What am I Doing Wrong Now? :( page

[lexsi340]

Hey everyone!

I have very slowly eased myself (against nearly everyone's suggestions...) into Primal way, and even when I was still eating one gluten indulgence a day, the results were incredible. Depression, anxiety, weight, fatigue all dissapeared (apparently I wasn't crazy or lazy ). I found out before going on that I had a slow thryoid/adrenal fatigue (and obviously the previous problems stated).

I am pretty strict primal now, as since "detoxing" I have much stronger reactions to corn,soy,gluten, etc. than ever before... ANYWAY, I am starting to experience to my old symptoms, and after learning to live with them for 10+ years, it is very startling to experience them now.

Just wondering if anyone else had this problem starting out and what their solutions were?

One quick note for the ladies(sorry for the tmi!) : Approx. 5 months back I had the bc shot (mistake and misinformed by doctors!), back when I was just starting - didn't notice any immediate effects, although I am wondering if this is having any effect now. I lost my period for 4 months, and have now had it for 3 weeks. These are considered to be "normal" effects, but I'm wondering if synthetic ANYTHING (especially the way it manipulates hormones) could be harmful/anyone else has had experience with this??

[Balance]

Do you still have a daily indulgence of gluten? I know since I gave up gluten, when I go out to a restaurant and if they somehow throw some form of gluten in a recipe it really affects me pretty badly. If you are still having a daily indulgence maybe you should remove it strictly if you don't want those symptoms to flare up again.

Aside from diet, are you sleeping well, getting enough vitamin D and getting enough exercise?

[lexsi340]

Nope! No more daily indulgence, not at all. Definitely an increase in fruit with my moods, but I can't think that would be offsetting me so much..

I take 4,000IUs Vitamin D a day, sleep had been hard BUT when I finally fell asleep yesterday I slept for 12 hours. I felt much better in the morning, but that faded. Exercise has been moderate, I walk around a mile a day in commute and my job requires being fairly active - I had started Mark's Fitness plan last week but haven't been able to keep up with this lack of energy...

[NourishedEm]

Almost exactly the same thing happened to me. I have adrenal and thyroid issues and initially PB made me feel I'd found the cure. Unfortunately there's only so much your diet can do. At this stage I know I feel much better eating this way than any other, but I've had to address the adrenal and thyroid issues seperately.
I follow Dr James Wilson's Adrenal Fatigue recommendations including giving up all stimulants including coffee and chocolate, sleeping as much as I can, keeping stress low and practising relaxation. I also supplement with his adrenal rebuilder protocol. My thyroid issue (poor T4-T3 conversion) I believe is related to the adrenal fatigue so I'm hopefully fixing one by fixing the other. I have an appointment with my doc in a couple of weeks so we'll see.
There are also a couple of issues with PB that you'll want to leave until you're healed. IFing is a bad idea with adrenal/thyroid issues, very low carb eating is a real problem for some and the exercise needs to be taken easy. Don't workout to failure as it will take someone with adrenal issues ages to recover.
You may beed a little more Vit D depending on where you are. I take 9000iu daily.

Hope this helps

[Minxxa]

I agree with Em. Primal definitely will help with thyroid/adrenal issues because in the long run it allows your hormones to balance out. But... this takes a while. And... if you have thyroid/adrenal issues they may need some other assistance as well. I had/have both as well, and in the past two years my adrenals have gone back to "mostly" normal... and my thyroid is in range, though I still have some other issues that are taking their sweet time to resolve, so I've had to learn patience!

Some suggestions...

Dr. Wilson's Book on Adrenal Fatigue -- TOTALLY helpful for figuring out how things work and giving suggestions on what to do.

Get your thyroid and adrenals tested. Generally you need to treat your adrenals first and then thyroid but knowing where your thyroid is will help. Be sure to get the FULL thyroid panel (TSH, Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3 and antigens). Just getting a TSH is useless. Be sure to get your test results back and do the research on what they mean yourself. Most docs don't know diddly about the thyroid, although there are some great docs out there, but YOU need to know about it so you can appropriately interview docs to see if they know what they're talking about. Sad, but true! (I wasted 5 years by not doing this step...)

In the groups section here there is a thyroid group, mostly just links to good articles and suggestions and stuff, so you can take a look there as well.

Generally for my adrenals, I went the way of NOT taxing them and letting them rest and recover. Which means, no caffine, no high-stress activities (including things like high-stress exercise, like boot camp style stuff). My ND at the time recommended yoga and lots of walking at first, then some light bodyweight exercises, but keeping it very calm for my body. I also quit the job from hell I had (which blew my adrenals in the first place, but quitting the job really was a huge step in getting better). I took a couple of supplements for adrenals... Adreset by metagenics has a good blend of stuff, but there are others out there (like Dr. Wilson's above!). And, I think, most importantly.. I gave myself the time and permission to heal. Part of that, was pulling back from some of the things I always did... making sure I wasn't TOO busy each day and really paying attention to my stress levels and powering down at the FIRST sign of stress. I really babied myself. And it REALLY helped.

Wow, I do go on!

Hope some of this helps...

[lexsi340]

Thanks so much to the both of you! It's great to hear back from people who started with the same problems... I will definitely get that book and look into the thyroid groups.

I am reluctant to see "Western" doctor about adrenals/thyroid/ANYTHING but emergencies at this point. I was sloughed off for years and ignored.. although I do work with alternative medicine practitioners - my insurance doesn't cover naturopathy - any other an alternatives to getting my thyroid officially tested?

My stress level has definitely been up lately, and I have been drinking coffee/tea... Do I need to cut out caffeine forever/for a limited time/can I have it on a weekly basis? Any guidance here would be great...


For thyroid I take: Dr. Micheal's Thyroid health formula, primrose oil, and flaxseed oil and for adrenals I take the Natrabio Adrenal Support... But maybe this isn't enough.

[NourishedEm]

Start with Dr Wilson's book and go from there. He does suggest that caffeine is out completely in all forms, certainly while you're trying to heal. It's something I used to consume a LOT of and I've switched to decaf (although he reckons you should not even drink that given that it contains theobromines) because I love the taste of coffee. I'm sure once you're completely healed, the occasional caffeine indulgance won't hurt.

The fact is while you're trying to rest your adrenals and let them recover, there is no half-assed way to go about it. You need to really implement all the steps you can and allow yourself to get better.

As for getting your thyroid tested outside of the regular medical establishment, I don't know what your system is like over there (I'm in Australia). Over here however you require a referral from a GP in order to get blood labs taken. Can you bear to see one just long enough to ask for the blood test?

[NDF]

There are also a couple of issues with PB that you'll want to leave until you're healed. IFing is a bad idea with adrenal/thyroid issues, very low carb eating is a real problem for some and the exercise needs to be taken easy. Don't workout to failure as it will take someone with adrenal issues ages to recover.

What do you mean when you say "very low carb"? How low is "very low" to you?

[NourishedEm]

Very low to me is Atkins Induction level of 20. I manage ok at about 30-40, but there are a few people who have commented on the various thyroid threads that they need to sit at about 100 in order to function.