High protein, high fat diet? Ammonia? Cirrhosis? Need your help on this one, please.

HI, yea this sucks.

I have a bad case of Candida and have been eating the high protein, high fat diet for 6 weeks now. How long does it take to get cirrhosis?

While on this diet I feel like I am winning the fight against Candida, but My GI systems feels worse every day. I also have SIBO which I feel is getting worse because of the rotting food in my stomach. Yes, rotting. I cant seem to digest my food properly. This was my original problem and I thought I was past it, but nope.

So I can sympathize with you. I sure don't have the answer and apparently neither does my doctor that I've been seeing for a year.

I am going to start having bone broth every day and do what ever I can to help my GI.

Good luck to you and I hope you find some answers.

Someone sensitive to a lot of foods often has a problem with too much phenol production by bacteria in the GI tract. The issue can be from skewed bacterial ratios. For instance, lactobacillus and bifidobacterium are very beneficial bacteria, but they are some of the higher producers of phenol. If your bacterial concentrations of other bacteria are lower, a simple fix could simply be adding in the other bacteria that are missing. This won't happen from supplementation. E. coli is bad about phenol production so you could have an increase in it as well. Sensitivity to smells is also common with increased phenol production. Eating meat increases phenol production. Eating raw vegetables is the best way to get these bacteria that you may be deficient of. Buy your vegetables from a farmer's market or individual so they haven't been sprayed with alkylbromides that remove most of the bacteria. This is the only way (other than fecal transplant) that you can replenish that many strains of bacteria. Eating fats just increases biofilm production and can increase your problems. You must work on detoxing and removing the debris from your system.

You could have an issue with increased urease production. H pylori is often the culprit. You most likely have many other bacteria that produce ureases as we all have some but you may have more than you need contributing to your issues.

If I were in your shoes, I'd work on detoxing as much as possible to clear my liver. I'd take some form of terpene like Nigella sativa starting with a very low dose of 1gm. I'd gradually work my way up to a larger dose. Triturating the seed would be beneficial as chewing it often doesn't taste too good but you can liberate the oils from the seeds by reducing the particle size. This would be a first step.

There is no one answer for what you have and only a few people anywhere have enough experience to determine exactly what is going on with you. I postulate some possible issues that may help your condition if you can correct them. Your situation is not hopeless, you can improve. It will take a complete change from the approach you have been taking.

I'm having the exact problems here. Can't seem to get my digestive system working right. Stomach hurts a lot and having trouble finding things I can eat. I have the sensitivity to smells too. I also have trouble with candida. I feel your pain and hopelessness, I often want to give up. Don't have a doctor to help, trying to do this on my own and failing badly.

I will cut down on meat intake and try the soup. Will also try to get Nigella Sativa. Thanks all for the suggestions

Antonio I really hope you get some relief soon . I hope we all have better days ahead of us. God bless you and everyone on this site we all need as much help as we can get!

Hi NotQuiteAntonio,

I would really like to help you but I am not familiar with your history, what protocols you have tried and your current protocol... I try to follow member's stories but I not on the forum that much...

Did you or are you currently taking antibiotics or using herbals? The reason I ask is that many members did much damage to their gut from conventional antibiotics..

I believe Traveler falls into that category and she either healed her gut or is still in the process... I don't remember...

When I had chronic lyme I first tried Doxy (I was prescribed 6 months) but Doxy made me sick to my stomach and most of the Doxy ended up in the toilet.. So I switched over to alternative medicine and after experimenting, reading books, I healed.

My heart goes out to you and I really don't mean to pry, just need more information to see if I could give you advice...

Hang in there okay? We are here for you!
Denise

HI again, I you said that the chicken broth started making you feel sick. I read something about the cartilage in the chicken bones. Try making broth with out the cartilage once. It's worth a shot.

Good luck.

Hi again NQA (NotQuiteAntonio),

I have many thoughts right now on how you can possibly heal your gut. One of my thoughts is you may have parasites that could be contributing to your problems. I have many articles that connect parasites and gut problems that I saved but I want to reread them before I post them.

And you are 100% correct when you said that it's all tied together, yes, good gut health comes before anything else, even before treating lyme. Once again, I have some ideas or suggestions for you to try and then we can take it from there...

I don't know why but you touched my heart... Please don't give up hope okay? We will find answers for you...

Denise

First of all, you can call me whatever works best for you. I'll likely change my name again, sooner or later. Antonio something or other. Blah.

Yeah, I considered that too, Denise. Though, I tried a product for parasites, without reaction. Still, I'm willing to try something, depending on what you've got in mind. I mean, I want to try and get better, right? Tell me what's up. Glad I moved you, I guess. Truthfully though, I wish it could have been in another context. I hate my view of the world from the bottom.

Yeah, marigold, sucks, huh? I felt like a zombie at work last night. No energy at all, so, so weak - I'm always weak, of course, but this was more so than usual. So cold too. But, yeah, like you said, I didn't want to be completely messed up from eating, so I went with what I thought would be the safest thing for me, sacrificing calories in the process.

That high you spoke of, I know what you mean. I'm pretty sure that's your adrenals crashing, something having to do with your adrenals. Definitely not a good thing. I actually experimented with some adderall in high school - feels a lot like that does. Wired.

Definitely. I know people think I'm anorexic. I used to be, like a decade ago. Been frail ever since. Sad too, 'cause I was just starting to gain weight again on the chicken soups. Thought maybe I could try to start putting on muscle within the next couple months, considering I got a little better. People will probably think I'm 18 'til I'm 30, and in my 20's 'til I'm 40, if I even make it there. Well, apart from the wrinkles. Definitely going to have a lot of wrinkles.

But, yeah, I'm going to try out the few things I've gathered from various lists of "safe" foods for those suffering from candida, leaky, etc, and see how things go. Chicken, I'm going to try and make it a couple weeks without, then attempt to work a little organic in.

I just ate a fish soup, olive oil this time. Not too bad of a reaction. I need to add more variety though, so the same thing doesn't happen as the chicken.

Also, the asking my body what to eat suggestion, I don't think that's going to work out. If I listened to my body, what it truly wants, I'd be out eating pizza - pepperoni and breakfast pizza, omg. Ice cream - chocolate.. NO, rocky road, please! Chinese food. OH, a snickers bar! Oh, hot sauce, that reminds me.. Mexican food. My grandma makes awesome tamales, enchiladas. Christmas is coming up too, and the whole family usually gets together and eats a ton of them. Her sugar cookies too. Oh. Very depressing, I'll be sitting, eating nothing, 120 lbs, with people wondering what the hell is wrong with me. That happened at my little sister's birthday too. Cake and ice cream. I knew everyone was silently judging.

But, you get the idea.

Oh, Denise, I mentioned the fish - I've heard it's bad, if one's trying to avoid parasites. It's wild caught, and frozen, though. I cook it a little past what most recommend as well. Hope it's not a problem.

Thanks, guys. Really appreciate you still being here. Normally, my stuff gets buried, which I can kind of understand. I'm not sure I'd help me either.

EDIT: Oh, and I ordered a nice enema bag off the webs. I know I'll likely grow dependent, but it's better than leaving all the crap inside of me, I guess. Gotta be careful though, I know. I feel like prolonged use of them's probably bad for the colon. There were times, when I was doing the coffee enemas, that it started to hurt, even though I used lots of lubrication. I had to do it a couple times at once, to wash out the coffee and stuff. Anyway.

Other than that, not quite sure what to do. I've got some herbal blends on a wish list that I'm considering cycling with the nystatin, and washing out with the enemas, and some Intestinew, for if/when I manage to kill off a large junk of the candida, and am able to poop. I would use it now, but it's got marshmallow root, (glutamine and something else as well), and I read that might not be a good thing, if you've got an overgrowth, 'cause the mucous lining or whatever that the marshmallow helps to create could just cover up the candida. But, I've got some plain glutamine coming on Monday, for in the meantime.

Also, some nice probiotics, on top of the Garden of Life one I've already got.

Not sure if I should order any of the stuff though. I really don't know what direction to be heading in. I don't want to spend money on stuff that's not going to be of much help to me right now, when I could get something more necessary.

Post Edited (NotQuiteAntonio) : 9/19/2015 7:04:28 AM (GMT-6)

Hi Antonio,

Have you tried a ketogenic diet? That might be just what you need to treat your lyme. I am somewhat on a ketogenic diet... Mostly just low carbs, but I'm planning on going on one completely so I can get into ketosis. In particular I plan on following the Bulletproof Diet as suggested by Dave Asprey and I even got his book in the mail. He actually had lyme himself and now has no symptoms at all left over and is in very good health. So I think his diet worked.

Also Tim Ferris got Lyme... Author of '4 hour work week', '4 hour chef', and he did like a 3 month course of doxy to treat the lyme but still had many lingering symptoms left... Now he's on a completely ketogenic diet, and almost all his lyme symptoms are gone! He said 5 other people have asked him what he did for his lyme. And so he knows 5 other people that also went on a ketogenic diet to treat their lyme and they all had very favorable results! The first 4-6 weeks is most difficult as your body has to adapt to the diet, but after that people tend to feel much better! Tim still has 1 day of the week as a "cheat day" and has carbs. Also Dave himself suggests 1 day of the week as a carb refueling day to replenish some of your glycogen stores. But the goal is to utilize fat as your energy source and have your body adapted to just using fats. Bacteria like lyme aren't so efficient at burning fat, they want glucose so it kind of starves them. This might be why wild animals like deer have such mild lyme symptoms compared to humans, it could be the diet!

I still have to put myself in through it!

I've been looking at some parasite cleanses, yes. I do a lot of my shopping for supplements on Amazon. A lot of the better-rated ones include those herbs, among others. I guess I could give it a try. Should mention, seeing as I know you're a fan of the Jernigan stuff, his Paragen is what I took. No reaction. Not trying to discredit or anything, just wonder what your take on that would be, if you think it's a good product or not.

I'll give the liver cleanse a shot, just gotta figure out what all I need to get together, both in regards to it as well as the rest.

Bone broth, yes. I was actually going to order some bones from what seems to be a reputable supplier online. Organic, grass-fed, clean. Is 4 lbs a lot of bones for $18, will it last awhile? I would try to get them cheaper locally, but that's not really much of an option.

The fermented stuff, I've tried both kefir and sauerkraut. I had a strange reaction to the kefir, when I first started it, got very ill, total change in mental state, psychotic and detached, physical symptoms too, that lasted for a couple days. I was told it was likely die-off, the good pushing out the bad, but, unlike other herxes and whatnot I've experienced, as bad as they were, there was no sense of comfort with this. It felt very evil, bad for me. Also, it gave my tongue a coating that's still there, albeit a little less, to this day, months later. I kept using it, without much further issue, for a few months after, but, eventually, drinking it was unsettling. Minor inflammation, weird sensations, just felt damaging.

The sauerkraut did that too, just to a lesser extent. But, I didn't have a terrible reaction to it, when first trying though. I'd be willing to go back to it, and maybe try out coconut water kefir or something. I'd give the coconut milk kefir a shot, but can't find coconut milk without either added sugar OR additives like guar gum and crap. Goat milk kefir too, but I think the law(s) here require that it be pasteurized, probably expensive anyway. Don't have any friends with goats either, and, while they're cute, I can't get any myself. lol

Happyjo, yes, I think it's a good probiotic. Garden of Life 100 billion. Pirouette recommended it to me. It's working better than the last one (Ortho-Biotic), I think. Though, a lot of it depends on the person, and the particular imbalances, I know. I've been considering others, just to see.

I've tried pretty much all the diets, yes. That's what got me into this predicament of being a walking skeleton.

High fiber, yes. I eat coconut oil a ton - well, I was. It's started to not agree with me. I've tried just about everything that gets suggested for constipation without much relief, even when it comes to things that get that disclaimer "be warned, it works very well." People hail the magnesium citrate as being so great, while I could take half the bottle and not go the slightest bit. XD

The baking soda mix is new though. I'll look into that.

edit: Also, you're right, Denise, kind of. It's more than just the calories, the diet. Like I said, I've been trying the diets, only getting worse. Diet's a part of the healing, though, yes.

But, yeah, while it is more than the calories, at the same time, I need to be eating enough to stay alive, otherwise the endeavor will be fruitless.

Post Edited (NotQuiteAntonio) : 9/19/2015 9:32:21 AM (GMT-6)

Yeah. I looked the other day, and I believe it only has one ingredient in it, something I've never heard of before. I've found that to be the case with a few of his items, though, but never in that they just have the one ingredient.

I don't feel that's enough. Well, I guess if I'd experienced more, it'd have been enough, but.. lol

Yeah, I can't afford it either really. I'd rather put the money into healing things, instead of all organic foods, but I guess, with my gut being a huge part of the issue. I just hope they agree with me better than their dirtier counterparts, and that I can start to heal.

Fortunate enough to be able to put most of my money into healing, though it's not a lot compared to what some can manage, even on top of other expenses, but, still. If I had to pay all sorts of bills and crap, I'd be screwed.

Though, sad thing, the person I'm living with and I haven't been getting along well, these past few months. She's family. I love her, but she can be very damaging at times. The same for me. This stuff affects me in ways that I can't really control, or even notice sometimes. Mentally, I mean. Some days, I don't even want to be spoken to. Plus, I feel like we've got a minor mold problem.

So, yeah, kind of sucks being here, but I have no other options.

I've done a few coffee enemas, yes. Like I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, I'd just purchased a nice enema bag online. It should be here in a couple days. I need to buy some better, fresher coffee though.

I'll do the liver and gall cleanses, yes. The one you sent me before had grapefruit included - honey too, maybe. Not sure if safe, if candida is a problem.

Yeah, that is what they say. To be honest with you, once/if I can get to where I feel I've handled candida and any possible parasites to a decent degree, and healed up the lining of my gut, with proper diet (though, I seem to react to even the last few "safe" options, but not as much as the chicken and stuff) and all the recommended supplements, when it comes to leaky, I'm thinking about asking my sister to help me out with the FMT stuff. That'd give my flora a huge leg up that I probably couldn't achieve, even if I made a total recovery as far as Lyme/co, and spent the rest of my life working towards.

You just can't replace a lot of what you've lost, I feel.

She won't be too open to it, understandably, but.. cash rules everything, right? That should get us past the gross.. the awkwardness of it all.

Anyway, trying. Real tough though.

We'll see how it goes. Hope you see me around in the coming months, and with better news.

Edit: thank you for the continued response, Dee. :)

Yeah, thinking that may have been part of the problem with the chicken I was eating, going to try organic in a week or so. Though, I seem to have reactions to even certain oils too. I don't know if it's impurities, or complications of the excess fat. D mentioned parasites. It seems they thrive in a high fat environment. Also, I don't know whether it's true or not, but it's said that fat contributes to the formation of biofilms.

Though, if all that's true, contributing to the issue, I'm not really in a position to be doing much, 'cause, again, I've got other problems on top of that, and trying to do something positive in one regard ends up being a negative in another. It all cancels out. No progress will be made.

But, at the same time, I had similar reactions to things like rice, beans, noodles. Carrots, even cabbage, at one point.

So, who knows? Like I said, it's probably a combo. Infections, maybe parasites, candida, leaky gut, and then sensitivities brought on by all of them.

So.. don't really know what to do, at least as far as diet, other than what I'm already doing, or plan to be. High fat, high protein, that's going to be my diet for at least a couple more months, considering my body, my gut, starts to heal up willingly, otherwise.. who knows..

But, I'm repeating myself.

Gonna try some of what's been suggested though.

Yeah, I've been questioning my ACV as well. Not sure.

Great Lakes Gelatin? Googling now. Ha..


Thanks again, dancingbear. ;)

What do you think of the Great Lakes Gelatin? not too expensive and really good for you. My Dad has that every day and it is helping. Also, when my son was not doing well, we gave him that every day for weeks and it really helped.

Other thing that helped me was licorice root. It was a chocolate chewable sweetend with stevia or something like that.

Good luck!!!!