Developing autoimmune reactions to foods

[Aidan]

15mg/day is not enough for me. However I do not know how to determine how much is enough for anyone else.

I consume around 25-30mg total per day, the 15mg is just from my supplement.

 

[Wishful]

15mg/day is not enough for me. However I do not know how to determine how much is enough for anyone else.

I've heard that if you can taste zinc, you have enough in your blood. I never checked to see whether that had any validity. Zinc supplements, or welding galvanized metal that wasn't cleared off well enough, always tasted like zinc to me.

 

[Garz]

this may seem a bit left field to many here as infections seem to be generally discounted by alot of people with CFS - presumably due to what we are told by mainstream medical doctors

but as i have posted about many times before - i have classic CFS symptoms - that are a perfect match to the top 10 symptoms reported in the symptoms surveys here on the forum including PEM. and was diagnosed with CFS. i later was able to get a definitive diagnosis of chronic Bartonellosis( infection with bacteria from the genus Bartonella) by an undeniable direct method recommended by the WHO for blood borne pathogens.

I mention this as a large proportion of patients with chronic Bartonellosis develop sudden often severe food intolerances and / or auto-immunity - that they did not have before becoming ill - over half or perhaps 3/4 of patients.

Bartonella is well documented to infect the endothelial cells that line the digestive tract causing chronic inflammation there, altering the microbiome and gut barrier permeability.
This is presumably the mechanism by which is causes auto-immunity ( as latest research links gut membrane hyper permeability to all autoimmune diseases )
Bartonellosis is also highly associated with gastritis, colitis, GERD/Reflux, bloating, IBS and other digestive issues as well as anxiety, depression, depersonalisation, derealisation, irritability, rage etc

it is rarely diagnosed by conventional medical doctors
its is generally little known and was originally thought to be a self resolving acute illness - rather than a chronic one.
and conventional blood tests are very poor indeed ( the NHS has recently withdrawn blood tests for Bartonellosis and is yet to replace them with anything else).

its a zoonotic infection - contracted from animals via biting insects, fleas, lice, ticks, chiggers, sand fleas, sand flies ( so most likely mosquitos also) even spiders are documented in the literature - or by the bite of scratch of an infected animal.
people with exposure to animals are at greater risk of infection

• owners of pet animals - pet cats and dogs that go outside are the most common hosts -
• as well as vets ( exposure to pets and farm animals - bites, scratches etc) -
• butchers and abattoir workers ( infected food animals, meat, body fluids) -
• and sewerage system workers ( rodents and their faeces)
• but also anyone with outdoor lifestyles - cross country running, orienteering, mountain biking, camping

i suspect at least a significant subset of CFS patients are suffering with this disease or something very much like it - and are simply misdiagnosed as i was - so i try to raise awareness in the hope it can help someone else

Resources

this is the best primer on bartonella i have found - its by the world leading mainstream medical researcher in bartonella Prof Ed Breitschwerdt - and one of the leading mainstream medical doctors who treats it

invisible international - is fact based public awareness and patient advocacy organisation that has lots of reliable information including medical board approved courses for medical doctors about these under recognised diseases ( like bartonella).

https://invisible.international/

support forums
this is about the best one i have found https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30
(i am active there)

 

[triffid113]

Interesting. I have periodic gut issues which mostly feel like inflammation ... no IBS or Chron's or anything. But when you feel inflamed, the last thing you want to do is take pills that irritate. Since I have serious health problems, I can't not take my pills. Ugh! Not even a day without!

I settled on taking zinc carnosine since it is known to help your gut and does not irritate. But I do not know if this form of zinc only helps your gut.. It is a low dose supplemt and I decided to take 2 for total 30g and see how it goes.

I was wondering how many of my.pills are cox2 inhibitors and if that could cause my problem. Gonna check that out.

Anyways, thanks for the info.

 

[triffid113]

Some things to think about regarding zinc: it is used to make thyroid hormone and an adrenal hormone (at least one), so if you have allergies, you will wear out your thyroid and adrenal hormones and need to make more - thus consume more zinc. If you eat a lot of carbohydrates or sugars, you will use up more insulin, which requires zinc. Your immune system uses up zinc too, so if you are sick you will need more. (More arginine and glutamine also I.n that case). These are just a few reasons some people may need more something.


Also, my Dadost his eyesight due to fiabetes. My sist r and I gave him all those reti.noid based supplements and formulations - astaxanthin, luteal, I United, you name it. Nothing worked. But I knew the antioxidant needed in the eye is ZnCuSOD and I also knew that he was on a protein restricted diet fir kidneys. Protein is the main way Americans get zinc in their diet. I asked my eye doctor if zinc helps macula degeneration and he said yes. So my sister and I gave my Dad a dose of zinc just a little above the RDA because he had kidney issues so can't go.mega dose. So it took 2 months but he was able to see again and pass his driver's test. So...zinc is needed for an antioxidant for the eyes too


My history...I would have my thyroid go out seasonally from bad allergies (I could not function.on drugs). Extra Zinc and extra protein helped me overcome years of misery! So zinc is very important to me and I am a tremendous zinc-lover! (Your results may differ)

 

[JasonPerth]

When i was mild ME 2016-2022 initially it was only Dairy that caused some discomfort occasionally and then yeast/beer occasionally would cause a random super red face (potentially a quick mcas reaction?)
But now that i have quickly deteriorated late last year to now being Moderate/Housebound. My gut has been making strange noises /stomach and intestinal every day since the moment i started feeling worse and deteriorating.
I lost 15 kgs which was mostly muscle and now im stuck at a new low weight and baseline of housebound with a stomach which is reacting to almost every food i have. Some worse then others ofcourse but its also very random as it was before but much more common and daily.
Its like some horrible digestive problem.
Yet im in no pain at all. Just very fatigued, tired but wired and very awake (insomnia) and brain fog

 

[triffid113]

brain fog

I occasionally have brain fog, but not generally. I thus have little experience with it. However, my belief is that it is caused
(1) if your thyroid is not right (TSH in range 1.0-2.0) or
(2) if you do not make enough dopamine... which can be from a number of reasons, including not enough of several B vitamins, iron, tyrosine/phenylalanine, or from clearing it faster, which might be caused by free radicals or genetics or ...???. So I have COMT +/+, which means I clear dopamine slowly. However, if you search online, you can find foods which are COMT inhibitors, which would likely raise dopamine.
Foods that have demonstrated COMT inhibition include:

• Epigallocatechin and epicatechin (the major polyphenol in green tea)1
• Chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid existent in coffee1
• Morin, chlorogenic acid, (+)-catechin, alizarin, fisetin and rutin2
• Oleanic acid, betulinic acid and celastrol3

or (3 )I would get it if I had adrenal exhaustion and did not get enough salt... so people who overcaffeinate, for instance, like I used to do, will lose salt when their adrenal gland is overtaxed.

idk if this helps you.... but my spidey sense tells me brain fog is likely one of those things.

 

[JasonPerth]

I occasionally have brain fog, but not generally. I thus have little experience with it. However, my belief is that it is caused
(1) if your thyroid is not right (TSH in range 1.0-2.0) or
(2) if you do not make enough dopamine... which can be from a number of reasons, including not enough of several B vitamins, iron, tyrosine/phenylalanine, or from clearing it faster, which might be caused by free radicals or genetics or ...???. So I have COMT +/+, which means I clear dopamine slowly. However, if you search online, you can find foods which are COMT inhibitors, which would likely raise dopamine.
Foods that have demonstrated COMT inhibition include:

• Epigallocatechin and epicatechin (the major polyphenol in green tea)1
• Chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid existent in coffee1
• Morin, chlorogenic acid, (+)-catechin, alizarin, fisetin and rutin2
• Oleanic acid, betulinic acid and celastrol3

or (3 )I would get it if I had adrenal exhaustion and did not get enough salt... so people who overcaffeinate, for instance, like I used to do, will lose salt when their adrenal gland is overtaxed.

idk if this helps you.... but my spidey sense tells me brain fog is likely one of those things.

I dont think mine could be related to those medical facts you have outlined. As i dont recall any brainfog or cognitive issues 2016-2021 after my onset of ME in 2016. It only randomly came late last year when i couldnt handle brightness of screens all or a sudden and for 1 week i had double vision with screens which dissapeared randomly a week later after rest. Then a few months later i got a random cold and now find myself much worse with extra symptoms. Its all been viral for me. Bloods have never found a thyroid issue besides High Rt3, but Rt3 is super skeptical- and arguably normal for someone like us

 

[Wishful]

When my ME--and brainfog--started, my Tsh was normal. When my Tsh was 8, my brainfog was no different. Thyroid issues could affect brainfog severity in some people, but it may not affect others.

 

[Garz]

yep - a year after i became ill - i obtained my full medical records - it turned out i had had a TSH of 10 or more 2 years before that and no one had told me so it was untreated - at that point i was still mountain biking 4 hrs in the hills in a day and driving 4 hrs each way - so it clearly wasn't slowing me down much.

when i started T4 therapy it made no difference to my symptoms that i could detect - and even when i added T3 and got all my thyroid levels in the ideal functional range - i still could not really point to any real change.

treating infections on the other hand has got me more than half way back to my former self.

intracellular infections drive auto-immunity - the thyroid is like the canary in the coalmine it is often the first to show up

 

[Wishful]

when i started T4 therapy it made no difference to my symptoms that i could detect

Same here. I didn't monitor my Tsh as a result of T4 or T3 supplementation, but neither had any noticeable effect, other than a double dose of T4 making me feel jittery. T2, however, gave temporary remission the first few times, and also blocked an otherwise worsening of my ME symptoms. Quite odd, since T2's effect lasted a consistent 21 days, after which those symptoms abruptly increased until I took another dose. That problem disappeared when I cured my PEM permanently, so there's some link there. One possibility is that T2 was affecting RNA transcription of something.