Thursday, February 21, 2019

Miracles! Biofeedback Heart Rate Coherence & the No Fiber Diet

Let's start with the disclaimer: The Biofeedback Heart Rate Coherence has been recommended by my doctor, and he is monitoring my progress. The no fiber diet is something upon which I have embarked myself, from the suggestion of other patients.

Biofeedback

Let's be real. If you haven't seen the latest in #Biofeedback, you are missing out. I originally did biofeedback for relaxation & pain back in the '00 and I was not impressed. I could relax myself to amazing levels and it had no effect on my pain.

However, now there's...

Heart Rate Coherence

This shiznit blows my mind. I was completely skeptical given my previous experience, but WOW! have there been advancements. There's a whole protocol for breathing to bring the heart and breath into synchronization. Yeah, it sounds like some hippy dippy stuff, but I'll be damned if it didn't work!

Here's what happened: I'm using the (#nonspon) www.heartrateplus.com app (the pro version) for 20 minutes a day twice a day. I came back from my doctor's last night to do my first session at home. I was in terrible pain and was having so much difficult walking, I was bedridden. So I figured, now's a good time to try...

After 20 minutes, not only was I in less pain, but I was in SO much less pain that I was able to get back on my feet immediately (impossible with just rest) and stay on my feet long enough to cook an actual meal! That's an absolute miracle, folks. YMMV, but I highly recommend this app for anyone dealing with chronic pain and pain flares.

No Fiber Diet

I've had long-running problems with my digestion, and like most of you, I've done everything under the sun as far as elimination diets and so forth. But it's gotten bad with me. The nausea and gut pain have been so terrible, that even with some medication helping (cannabis), I've slowly shrunk down to 120 lbs, fifteen pounds lighter than my skinniest weight when I was dying and a full 25 pounds lower than a healthy weight for my height. I am skin and bones, and I was required to add potassium supplements because my digestion was so bad. That is NOT normal for adrenal insufficiency AT ALL. Normally you should avoid potassium with my disease. But I wasn't able to eat enough to keep my levels up.

Enter in Dr. Paul Mason, gut researcher in Australia: Effect of Reducing Dietary Fiber



I knew that fruits and vegetables were difficult for me to digest and would make me sick (especially fruit), and had pretty much eliminated them from my diet. However, I've also always thought that meat was difficult for mer to digest, and had been avoiding that as well. I was living mainly on grains and dairy. Well... looks like the grain was a bad idea.

So now I'm embarking on a No Fiber Diet, eliminating grains, nuts, seeds... Pretty much a carnivore diet, with dairy, sugar and spices allowed. Yes, this is a protocol I have made for myself, but based on research. I'm eating ground lamb, grass-fed ground beef, open-air-free-range eggs (eggs have historically been horrible for me, only to be eaten sparingly), young & cottage cheese (to avoid migraine triggers), nitrate-free bacon/salami, Greek yogurt, butter, milk, carbonated water, and my trademark Red Bull.

I'm on day 4 and my discoveries have been this:
  1. I can digest meat! So far, so good.
  2. Eggs, when thoroughly cooked, can be eaten daily!
  3. My appetite is back!!!!

That last one is the biggest... I haven't felt hungry in years, despite the anti-nausea medication, and that is just amazing. My body feels like it wants to live again, and that... well... I'm not big praising something on scant initial results, but the results have been so beyond what I even though possible, I'm calling it now: these are miraculous improvements.

Dare I have hope again? We shall see...