Quote from lil chick on May 3, 2024, 7:55 am

Quote from Viktor on May 3, 2024, 7:49 am

Quote from lil chick on May 3, 2024, 5:27 am

Hi @viktor I'm eating pork!   I'm going where no VA'er has gone before!   Pork is always up at the top of B1 food lists.    And it is a trad food for my ancestry.   My centenarian grandmother grew up on pork and in her old age I bought ham cold cuts for her every week.   Besides pork I also am giving in to my peanut addiction whenever the feeling moves me, LOL.   

Those symptoms you describe (numb arms and legs, brain fog, sluggishness, feeling cold) are not too distant from things I also feel --but then again, most menopausal women feel some of those symptoms (at least the last 3)!   (lol).  What happens to me is that areas on my feet go pure white (raynauds).   And also foot cramps that seem related to the cold.    Very early to say but I really don't think I've had a foot cramp since starting the pork.   

I'm pretty sure Ourania (another poster here) told me I was deficient in B1 and she was probably right.   I think that I began to overcome my B1 deficiency earlier this year when I dropped alcohol, which is known to deplete it.   I'm trying to do other things to not deplete it, such as backing off on caffeine usage and sugar.

I'll then buy some ham cuts tomorrow, thank you very much!

I did a small ham last week and my husband has requested that we instead do pork roasts.   Like Jessica said on the other thread, perhaps there are reasons to avoid ham?   But ham is very delish.   I made ham omelettes for breakfast all week (we do eggs) which seemed like something I could eat every day.    Last night I made a pork roast and I thought it was sort of dry.   I reserved the juices and I'm going to serve the leftovers with gravy or maybe even in a pie sort of arrangment.

Quote from lil chick on May 3, 2024, 7:58 am

Quote from Jessica2 on May 3, 2024, 5:53 am

White flour and rice may also deplete thiamine. Its why white flour is fortified with it.

Hi @jessica2, I do eat organic versions of these things and they are not fortified, which might have added to my deficiency I suppose.  But at least hopefully less bug-killer on there.  Can't win for loosing!

Quote from Viktor on May 3, 2024, 8:51 am

Quote from lil chick on May 3, 2024, 7:55 am

Quote from Viktor on May 3, 2024, 7:49 am

Quote from lil chick on May 3, 2024, 5:27 am

Hi @viktor I'm eating pork!   I'm going where no VA'er has gone before!   Pork is always up at the top of B1 food lists.    And it is a trad food for my ancestry.   My centenarian grandmother grew up on pork and in her old age I bought ham cold cuts for her every week.   Besides pork I also am giving in to my peanut addiction whenever the feeling moves me, LOL.   

Those symptoms you describe (numb arms and legs, brain fog, sluggishness, feeling cold) are not too distant from things I also feel --but then again, most menopausal women feel some of those symptoms (at least the last 3)!   (lol).  What happens to me is that areas on my feet go pure white (raynauds).   And also foot cramps that seem related to the cold.    Very early to say but I really don't think I've had a foot cramp since starting the pork.   

I'm pretty sure Ourania (another poster here) told me I was deficient in B1 and she was probably right.   I think that I began to overcome my B1 deficiency earlier this year when I dropped alcohol, which is known to deplete it.   I'm trying to do other things to not deplete it, such as backing off on caffeine usage and sugar.

I'll then buy some ham cuts tomorrow, thank you very much!

I did a small ham last week and my husband has requested that we instead do pork roasts.   Like Jessica said on the other thread, perhaps there are reasons to avoid ham?   But ham is very delish.   I made ham omelettes for breakfast all week (we do eggs) which seemed like something I could eat every day.    Last night I made a pork roast and I thought it was sort of dry.   I reserved the juices and I'm going to serve the leftovers with gravy or maybe even in a pie sort of arrangment.

I actually thought - screw it and went and bought some ham, and then made fried eggs with it. I don't know about the heath benefits yet. but let me tell you, it's friggin' delicious.

Quote from Viktor on June 2, 2024, 8:28 am

Update from June 2, 2024:

Stopped Vitamin D a few weeks ago in order to let it drop a bit to more average readings and got 46 ng/mL as a result, which is pretty fine. Diet: eggs several times a week, chicken, cheese, bananas, kiwis, whole grains and bread, dairy, seaweed, etc.

Started feeling like total crap a week ago: very fatigued, brain fog again, low mood. Added more kelp to check if I probably wasn't getting enough iodine (which I doubted), to no avail.

Finally, bought some liver pâté and made a sandwich. In the evening the symptoms seemed to have intensified. However, the next day I felt noticeably better. I made a liver pâté sandwich that evening as well, and next day was feeling good again. I've resumed taking vitamin D with magnesium (about 6,000 IU D3 daily and 200-300 Mg Mag). Also, I tried some high-carotene fruit and berries and was okay after a brief (around 30 minutes) period of fatigue after eating each serving. During my worst or average days, it would take me around 24h to get back to normal.

I'll stop eating liver for a few days lest my iron levels rise too much, and see how it goes. I think I'll keep eating about 100-120 grams (4 oz) once a week. It seems I don't tolerate vitamins A and D one without the other. While vitamin D helped immensely to alleviate and resolve my long-standing Vit A toxicity, there comes a threshold where I start needing retinol again. In any case, I won't be taking any chances and will pay attention to moderating retinol, carotene and Vit D.

Quote from Viktor on June 10, 2024, 9:49 am

Update:

I've been eating small (10-20 grams) amounts of liver pâté almost every day. Since I started this, my dandruff issues and back acne have all but disappeared (I'd had them for so long that I never mentioned them among my problems). My energy is fine. I'm able to eat high-carotene berries (strawberries and blueberries) as part of my daily milk banana smothie. I workout several times a week. I keep taking vitamin D3 (around 6,000 IU 3-4 times a week) and magnesium. My metabolism feels good, and I'm no longer cold and weak.

Several days ago I made a very high-carotene salad (one extra-large tomato and lots of parsley and dill) and felt a bit off afterwards. It wasn't extremely bad compared to the old vitamin A-toxic days but still unpleasant. I guess I need some time to improve my health to be able to tolerate high b-carotene meals on a daily basis.

So, to summarize, my thoughts on my vitamin A toxicity recovery journey are as follows:

• my initial severe toxicity was caused by high dietary retinol intake without adequiate stores of vitamin D;
• even after ditching liver I kept getting worse by adding more and more carotene to my diet; I tried some vitamin D but it had a limited effect. What I needed was to ditch all high-retinol and carotene foods right then and there. After not being able to tolerate much D3, I had to quit it;
• when I quit high-carotene foods, I immediately felt better but the more I stuck to that restricted diet, the more deficient in other nurients I became (vitamin C, B vitamins, etc); I didn't add vitamin D back then and I was probably still very deficient;
• After starting D3 supplementation with magnesium, I got noteceably better.
• Vitamin A is still required for metabolism, and D3 supplementation needs to be balanced out with retinol. That explains why I didn't see benefits after increasing D3 and magnesium dosage;
• Totaling around 100-120 grams (4 oz) of liver pate a week is how I plan to keep going from now on. I won't be forgetting to pay attention to vitamin D and co-factors. I'll make sure to eat as varied a diet as I can tolerate.

 

Quote from Janelle525 on June 10, 2024, 10:27 am

What happens if you don't consume liver? How do you know you need it? I just don't know how this is possible to need liver. If I really thought I needed retinol I would eat something else. 

Quote from Viktor on June 10, 2024, 11:30 am

Quote from Janelle525 on June 10, 2024, 10:27 am

What happens if you don't consume liver? How do you know you need it? I just don't know how this is possible to need liver. If I really thought I needed retinol I would eat something else. 

Well, I've seen numerous posts on Ray Peat's forum of people saying that eating small amounts of liver solves or at least alleviates their health/metabolism issues. Note that I've personally not dug deep into Peat's theory itself, I've just read some excerpts of his interviews regarding thyroid hormones, nutrition, beta-carotene, etc. I know that some folk actually got vitamin A toxicity after "peating" but I believe that was due to low D and excess retinol. Most of those who consume liver only eat around 100 grams a week in total (some who have good metabolism get more, some consume less). Of course, there's no such measurable thing as "metabolism", as this word gets thrown around too much, but I think you get what I mean - thyroid function, body temperature, digestion, cortisol and all that.

As for me, two months ago I bought some liver pate at a nearby store and gave it a try. At the moment I probably thought "to hell with it" and wanted to see what happens. My blood vit D was very good but the state of health itself was still wonky. I figured that even If had a very bad reaction to the pate, it wouldn't last long and I would be back to my not-exactly-normal self in a day or two. The baseline at that time was okayish but not 100%. It turned out that the evening and subsequent one I ate the liver I felt great. It was almost euphoric, but not like caffeine high. It was mostly from feeling clear-headed and alive.

By now I've noticed that I do better with small amounts of liver pate spread over several days than eating the whole weekly "dose" at once. If I eat too much, I'm a bit tired. Also, this way I'm more likely to notice any retinol toxicity symptoms should their occur again. As I said earlier, my biggest mistake at the beginning of the whole vitamin A toxicity was trying to fix "low A symptoms" (which were apparently caused by high A) by eating even more high-retinol foods, completely forgetting about vitamin D and ignoring the fact that my vitamin A consumption was already more that enough.

My main goal is to be able to eat moderate amounts of leafy greens and other high-carotene foods again. My blood folate level is low normal, and I need that fixed to finally feel completely good. I can't take b vitamins supplements as they cause severe fatigue and irritability in my case.

Quote from Janelle525 on June 10, 2024, 11:52 am

Liver can cause euphoria but I don't think it's for good reasons. If something is acting like a drug it probably isn't good long term. I've heard that many times from people eating a diet that wasn't sustainable long term. They will say very similar things. "I feel great". Ray Peat himself believed we could be euphoric all the time. Then he dies of a stroke at 86. I guess that's a fairly long life, but I've known  many people who lived much longer who didn't do anything for their health. Not that living to be 100 is the end all be all. But if you are doing fine why not? Most people don't want their loved ones to die too early especially if you leave behind a spouse. Anyway all that to say boosting metabolism isn't exactly the greatest thing. 

Another thing is there is a case study that describes a boy who had hypervitaminosis A and D, so no D won't protect you. How long did you do low vitamin A?

Quote from Viktor on June 10, 2024, 1:41 pm

Quote from Janelle525 on June 10, 2024, 11:52 am

Liver can cause euphoria but I don't think it's for good reasons. If something is acting like a drug it probably isn't good long term. I've heard that many times from people eating a diet that wasn't sustainable long term. They will say very similar things. "I feel great". Ray Peat himself believed we could be euphoric all the time. Then he dies of a stroke at 86. I guess that's a fairly long life, but I've known  many people who lived much longer who didn't do anything for their health. Not that living to be 100 is the end all be all. But if you are doing fine why not? Most people don't want their loved ones to die too early especially if you leave behind a spouse. Anyway all that to say boosting metabolism isn't exactly the greatest thing. 

Another thing is there is a case study that describes a boy who had hypervitaminosis A and D, so no D won't protect you. How long did you do low vitamin A?

Well, by "euphoria" I meant more like feeling awesome, which I hadn't experienced in a very very long time. Once it settles, it becomes the norm.

I went month after month on a low A diet of rice, chicken, turkey, buckwheat, bananas. I kept getting worse and worse and was sensitive to everything: kale would make me hypothyroid, and rice would give me arsenic toxicity (probably?) with white streaks on my nails, apples irritated my stomach. Eggs and beans/lentils were a no-go. My blood folate was abysmally low.

I firmly believe that Grant's prison diet can be applied in some cirsumstances when the body is overloaded with particular potentially toxic substances while it still has enough of other vitamins and minerals to facilitate the detox. A couple a weeks to a month will probably be a good duration before starting to re-introduce previously excluded foods. Some people can probably hold on a bit longer. Being able to only tolerate a list of 5-10 foods is the opposite of healthy. I went vegan in the past, and even taking into account that I got mild anemia and other issues during that period, my health wasn't near that bad as it was while being vitamin A toxic AND on a low A diet. The only good times were a short couple months when I went low A while still having enough folate, vit C and other goodies after previously being on a high-carotene diet, which also happened to coincide with summer.

I previously asked some users on Ray Peat's forum about their experience with A in relation to D and carotene, and several responded that they had much better tolerance for retinol when supplementing D or during summer and, somewhat counterintuitively, that the more retinol they ate, the more b-carotene they could process as well. Several folks experinced vitamin A toxicity at some time, but that was resolved within weeks or months, not several years (!) on a low A diet. I've seen vitamin D3 being called "rat poison" on this forum (lmao). Well, then I personally and all the health-conscious people around the world who don't live in hot climats and have to supplement with D3 are good at handling it, cheers to that.

Once again, I've described my own experience here, which I probably could have avoided had I stopped all high retinol and  carotene foods once I noticed clear signs of toxicity and maybe bought some D3. It's not like I'm giving advice or anything.