 I told my mother I wanted to die. And that was just my first one. Its 40 years later. Just before finding Grant, they had become so frequent that I did start becoming despondent. Now, I think that those nights of pain and suffering were keeping me alive via whole-body detox. I never found anything much, besides water, that helped those attacks.
When it came to headaches, though, and back and neck pain...when bad enough ones arrived, I did use pain meds. What worked for me was Aleve. Pain meds have a very important role to play and we are lucky they exist. I hope that you are using them enough! There are no prizes for stoicism. They don't all work the same, and some experimentation might be necessary. Some just won't work with your chemistry, and another will be just the ticket.
After 18 months on lowered-VA (not strict) my pain is so much less and my sleep so much better. I still look like crap, tho. 🙂 Listen, I'll take it, let me tell you! I'll take it! I'm so grateful to be here.
I suppose that it is a good idea to also try to cut back on BPA! I too have changed over some of my silver fillings for white. Perhaps you can share strategies about that, I don't even know where to start.
If it helps you at all, when I first started having these problems, I had zero fillings, neither silver or white.