I’ve found the worst dimension of an acute health issue is not the pain, not the exhaustion, not any of the symptoms. These are all difficult, but the worst element of all is the vast uncertainty about what the heck is going on – it’s something serious, but what?
You could say this all started when I got my ribs cracked playing Frisbee – nothing dramatic; a few cracked ribs, and some slow-healing pain. And, a few days later, too much magnesium – which of course, involves symptoms similar to a collapsed lung or lung complications. So that was fun, figuring that out, and realizing it was almost certainly not lung complications.
Day #1
This was the backdrop as we drove off on our family road trip – slated to be a 24 hour drive over two days. From the start, things were already a bit rough as a result of the correct rib and the magnesium toxicity – an annoying shortness of breath, and difficulty with circulation in the extremities.
Things seemed to get better around noon, but as the afternoon progressed, things got noticeably worse, and it wasn’t sure why. As I munched more beef jerky.
Things slowly got worse, and Sunday I realized that I was going to pass out and crash the car if I continued.
I started logging after it happened. From my logs:
“very short on breath, arms and legs and hands falling asleep, light headed, pounding heart – shock symptoms. I started to fight blacking out, so I pulled over at a gas station and almost blacked, went to the bathroom. Back out to the car, lay down while Caitlin drove, felt slightly more stable after about 45 minutes.”
I stopped and got a finger pulse Ox, and of course my O2 was normal. Threw me for a loop.
Day #2
The next day, still thinking it was related to lung complications (pneumonia, or possibly partially collapsed lung) I failed to put 2+2 together and continued eating the jerky. Not too surprisingly, as the day went on my symptoms got worse again, and I finally just went to the urgent care and got an x-ray. At this point, I could barely stand up for more than a few minutes at a time, and was having wretched shortness of breath.
That afternoon, I realized it might be the jerky after finally getting massive bloating (which, surprisingly, I hadn’t before – some, but not extreme like it used to be), and stopped eating it. Thankfully.
A few days later, the x-ray came back all clear. At that point, I was pretty darn sure I had indeed gotten glutened, twice. But I had already more or less recovered in terms of being able to eat quasi-normally, etc.
Day #9
7 days later, one of my extended family who met us at our destination brought home gluten-free bread. So far so good.
I proceeded to bring out my butter, and butter some bread. So far so good.
The family member put some GF bread in the toaster, then buttered it. Without thinking, I pulled out a fresh piece of GF bread, and also used the same butter. Ta-da! Glutening #3.
From my logs:
Blood pressure plummet [*actually, the next time around I tested my blood pressure, and I think it’s actually elevating my blood pressure dramatically] and weakness after 30m or so; extreme weakness. Stomach fire feeling. An hour or two later I did ice – should have done that earlier. Took activated charcoal then as well.
Bleeding gums, twitching muscles, shaky afterwards, fast heart rate, bloating, difficulty breathing fully (shock symptoms)
Day #10
Logs:
Next-day symptoms similar to last time (on the way down) – shortness of breath, shakiness, weakness/exhaustion, forgetting to breathe, etc.
Especially at 9am (fasted as of ~8:30 the night before) morning bile dump hit hard.
By Day #11, I could eat brats again, and fruit. My stomach still hurt, and I had A lot of exhaustion and shortness of breath, with some peripheral neuropathy.
Day #18
We’re back home (after a ridiculous van repair fiasco) and Caitlin takes the kids to Costco. Normally, you’re referring from giving the kids smooches after Costco, just to be safe. But, I didn’t realize they had gone to Costco (and gotten croissant samples) – and I gave the baby some smooches. Glutening #4.
Logs:
6pm: Weakness, left pectoral spasming, light headedness, difficult drawing a full breath
6:15: HIGH blood pressure, 147/78
6:20: anxiety, collapse, cold shivering
6:50: icing duodenum; still ~weak and shaky but stabilizing slowly
7:50: stomach fire. Still ~weak and shaky. BP now 125/77.
Stomach fire all night, ouch. Extremities falling asleep or tingling routinely all night. Up at 4am the next morning, as usual recently.
Did DMSO and activated charcoal.
I was still optimistic after that. I skipped eating the next day – ate some animal kidney and drank sauerkraut juice – but The next day I made a very big mistake. I ate some dairy (fermented kefir) and tried my usual strategy of eating a lot of meat. But my gut clearly wasn’t ready for either: I wound up hurting myself even more. (*I have several genes that dispose me to have inflammation with dairy)
The next week was a nightmare: peripheral neuropathy, continual random bouts of weakness, shakiness, weird frazzled nerves or uncertainty, etc.
I finally realized that I could be in deep due to if I didn’t do something, so I buckled down and wrote out my plan (7 days later; Day #25).
This time around, I did a few things different.
- I used icing as soon as possible after glutening, the idea being too restrict blood flow to the area, and minimize reaction
- I used DMSO, both topically on the area and orally, The idea being that DMSO helps preserve cells that would otherwise die (fascinating topic by the way; this one of the many reasons why DMSO is so helpful with just about everything; Downs Syndrome, wounds, headachs, etc.) – HOWEVER, My thought is that by preserving those cells, recovery took longer than normal because instead of just being eliminated, they had to heal.
- Because of that, I focused on trying to go easy on the gut in terms of digestive juices – i.e. starting the day with berries, and eating tiny amounts to minimize bile, stomach acid, and pancreatic enzymes (all of which could theoretically aggravate the injured villi)
- I believe that my nerve stuff was the result of electrolyte imbalance. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as just taking more electrolytes, because absorption is virtually non-existent in the key areas of the gut (duodenum and beyond). I’m guessing the only reason I didn’t get dehydrated is because the Colon can also absorb water – but it basically can’t absorb electrolytes, which makes for an imbalance.
- To counter this, I finally began dissolving my electrolytes in water to make them easier to absorb, and drinking that one mouthful at a time, and trying to absorb it through my mucous membranes in my mouth. I also drink that mouthful one tiny bit at a time over about 5 minutes. Interestingly, the day after I started that, all my peripheral neuropathy and nerve damage symptoms went away.
- I also did a light (not intense) sauna daily. I also sat out in the sun at solar noon for 15-20m.
- Interestingly, although the scenario was horrible, it was distinctly different from Long Covid, which had far more comprehensive effects. Very interesting.
I wrote down my strategy in my logs:
STRATEGY:
SMALL MEALS, medium fat content
eat at:
9:30 – berry smoothie
11:30 – tiny bit of meat, sauerkraut
1:30 – same
4 or 5 – same
DMSO, ginger tea, and black pepper w each
Eat only a little bit – about the size of a golf ball or two.
Water + Salt, and B12+Folate every 3 hours, set timer
Sauna first thing (@135 for 20m)
Green light therapy during day
Red during night
Waking: NAC, warm water
Bedtime: kidney, NAC, ginko, NattoK
Misc food Options: beats, berries, smoothie, sauerkraut, broth, honey, ghee, applesauce, deer meat, garlic, yeast, grapes – no onions!
I had pig slaughtering and butchering on Day #26. I think that wound up being one of the more helpful things as well; not intense lifting/exercise, but the constant moving, shifting, effort all day long kept things moving in the gut, not allowing the gastric juices to clog and destroy. I think. Anyways, that was helpful.
Currently, as of writing this, I still haven’t tried dairy, but I’m slowly adding more foods. One more thing that I think is made a vast difference: I’ve cut out 100% of preservatives (or tried to) except salt, because the human body will of course have natural mechanisms for salt. I’ve become a firm believer that in this catch 22, the microbiome needs the terrain, and the terrain needs the microbiome – preservatives snuff out the microbiome, which then fail to colonize and construct the gut terrain – aka tissue healing. Basically soft antibiotics.
We’ll see how it goes, but so far… Ok.
*update: after pig butchering, I stopped doing all the things; not feeling so great, feeling like I’m backsliding. Going to start sauning again, and timing my meat intake.
