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puddleduck’s progress (CFS symptoms)
Hello everyone!
How have you all been doing? I’m long overdue for an update post, but I’m happy to report that my health has continued to trend upward. I’m feeling more “at home” in my body, and relaxing into the little pleasures and joys of life!
This comes after a heartbreaking and grief-filled few years in my personal life, which I won’t get into here except to say that’s why I haven’t been around the forums much. But I have thought of you all, and I’ve been wanting to share some of the experiments I’ve been doing on myself in that time. Haha — I can’t stop.
1) My Body Still Prefers a Mostly Plant-Based Diet
As far as nutrition goes, I still eat little vitamin A, aside from oranges and low-oxalate greens. While it’s no longer necessary for me to be strict with my diet or suffer the consequences — thankfully! — I don’t do well with excessive dairy, eggs, or meat, so I largely avoid animal products. The few times I tried reintroducing regular meat consumption, my hormonal issues came back.
Although I eat mostly low-fat vegan meals at home, I have added sunflower, flax, and olive oils. And now I eat fish a couple of times per week. Sometimes I eat fried things with canola oil, and I seem to tolerate that much better than butter, so long as I keep my legume intake high and stay consistent with activated charcoal and psyllium. Generally, I eat what I enjoy and have fun with food! Who knew fried sprouted lentil burgers are actually tastier than beef? They just are, especially with garlic tahini sauce. Mmm.
2) I Started Injecting B12 Subcutaneously in 2024
After reading Sally Pacholok’s book and learning more about B12 deficiency, I realized I had likely been B12 deficient since childhood. Unfortunately, this seems to be an all-too-common story for neurodivergent CFS/ME patients. I wish I had gotten injections much sooner, but better late than never, and I am blessed to be able to access them affordably and without the legal barriers Americans face.
This is an excellent resource if you want to look into this for yourself: https://www.reddit.com/r/B12_Deficiency/
3) Inner Work to Move Toward Rest and Repair Mode
My coach introduced me to Internal Family Systems around a year or two ago, and it has been life-changing in the best way. Obviously, our emotional wellness affects our physical wellness a great deal, and this has been my area of primary focus over the past couple of years while going through major loss and trauma recovery.
All of this emotional work has been difficult, but so worthwhile and rewarding. It is helping me move out of a “flee/freeze” fear state and toward a greater abundance of positive emotion and playfulness.
And this last point is partly why I am posting today, with Grant’s generous permission, mind you. ;D
As some of you may be aware, I was certified as a holistic wellness coach with a specialization in plant-based nutrition in 2024. This year, I have started training in Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as EFT or “tapping,” as well as IFS-informed parts work (inner child work). I am looking for clients who are interested in these specific tools as I learn to incorporate them into my coaching process.
Anyone who feels “stuck” in some aspect of life, is struggling with wanting to change an aspect of their health and wellness, or keeps repeating patterns they do not wish to continue, would be an ideal candidate. And believe me, I know all about it! Haha.
Please feel invited to reach out to me at coachkaity@protonmail.com if this is of interest to you. My rates are affordable while I continue my training.
Sending love!!
@puddleduck Nice to hear that you are doing good. Yeah a lot of people don't recover by focusing on diet, because often times the root cause or one of the causes of their health issues comes from emotional/mental health. Like If someone is really solid mentally/emotionally the body can handle a lot. Bad diet as well and still do good and vise versa you can have the most perfect diet for your body, but if that person lives in fear, worry, stress mode physical health will still go downhill..
It was/is my case as well.
Quote from puddleduck on June 20, 2026, 11:40 amHello everyone!
How have you all been doing? I’m long overdue for an update post, but I’m happy to report that my health has continued to trend upward. I’m feeling more “at home” in my body, and relaxing into the little pleasures and joys of life!
This comes after a heartbreaking and grief-filled few years in my personal life, which I won’t get into here except to say that’s why I haven’t been around the forums much. But I have thought of you all, and I’ve been wanting to share some of the experiments I’ve been doing on myself in that time. Haha — I can’t stop.
1) My Body Still Prefers a Mostly Plant-Based Diet
As far as nutrition goes, I still eat little vitamin A, aside from oranges and low-oxalate greens. While it’s no longer necessary for me to be strict with my diet or suffer the consequences — thankfully! — I don’t do well with excessive dairy, eggs, or meat, so I largely avoid animal products. The few times I tried reintroducing regular meat consumption, my hormonal issues came back.
Although I eat mostly low-fat vegan meals at home, I have added sunflower, flax, and olive oils. And now I eat fish a couple of times per week. Sometimes I eat fried things with canola oil, and I seem to tolerate that much better than butter, so long as I keep my legume intake high and stay consistent with activated charcoal and psyllium. Generally, I eat what I enjoy and have fun with food! Who knew fried sprouted lentil burgers are actually tastier than beef? They just are, especially with garlic tahini sauce. Mmm.
2) I Started Injecting B12 Subcutaneously in 2024
After reading Sally Pacholok’s book and learning more about B12 deficiency, I realized I had likely been B12 deficient since childhood. Unfortunately, this seems to be an all-too-common story for neurodivergent CFS/ME patients. I wish I had gotten injections much sooner, but better late than never, and I am blessed to be able to access them affordably and without the legal barriers Americans face.
This is an excellent resource if you want to look into this for yourself: https://www.reddit.com/r/B12_Deficiency/
3) Inner Work to Move Toward Rest and Repair Mode
My coach introduced me to Internal Family Systems around a year or two ago, and it has been life-changing in the best way. Obviously, our emotional wellness affects our physical wellness a great deal, and this has been my area of primary focus over the past couple of years while going through major loss and trauma recovery.
All of this emotional work has been difficult, but so worthwhile and rewarding. It is helping me move out of a “flee/freeze” fear state and toward a greater abundance of positive emotion and playfulness.
And this last point is partly why I am posting today, with Grant’s generous permission, mind you. ;D
As some of you may be aware, I was certified as a holistic wellness coach with a specialization in plant-based nutrition in 2024. This year, I have started training in Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as EFT or “tapping,” as well as IFS-informed parts work (inner child work). I am looking for clients who are interested in these specific tools as I learn to incorporate them into my coaching process.
Anyone who feels “stuck” in some aspect of life, is struggling with wanting to change an aspect of their health and wellness, or keeps repeating patterns they do not wish to continue, would be an ideal candidate. And believe me, I know all about it! Haha.
Please feel invited to reach out to me at coachkaity@protonmail.com if this is of interest to you. My rates are affordable while I continue my training.
Sending love!!
Hi, and thanks for the update. I am relatively new to this forum and to Low vA. I, like you (from this read), have mysterious ailments that my doctors cannot pinpoint (bone pain, joint pain, osteoarthritis, to name the big one), but I am not classically 'arthritic' from a lab perspective.
I came across Low vA and it seemed to check some boxes, and seemed like an easy-enough approach. I cut down on ALL supplements containing A (cod liver oil, greens powders with a ton of beta carotene) and also immediate cut down/out the biggest food culprits (canned sardines, canned mackerel, carrots, frozen mixed veggies, dried apricots—these are my STAPLES so it was hard to give up), and the results were impressive. I never took accurate, Vitamin A-specific supplements, etc, but I am a firm believer that my 'high quality' cod liver oil (Rosita's) daily + my greens powder with 1,000 mg of beta carotene daily + those damned apricots and canned fish pushed me over the edge—somewhere I read that "you're okay until you're not." Maybe it was Grant who wrote that. Just want to make sure I give credit to that comment.
I wanted to document my progress, so I had bloodwork done (much as I did when I experienced B6 Toxicity a few years back). My baseline serum was 74 mcg/dl—which most labs, AI, etc. report as Out Of Range, but Quest (who the test was run through, classified it as In Range—go figure).
At any rate, it was a starting point, and gave me some measure of where I am in all of this.
I am in NO WAY cured, but in four weeks off "the juice" there have been noticeable improvements. My bones are not creaking and popping as much, I have the energy to walk daily (I was mainly confined to my couch for the past 5 months), and overall my mood is better (diagnosed and in-treatment for anxiety and depression).
My problem was that I just could not figure out what was wrong with me, and my doctors were of little help. They must have "Psycho" in my MyChart, because they are quick to prescribe me painkillers and Zoloft and usher me out of the room.
At any rate, I am happy you continue to improve and your post give me hope. I think I will take this reply and put it in a Progress Report, with a few more details.
Best of health to you.