18/6 intermittent fasting has benefitted me greatly

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79
Long story short: Intermittent fasting with a 6 hour eating window has noticeably improved my symptoms.

I started in September 2024 sometime and noticed a benefit within a week. Now, several months later, I think the benefits are even more noticeable.

My fatigue levels have decreased from a 7/10 to maybe a 5/10. Not life changing but for sure a real win for anyone dealing with CFS.

I still crash but they’re much less frequent and much less debilitating.

The biggest change that I’ve noticed is brain fog improvements. My fog has been knocked down to around a 3 or 4 out of 10 down from maybe an 8!! This even persists while I’m in a flare up. I’ll have a lot of the same physical symptoms that I’m used to but my brain fog improvements stay mostly unchanged. How cool is that?!

Keep in mind that I’ve also been taking liposomal glutathione for a few months. Just increased my dose from 500mg to 750mg and I think it’s knocking me down a little at the time of writing this post. Not sure how much I’m benefitting from it but I do know that my CFS symptoms were much more manageable shortly after stating IM fasting.


I’ve posted here before but my CFS was/is caused by ebv that constantly reactivates and gives me mono-like symptoms if I don’t take valacyclovir for longer than 16 hours.

The only other treatments that have given me any kind of noticeable improvements are NAC and low dose naltrexone. I don’t currently take either because they both give me mental side effects. NAC provides me with some of the same benefits that IM fasting does but without the brain fog improvements.

I suspect that I have had inflammation problems before CFS that probably stem from the gut. I’ve always had a slightly white tongue that cleared up when I tried IM fasting pre-cfs. My mild brain fog and fatigue improved as well. Unfortunately, IM fasting made me too hungry to keep up with, especially since I was way more active in college with sports and walking.

On a side note, let’s just say I had a slight gastrointestinal issue over the last few months, which has now been resolved by surgery, that inflamed my gut and stomach pretty badly and brought along that white tongue worse than ever before. My tongue has now cleared up more so than it ever has before after I had surgery to fix the issue. I accredit IM fasting. Fortunately, the fatigue benefits of IM fasting lasted throughout the duration of my gastro issue.

I’m saying all this because I think if I continue to target pre existing gut inflammation, I may begin to feel even better. A very low sugar/high fiber diet had almost no impact on me before IM fasting so I need to get a little more creative with my diet. Maybe go hard with the fermented food direction.

I’m also planning on having my problematic tonsils that are filled with ebv removed by laser in the upcoming months. Insurance covers it so I’m pretty excited about that. I’ve had a couple docs think that it could benefit me greatly to have them removed.

Moving in the right direction :)
 
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7
It's great you've experienced so much benefit from IM.

I also have gut issues and brain fog and have been thinking about trying some dietary changes. Can I ask what your eating schedule looks like now and what it was before? What was the adjustment period like?
 
Messages
79
It's great you've experienced so much benefit from IM.

I also have gut issues and brain fog and have been thinking about trying some dietary changes. Can I ask what your eating schedule looks like now and what it was before? What was the adjustment period like?

Before IM fasting, I would eat whenever. I would usually skip breakfast and eat lunch around 11 or 12. Then I would have dinner sometime between 6 and 9. I would then snack all the way until midnight, at least.

Now, I eat between 1 and 7pm pretty much every day. Sometimes I’ll get really hungry around midnight and break my fast but that’s rare.

It took me a week or two to adjust. The first few days were the hardest as I was hungry all the time. I powered through and now it’s much more doable.
 

bad1080

Senior Member
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146
On a side note, let’s just say I had a slight gastrointestinal issue over the last few months, which has now been resolved by surgery
it is not uncommon for PwME to feel better after a surgery, i hope you found something that helps you long term though!
i felt better with intermittent fasting (16/8) but that was because it helped with a different issue (which i then didn't know of yet, well i knew of it but it was still undiagnosed), my me-cfs is pretty much unchanged even after treating the other issue.
 
Messages
79
it is not uncommon for PwME to feel better after a surgery, i hope you found something that helps you long term though!
i felt better with intermittent fasting (16/8) but that was because it helped with a different issue (which i then didn't know of yet, well i knew of it but it was still undiagnosed), my me-cfs is pretty much unchanged even after treating the other issue.
I did feel pretty good after the surgery due to the steroids and stuff they injected but I was seeing benefits from IM fasting well before and now after the surgery, which was over a month ago. So, I’m pretty optimistic that this will be a long term thing for me.

16/8 doesn’t seem to help me as much. I need to at least do 18/6. Will probably try to push that to 20/4 in the upcoming weeks.
 
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