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Posted 1/7/2020 5:32 PM (GMT 0)

borrelioburgdorferii said...
Thanks for your replies, Pirouette! So you talk about sparkling water, do you think aluminum cans are bad?...because that's how I get sparkling water right now. Otherwise it is poorly filtered tap, I just put a makeshift charcoal packet from a coffee maker that I put in a plastic refrigerator dispenser, not even sure if it absorbs any bad stuff from tap water... I think I read something about aluminum and Alzheimers...that's why I ask.
Also wondering if you drink any herbal teas or soups during the "water-only" fast? Because I just made some pretty great sugar-free fresh lemon-ginger green-white ginseng ice tea with Stevia. I think it's the best unsweetened lemonade tea I've ever made. It's like lemon water, with added herbal medicine.


I'm not sure aluminum cans are AS bad as they used to be but for a fast, I would "spring" for spring, mineral, anything in a glass bottle--from as many different sources and you can find.

I also found I drank less water after I started training like probably 1/2 gal every day (if you don't have blood sugar or insulin issues I'm learning more and more that the recommended (8) 8-oz glasses per day might be too much for you and also learned it's best not to drink liquids while eating so that you can absorb more nutrients, which resulted in reduction in my overall total every day). But most people are dehydrated because they don't drink enough water so maybe that's why they're overshooting the recommended volume and/or I think it also might be due to the general pre-diabetes state of most people (who aren't already diabetic). If your blood has too much sugar your cells might also be insulin resistant, and you'll require more water.

A quick note on Alzheimer's--I am starting to suspect that Alz, like autism, has many, many, many causes... but it also seems they are almost always linked to environment (microbiome, lifestyle, physical, toxic body, toxic water+air+food+drugs, etc.).

Oh my, that lemonade tea sounds glorious. It's weird but I think lemon is my favorite flavor. But no, no herbs of any kind (tea or supplements) are allowed on a water-only fast. Literally, water + sea salt only. Some experts allow black coffee + fat like MCT (a good dairy substitute for coffee)--which is called "bullet-proof coffee (and there are products with that name out there).

However, I think if you can organize a solid training period and you can measure ketone production to gauge progress and when you're ready for a, say, 3 or 5-day fast, it's best to stretch your intermittent overnight fasting period as long as possible and don't have anything other than sea salt water. Then, if you're going to the trouble and effort of doing a 3-5-day fast, make the most out it and keep it very clean. And then moving forward if you want to continue with your intermittent fasting you can try the bullet-proof coffee and keep measuring ketones to determine if it affects you and then make your decision as to whether or not to eliminate it during fasting.

-p
Posted 1/7/2020 5:36 PM (GMT 0)
Hi GH! Have missed your posts... Sad to see you here but glad you continue to contribute.

1000Daisies said...
PIROUETTE!
Oh man, I so missed you here. You were an amazing asset to this forum, going above and beyond in your help to others. I was always disappointed on how you were treated (by HW) when you left. Please know that you (your wisdom, your time, your sharing, your help) have all been greatly missed!
Thank you so much for coming back to update here. What an amazing journey you have been through! I am so glad to hear that you found a path and are feeling so much better. That's all we really want for each other.
Good to see you again and am so very happy for you!

I've missed you, too! The break was really helpful but I did miss everyone. Again, I am so glad you continue to contribute here. You are also an amazing source of information, support and inspiration. I have recommended this site to everyone I meet who knows I've struggled w/ Lyme & Co and is starting their journey, unfortunately. More and more and more people. I don't know what I would have done w/out the people specifically on this Lyme forum.

-p
Posted 1/7/2020 5:49 PM (GMT 0)

multifacetedme said...
Pirouette:
Thank you for this generous share! I don't have much in reserves. I was down to 92 lbs with this last round of illness and have built back up to 101. My body has been prompting intermittent fasting and I think I will return to that. I just have to stay out of denial that my illness has been chronic.

As I mentioned someone like you might need to work closely with someone to develop a more beneficial fasting protocol but I assure you many people chronically ill and healthy who are also underweight are making huge changes in their health with various forms of fasting but also honing in on the right diet and food for YOU. You will need to customize your approach and that takes a lot of time and patience, unfortunately.

I won't muck up this thread with the statistics I've discovered on the numbers of otherwise "healthy" people who are actually chronically ill. I, too, had that same resistance when I first started treating and I took shortcuts which added a couple of years on to my treatment--and significant cost. That is one thing I really regret. And invaluable experience, along with just about everything else on this journey.
-p
Posted 1/7/2020 6:18 PM (GMT 0)
Pirouette, you mentioned your training period several times. What did you do during training, what was your regimen?

Honestly I just went for it myself. Read up about it for a couple days, saw people saying up to 5 days was safe to do without supervision, and this week was the perfect time for me to do it as didn’t have much going on w work, and just did it. Feeling really great so far!
Posted 1/7/2020 6:24 PM (GMT 0)

potsnpans said...
Congrats Pirouette- I really enjoyed reading this and I'm very happy for you.
I wasn't around when you were a frequent poster/moderator, but I have come across many of your old posts through the search function, and I've always found them well written, thorough, and helpful.
I am very interested in fasting. I have been sitting on Buhner's fasting book for a while now, just haven't had a chance to get into it. Right now I'm treating with Disulfiram and any long term fast would probably have to wait until after I'm through with that. I will definitely come back to this thread in the future and I will look into the sources you have given for more info...
Thanks for sharing!

I had forgotten about B's book! Thank you for reminding me. I think I need to check it out. I agree that if you are on Disulfiram you might have a different approach, but I regret I don't know much about it other than what I just read. I'm assuming it's prescribed primarily for the acetaldehyde production but please let me know if you're on it for a different reason.

I highly recommend checking out the yeast/fungal overgrowth post in the "New to Lyme?" thread at the top of the page--it's the last post. There is so much good info out there I kind of hesitate to refer people to that post now but it's a place to start, although you might already know the basics. When I was exploring my y/f treatments I came across a lot of info for alcoholics; many people trying to recover aren't fighting an alcohol addiction as much as they are fighting a yeast/fungal overgrowth addiction. A fantastic resouce is Cynthia Perkins, M.Ed. - she has a great website and that's where I got a lot of info. https://www.alternatives-for-alcoholism.com/candida-and-alcoholism.html

-p
Posted 1/7/2020 8:52 PM (GMT 0)
Pirouette! WOW - Congrats, Congrats Congrats!! I am SO beyond happy for you!!
This has been on my mind for a while now. Georgia Hunter actually made a suggestion of doing only salads for a year. I am working on getting there. Cut my meat down by 2/3 and I am actually Intermittent Fasting now (new year's resolution lol)
But I don't have much reserve to do a 35 day fast. I would get messed up and worry about low glucose levels and such. I got dizzy the first time I tried intermittent fasting last year, and I actually herxed alot. I herx now, but not until 5 hrs after my last meal (around bedtime). It has helped my reflux issues too.
Was thinking of doing a juice fast...... based on what you wrote, what really hit me was this - that our body is so busy digesting the food that it does not have enough time to fight off the bacteria. I NEVER looked at it this way before, and it makes total sense!
So glad you shared your story, and so glad you had so much success!!!
Hi to everyone else who I haven't seen in a long time!!! Mr Mike - how are you?!

Post Edited (Chapelle) : 1/7/2020 1:55:38 PM (GMT-7)

Posted 1/7/2020 9:46 PM (GMT 0)

GanglionCyster said...
This is soooo inspiring!
...and it gives me hope!
Just having hope makes so much better.
I’m 7 months into treatment. I would like to try this eventually, but am unsure if I should continuing treating for a certain period and then try (maybe after a year of treatment) or go ahead and start studying and gearing my body up for it with intermittent fasting and Keto. Any advice or thoughts?

I think that sounds great. You really need to go with your instinct. I wish so much that I had tried this fasting approach as my step one. But who knows how my journey would have evolved? I had so much going on--maybe you do too.

People have suggested you need to be healthier in order to fast but I don't think that is true based on the volume of anecdotes I've read online by critically ill. I do believe that it's critical to "train" for as long as you can before attempting anything longer than a 3-day fast, which you can probably do along with whatever treatment unless you have to take anything more than twice a day with food (that doesn't give you your min. 12-hr fasting window).

-p
Posted 1/7/2020 9:47 PM (GMT 0)

dcd2103 said...
Awesome, thank you for the info!!!
I'm almost 2 days into my 5 day fast. I had crushing headaches and nausea that just ended (which i heard can happen the first 2 days), now I'm feeling really good! Will report back with a full report when its over.

YES--classic signs of not training long enough. I am so glad those symptoms ended! Lucky you. I know some people never get much relief. Anxious to hear how everything goes.
-p
Posted 1/7/2020 9:51 PM (GMT 0)
Pirouette: Disulfiram is traditionally used to treat alcoholism by stopping production of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in patients who take it. Without acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, patients cannot process (and therefore tolerate) alcohol in their bodies.

Disulfiram has more recently been recognized as an agent that kills borrelia, and perhaps babesia, without significantly altering patients' microbiome. How it does this is still not completely understood, but researchers believe it to be by way of inhibiting certain metal ion processes in or around the bacteria/protozoa.

So I'm taking it for the latter reason and it has helped me tremendously so far. There are still some problems though, that I'm not sure will resolve until I can achieve a more thorough reset. For instance, I can exercise pretty regularly these days, but if I push beyond a certain threshold I will be fatigued and foggy headed for days afterwards...

I've also been fascinated by fasting as something that our bodies were built to do from an evolutionary perspective. For most of our ancestors, food scarcity must have made fasting a natural part of living. That has obviously changed pretty quickly in a small number of generations.

Recently I've been doing the intermittent fasting for about 12 hours daily which has been very easy for me. In the mornings I like to have my coffee early (with cream) so I have been breaking it that way... otherwise I feel I could go maybe 16 hours without any trouble. I will try bulletproof tomorrow morning as you suggested and see how that goes...
Posted 1/7/2020 11:13 PM (GMT 0)

saraeli said...
...could you please share reasons why a person might not want to try fasting, like which conditions or characteristics might not be compatible with this practice? Diabetes, having low fat stores, POTS, etc.?

Great question. There are quite a few MDs and practitioners who are using these fasting protocols (intermittent, long-term, etc.) primarily for their diabetes, metabolic disease, kidney disease, heart problems patients, GI disorders of all sorts, some psychiatric disorders, among other ailments. It is incredibly far-reaching, especially since so many diseases have a gut origin (since 80% of our immune system is the mucosal lining of our GI). There are some nuances to the protocol to follow if you're pre-menopausal female, have endocrine/thyroid issues, are underweight and maybe some other categories although nothing else comes to mind. It is not recommended for pregnant or nursing mothers.

saraeli said...
How about general life functioning? Forgive me if you mentioned this and I missed it, but can you function after several days or weeks with no calories? People have mentioned sharper brain function, but what about things like caring for children and exercise?

I know people have functioned really well during a long-term fast, especially 5 or fewer days, especially if you've trained your body ahead of time and are fully prepared. Even during the first 5 days of my fast I was not "fully-functioning". I felt OK but was weak and mainly sat at my table w/ my computer. I slept OK but went from 7 hrs per night to 4-5 by the time I finished the fast. Fasting increases cortisol, which can be one reason for losing sleep but it is also a powerful detoxing mechanism so sometimes people are just detoxing, and that isn't always fun or easy. I really had no other symptoms that I can remember except the yeast/fungal detoxing.

I have read/heard people doing extraordinary things--like running 7 miles and working out during their fasts (IIRC these were 5-10 day fasts, not long-term).

I will write another post on some combinations of intermittent and long-term fasting protocols that are becoming popular, which includes a one-day fast per week in order to work yourself up to a 3-day fast, then a 5-day fast. I highly recommend this staged approach in order to ease into the fasting but also test out how your body responds, especially if you can't take a lot of time off work or have kids, caring for spouse or parent, etc.

-p
Posted 1/10/2020 5:03 AM (GMT 0)

dcd2103 said...
Pirouette, you mentioned your training period several times. What did you do during training, what was your regimen?
Honestly I just went for it myself. Read up about it for a couple days, saw people saying up to 5 days was safe to do without supervision, and this week was the perfect time for me to do it as didn’t have much going on w work, and just did it. Feeling really great so far!

AWESOME! How are you feeling so far?

For training I did the following:

1 Most importantly I fasted every day for 14+ hrs minimum.

2 I was already eating pretty healthy but I got very specific:
- I eliminated processed foods, grains and dairy as much as possible
- I avoided high glycemic foods foods (white rice, white potatoes, high starch items)
- I didn't ever go high fat or high protein but did increase fats later in the training (mainly oils and avocado, nuts)
- Basically, I ate mostly veggies
- I've had trouble with low appetite for years so this was the hardest part for me but I forced myself to eat only 3 meals a day (rather than grazing small portions) and tried to eat as much as possible in each meal
- Cut meat portions in half--replaced with veggies
- Ate avocado + egg or made dinner for breakfast (usually veggies sauteed in olive/avocado/coconut oils, onions, peppers and garlic, lots of herbs and as many different veggies as I could possibly find)
- Always a gigantic bowl of arugula/dark leaf lettuce/spinach for lunch (4 cups minimum)
- Ate at least 2 cups of my home made "salad-slaw" daily

3 After about a month of #1 and #2 I implemented a modified intermittent fasting protocol every week, which included five days of 16-hr fasts + one 24-hr fast day and one feast day (where you don't restrict your calories--eat as much as you want, whatever and whenever you want--as long as it's healthy food)--you can do this in whatever order you want, increase to two fasts per week and/or two feast days per week. If you're not achieving low sugar + higher ketones then it's advised to lower carbs to 50g and keep going down to 20g until you get into the keto zone (see below about measuring).

3 I wanted to do a liver flush but kept running into conflicting info. So I decided to follow a blend of recommendations and basically ate only vegetables (mostly raw) + a little fruit for about 2 wks (literally nothing else), took malic acid (to break down fats in liver). I had already been doing some Chinese liver and kidney support, castor oil packs, essential oils.

5 And I measured my blood sugar and ketones multiple times a day--and charted everything and made sure that my blood sugar was consistently 5.0 mmol/L (millimoles per liter) and ketones were around 2 (IIRC). Ideally you want to target a 1:1 ratio around 3, which isn't easy and I achieved it only one time during my entire fast. Unfortunately I don't have my notes right now so I can't remember much more than that. I've read that people have had strange readings during fasts--I was one of them and I've read that it's OK.

I'll try to remember more but that's it for now. I will also post the re-feeding info, which is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF ANY FAST.

Here is a good tutorial:
https://drpompa.com/fasting-diet/fasting-for-purpose-five-day-water-fast/

-p
Posted 1/10/2020 5:08 AM (GMT 0)

Chapelle said...
Pirouette! WOW - Congrats, Congrats Congrats!! I am SO beyond happy for you!!
This has been on my mind for a while now. Georgia Hunter actually made a suggestion of doing only salads for a year. I am working on getting there. Cut my meat down by 2/3 and I am actually Intermittent Fasting now (new year's resolution lol)
But I don't have much reserve to do a 35 day fast. I would get messed up and worry about low glucose levels and such. I got dizzy the first time I tried intermittent fasting last year, and I actually herxed alot. I herx now, but not until 5 hrs after my last meal (around bedtime). It has helped my reflux issues too.
Was thinking of doing a juice fast...... based on what you wrote, what really hit me was this - that our body is so busy digesting the food that it does not have enough time to fight off the bacteria. I NEVER looked at it this way before, and it makes total sense!
So glad you shared your story, and so glad you had so much success!!!
Hi to everyone else who I haven't seen in a long time!!! Mr Mike - how are you?!

Hi Chapelle!
So good to see you.
I LOVE the idea of salads only for a year. That's HUGE. I might do that next.
Yes - dizzy is a very common first couple days but it almost always subsides. Herxing is also common but should subside. Headaches, soreness, fatigue, etc. But training is a must and almost always reduces if not eliminates those symptoms.
I'm like you--I had no idea the body spent over 50% of its energy just digesting food. Based on so many recommendations due to all my GI and digestion issues I was grazing small meals ALL DAY. And it was making me worse.
Sounds like you're on a great path...anxious to hear how everything goes!

-p
Posted 1/10/2020 5:09 AM (GMT 0)
BTW - Hellow Georgia Hunter and Mister Mike! Two of my favs...

-p
Posted 1/10/2020 10:54 AM (GMT 0)
Good thread. You should always think of two things when you eat. 1. What bacteria am I introducing into my GI tract from this meal? and 2. What nutrients am I getting from this meal?

Eating fried chicken won't give you the same bacteria as eating raw spinach or greens. What you eat also affects the bacteria of your GI tract by giving them nutrients to survive. Fried chicken provides nitrogen, zinc, sulfur, and tryptophan just to name a few nutrients. The bacteria in your GI tract will utilize these nutrients to survive. There is no fiber in fried chicken so no cellulose is provided for the bacteria in your GI tract. This means your good bacteria responsible for most of your immune system don't get what they need. Those bacteria are also the ones that make your tryptophan so at least you got some in your diet. Eating raw greens or spinach provides trillions of gram positive bacteria, something cooked foods don't do. These are the ones that make up your immune system. It also provides fiber which fuels your good bacteria in your GI tract and it provides important traces minerals that come from the ground that we don't get enough of and lose due to chronic inflammation. Eating raw plants has many more benefits than eating animal protein, especially for people like us that have bad GI tracts.
Posted 1/10/2020 2:59 PM (GMT 0)
GH -

Love it! Excellent explanation for the "how to rebuild your microbiome after fasting?" question.

I'm going to share that with a few people who insist on grains and meat to build muscle mass. The body will not grow without nutrition, ESPECIALLY nutrition for the microbiome and it won't grow if it's not healthy. Some of the fasting gurus have shared that your body doesn't create protein from eating protein--it creates protein from human growth hormone production, etc. and that surges with autophagy. And your body won't do anything--gain weight, lose weight, heal without a healthy immune system, and we all know that's 100% dependent upon gut health.

I don't recommend this for everyone but at least once a week I don't even wash off my salad greens and eat them right out of the bag from my organic grocer (did this a lot when I had long drives). I also no longer use veggie washes as long as it's organic produce--I just soak in some filtered water for a few minutes so that I don't wash off all of the bacteria. Unfortunately, produce today has a fraction of the nutrition of our grandparent's generation's produce so we simply have to eat more.

I am now drinking a pulverized organic fruit + veggie powder every day--I add some MCT oil powder, green banana resistant starch powder, reishi mushroom powder and some pulverized organic wild blueberry and it tastes fantastic. I've turned my parents on to it as well--getting them to eat 6x as much veggies has not been easy. The food powder is processed but it's a great transition and for me it worked as a meal replacement during my troubled GI days.
-p
Posted 1/11/2020 12:59 PM (GMT 0)

potsnpans said...
Pirouette: Disulfiram is traditionally used to treat alcoholism by stopping production of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase in patients who take it. Without acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, patients cannot process (and therefore tolerate) alcohol in their bodies.

Disulfiram has more recently been recognized as an agent that kills borrelia, and perhaps babesia, without significantly altering patients' microbiome. How it does this is still not completely understood, but researchers believe it to be by way of inhibiting certain metal ion processes in or around the bacteria/protozoa.

So I'm taking it for the latter reason and it has helped me tremendously so far. There are still some problems though, that I'm not sure will resolve until I can achieve a more thorough reset. For instance, I can exercise pretty regularly these days, but if I push beyond a certain threshold I will be fatigued and foggy headed for days afterwards...

I've also been fascinated by fasting as something that our bodies were built to do from an evolutionary perspective. For most of our ancestors, food scarcity must have made fasting a natural part of living. That has obviously changed pretty quickly in a small number of generations.

Recently I've been doing the intermittent fasting for about 12 hours daily which has been very easy for me. In the mornings I like to have my coffee early (with cream) so I have been breaking it that way... otherwise I feel I could go maybe 16 hours without any trouble. I will try bulletproof tomorrow morning as you suggested and see how that goes...

Thanks for the explanation! Very interesting. Your experience when you "push too hard" sounds exactly like me, which for me was solved by reducing yeast/fungal overgrowth (exhaustion + brain fog can be the result of yeast die off from the heat) and by getting viral load down.

At first I had such a hard time getting viral load down without Rx--I liked the Beyond Balance IMV and IMV-II but it would cause such an extreme response at a certain threshold it seemed as if I was always overdosing. And the Rx at high doses worked great and was so hard on my liver.

And then I discovered Kasia Hines, who wrote a book about reducing viral loads (altho she focuses mainly on EBV) with diet (similar to what I'm already doing) and it is exceptional--packed with evidence based research and clinical evidence. Highly recommend.

Let us know how your intermittent fasting goes!
-p
Posted 1/13/2020 2:52 PM (GMT 0)
Here is another great resource for how to fast and intermittent fast--it's a free 30-session online seminar by fasting practitioners and experts, including five of the specialists I learned so much from - Valter Longo, Dr Jason Fung, Daniel Pompa and David Jockers --and Dr Jay Davidson who is a Lyme specialist as well. The way these work is on the "start" day they will email you a link to each episode one by one and you have 24 hrs to stream it. At the end of the viewing period you can purchase the whole series. Or you can just choose to watch the episode you're interested in for free on the day they stream it.

https://fastinglifestylesummit.com/?idev_id=25649&inf_contact_key=350e105248bacf0612bd144c7e22a06af651f238aa2edbb9c8b7cff03e0b16a0

-p
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