Unfortunately I have made little progress since last time I posted. I came down with an utterly awful cold that rendered me incapable for several weeks (at least 19 days). During this time I was coughing up large amounts of fantastically colored mucus, dealing with the worst sore throat and blocked nose in my life and unable to do much in the way of anything.
This terrifyingly disruptive cold ended up masking my lack of caloric intake. I have been on the ketogenic diet for a couple months now and have steadily lost weight. I was skinny to begin with and this has only made it worse. Amusingly it provides a obvious explanation for why I regressed in terms of recovery after seeing some results from the ketogenic diet - lack of actual calories. The problem is that getting in enough calories is difficult due to my dietary limitations and lack of energy. Still, being aware of this problem has let me start trying to work around it.
Another problem I figured out is lack of stomach acid (or hypochlorhydria). Low stomach acid levels seem to be common in individuals suffering from CFS. This can have all sorts of implications - overgrowth of bacteria / yeast in the stomach, inability to digest types of foods and problems with the later parts of digestion. In my case low stomach acid meant I had trouble breaking down proteins, especially nuts. This was especially noticeable at breakfast, my energy levels would drop significantly as soon as the food went into my body. I believe this is due to the stomach being aware of the lack of acid and trying to produce more of it, using precious ATP (could be wrong, just a guess).
I now take Swedish herbal bitters to deal with the problem, with the hope that they can lead to a longterm increase in the stomach acid levels over a long period of time. At the very least they have lead to an easier time eating foods and less constipation.
As for potential steps I could take next, I am also looking into the Wahls diet as I am currently on a pretty strict ketogenic diet (which is extremely similar to the 'proper' Wahls diet) and feel I could make the transition fairly easily. I am also trying to get my hands on some 'mitocare', a multivitamin supplement that contains many pro-mitochondrial nutrients. I am hopeful in regards to both, as the Wahls diet has lead to some pretty amazing progress when it comes to autoimmune disorders and the mitocare supplement could not only fill in the gaps in regards to my current supplementation, but also lower the cost and effort involved by keeping it in a single supplement.
Housekeeping: Over this period my energy levels stayed at 2-2.5 the majority of the time. Highest was 3, lowest was 1. Averages to about 2.25. Graph is really boring and unhelpful.
This terrifyingly disruptive cold ended up masking my lack of caloric intake. I have been on the ketogenic diet for a couple months now and have steadily lost weight. I was skinny to begin with and this has only made it worse. Amusingly it provides a obvious explanation for why I regressed in terms of recovery after seeing some results from the ketogenic diet - lack of actual calories. The problem is that getting in enough calories is difficult due to my dietary limitations and lack of energy. Still, being aware of this problem has let me start trying to work around it.
Another problem I figured out is lack of stomach acid (or hypochlorhydria). Low stomach acid levels seem to be common in individuals suffering from CFS. This can have all sorts of implications - overgrowth of bacteria / yeast in the stomach, inability to digest types of foods and problems with the later parts of digestion. In my case low stomach acid meant I had trouble breaking down proteins, especially nuts. This was especially noticeable at breakfast, my energy levels would drop significantly as soon as the food went into my body. I believe this is due to the stomach being aware of the lack of acid and trying to produce more of it, using precious ATP (could be wrong, just a guess).
I now take Swedish herbal bitters to deal with the problem, with the hope that they can lead to a longterm increase in the stomach acid levels over a long period of time. At the very least they have lead to an easier time eating foods and less constipation.
As for potential steps I could take next, I am also looking into the Wahls diet as I am currently on a pretty strict ketogenic diet (which is extremely similar to the 'proper' Wahls diet) and feel I could make the transition fairly easily. I am also trying to get my hands on some 'mitocare', a multivitamin supplement that contains many pro-mitochondrial nutrients. I am hopeful in regards to both, as the Wahls diet has lead to some pretty amazing progress when it comes to autoimmune disorders and the mitocare supplement could not only fill in the gaps in regards to my current supplementation, but also lower the cost and effort involved by keeping it in a single supplement.
Housekeeping: Over this period my energy levels stayed at 2-2.5 the majority of the time. Highest was 3, lowest was 1. Averages to about 2.25. Graph is really boring and unhelpful.
