Does anyone crash after eating?

Fighttolive

Fighttolive

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If I wake up- have black coffee only, I can feel almost normal until I get hungry enough to eat.

No matter what I eat- 45 mins later or so I come down with brain fog, lethargy, that distinct feeling you’ve been poisoned.

infant, fasting with moderate exercise can actually fix me for a few days.

soon as I eat- I re-enter the state where time does not exist anymore and before I know it it’s 12am and I’ve no recollection of what I’ve even been doing or thinking about.

it really feeling like a signaling problem or something.
 
Wolfcub

Wolfcub

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I've definitely crashed from eating, or felt what I call "creepy symptoms", including shaking internally and a horrible wired feeling plus exhaustion, sometimes go off my legs, and a complete inability to focus my mind on anything worthwhile except how I'm feeling. Like a fight-or-flight mode.

But that changes sometimes. At the moment I get that in the morning, and it will last into the afternoon too. I get a trace of it after dinner (a full meal) but it passes in about 30 minutes, and then I get increasingly steadier all through the evening.
Often by midnight I feel steady and not far off normal. I love sleeping, but am almost afraid of the next morning. (feel like that right now.) It's like a scary struggle every day.

Dinner (about 6pm) is the first substantial meal I have in the day. I can't literally manage to eat a proper meal all day, but always have a late breakfast /brunch no matter what, even if I feel weird. That's never a lot of food; just some blueberries, banana or something, and a couple of pieces of toast.

I really wish I could still have a black coffee in the morning. I have to drink Camomile tea or nettle now.

I have started to wonder if there's some dysfunction in how the sympathetic ("get-up-and-go") and the parasympathetic (rest and digest) branches of the nervous system are operating. Perhaps the sympathetic is in gear when the other one should be....

Yet with me, my stomach emptying seems pretty speedy. In fact. my whole gut seems perhaps a touch too speedy altogether.
 
M

margaretee

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19
Eating gives me the weirdest, nastiest and most worrying symptoms. I can’t even eat most of the food. Annoying.
I think it is due to certain anti-nutrients like lectins, saponines, oxalates etc which are toxic to the nerves/trigger them. Lectins are known to also trigger autoimmune responses. (Dr. Gundry is the most popular advocate for this theory.)
Also it could have an influence on the gut microbiome. Candida and the toxins it produces are associated with IL-6 AFAIK.
It could as well be a mechanical trigger which influences the (para)sympathetic nervous system(s).
Blood sugar instabilities also cause redox reactions and an inflammatory response.
 
M

margaretee

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Hmm I don’t think it’s a too much of stomach acid. If pH related than rather too neutral so it can’t keep the microbiome balanced which then produces its nerve damaging toxins.
But I think there has to be a better explanation than that.
 
W

Wishful

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Try seeing whether the delay or the severity correlates with the type of food. For me, quickly-digested carbs trigger an increase in symptoms 20 minutes later, which I think was due to the insulin response increasing tryptophan transport across the BBB, since the effect was blocked by BCAAs. If your symptoms don't vary with the type of food, then my guess would be something released by the stomach triggering an intestinal response (maybe immune system). I suppose food of any sort would trigger intestinal contractions, which could also increase permeability, triggering the immune system.
 
Wolfcub

Wolfcub

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At the moment (starting today) I am experimenting with herbal bitters...very very small doses to start with....to see if that stabilises anything, and may prepare my digestive system to receive food more wholesomely.
All I did was lick the spoon. It must have had less than an 1/8 teaspoon on it. Within 5 minutes, stomach growled, like hunger, which I guess is peristaltic waves moving in the gut.
I hadn't had that growly belly when I needed food for a long time.

I don't know if that will assist digeston, and make digestion easier, It might. In which case energy will flow better in the gut, and hopefully be less of a drag on the whole system.
I don't know yet. We'll see.
 
M

margaretee

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Wishful said:
insulin response increasing tryptophan transport across the BBB, since the effect was blocked by BCAAs. If your symptoms don't vary with the type of food...
Click to expand...
Oh, I’d like to know more about the insulin-tryptophan-BBB-connection. Do you have some details or a link?

My symptoms definitely vary according to the type of food. Histamines and I feel like calling the ER. Lectins, Saponines etc and I get extremely depressed + severe muscle cramps.
E.g. anything nut-/legume-/grains-/nightshade like and I‘m under the bed crying. haha (not so funny actually...)
Figs and Cherimoyas are tolerable in moderation.
Egg yolks are fine as long as I don’t have gastritis-like flares.
Sipping on some coconut sugar throughout the day helps me keeping my weight.
I‘m very keen on keeping some to loose because last time I had a gastrointestinal flare I lost way too much as I couldn’t eat and even drinking water became an issue.
I guess because of stomach irritation, weak/overworked kidneys, BH4 depletion through aluminum (&who knows what) + maybe some mineral imbalance or heavy metals/drug residues in the tap water my body can’t deal with.
Who knows.
I guess MCAS is pretty common amongst people ME/CFS.
 
W

Wishful

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margaretee said:
Oh, I’d like to know more about the insulin-tryptophan-BBB-connection. Do you have some details or a link?
Click to expand...

No link in specific. That's what I picked up from reading quite a few papers. Basically, carbs cause a rise in insulin, and insulin increases TRP transport into the brain. For me, it was a pretty consistent 20 minute delay from starting a processed carb meal and the abrupt rise in symptom severity. This fit my observations of my responses to TRP, carbs, and BCAAs, but I didn't see any point in delving deeper into details. Carbs with high fibre either don't trigger the response, or delays and spreads it out enough that I don't notice it.
 
Judee

Judee

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margaretee said:
Oh, I’d like to know more about the insulin-tryptophan-BBB-connection. Do you have some details or a link?
Click to expand...

HERE are some search engine results that came up when I put in "insulin-tryptophan-BBB-connection." The first one looks like a short read however it is a study done on rabbits instead of people. Not sure if that matters.
 
M

margaretee

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19
Wishful said:
No link in specific. That's what I picked up from reading quite a few papers. Basically, carbs cause a rise in insulin, and insulin increases TRP transport into the brain. For me, it was a pretty consistent 20 minute delay from starting a processed carb meal and the abrupt rise in symptom severity. This fit my observations of my responses to TRP, carbs, and BCAAs, but I didn't see any point in delving deeper into details. Carbs with high fibre either don't trigger the response, or delays and spreads it out enough that I don't notice it.
Click to expand...

Okay, thank you. I guess your negative response may partly be because of a metabolic shift, the “tryptophan steal” to go down the kynurenine pathway via IDO/TDO, right? But it’s okay if you don’t want to go into detail. I just found it interesting regarding the BH4 (tetrahydrobiopterine) theory regarding CFS, Fibro and Parkinson’s.
Do you tend to have muscle aches, autistic tendencies, sleep disturbances and suicidal thoughts? (You really don’t have to answer the latter...) They are associated with the metabolites of the kynurenine pathway (like quinolinic acid) and the lack of what tryptophan should have become in the first place: serotonin and melatonin.

This link may be of interest to you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23649519/
Quote:” Endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) dysfunction induces insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) is an essential cofactor of eNOS that regulates eNOS activity. In the diabetic state, BH4 is oxidized to 7,8-dihydrobiopterin, which leads to eNOS dysfunction owing to eNOS uncoupling.”
 
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M

margaretee

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W

Wishful

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margaretee said:
I guess your negative response may partly be because of a metabolic shift, the “tryptophan steal” to go down the kynurenine pathway via IDO/TDO, right? ... and the lack of what tryptophan should have become in the first place: serotonin and melatonin.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. Taking 5-HTP and melatonin had no effect on my symptoms, so I don't think the serotonin pathway was involved in my symptoms. I thought it was simply the extra production of neurotoxic kynurenines, since 95% of TRP in the brain goes down that pathway. It would probably take a huge change in TRP level to affect the serotonin pathway. Personally, I think the focus on serotonin in articles is due to the desire of pharmaceutical companies to sell serotonin level modifiers.

This paper ( https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/77/1/128/4689642 ) is about the changes in serum TRP/LNAA ratio with a high carb breakfast vs a high protein one. It says there can be >50% difference between the two meals.

What doesn't match my experience is that their subjects showed the peak TRP at 120 minutes. My post-carb meals caused an abrupt rise in symptoms a consistent 20 minutes later, and probably faded well before 120 minutes. I'll have to ponder that. Maybe it's not the absolute level of TRP responsible, but the rate of change.


margaretee said:
Do you tend to have muscle aches, autistic tendencies, sleep disturbances and suicidal thoughts?
Click to expand...

I had neuropathic muscle aches, which were blocked by LDN, and after a year or two went away so I no longer needed LDN. No autistic tendencies, and no sleep disturbances at that period (insomnia problems came later). The strong suicidal moods started with my ME, and persisted for several years until I realized the response to niacin and altered my diet to avoid niacin. I haven't had the suicidal moods since.

I think that my elevated Tsh levels and lack of response to T4 or T3 may indicate that I have excess picolinic acid, which is formed down the same pathway as QUIN. Picolinic acid raises Trh and thus Tsh.
 
J

Jpac

Messages
71
Fighttolive said:
If I wake up- have black coffee only, I can feel almost normal until I get hungry enough to eat.

No matter what I eat- 45 mins later or so I come down with brain fog, lethargy, that distinct feeling you’ve been poisoned.

infant, fasting with moderate exercise can actually fix me for a few days.

soon as I eat- I re-enter the state where time does not exist anymore and before I know it it’s 12am and I’ve no recollection of what I’ve even been doing or thinking about.

it really feeling like a signaling problem or something.
Click to expand...
I have always had the same issue. Less about what I eat. I think it’s simply an energy issue. Takes a lot of energy to digest. Fasting has definitely helped me improve
 
W

wyva

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28
Location
Hungary
MonkeyMan said:
Same here. Do you by chance have a history of antibiotic usage? That's where all my problems started.
Click to expand...
You directed this at someone else, but I also feel bad after eating, it is my brain fog and fatigue that worsen significantly, to the point that I'm pretty useless. For me it starts about 2 hours after eating and lasts an hour. It is like clockwork, so I at least can plan around it. :D

But I wanted to answer your question: I have barely used antibiotics in my life.
 
judyinthesky

judyinthesky

Senior Member
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381
I also have this, maybe not too severe. @margaretee what you say about a mechanical thing and the nervous system... it feels like mechanic and related to vagus to me.
I would have rise of fight and flight, via my "belly" and the vagus nerve system. It is worse in the morning and better in the evening. It is definitely after eating, and I would give much to know what it is related to.
Two things seem to be relatd to it for me: Exhaustion (well, yeah, the level of exhaustion :) ) and fastness of the gut (vicious cycle, as stress and fight and flight makes the gut faster).
It is more recognisable with carbs.
Hence, whatever is going on (it makes sense that I have pancreas issues) is definitely related to how much those gastro nerves have to work.
I also have other weird symptoms, like formification.

This would be what dysautnomia people also describe, I know.
But the weird thing is the mechanic feeling of it.

@Wolfcub as you say fast gut, I wonder whether you had a form of investigation of pancreas elastase, and also those who do better on enzymes might want to look into that, because you could have this not so severe but in a lighter form.
 
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