Quote from Ronnie on May 24, 2019, 3:02 pm

What was your diet before that?

Quote from tim on May 24, 2019, 6:58 pm

Quote from Ido on May 24, 2019, 2:33 pm

Hi everyone,

So I have been following the 0 vitamin A diet very strictly for a month now. My diet consisted of lean veal meat, white rice, black beans, honey, and Sourkrought.

You can read my background in the accutane section, but basically I took 20 mg per day for 2 months and got really hurt. I suffer from a laundry list of symptoms - extreme dry flaky skin and hair, severe dry eyes, visual snow, eye floaters and tinnitus, low libido and no ability to orgasm, severe joint and bone pain, migraines and brain fog, IBS

So far, experiencing worsening of bone and joint paint, and my IBS symptoms kinda worsened as well.

Brain fog slighlty improved, pressure feeling in the head is a bit better and libido is a bitter better too..

but so far nothing dramatic has changed for the better.

Keep you updated next month.

 

 

Hi Ido,

In the first 5 weeks of me starting a low A diet I experienced fatigue, drowsiness, eyelid spasms and a constant headache. I'm now approaching 4 months and have cured seb derm and chapped lips. My gum health has improved significantly too. Even though some things like IBS have not changed one bit I have seen issues I have suffered with for decades disappear so I have faith that I'm on the right track and I'm very happy with the progress I've seen so far. I never took accutane but have chronically consumed large amounts of Vitamin A in the past.

Your diet is low in fat. We need fat in the diet to stimulate bile release into the small intestine. Vitamin A is excreted from the body through bile. Soluble fiber in the diet then sequesters some of the bile released so that it isn't reabsorbed by the body. Following a low fat diet is potentially slowing down your progress. Personally I consume some almond milk as well as beef and lamb that often has fat attached. Sometimes I even use beef fat. Yes beef fat does contain a small amount of retinol however in the amounts I consume it contributes very little Vitamin A to my diet. Other people here use olive oil or high oleic sunflower oil as a source of fat in the diet.

Another thing about your diet, do you use iodized salt? If not you will likely be iodine deficient and this will be further exacerbated by consumption of goitrogenic cabbage (this is probably fine if iodine intake is adequate). Personally I consume bread that is iodine fortified and I include scallops and calamari in my diet once per week. The scallops and calamari also supply DHA which is considered an essential fatty acid. The only source of DHA is seafood, eggs and organ meats, calamari and scallops are the only low A foods to consume that have this EFA.

Lastly, the risk of consuming a very limited range of foods is that they are less likely to supply to full range of essential micro-nutrients.

Quote from Ido on May 25, 2019, 3:00 pm

Quote from Ronnie on May 24, 2019, 3:02 pm

What was your diet before that?

I ate plant based diet, mainly legumes and starches.

Rice, lentils, beans, potatoes, Tempe, some salads, nuts and seeds.

Quote from Ido on May 25, 2019, 3:03 pm

Quote from tim on May 24, 2019, 6:58 pm

Quote from Ido on May 24, 2019, 2:33 pm

Hi everyone,

So I have been following the 0 vitamin A diet very strictly for a month now. My diet consisted of lean veal meat, white rice, black beans, honey, and Sourkrought.

You can read my background in the accutane section, but basically I took 20 mg per day for 2 months and got really hurt. I suffer from a laundry list of symptoms - extreme dry flaky skin and hair, severe dry eyes, visual snow, eye floaters and tinnitus, low libido and no ability to orgasm, severe joint and bone pain, migraines and brain fog, IBS

So far, experiencing worsening of bone and joint paint, and my IBS symptoms kinda worsened as well.

Brain fog slighlty improved, pressure feeling in the head is a bit better and libido is a bitter better too..

but so far nothing dramatic has changed for the better.

Keep you updated next month.

 

 

Hi Ido,

In the first 5 weeks of me starting a low A diet I experienced fatigue, drowsiness, eyelid spasms and a constant headache. I'm now approaching 4 months and have cured seb derm and chapped lips. My gum health has improved significantly too. Even though some things like IBS have not changed one bit I have seen issues I have suffered with for decades disappear so I have faith that I'm on the right track and I'm very happy with the progress I've seen so far. I never took accutane but have chronically consumed large amounts of Vitamin A in the past.

Your diet is low in fat. We need fat in the diet to stimulate bile release into the small intestine. Vitamin A is excreted from the body through bile. Soluble fiber in the diet then sequesters some of the bile released so that it isn't reabsorbed by the body. Following a low fat diet is potentially slowing down your progress. Personally I consume some almond milk as well as beef and lamb that often has fat attached. Sometimes I even use beef fat. Yes beef fat does contain a small amount of retinol however in the amounts I consume it contributes very little Vitamin A to my diet. Other people here use olive oil or high oleic sunflower oil as a source of fat in the diet.

Another thing about your diet, do you use iodized salt? If not you will likely be iodine deficient and this will be further exacerbated by consumption of goitrogenic cabbage (this is probably fine if iodine intake is adequate). Personally I consume bread that is iodine fortified and I include scallops and calamari in my diet once per week. The scallops and calamari also supply DHA which is considered an essential fatty acid. The only source of DHA is seafood, eggs and organ meats, calamari and scallops are the only low A foods to consume that have this EFA.

Lastly, the risk of consuming a very limited range of foods is that they are less likely to supply to full range of essential micro-nutrients.

Thanks for the input.

But for the time being I find the diet managable and I really want to see what happens after several months of eating nearly 0 vitamin A.

I may add back some olive oil to my food.

Quote from thomas on May 25, 2019, 4:41 pm

@tim-2

About the fat intake -- so you're saying that if we add fat into our diet without fiber, we get VA toxicity symptoms. but if we eat fat while eating fiber, we don't get symptoms??

i hope i understood that correctly lol

Quote from tim on May 26, 2019, 6:19 am

Quote from thomas on May 25, 2019, 4:41 pm

@tim-2

About the fat intake -- so you're saying that if we add fat into our diet without fiber, we get VA toxicity symptoms. but if we eat fat while eating fiber, we don't get symptoms??

i hope i understood that correctly lol

I don't think you can avoid the detox symptoms by eating fiber with fat but I think at least a small amount of fiber and a small amount of fat will greatly help the A depletion process compared with a diet very low in either fat or fiber.

Potentially if one is A toxic and they consume fat without fiber they could end up recycling more VA metabolites leading to a longer depletion process. Potentially if one is A toxic and they consume very little fat in their diet their gallbladder may not release much bile during digestion and they could dramatically hinder the VA depletion process because VA is largely excreted from the body through bile.

I want to make it clear though, I'm not saying that eating lots of fat and lots of fiber would help a lot with detox.

Quote from thomas on May 26, 2019, 2:46 pm

Thank you Tim, this made things much easier for me to understand =)