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TG's Log
Hi everyone! Hopping on here to record my experience and hopefully progress on this diet. I have arrived here, as many of you have, with crippling health issues and a subsequent penchant for research, mainly due to the sad inadequacy of our current medical system.
So, first things first, some background information; I am a 20yr old female, have always had a sensitive digestive system, being prone to anxiety and depression and had back and neck pain. I have always had complete trust in the medical system (oh sweet innocent soul) and have consequently being vaccinated for practically anything as well as happily popped various pills for various maladies (mainly stomach pain, constipation etc.). Safe to say I am now firmly on the 'proceed with hesitation and caution and much research and also its probably not worth getting it' side of the fence in regard to vaccines. Have always been a perfectionist and have tried to figure out the 'perfect' diet. Always a night owl, nearly always went to bed late, was nearly always tired (go figure). Learnt about seed oils early (about 2017 ish?) And tried to avoid them after that.
There's a lot more (feel free to ask questions, I'm mostly an open book) but it would take too long to explain. I was on accutane for severe acne in 2020. When I was 18, halfway through my last year of school, I started experiencing chronic migraines (despite no history of migraines) and chronic fatigue. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome in 2022. CFS is an awful and debilitating condition and has taken most of my life away.
Through these past three years or so I have gone through the process of trying to fix my health issues with my diet. It has led down the path of gut healing protocols and weston a price syle eating. I didn't notice a worsening of symptoms but I certainly have not got any better. This led me to ray peat which led me to the low vitamin a theory (about two weeks ago). I have been devouring the forums and I am making my way rather quickly through Grants books. It has been BLOWING MY MIND. The sheer amount of evidence for vitamin a essentially being a poison is incredible. Also a hard pill to swallow as I love food so much. It is not hard to look at my medical history and see that practically all the dots line up with vitamin a poisoning.
Hence, I started the diet on the 21st of this month. 4 days in and I'm already experiencing scary symptoms. For the first few days it was just a bit of gassiness here and there, not surprising as I'm having more fibre. But last night I couldn't sleep for hours as I was been kept awake by what felt like a bug crawling on different spots around my body, along with a pain in the right lower side of my abdomen. I eventually went to sleep but I was rather concerned.
Today something really perturbing happened. It's hard to explain but basically my head starting feeling WRONG, woozy, like i was having a stroke or something. My heart starting beating really fast and my vision went extremely blurry. I felt faint. It wasnt painful, more like pressure that came in waves. It lasted probably around 30 seconds or so. Since then, my headache has been worse and i have felt a little dizzy but fairly okay. If anyone has experienced something like this please let me know, it was so scary and I'm worried it'll happen again.
So, anyway, I think I'm detoxing now, for better or worse. I'm so glad there is a forum on this website, I have lots of questions and it's lovely to not be alone in this. Also thank you to Grant for taking the time to write the books etc. and letting them be a free resource. It is IMMENSELY appreciated 🙂
Hello TG, thanks for telling your story!
I have had the crawly-bug feeling, occasionally, early on (but not as early as you) . (maybe because you are so much younger and maybe less toxic! both good). I also felt it again when I dropped alcohol lately, which seems to have budged me off of some kind of plateau.
I'm almost 4 years in. Inner ear problems are part of how VA has affected me and so it wasn't very surprising to me that I've had some odd detox symptoms there. I, too, have had the occasional sensations of sudden intense vertigo. I think it might be pressure changes in the inner ear. Luckily it doesn't last! Your bout sounds worse than anything I've had but I'm pretty sure I know what you mean by it. It's almost like you are suddenly tumbling in the tractor beam from an alien space ship! or suddenly at the bottom of the deep end of a pool not knowing which way is up....and then a sense of normalizing. This has happened only 2 or 3 times. It wasn't a response to stress or exercise or anything, in fact, luckily, I was generally not doing much at the time. It would be scary to be driving or something when it happens.
I think head pressure can be encouraged to move along, and my fave way of doing this is by "making faces". Try to use all of your skull muscles anyway that you can. Wiggle your ears! Be surprised, angry, yawn, squeeze your eyes shut etc. A migrainer taught me this in an elevator long before I heard of Grant.
I also sometimes dabble in gentle swiping of the skin of the head/neck downward toward the body. (ie lymphatic massage) I'm not an expert at this, others here know a lot more about it. I actually think you might want to start slow with the lymphatic massage, IMO it's pretty serious stuff. Slow changes are always good, and you don't want to induce any weirdness. I started doing it twice a day and that was too much IMO.
My guess is that ears (and perhaps other head areas) might detox via the nose, so anything you can do to gently keep your nose clear is a good idea. I've been through some major dry, burning itching, sticky, triscuit-cracker booger times. And when I'm not dry-nose, I'm nose-runny. Kleenex's best customer, LOL. But it's getting to be less of an issue.
It took me about 1 year to stop having pressure headaches and I also had chronic vomiting (like an abdominal migraine). Those got less and less I think I had my last one at about 2 years in. So, in my opinion, my body worked on these (acute) things first.
My facial skin and gums and ears are still working towards being fixed, but there is unmistakable slow progress there (that no other diet change ever fixed).
Sleep: super important. When you wake up after a good sleep there can be some head pressure, just do the "faces".
To help avoid headaches, I recommend not skipping meals, but I do think that not snacking between meals is a good idea so that the body can do some (light) housework.
Exercise is also a good idea, I've always thought it helped with headaches. And I think this should be the type of thing where you are pushing yourself in a burst (whatever is sprint-like for you) and not like too chronic (like hours of cardio). I think outside air is also best for getting rid of headaches.
Hi lil chick! Thanks so much for replying and sharing your thoughts, I really appreciate it 🙂
I'm really glad I'm not the only one to have the crawly bug feeling, although I'm sorry you had to go through it as well! Hopefully it is as you said, that I'm less toxic, but given I was on accutane I wonder.
4 years! Good on you! It's been sobering to read others accounts and see how long this process takes. I'm slowly coming to terms with it.
Yes your experience sounds similar to mine, your analogies describe it very well 🙂 it was extremely disconcerting. And similarly it wasn't triggered by anything, I was literally just sat in a chair! Thankfully it has not happened since.
That is so interesting in regard to the 'making faces' technique, I will definitely try it out.
I have noticed I have been sneezing more than usual! That backs up your detoxing through the nose theory. Makes a lot of sense, easier to detox the head through the nearest available exit channel lol.
So good to hear of your pressure migraines going away! I know mine will probably take a long time because it's been my biggest symptom but I'm encouraged by so many who have seen improvement on this diet.
My head is always worse when I wake up, I'm keen to try your technique tomorrow!
The issue with exercise for me is that I have CFS so it causes me to crash. I can't walk too fast or run because it increases my headache and I get dizzy. I haven't been able to do any exercise apart from very light walking for the better part of 1.5 years. I sincerely hope that one day I will be healed enough to do proper workouts again.
I saw this one guy on the internet, his problem was obesity and he had gotten to the point where he could do nothing. A helpful person on the internet told him to just wave his arms about and it was the first step. Very inspirational story. But it just shows that a person has to start wherever they are.
It reminds me that I have to get moving, I've been lazy lately! 🙂
That made me laugh! I mean its spot on, starting small is so much better than not starting at all, it's just a funny visual to picture lol.
I'm glad I've started this now, I usually would wait a lot longer and be perfectionistic about the details before making such an extreme change, but the evidence backs up and hopefully I'll soon become a testimony to that evidence.
On another note, I was wondering what you and any others reading this think as to taking activated charcoal? And eggs as well (for the choline and to help buffer detox somewhat as Andew B posted about) Keen to avoid any retox/detox setback situations 🙂
I'm on the slow boat (eat eggs and more VA compared to most) and I don't take charcoal. I'm not saying it is the way to go. Like many I started off faster, and then added things back after a short while. I'm just not in the market for a stringent diet.
Hi TG. Glad you made it this far. Couple ideas.
First. Try to do this with help. There are plenty of us out here at various stages along the way. Hope Tipton on Garrett Smith's network is one of my favorites. You can find her on Garrett's livestream every Tuesday morning 11am CST on the chat. She is also on Garrett's LYL network daily. That requires a $100 annual membership. It is well worth it. The livestream is free and the chats are well worth the time. Usually there are 50 to 100 of us on there asking Garrett and each other questions getting great answers.
Second. We get symptoms from the poison contact and also from the nutrients depleted as our liver tries to safely repackage and excrete the poison. So depleted deficient nutrients can give a wild ride of different symptoms. Replenishing nutrients is vital. It is probably secondary to getting what toxins there are loose in your colon out. Activated charcoal is a life saver. It can be a problem is started too early or too quickly. It adsorbs bile so aggressively it can cause constipation. Before I started adding charcoal (always in tiny increments on any ideas added to diet) I brought in sunfiber.
The first step was to stop eating liver and all vit A sources. I was a WAPF guy for 30 years. When I stopped taking so many toxins, I got some relief quickly. After a few days I started getting new and some worse symptoms. I later learned that the liver is set to intox or detox. When it is doing one it stops doing the other. That is why eating eggs can give temporary relief in spite of adding vit A. While the liver is taking vit A in, it stops kicking it out into the system (usually painfully). Long term eggs add vit A burden to the liver. When liver overflows with vit A it no longer has the intox vs detox choice. Eating more eggs or any toxin will not slow the symptoms down. Think of end stage alcoholism. When drunks go through DT's of alcohol withdrawal, not giving them more to drink can kill them. Eventually giving them more to drink will kill them too, but usually not as fast as withholding alcholol from them.
Before I go on and on any more than I have here, take a look at
https://nutritiondetective.com/
and look at his free link to "The Madness of Modern Nutrition"
Grant is the man for figuring this out. He carefully avoids giving medical advice wisely. He is smart enough to not want to be a clinician. Garrett is a clinician. He learned from Grant. I think he started with Grant 5 or 6 years ago. By helping people, Garrett has built up a group who are now helping more people and so on. We are growing.
There is also a growing group of us on twitter. Garrett's link is @nutridetect. He has a thread that links to all his major threads on related topics. Betting that you are going to run into a number of folk here who are pushing different and sometimes opposing ideas. Ideas opposed to Garrett, sometimes Grant and mostly each other. Everyone is different. Anything can cause anything in anyone because we all come from such different problems. The one idea I try to keep in mind on Grant's blog is regardless what you think of how Grant copes with this issue, it is hard to work logic to question the fact that he is alive and improving 9 years in. By all "Consensus Science" (aka fraud), Grant should have gone blind 8 years ago and died 7 years ago. Sure I will question whatever he writes here. But he gets the benefit of the doubt far more than anyone else I read.
Glad to see someone reading through all his books first. Not enough of us do. It gets hard in some spots. I was pretty sick when I read them. That was hard on my wife. She had to step away from them. She can read them now but it is still hard on her. So be ready with the idea that now that you know better you can do better. Keep in mind how much better Grant is doing.
Ok. More than enough out of me. Glad to see you here. Do well and please do let us know how you are doing.
BTW, do you have a blood pressure monitor? Sometimes sudden changes in BP will bring on migraines and vertigo too. Learning a bit about vestibular system is also helpful. When you do feel that dizziness, it helps to find a stationary object as far away as you can see and focus on it. That will help your eyes' and ears' signals on balance to the brain to coordinate with each other better. As for the tickles and itches, my first guess is your kidneys are cranking up to help the detox. This can be an itchy process. There are ways of addressing that better too.
OK. Now I will stop. Thank you again and see you when we can.