I still have diarrhea 2 months into raw foods...help

[streetsurfer]

You might be dysbiotic in the gut. An increase in your fermemted foods and possibly supplementing probiotics would be my recommendation. Kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, etc. In time then, when the good and bad intestinal bacteria are better balanced, you may be able to forego those and maintain your current eating style.

How's it going for your now? Have you gotten any relief?

For the neck stiffness and migraines, I would see a dentist and ask if you might suffer from bruxism. A dentist can check for abfraction and examine your teeth and be able to tell. If you have a sleeping partner you can ask them if you grind at night. This affliction wears at the muscles of the jaw as you sleep and they get no healing rest at night......it can affect the jaw joint, the neck muscles and vertebrae, some muscles that wrap your skull, and can leave you feeling like a truck ran over you as you wake in the morning, including migraines and headaches. Can cause shoulder and neck pain, hangover feelings, fatigue, aches, etc. A bite guard called NTI/TSS will give you relief overnight if your dentist finds you do clench or grind and can prescribe one for you.

[Arky]

Having been away from the board for several months, I'm a bit late in posting an answer, but just wanted to say I totally agree with Streetsurfer's suggestion about possible dysbiosis.

In addition, a few other things occur to me, having read your posts, here, chase LSU:

I drink until my urine is clear. I don't really keep track. I urinate fairly clear around 10 times/day.

* Urinating 10 times a day is, frankly, rather excessive. It is not necessary to drink so much that your urine turns clear. It is also worth noting that such a high fruit intake as yours is likely to stress the insulin system of your body, and you would do well to consider that if the insulin system is struggling under the duress of excessive fructose intake, then one may logically anticipate that the body might attempt to purge some of the sugar via the urine. In the old days, doctors used to have a very rudimentary preliminary test if blood sugar problems were suspected in a patient - they'd literally taste the patient's urine to see if it tasted slightly sweet! Anyway, I'm not suggesting you have diabetes, I'm merely pointing out that urinating 10x a day is excessive and that you'd be wise to consider why you may be urinating so much due to a well-meaning but misguided attempt to ensure your urine is clear, or if there might just possibly be a blood sugar issue at play instead/as well.

Diarrhea is in fact a detox symptom. No doubt about that! Diarrhea detox for 2 months though? How about diarrhea detox for 6 months? What about 15? How long am I supposed to deal with raging diarrhea every morning before I start to ask questions? I'm just looking for someone with personal experience with the issue, that's all. I'm curious as to how long people with these kinds of bowel/digestive issues need to stick with the program until they see results.

* Forgive me for being blunt (I mean no disrespect at all), but it is naive to place so much relative certainty on diarrhea being indicative of detox. Sure, it can be, in the short term, but anything more than a few days and alarm bells should be ringing! Again, dysbiosis is a major possible candidate, and supplementation with probiotics (be they food-based and/or supplement-based) is certainly a very wise option to consider (although please consider my discussion, further down this post, on the potential issue of tyramine intolerance).
Also consider that you may be intolerant of one or more of the foods you are eating. I know from personal experience that bananas, for example, can be a problem if one has dysbiosis, since they contain plenty of soluble fibre which can feed pathogenic bacteria in the gut (and your overall high-fructose diet can feed pathogenic bacteria, too). An elimination diet (no pun intended!) can be helpful in establishing what, if any, food(s) in one's diet might be contributing to the digestive system purging itself (diarrhea).
Also bear in mind that longterm diarrhea is potentially very dangerous - it can lead to electrolyte imbalance and (again from personal experience, albeit arising from a different cause than diarrhea) I can tell you that electrolyte imbalance is REALLY bad news, and I don't say that lightly. I'm glad you are consuming plenty of greens, but nonetheless, the rate of daily electrolyte excretion due to diarrhea can exceed the rate of daily electrolyte intake via fruits and vegetables, so please take this very seriously. You can't carry on with this longterm diarrhea without some serious potential consequences. I'm not saying that to worry you; I'm saying it to make you sit up and realise that you must get this situation under control soon, to avoid additional health consequences; don't allow it to drift on for longer.

I'm trying to get rid of acne, insomnia, neck stiffness, migraines (already gone, actually), veins under my eyes, etc

* I'm intrigued at your rundown of symptoms. As you may already realise, they are not 'just' symptoms - they are, potentially, extremely valuable clues.

I can't address every single one if them within this post (not least because it's 4am as I type this and I need sleep!), but I will make a couple of suggestions that may simultaneously answer more than one of them (and this is often a useful approach, since in circumstances where a patient is experiencing a cluster of symptoms, these rarely occur due to a '100%-seperate-cause-per-symptom').


..so what could possibly link together the above symptoms?

Well, in considering neck stiffness and migraines, for example, one could blandly point to a generalised need of the body to detox and/or to a generalised state of a body currently undergoing detox, and indeed, this may actually be the case.

But, to conclude this reply as briefly as I can(!), since I need sleep, I'll offer another possible suggestion. In offering the following suggestion, please note that I am in no way implying that I consider it to be conclusive or that it necessarily excludes other possible causes. It's merely one possible hypothesis of many. So, with that said, I'll be very brief:



(Continued below...)

[Arky]

(...Continued from above)




Acne can relate to bowel dysbiosis (esp. if one has been prescribed antibiotics in the near or distant past).
Acne can also relate to poor digestion of fats/oils.
Acne can also be related to less-than-ideal levels of certain hormones.

Can any of those acne factors be connected to your other symptoms of insomnia, neck stiffness, and migraines? Well, yes.

One very possible underlying cause which can viably link all of these is poor hepato-biliary health (liver-gallbladder).

The liver and gallbladder are intimately, and sequentially, linked, on an anatomical and functional level. Again, I'm trying to be brief, here. Suffice to say that if the function of the gallbladder and/or the liver are impeded to a significant extent, then one or more, or all of the following sub-points can co-exist due to the same cause:

#~Dysbiosis can arise due to inadequate or inappropriate bile secretion into the bowel - correct levels are required, and at the correct time, or bowel pH can be negatively affected, which can lead to proliferation of pathogenic bacteria in the gut, which can lead to diarrhea.

#~Poor secretion of bile can lead to a degree of 'stagnation' within the liver and thus impede its ability to fully detoxify certain food chemicals which are ordinarily rendered non-toxic but which may now find themselves excreted directly into the bile in a still-toxic state, which can irritate the bowel, and an irritated bowel becomes inflamed and more likely to purge in response to certain foods (I can go into much more detail, but not right now, I'm too tired). This can have one hell of a cascade/domino effect on the immune system, the entire body, and the various organs.

#~The liver is considered, in TCM, to detoxify most during the time between the (approximate) hours of 10pm-3am. Impeded liver detoxification can consequently be associated with insomnia - strange but apparently true.

#~The liver is the metabolic clearing-house of the body. It not only synthesizes many compounds, but also breaks down many compounds to basic components, either for the purposes of excretion or for the purposes of re-use in other combinations. A liver whose function in this regard has been compromised to some extent may therefore have difficulty maintaining appropriate levels of certain hormones, including oestrogen and melatonin. Remember that acne can be influenced by the levels of some hormones (it may be no coincidence that acne is so prevalent amongst pubescent teenagers, for example). Also bear in mind that if melatonin cannot be metabolised appropriately by the liver, then this may have a knock-on effect on sleep patterns, since the brain may not respond appropriately to inappropriate levels (or durations) of melatonin (interestingly, many people with mercury intoxication experience melatonin / sleep issues, but I digress...)

#~A liver which is unable to detoxify effectively (and, indeed, a bowel in a state of dysbiosis, for that matter) can lead to severe headaches. But even further than this, a liver whose detoxification abilities are compromised may, as already stated, become unable to effectively detoxify certain specific food chemicals. This is an interesting, and broad, topic in itself. I could go into great detail, but I'll just provide one example for now: that of the mono amine 'Tyramine'. Tyramine is contained in nuts, seeds, grains, ripe fruits, fermented foods, chocolate, and a whole host of other foods which I won't list here. Because the liver is a gargantuanly-complex organ, with many different detoxification routes, and associated enzymes, it is possible for certain toxins or conditions to compromise the functioning of many, or sometimes only one, of these detoxification routes. From personal experience, I can tell you that I've suffered several different food sensitivities on account of impaired liver function, over the past several years, and that these have changed depending on the condition of my liver. Consequently, in addition to various, fluctuating, food intolerances over the years, I have actually experienced the very specific onset of Tyramine intolerance and it is extremely unpleasant - it can lead to constriction of the blood vessels in the presence of tyramine (if a tyramine-containing food has been accidentally consumed), and this can lead to severe migraines.

#~Neck stiffness is a well-known symptom of gallbladder issues (it can, of course, have other causes, but nonetheless it is a common symptom in patients who experience gallbladder issues).

#~You were ambiguous about 'veins underneath your eyes' - do you mean eyeballs or lower eyelids? Endothelial issues can be related to compromised liver detoxification (circulating toxins can damage the endothelial lining of blood vessels. Systemic inflammation may also occur etc. etc.), and this can lead to visible symptoms such as varicose veins, hemorrhoids, and pronounced visibility of veins in other areas of the body, etc.
Since the liver relies specifically upon biliary excretion for the detoxification of certain compounds such as chlorine/chlorides, compromised (or exhausted) biliary function can lead to poor detoxification of such compounds, and chlorine, for example, is well known to be irritating to the eyes themselves. Chlorine may be present in drinking water. Chlorides may be present in some supplements, and of course is present in common salt (sodium chloride or potassium chloride).
If your lower eyelids were swollen, or dark, then this can be related to poor kidney function and/or electrolyte imbalance (e.g. due to excessive electrolyte excretion on account of the longterm diarrhea, or perhaps due to excessive potassium from all those bananas you're eating/drinking each day!)

Anyway, it's now 5:30am(!) so I'm going to stop and get some sleep. Suffice to say that, as you can see, the above sub-points all point to a reasonable hypothesis of a possible underlying physiological link between your various symptoms.

The hypothesis may or may not be correct in your individual case, but in the event that it is not correct for you, it may nonetheless offer some insight into other possible hypotheses. For example, I haven't even discussed the issue of candida overgrowth, which, whilst, admittedly, a highly contentious topic, does encompass issues such as the presence of acetaldehyde, which is hard work for the liver to detoxify (particularly in the absence of molybdenum, and in the presence of other toxins which may already be compromising the detoxification ability of the liver). Acetaldehyde can cause nasty headaches, and candida overgrowth can be strongly related to compromised immune function (which can occur when the liver is compromised in relation to toxin overload), and may be promoted by consumption of excessive dietary sugars (e.g fructose), since excessive dietary sugars can both directly feed candida within the gut (along with numerous pathogenic microbes) and can compromise immune function.
I also didn't discuss certain specific toxic substances such as heavy metals, which can set in motion many of the physiological processes I described during my hypothesis.

Can you see how complex and how incredibly-interrelated many of these patho-physiological processes can be? It's fascinating but challenging. I've tried, as best I can, to be brief yet informative in this reply. Owing to the complexity of the topic, describing the numerous possibilities means that there is always a risk of a reply expanding in length at an exponential rate, which tends to be confusing to the reader, and therefore counter-productive.


Bringing this back to a practical level, the more detailed you can be in documenting exactly what symptoms you have (now and in the run-up to your present situation), your longterm medical/health history, what medical or dental treatments you might have had (be they physical, surgical, or pharmaceutical etc.), and in keeping a detailed ongoing Food-&-Symptom diary, the more chance you are likely to have of figuring out, with your doctor's help, what may be the cause of your current health issues. This takes time, dedication and effort, but I know from my own experience that it is a waste of time to simply expect your doctor to have all the answers - doctors cannot possibly know all the intricate details of every patient they see (even with a computerised medical record at hand), and patients do not present themselves with detailed labels of their symptoms underlying physiological causes. Therefore, sometimes a doctor's training, experience, skill, and diligence will happen to combine to yield an accurate diagnosis, but it is highly unrealistic and unfair for patients to simply expect that this will always be the case. It is therefore absolutely vitalpatients accept a degree of personal responsibility for their own healthcare and to make some contribution to the diagnosis process. Some doctors will arrogantly dismiss this, but some will appreciate the patient collaborating with them in achieving a diagnosis.

Take care, and remember that I am not a doctor and I am not telling you what to do, I'm just suggesting possible avenues you may explore in seeking answers to your situation - you should always consult your qualified doctor before making any medical decisions.

I wish you well.


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