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Why I believe that I have vitamin A poisoning
I wrote a blog post detailing how I arrived at the conclusion that I am vitamin A poisoned: https://vitaminapoisoning.com/why-i-believe-that-i-have-vitamin-a-poisoning/
I am now 14 months in.
My last serum retinol test went above the laboratory's own reference range for the first time after more than a year on the vit A detox diet.
Wow yes definitely vA poisoning. I think I was lucky because I put on a lot of weight with vA poisoning and so it probably saved me from worse symptoms, as fat is a great for extra vA storage (but then you have more to get rid of!). Sounds like you’ve had a really tough time.
As I’m now over 4 years post vA poisoning I’d advise ensuring that you detox in a safe way. Going too quickly or lacking choline can result in worse issues. Use Cronometer to ensure nutrient repletion. I can see it all clearly now. But I couldn’t then.
Chill on the choline, you're not going to get deficient on a meat heavy diet. It's way past obnoxious at this point and only distracts from other useful substances like BPC-157.
Quote from Paola on February 1, 2023, 1:04 pmI wrote a blog post detailing how I arrived at the conclusion that I am vitamin A poisoned: https://vitaminapoisoning.com/why-i-believe-that-i-have-vitamin-a-poisoning/
I am now 14 months in.
My last serum retinol test went above the laboratory's own reference range for the first time after more than a year on the vit A detox diet.
@paola that was an amazingly detailed blog report! Thank you for that.
I have done just the same mistakes as you! Carnivore, liver/liver pate.. lots of butter and eggyolks and mackerel.....salmon.... oh my...
Unbelieveable you got fatty liver from that. But it is real. Must be the vitamin A.
Are you living in Germany for now?
How are you doing now with the meat and beans diet? Do you have the feeling that your liver and gallbladder is recovering?
I started to get gallbladder issues, that is what made me start to change things up... I could not even tolerate butter anymore... so I switched to coconut oil.... and eating lots of eggs.. because i thought I had too much iron from the red meat.. I also started to donate blood, which I still do, 4 times/year. This is my 3rd year doing that. I was donating yesterday :). I like it. I am so happy it helps lowering vitamin A too.
I am kinda of thinking now, the carnivore diet is a disaster if adding high vitamin A foods to it. Because you cant really detox well as you dont have fiber, so it all just accumulates in the liver.
That must be why all the carnivore nose to tail people dont do well long term. Its a horrible diet. I fall for that idea too, that it must be the most natural. When we know better, we do better 🙂 🙂 🙂
I have that accelerated aging skin thing too @paola what you describe in your blog! I could not understand why! My skin got so thin and I just knew something was not right! I am only 46 so that was way too early.... Also my hair got thinner... Now it has gotten thicker again and I am soo happy. I am a year into this vitamin A elimination diet but I am doing it very slow. I just let go of the worst foods. I have had quite a bit of butter because I dont get gallbladder pain from butter anymore but I think I am going to cut out butter now pretty much. At least eat way less.
Yes a meat heavy diet can provide enough choline. However, if people aren’t eating a meat heavy diet for many reasons (I personally don’t digest meat well) they need to be aware that lack of choline is an issue and could be the cause of a ‘detox setback cycle’. I’ve done a thread on factors affecting possible likelihood of a choline deficiency. I say quite clearly there that a meat based diet should provide adequate choline. I actually see this as the big divide between those that do well and those that don’t. Grant has been asking for a long time why carnivores don’t get detox setback cycles. Choline ticks the boxes. Many people are doing a vA detox without eating loads of meat. These are the people in danger imo. This is the current best theory.
Quote from Jenny on February 1, 2023, 3:22 pmWow yes definitely vA poisoning. I think I was lucky because I put on a lot of weight with vA poisoning and so it probably saved me from worse symptoms, as fat is a great for extra vA storage (but then you have more to get rid of!). Sounds like you’ve had a really tough time.
As I’m now over 4 years post vA poisoning I’d advise ensuring that you detox in a safe way. Going too quickly or lacking choline can result in worse issues. Use Cronometer to ensure nutrient repletion. I can see it all clearly now. But I couldn’t then.
I don't buy the choline theory, I think many people are setting themselves unnecessarily back on the low vitamin A diet by eating eggs to get choline ... What some interpret as making the detox safe, may be simply induced cholestasis from the vit A in the eggs ... I know cholestasis makes me feel FANTASTIC, something I can induce at will with a high fat diet.
One of my symptoms that I had while vitamin A toxic (which I think I forgot to include in the list on my article) were cramps in my calves, which apparently is a sign of liver damage. I remember, one of the most horrific calf cramps I got in my life, which lasted for close to a week to completely resolve was after I took a choline pill, that was years before I went low vitamin A. Could it be that the choline had magnified whatever vit A I had ingested with my food that day? I don't know ... I can't exclude it ...
I find Cronometer not a reliable source of information especially when tracking vitamin A. They don't seem to include carotenoids in their total vitamin A calculation, they also seem to change the values within a short amount of time, and give them in mcg instead of IU, which I prefer. I don't think there is a perfect app to track those things, but eatthismuch.com and the USDA data base seems to be better ...
Quote from Inger on February 2, 2023, 1:59 amQuote from Paola on February 1, 2023, 1:04 pmI wrote a blog post detailing how I arrived at the conclusion that I am vitamin A poisoned: https://vitaminapoisoning.com/why-i-believe-that-i-have-vitamin-a-poisoning/
I am now 14 months in.
My last serum retinol test went above the laboratory's own reference range for the first time after more than a year on the vit A detox diet.
@paola that was an amazingly detailed blog report! Thank you for that.
I have done just the same mistakes as you! Carnivore, liver/liver pate.. lots of butter and eggyolks and mackerel.....salmon.... oh my...
Unbelieveable you got fatty liver from that. But it is real. Must be the vitamin A.
Are you living in Germany for now?
No, I am not in Germany anymore, but not far away ...
How are you doing now with the meat and beans diet?
Do you have the feeling that your liver and gallbladder is recovering?
I started to get gallbladder issues, that is what made me start to change things up... I could not even tolerate butter anymore... so I switched to coconut oil.... and eating lots of eggs.. because i thought I had too much iron from the red meat.. I also started to donate blood, which I still do, 4 times/year. This is my 3rd year doing that. I was donating yesterday :). I like it. I am so happy it helps lowering vitamin A too.
Meat and beans diet is going pretty good, I think. Yes, I do feel that my liver and gallbladder are recovering. Bowel movements are regular, well formed, dark color, at least once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes three times.
I also noticed around a month ago that a symptom I had more or less constantly had finally resolved. It must have happened gradually and slowly, since I don't even know when exactly it stopped: upper abdominal pain where the bile duct ends in the small intestine. I know that this was exactly the spot since my doctor told me during an ultrasound. I pointed to the spot and asked her what was there while she had her ultrasound gadget on my belly and she said it's where the bile / pancreatic duct empties into the small bowel. I had this sensation more or less unrelenting for good two years if not more. It's gone now. I take this also as a sign of improvement of my liver/gallbladder/bile duct region. My cholesterol has also plummeted from around 360 sometime in late 2021 to I think 180 in mid-2022, which I believe now was likely due to the fatty liver ... so I can only imagine how much worse my fatty liver must have been then.
Yes, I also donated blood twice so far I think ... but it does set me back a lot and the last time it took me I think 3 months to fully recover ... so I am holding off on that for now ...
Quote from Inger on February 2, 2023, 2:06 amI am kinda of thinking now, the carnivore diet is a disaster if adding high vitamin A foods to it. Because you cant really detox well as you dont have fiber, so it all just accumulates in the liver.
That must be why all the carnivore nose to tail people dont do well long term. Its a horrible diet. I fall for that idea too, that it must be the most natural. When we know better, we do better
I have that accelerated aging skin thing too @paola what you describe in your blog! I could not understand why! My skin got so thin and I just knew something was not right! I am only 46 so that was way too early.... Also my hair got thinner... Now it has gotten thicker again and I am soo happy. I am a year into this vitamin A elimination diet but I am doing it very slow. I just let go of the worst foods. I have had quite a bit of butter because I dont get gallbladder pain from butter anymore but I think I am going to cut out butter now pretty much. At least eat way less.
I am not sure whether it is impossible to detox vitamin A without fiber ... I think it may vary from person to person ... I can imagine that those who don't eat fiber detox more through skin and urine ... I assume that many people who start the carnivore diet are vitamin A poisoned, given how many deal with arthritic joint pain, depression, anxiety and many other typical vitamin A symptoms ... they then go carnivore and improve ... without eating fiber. So ... it seems to be possible I think ... but soluble fiber definitely speeds the detox up I think ...