Pain during fasting and/or ketosis

[LPH39]

Hi all, I have recently in the past month gradually reduced my carbs whilst doing time restricted eating between 16-21 hours a a day. I have had a couple of non fast days.

It took almost three weeks to see an improvement in my glucose levels but once I saw it I was delighted. I have now just yesterday decided to follow a ketobiotic diet of 50g carbs a day.

My problem is twofold:

1. I am not losing any weight. Its been a bit up and down but as it stands I have only lost 2kg since I started.

2. I have several long term health conditions which leave me less mobile than your average 47 year old woman. One is Chronic Widespread Regional Pain syndrome and I am awaiting consultant assessment for multiple sclerosis as my symptoms have change.

To put it in a nutshell my flare ups have gone crazy this last month. I am almost constantly in pain - bone pain, muscular pain deep dragging gnawing pain all over. My neurological symtoms seem better but this pain is really really ramping up by the day.

I’m starting to lose my resolve and I feel like
giving up but I know this type of metabolic healing takes a long time and my body and liver is fighting to rid the fat and toxins. What I wanted to know is does anyone else experience this whilst fasting and doing keto? Or is it related to my conditions, and if so is it OK to take opiod painkillers whilst on doing thir or will it take me out of ketosis?

TIA

 

[Deleted member 475901]

I didn't try longer fasting than 12 hours or cutting carbs that low as I found I could get into remission without it. But I was on codeine 3 times a day until my pain meds changed last year. The only issue I had with that was constipation - but milled flaxseed and chia seeds for breakfast helped.

How did you decide that 50g carbs a day was the right amount for you? Did you test before and after meals?
I used testing to discover my body could get into remission on 85g a day (I know I was lucky and some need to go much lower).

And I did manage to lose weight at first while spending a lot of my time in bed, although it slowed then stopped a couple of years ago.

 

[KennyA]

50g carb a day might put you in ketosis, or it might not. It wouldn't do it for me - I come out at around 40g/day.

If you're going to aim for ketosis, you'll need some way of checking. You can either use a meter with keto strips, which is the expensive route, or the peestix. The peestix are by no means accurate but they will (in my experience) indicate if there are ketones and give a rough idea of the concentration. I think that's probably good enough for these purposes.

Losing 2kg is not to be sniffed at. I didn't lose a great deal of weight until long after my BG was back in normal range. Most people report substantial weight loss while in ketosis. It's also (in my experience) not a steady loss - it plateaued frequently and then restarted for no discernible reason.

I sympathise with the pain. I don't think mine is related to either diabetes or ketosis, in fact I'm sure it's not. I take naproxen as needed and that has no impact on my BG that I can see. Codeine doesn't either. If you don't manage the pain you'll find it much harder to manage anything else.

Best of luck.

 

[JenniferM55]

Sorry you're having such pain. I'm wondering if it might be an electrolyte imbalance? When you're in ketosis it's advised to take Magnesium and potassium supplements together with sodium because we lose much of these minerals in the keto process. I've been supplementing but I've still been getting really painful night cramps in my legs. Then I read about a doctor who was suffering night cramps even though she was taking the supplements, she found that seasoning her food with Himalayan rock salt worked. I've been doing that for about a week now and haven't had a single issue with cramp. The rock salt is great, though you could say is a bit gritty, I don't mind that because the grit is the natural minerals.