Low body temperature

[jolie8558]

Hi,

I have been high raw for awhile now and while many of my symptoms have gone away, I still suffer from a low body temperature and fatigue. I have tried iodine (in the form of Iodoral) and the few times i took it, it only made me more tired and did nothing for my body temperature. Does anyone have any ideas?? I had my thyroid tested a little over a year ago and everything came back normal. I am SO tired of feeling TIRED all the time!!!!

Jolie

[cocomamba]

Hey Jolie,
Are you eating enough? I was suffering from low body temperature before I went fully raw 3 weeks ago. When I went fully raw I ate A LOT! I started to feel a lot better after that. Low body temps usually indicate lack of calories.

It could also be that you are in a cold environment. I know when its a colder day here and I drink a green smoothie with frozen bananas i feel really cold and need to bundle up immediately. That tends to have an affect.

[Raw Angel Mom]

Sometime one of the detox symptom is fatigue and being cold

I had both. I was cold in hot July summer but now i am comfortable and adapt easy with cold and hot temperature.

The fatigue, i feel it is because your body wants you to rest so it cans do a lot of rejuvenation and repair with your organs etc...

[Mary Kay]

When you say your thyroid tests came back normal, what do you mean? What was your regular TSH? Should be betw 1 and 2....and what other tests did they perform for your thyroid? Free T4, Free T3? Your TSH could be normal, but your body may not be converting T4 to T3 properly....

Some people DO have "normal" tests, but still go on natural/bio-identical T3 therapy, and it helps them tremendously.

And there are different types of iodine.....Iodoral is potassium iodide....I think you should do some real experiments....Like trying only various seaweeds for six to 8 weeks --check before and after and note your symptoms.....etc. what was your TSH before iodoral,,,,then six - eight wks later? etc etc.

Then, I ditto what others say about not enough calories/cleansing.

Well, just some random thoughts.....HTH,

Mary Kay

[sport]

The first winter that I was raw I was really cold but not since then. Now I am fine. It is a transition thing.
I do believe that raw foodists have a measurable temp that is normally below cooked food eaters at all times. This does not mean that you feel colder.

[DebB]

When you say your thyroid tests came back normal, what do you mean? What was your regular TSH? Should be betw 1 and 2....and what other tests did they perform for your thyroid? Free T4, Free T3? Your TSH could be normal, but your body may not be converting T4 to T3 properly....

Some people DO have "normal" tests, but still go on natural/bio-identical T3 therapy, and it helps them tremendously.

And there are different types of iodine.....Iodoral is potassium iodide....I think you should do some real experiments....Like trying only various seaweeds for six to 8 weeks --check before and after and note your symptoms.....etc. what was your TSH before iodoral,,,,then six - eight wks later? etc etc.

Then, I ditto what others say about not enough calories/cleansing.

Well, just some random thoughts.....HTH,

Mary Kay

Ditto - ditto - DITTO!

My thyroid was ablated (killed) several years ago and while I do retain a small amount of thyroid function, it's a struggle for me to keep it balanced.

I'm currently on 3 different thyroid meds, 2 of which are compounded. It wasn't until my (holistic) MD increased my T4 (with synthroid) and compounded T3 (time released, I take it every 4 hours, 4 times a day) that my body temperature has finally started to raise.

I would suggest finding a different doctor. It was a board certified endocrinologist who scared me into getting my thryoid killed - I rue the day... My current holistic MD said he could have balanced it out in 10 weeks (sigh). Live and learn! Most MDs will say "your thyroid's fine" when indeed it's not or you wouldn't be tired, slow metabolism and low body temp.

I wish you all the best! I'm thinking if you could find a good holistic MD.... *Ü*

Back to add - he also has me taking 4 drops of Lugol's iodine (Rx) per day too. Plus I'm on another compounded thyroid med. But please know mine's unusual because my thyroid's been killed. I'm not saying you're going to have these same issues with trying to get yours balanced.

[Arky]

@ jolie8558, Mary Kay, and DebB


I'm going to write a short answer (for once!) :)

If you are having thyroid problems which do not appear to be going away in spite of supplementation, it may be worth you considering whether mercury may be suppressing your thyroid function. Mercury is commonly attracted to the thyroid and other endocrine glands.

My recent posts cover a fair bit of this (Mary, I know you've been following these). If you have any remaining questions, I'll do my best to assist you with the information I have at hand, though armed with a reasonable suspicion of mercury toxicity, you will find plenty of info on the internet relating to the interplay between mercury and the endocrine system/thyroid.

Apparently, even when tested, levels of various thyroid analytes may return 'normal' results.

A related cause of 'tiredness' can also be the severe oxidative stress that mercury can exert upon the whole body, not least the liver.

jolie8558 - it might also be fruitful for you to read up on the many potential symptoms of mercury intoxication other than thyroid-related. You might just notice a few more that resonate with you. If not, then no harm done, but there's no harm in doing a bit of digging on the topic, since you've thus far not made significant progress in resolving your health issues. The aforementioned recent posts will give you a headstart with this, and you can also take a preliminary glance at the following link:

http://whatidontknow.net/blog/a-lifetime-of-questions/

Note that this list is by no means exhaustive. There are many other potential symptoms of mercury intoxication and a mercury-intoxicated individual rarely experiences an identical list of symptoms to the next person, but some overlap is, of course, likely.


All the best.

[DebB]

@ jolie8558, Mary Kay, and DebB


I'm going to write a short answer (for once!) :)

If you are having thyroid problems which do not appear to be going away in spite of supplementation, it may be worth you considering whether mercury may be suppressing your thyroid function. Mercury is commonly attracted to the thyroid and other endocrine glands.

My recent posts cover a fair bit of this. If you have any remaining questions, I'll do my best to assist you with the information I have at hand, though armed with a reasonable suspicion of mercury toxicity, you will find plenty of info on the internet relating to the interplay between mercury and the endocrine system/thyroid.

All the best.

I agree Arky - my MD mentioned the same thing and recommended that I do a form of chelation therapy to remove the heavy metals which he explained block the receptors.

I've got it in my office visit notes the kind of therapy he recommended - it's not the standard chelation (IV) that he recommended.

I remember asking him once about cilantro - asking him how's that for removing heavy metals and he said it's way too whimpy to get the big boys out of the system. Not what I wanted to hear :)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that Arky. *Ü*

[Arky]

"Mercury can interfere with the production of a hormone, the way it interacts with its receptor, or the way the receptor makes things happen in the cell. Lab tests usually determine the amount of hormone present but do not check whether the receptors are OK and whether things respond properly to the presence of the hormone. Sometimes you will have low hormone function, or excess function, even when the few parts of the cycle the lab can measure look fine."

- p.33 Andy Hall Cutler - 'Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment'


DebB, I don't know what chelation protocol your MD recommended but it's a good thing he dissuaded you from cilantro and IV protocols (there are sound technical reasons why neither of these would be a good idea).

In addition to the details I posted, surrounding the issue of chelation, in these earlier posts:

http://rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.ph...106#post661106

http://rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.ph...325#post661325

...it is wise for anyone planning on undergoing chelation, to learn about the half-life of each of the various chelation substances. When one ingests (or injects or whatever) a chelation substance, it will grab onto heavy metal molecules sufficiently well to release them from their current location and (if the chelation process proceeds successfully without interruption) enable the body to excrete them via channels such as the bile/bowel or kidneys (the route/channel varies according to the type of chelation substance. For example, DMSA tends to go the urinary/renal route, whereas ALA tends to favour the biliary/bowel route).

However, there are caveats - one cannot (for both practical and technical reasons I won't discuss at length here) chelate continuously. When undergoing chelation, some metal that has been dislodged is at risk of not being completely excreted, particularly as the chelation substance decays (as soon as a chelation substance enters the body, it begins to decay - the rate of decay being known as the 'half-life'). Consequently, chelation places not only enormous oxidative stress on the body (one needs to consume plenty of vitamin E and C to counteract this) but can also exacerbate symptoms if a steady supply of chelator is not maintained in the bloodstream.

Hence, arguably, the wisest approach to minimising inadvertent redistribution of metal whilst chelating is 'frequent dosing schedule' of orally administered chelation substance(s). This would involve the likes of ALA, DMSA, DMPS etc. for the simple reason that they are well-researched and the specific half-life of each of these different substances has been reliably ascertained. The same cannot be said for substances such as cilantro, so, in addition to the concerns relating to insufficient sulfhydryl bonds with certain food-based chelators, the absence of reliable data on their specific half-lives means a consistent blood level of the chelator(s) is virtually impossible to achieve.


Relevant details provided about much of this in the aforementioned threads.


'scuse the brevity, am at work ;)

.

[jolie8558]

Thank you all SO much for your informative posts! Really and truly, it's so difficult sometimes to find/figure out what is best for your body and classically trained doctors often times (in my experience) hurt rather than help. I definitely think the possibility of mercury overload in my system is a real possibility because I used to eat a ton of fish thinking it was healthy for me. What are the best sources, substances for chelation?? Should I expect to feel sick/tired if they work? When I was taking Iodoral...which I only did briefly, my body temperature actually lowered further and I felt more fatigued..but perhaps this was due to toxins being released? Anyway, thank you so much everyone, it's wonderful to have such a supportive and caring board. If anyone knows about chelation, please let me know! Thank you!!

Jolie

[Arky]

Jolie, if you wish to chelate, you have a choice - go the uncertain, insufficiently-researched 'food substances' route (cilantro), or the carefully-controlled frequent-dosing 'isolate substances' route (Alpha Lipoic Acid, DMSA, DMPS). Note that when I speak of 'frequent-dosing' I am referring to oral ingestion, not IV. See the work of Andy Cutler for details, again, some of which I've summarised in previous recent posts.

I'm not going to tell you which you should choose but what I am going to tell you is that you would be very foolhardy indeed not to do a good deal of research before starting any chelation protocol.

If you follow the links in my previous post, above, you'll find plenty of discussion on pros and cons of various chelation approaches. These discussions are in no way complete, in and of themselves, but they, and the sub-links they contain, offer a sufficient overview for you to move forwards with your own research efforts.

Please note that although I prefer, at almost every opportunity, to use food substances for healing, I found, after researching chelation, that in order for me to undertake chelation in a safer and more-controlled fashion, it seems necessary for me to use isolates. Please also note, however, that although the likes of DMSA and DMPS are synthetic, ALA (Alpha Lipoic Acid) is a natural substance, albeit carefully isolated and standardised for chelation purposes.

Well, you must draw your own conclusions.

Make the effort to do your own research - chelation is not something to be trifled with because it can profoundly affect one's brain, for good or for bad, depending on the approach used. Enough said.

I wish you the very best of health.

[Arky]

I definitely think the possibility of mercury overload in my system is a real possibility because I used to eat a ton of fish thinking it was healthy for me.

The fish mercury (methyl-mercury) issue is an interesting one. Some say the levels are dangerously high in fish such as shark, swordfish, and very mature/large deep sea tuna, whilst others play it down.

Much of the attention in discussion of mercury toxicity tends to focus upon industrial exposure, vaccines (Thimerasol vaccine-preservative is mercury-based), and dental amalgams.

However, it is acknowledged in these same discussions that there do seem to be genetic differences in each person's physiological/cellular ability to tolerate, detoxify and excrete mercury compounds from the body. Consequently, what mercury exposures one person may be able to harmlessly excrete (or tolerate without excretion), another person may be severely intoxicated by. This is a key point for another reason - if one is genetically predisposed to poorly excrete mercury then even small exposures (e.g. methylmercury from fish consumption) may incrementally accumulate to a high level within body tissues if, for example, fish is eaten frequently for many months, years or decades.

Since hair elements analysis is so economical, it is just good common sense to act upon a reasonable hypothesis of possible heavy metals toxicity, if one has enough health symptoms correlating with those known to occur in heavy metal-intoxicated individuals. The point I'm trying to make is that some people, and some doctors, will simply rubbish any suggestion that fish (for example) can cause serious heavy metal toxicity issues, or they or the patient may be unable to identify any point in life when heavy metal exposure may have occurred, but rather than be dissuaded by that, it's cheap and simple to get an accurate answer from a scientific lab, with no harm done either way. (note that interpretation of such testing does require skill, however - see Cutler's guidelines in his book 'Finding Hidden Toxicities'). Speaking from personal experience, I went almost a decade without any doctor offering me an explanation for my symptoms - I had to figure it out for myself and get myself tested privately. I explored numerous possible hypotheses over the years, coming to various dead-ends and spending money on things which turned out not to be of help, but it all brought me step-by-step closer to realising heavy metals were the key. The irony of it is that the hair elements analysis is so darned cheap I could have saved myself a fortune, and many years, simply by chancing the test 10 years ago! Oh well...life is nothing if not a learning process... ;)

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Since being 100% raw l have noticed that l can handle the cold so much better than when l was eating cooked food.

[Arky]

Should I expect to feel sick/tired if they work?

Well, that is a definite possibility, yes. As has been mentioned, Mercury is a catalyst which promotes oxidation. This is very stressful to the cells of the body and generates huge numbers of free radicals. When one attempts to chelate mercury out of the body, mercury unfortunately doesn't go quietly - it likes to do as much oxidative damage as it can (visualise it as 'kicking and screaming', if you will) on the way out. It always does this, but during chelation, the levels of oxidation tend to increase somewhat. This is one reason why Andy Cutler is so explicit regarding the need to ensure a relatively consistent level of chelation substance in the blood stream (achievable through disciplined frequent-dose orally-ingested use of chelation substances). If blood levels of chelation substance(s) are allowed to decline too far, greater oxidation can occur than if blood levels of chelators are kept even. Of course, one cannot chelate indefinitely (frequent-dose chelation tends to be done in 'rounds' of approximately 3 days, with 3 or 4 hours between each dose, even at night). Consequently, there will always inevitably be some increased oxidative load/damage occurring at the tail end of each round, as ingestion of chelation substance(s) is tapered and ceased. Vitamins E (fat-soluble) and C (water-soluble) are consumed in high doses in order to best protect cells from this oxidative damage during, and following, chelation rounds.

In short, then, the more disciplined one is in accurately following the correct dosage schedule, then, relatively-speaking, the less oxidative stress is likely to occur and the better one is likely to feel during (and in between) chelation rounds.

For example, I'm currently chelating with DMSA only (which does not cross the blood brain barrier), and I've found, through personal experience, that if I leave a gap of more than 3 hours 45 mins between my DMSA doses, I experience very unpleasant discomfort in the kidney regions of my back. However, if I consume DMSA at 3hrs spacing, no such pain occurs, even though I'm technically consuming more grams of DMSA per day.

When one begins using Alpha Lipoic Acid (which does cross the blood-brain barrier and thus allows passage of mercury away from (or to) the brain) symptoms may, of course, differ from those when using DMSA alone. I know from experience that ingestion of cilantro or NDF gives me a pounding headache and hugely-increased tinnitus 'volume', both of which may very well be due to passage of mercury from my organs/bloodstream into the brain (mercury is well-known to be one cause of tinnitus).

In Andy Cutler's book on Dental Amalgam Illness, he has a diagram, on page 52, of a typical pattern the body seems to go through, over the course of the first year of chelation. It is apparently common for one to experience improvement in the initial months, followed by a plateau for a few months (and possibly even a worsening of symptoms), followed by a gradual resumption of improvement in the months and years thereafter. Chelation is a very slow process and requires commitment and an awareness that symptoms may improve and then worsen for a time, before improving again. That's just the way of it, and there's no way yet known of accelerating the process (IV chelation does not accelerate it and can apparently be highly dangerous. DMPS is commonly administered intravenously - see dmpsbackfire.com).

In the end, it's up to you to take personal responsibility for getting yourself tested and, if a diagnosis of heavy metal toxicity is thereby confirmed, to also take responsibility for choosing if and how you chelate.

Hope that's answered your question to some extent. More on the internet if you read the archives at ww.onibasu.com/wiki/Cutler_protocol

All the best.