Lolinda

J'aime nager dans le froid style Wim Hof.. 🏊‍♀️🙃
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432
Asking for help: does anyone know a probiotic or prebiotic or just anything that helps to eat more meat, liver, fish or any protein-rich food in general (including plant-based)?

(details: Digestive enzymes have no noticeable effect in me. Seed Synbiotic DS01 helps a bit. Bitters increase appetite and generally do good, but they don't help with eating more protein-rich foods. Symptom-wise, I may get sleeplessness, diarrhea, loss of appetite, pulsation, feeling of warmth and sweating in bed if I try to increase protein-rich foods. Supplementing aminos is no option because this completely kills my digestion. Gastroscopy and colonoscopy never found a thing, pancreas elastase is perfect, but sIgA is almost always low. But everything I try in order to increase sIgA (lactobacillus plantarum 299v, NMN, resveratrol) caused sleeplessness, pulsation, less appetite, less tolerance for eating enough). My Shannon index (gut bugs diversity) is often mildly lowish, but I did succeed to increase it to normal several times and even then I cannot eat more protein-rich foods. I eat fiber (raw potatoes containing resistant starch + chicory roots containing inulin). My difficulties of eating enough meat, fish or plant-based protein did not come with keto, but they came with an EBV, which later on made me develop ME, from which keto rescued me and made me tolerate some fish again; today having still neuropathic POTS, which forces me to be in bed most of the day, except 2 active hours in which I do sports almost as healthy people would (fast walking and Wim Hof training). EBV is confirmed by PCR to be not detectable in duodenal biopsies, nor in blood, and by the usual serum tests confirmed to be no more active.)
 
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GreenEdge

Senior Member
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Asking for help: does anyone know a probiotic or prebiotic or just anything that helps to eat more meat, liver, fish or any protein in general (including plant-based)?
Betaine hydrochloride supplements help support healthy gut function and safely restore normal gastric acidity. Normal gastric acidity liquefies meat, which is then mostly absorbed in our small intestines.

It might help to drink only between meals as this will help prevent dilution of stomach acid during digestion.
You might want to start with any fatty meats that you enjoy. How about egg yolk or dairy cream in coffee?
Don't fear fat or salt. If I no longer eat highly processed food then maybe I'm not be getting enough? :nerd:
 
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Lolinda

J'aime nager dans le froid style Wim Hof.. 🏊‍♀️🙃
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432
Hey GreenEdge, thanks for replying :). But stomach acid was exactly the main topic of my long post on the previous page of this thread, talking precisely about betaine HCL and various measures to optimize natural stomach acid production (vitamins B1 and B2, etc). Yes, drinking only between meals and eating enough salt (containing the chloride for HCL!) I did not mention and these are good points to add to the list! These were among my first things that I have changed when I used this measurement method to find out that I have low stomach acid (I recommend everybody reading this to try oneself this scientifically validated measurement method at home, It's perfectly safe and only needs the specific type of urinary pH stripes described. Please post your result on this thread, because stomach acid is a very important topic not only for health in general but also in particular for a keto diet. I would be more than curious to see if my theory is correct that people with CFS/ME are often low on stomach acid). Btw I even went so far that I did a dose escalation trial: put in more and more and more betaine HCL capsules and see what happens. Nothing improved any further. In sum, I think stomach acidity is already fully optimized in me. I think I have all reason to assume that improvement in tolerating protein-rich foods I need to seek elsewhere. Very interestingly, a multistrain probiotic, seed synbiotic DS01, did help a bit. So this points to gut bacteria.
-> I am curious, if anyone earned any improvement in tolerating protein-rich foods by taking probiotics, I would love to try. Or just any other measure to be able to eat more protein-rich food.
 
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@Lolinda - I agree that many people with ME/CFS have low stomach acid. I've seen it on this forum, and I have to take betaine HCL with meals. I've done this for years. Your enterovirus theory about stomach acid depletion could be correct, I don't know, but I just take the betaine HCL and it works.

My theory on keto depleting BCAAs is based on experience. I learned in 2014 that BCAAs cut my PEM recovery time by more than half. I used to be bedridden for 2 - 3 days after overdoing it, and since starting the BCAAs in 2014, it's been cut to one day on average, which is huge. If I ever cut back on the BCAAs (a couple of times I've tried an inferior brand), I very quickly start to go downhill, crashing easier and taking longer to recover. This is exactly what happened to me when I tried a keto diet. I think my body had trouble converting all the fat and meat to fuel. Now, maybe I should have increased my stomach acid supplement. But if I ever do keto again, I will add in extra BCAAs because there is no way in the world I want to go back to my 3 days crashes.

This post explains a bit about BCAAs and tryptophan (a few small studies are acttached) and how BCAAs can help with something called "central fatigue" -
How much HCL do you take?
 

Mary

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How much HCL do you take?
@skinnybane - I generally take 2 of these with each meal. Years ago my then-doctor (who unfortunately is no longer with us) told me to start with one capsule before a meal and titrate up gradually until my stomach felt "acidy" and then back off by one. I know, that may sound a little strange, but that's exactly how it felt. I worked up to 4 capsules of a different product, felt "acidy" and went down to 3 - and that dose worked. If I miss a meal I'm okay but overall it's something I still need.
 
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