# 24 hours without any symptoms



## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

Another milestone in recovery, today I had no symptoms of DP/DR or anxiety. I started a ketogenic diet about 5 days ago, this involves eating a lot of meat and fat and no more than 25g of carbs. I had a lot of success managing mood with this diet before, but gave up on it because I was doing keto when I got my first panic attack. I thought long and hard about it and realized at the time I was not following the diet properly. It is an absolute must that you consume 80% of your calories from fat, I remember I would sometimes not eat at all because I was not hungry (symptom of the diet). I decided to make 7 days of meals with macros to the dot, with a bit extra calories for safety. The adaption phase can be stressful, so I can't say how it would be for others. I had experience with this before so maybe that's why it only took 5 days.

I'm not sure what the effect is long-term here, but today I had a normal day. I even managed to get in an intense workout and drove on a highway for 2 hours without getting that zoned out scary feeling. I'm going to keep up this diet for a few more weeks, and incorporate some supplements (I don't take any currently) as well as start making bone broth and fermented foods for gut health, all which contribute to good mood and lowered anxiety levels.


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## Grecian (Sep 3, 2015)

Interesting post. I've always wondered how a ketogenic diet would impact DP symptoms. Please keep updating!


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## jotteff (Aug 11, 2015)

Great to hear that you feel much better! 

But one thing: If you are convinced that this type of diet improved your symptoms, I can tell you that it was nothing but placebo. Low carb is bullshit, meat is unhealthy and all cells of our body and expecially the brain cells need glucose, which means we should eat plenty of quality carbs from fruits, vegetables etc. Carbs boost your concentration because they give you much energy. We humans are not made for this low carb bullshit. Not just my opinion, but a fact. Do you research, guys.


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## aworthycause (Mar 22, 2010)

jotteff said:


> Great to hear that you feel much better!
> 
> But one thing: If you are convinced that this type of diet improved your symptoms, I can tell you that it was nothing but placebo. Low carb is bullshit, meat is unhealthy and all cells of our body and expecially the brain cells need glucose, which means we should eat plenty of quality carbs from fruits, vegetables etc. Carbs boost your concentration because they give you much energy. We humans are not made for this low carb bullshit. Not just my opinion, but a fact. Do you research, guys.


What makes you so sure? Are you a nutritionist who has researched diets in relation to DP...?

It could be that some of the food that Alex617 stopped eating was aggravating his symptoms. All sorts of nasty conditions can be caused by foods for some people.


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## jotteff (Aug 11, 2015)

> What makes you so sure? Are you a nutritionist who has researched diets in relation to DP...?


No, but the high-carb-diet is simply the way nature wants us to eat, which means that it is the best and only completely correct diet. Sounds ignorant, I know. We all agree that good nutrition is important when you have DP, so you should go on the best diet possible, which is high carb. It's that simple.



> It could be that some of the food that Alex617 stopped eating was aggravating his symptoms. All sorts of nasty conditions can be caused by foods for some people.


That's right, but that still does not make the things he eats healthy.


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## Grecian (Sep 3, 2015)

jotteff said:


> No, but the high-carb-diet is simply the way nature wants us to eat, which means that it is the best and only completely correct diet. Sounds ignorant, I know. We all agree that good nutrition is important when you have DP, so you should go on the best diet possible, which is high carb. It's that simple.
> 
> That's right, but that still does not make the things he eats healthy.


Oh dear. If only life were that easy. Diet works differently for each and every person. It's up to the individual to work out what works for them.

In any case there are many books, journals and studies which conclude that the high carb lifestyle has a disasterous long term impact on our bodies and minds.


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## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

jotteff said:


> Great to hear that you feel much better!
> 
> But one thing: If you are convinced that this type of diet improved your symptoms, I can tell you that it was nothing but placebo. Low carb is bullshit, meat is unhealthy and all cells of our body and expecially the brain cells need glucose, which means we should eat plenty of quality carbs from fruits, vegetables etc. Carbs boost your concentration because they give you much energy. We humans are not made for this low carb bullshit. Not just my opinion, but a fact. Do you research, guys.


I do my research, a lot of it as a biomedical science student at a university ranked top 30 in the world for contribution to biological sciences. The fact that you sound so confident in your opinion is evidence that you have not done a day of proper research in your life. Actually your posts are of such low quality I suspect you might be trolling.

The ketogenic diet is a diet hunter gatherers had before the progression of argiculture, if you think nature has any desire for us to eat a certain way you prove further how ignorant you are about this topic. It's only in the last 60 or so years that carb intake has skyrocketed so much, hence the rise in obesity and other possible health issues. Did you know the body can produce its own glucose? Did you know fructose has been officially implicated with the growth of cancer cells?

Those who are interested, here are some links discussing the benefits of having a brain using ketones has on mood disorder:and the brain:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201104/your-brain-ketones

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201110/dietary-treatment-bipolar-disorder

http://www.neurorexia.com/2014/02/06/quieting-the-bipolar-mind-can-a-ketogenic-diet-stabilize-mood/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24721741(showing that there are structural improvements in the brain fueled on ketones)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15601609(showing that rats treated with ketogenic diet have similar improvements to those treated with antidepressants)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12790887(ketones reduce brain cell excitability)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4414129/(anti-aging properties of the ketogenic diet due to beta hydroxy ketones)

Not to mention the increased in powerful endogenous antioxidants such as glutathione and reduced oxidative stress on the body due to the better use of ATP the ketone has to glucose metabolism in the brain.

I do strongly suggest that people do their own research. This diet as a research topic is fairly new and a dramatic shift away from pragmatic dieting. I've read of people whose lives had changed following this high fat low carb protocol and those who do better on a diet with moderate carb intake. So please don't take my word for it.


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## Jodie (Oct 14, 2014)

^^ you go glen coco! jotteff jesus christ way to piss on someones parade what did you gain from that rant?


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## Jml02 (Jan 19, 2015)

People will disagree but I believe diet it a really big part of this... I have to do more research on this one but I am 4 days in on paleo diet and I thought I waant doing much better ... Then I accidentally ingesested gluten and with in an hour ..my whole body hurt!(non DP related) then I started to get surges of anxiety which I realized I had not had all day. Definitely not placebo to me especially because I thought the diet was a bust for me. They say it can take up to 6 months to reap the benefits of paleo completely. Anyway, good luck .. I believe you are on the right path !


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## Meticulous (Jul 30, 2013)

I agree with everyone on this thread. Personally, I believe the high-carb vegan diet is the way to go, because it yielded the best results for me. Meats are a bit more difficult on the body to digest. I don't believe meat is terribly bad for you, unless it's red meat of course.


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## optimusrhyme (Aug 24, 2004)

Pesco-Vegetarian diet has been working well for me. It has been hard for me to cut out meat completely, I think thats my ultimate goal. For now i'll continue to eat seafood.


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## vanuti vetru (Sep 7, 2015)

I'd be willing to try out the keto diet but i'm somewhat afraid of it. I'm a low carb eater in general and nowadays i feel pretty well consuming 80-120g of carbs a day, the other (main) source of energy being animal fats. However, when tried to go below 40g or so in past, i experienced symptoms which didn't seem like a typical case of keto flu. For instance, felt sudden sharp energy drops that left me feeling like almost unable to move. You probably know that kind of dream in which you try to run away from something but you don't have energy to even make a step. It felt very similar. Several times i almost collapsed while walking down a street. Not really sure but i think it might have been a psychosomatic thing to a degree.

Also, no matter how much fat i was ingesting, i couldn't feel satisfied as far as hunger goes. I kept thinking about food all the time. Also not sure why. Perhaps a dose of carbs was needed to initiate proper digestion?

The most significant thing however was how the VLC diet period coincided with my development of DP symptoms. I didn't fully realize this at the time but one day, while feeling low and overtaken with negative thoughts, i ate a dinner with quite a lot of rice in it. Almost instantly i felt how my brain fog disappeared. It worked like some SSRI wonder drug; the change felt so spectacular that it made me question for a while all the wisdom behind low carb diets. Later i noticed again and again that eating a portion or carbs actually calmed down my mind and allowed me to feel relaxed. Also it made me sleep much better. So i started to force myself to eat those 100g of carbs every day and it helped in managing the condition.

I definitely don't consider the keto diet evil etc. but perhaps going VLC is not for everyone? Or maybe, in my case, some other hidden condition is involved (infection, heavy metal toxicity or something).


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## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

So mandatory update, it's been about 1-1.5 weeks on this diet and unfortunately I am probably pulling the plug. While I had great success with this diet before where I would do it for over 6 months, I'm finding my mood has dropped significantly in the last two days. While I still don't have dp/dr symptoms the kind of 'dark' mood is probably far more dangerous.

It's really weird, once I had mental clarity and happiness on this diet now is the opposite, I wonder if something is structurally different about my brain that I'm having different results. Granted people say it takes 2-3 weeks to fully adapt and get over the hump, I think my body just isn't able to handle the stress of it in its current state. I've lost a few pounds and my skin is clear and glowing which is one benefit I've always had, mentally I'm just not getting that boost I had before.

Come to think of it, ketosis has a common side effect of making sleep lighter and more difficult. While some people appreciate needing only 5-6 hours of sleep per night, I think my brain needs every thing it can get in recovery. That is actually how I knew my mood drop was coming, 2-3 nights of poor sleep in a row. Carbs have the benefit of producing more serotonin which is important for sleep and mood so perhaps that's what I should be doing right now. So even if I was doing something wrong this time like limiting my calories or having poor sleep hygiene, I'm going to give paleo a shot to be safe.


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## London (Dec 23, 2016)

Keto helped me significantly but its not something to be taken lightly. Its a very serious strict diet that could have harmful outcomes if not done exactly. A few things to note;

Get into ketosis slowly don't go quickly.

Make sure your dietary fats are of a good quality - butter / coconut oil / olive oil / if possible organic animal fat.

Research Keto flu and be aware before it hits you - there are way to alleviate this e.g. increasing sodium intake

DO NOT COME OUT OF KETOSIS QUICKLY.

The Keto diet is given to epileptic children to reduce freq of fits - its very effective. I believe that DP is some form of inflammation and this diet is anti inflammatory.


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