Unexpected dip in inflamation.

Ive read stuff over the years talking about pro inflammatory and non inflammatory carbs - the former generally being the baddies in terms of diabetes too - sugar, processed carbs, corn syrup, fructose etc. Ive also read stuff citing inflammation as being a key factor in T2 diabetes. As with all nutritional comment tho I expect completely contradictorary analysis from other "experts" in nutrition - pays ya money and makes ya choice as the saying goes

I find my inflammation is worse after high-carb days - though I've also noticed that my body is growing increasingly sensitive to carbs. For example, on the 40 - 50g days, everything seems fairly groovy, low-ish pain levels and minimal swelling. On days when I've had to snack (instead of eat), and so have had something a bit higher in carbs (but certainly pushing my total no higher than 75g for the day), my inflammation (and pain) is noticeably worse.

Of course, this is possibly due to about a billion other things, not least that I'm moving house in two days and constantly moving, working, packing, stressing etc... so my BG will be generally higher (I've decided it's in my best mental health interests not to test my BG again until Friday - I know it will be high, I'll just get upset at how high).

Saying all that, though, I'd noticed a link between BG and swelling before the house move began - I think you're (we're?) into something.

After starting low carb then very low carb I definitely noticed the mild arthritis in one knee and the other hip improved. It actually disappeared completely for a while, but just as I was bragging about it, it came back slightly. It is still OK and milder than it was.

My inflammation (knees and hands mainly) seems to be directly linked to gluten.
After 10 years of constant discomfort (sometimes pain, sometimes severe), i went strictly gluten free.
It took a few months, but the inflammation just slowly faded away.
Marvellous.

And i'm currently experiencing a pain revival due to a bad food choice last week (2 glorious onion rings - hardly a disaster). So far it has been going a week.

Am very curious to see how long it lasts. A week of pain for 2 onion rings seems just a trifle excessive. But i suspect the end is not yet in sight...

There are many on the ketogenic forum who reckon they have had amazing results reversing and curing inflammation when eating keto. As always with these things anecdotal but here we can at least appreciate the power of anecdotal evidence s we have mostly experienced it ourselves. You often find similar things said in zero carb groups too. I think that what we eat has a huge effect on our overall health. I just wish I had found out about it years ago before sentencing myself to indigestion, sleep apnoea and weight gain unnecessarily.

What is this inflammation that seems to be the new general purpose illness much like ague or the dreaded lurgy? I understand that parts of the body can become inflamed, for example if you have a sore throat and it becomes hot and red as the immune system does its stuff as it is supposed to. I also know that rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks the joints. However it seems that inflammation is now used to describe a disease in itself rather than a symptom. If you want to know if diet affects inflammation, surely it depends on where the inflammation is?

I used to have a big problem with compulsive eating. The day after 'eating the house' I would hurt all over. Flinchingly so. For a couple of days afterwards - but in particular the next morning would be agony.

Most of the things I would eat would be carby. A whole packet of biscuits, a whole box of cereal, half a pound of mixed dried fruit intended for baking, multipacks of crisps, any meat & pastry combo............

Since going low carb I have felt so, so well - and indeed no longer have in the house things like biscuits, cereal, dried fruit or any of the other stuff I used to crave and binge on - nor have I had the compulsion to eat in that awful, awful way I used to. I am over that hurdle.

It is only relatively recently that I have read that there are links with high carb intake causing inflammation (and inflammatory pain). My own experience of any signs, if you like, of carbs causing inflammation, had consisted only of noticing quite some time ago that 'I don't get that awful pain any more'.

There are reasons other than pain (or its lack) for why I have stopped compulsively eating and indeed reduced my intake of carbs for easier control of my type 1. But I find it a very, very interesting point.



(Edited so as to be comprehensible!)

My back gets inflamed because of my lack of disk- the more inflamed, the more painful and the less movement I have. I've got an on-going wrist injury that will swell on days when I don't wear my splint enough, but on my lower carb days (or the day after, depending on how you look at it, I s'pose) the swelling is minimal. Also, menstrually speaking, I used to experience horrific swelling and pain, no matter the meds I was taking, and that's now significantly reduced - 30 years of having a week a month off work, and all I needed to do was stop eating carbs. Heh.

Let's not forget that women in general tend to suffer some kind of inflammation at least once a month for around 50 years of their lives, and potentially on a constant basis once their periods stop (osteosrthiritis, hormonal imbalances of various kinds, rheumatism etc). It's fine for blokes to scoff and shake their heads, but for many of us girls, it's a 4-weekly reality.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/neurology/study-suggests-that-inflammation-is-behind-period-pain/

I've had Sciatica pain in my left thigh for months.
After 2 weeks on HFLC diet I had no pain in my leg when turning over in the middle of the night.
And today the pain seems to have gone completely.

Fingers crossed.

bulkbiker said:

There are many on the ketogenic forum who reckon they have had amazing results reversing and curing inflammation when eating keto. As always with these things anecdotal but here we can at least appreciate the power of anecdotal evidence s we have mostly experienced it ourselves. You often find similar things said in zero carb groups too. I think that what we eat has a huge effect on our overall health. I just wish I had found out about it years ago before sentencing myself to indigestion, sleep apnoea and weight gain unnecessarily.

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Keto definatly helps stave off inflamation for me and even more with 1 hour a day exercise- if I miss a day of exercise I really pay for it for at least 2 days in various ways.Stress also when it ups my BG my whole body hurts scalp to heels .--- very interesting stuff.

letstalk1 said:

Keto definatly helps stave off inflamation for me and even more with 1 hour a day exercise- if I miss a day of exercise I really pay for it for at least 2 days in various ways.Stress also when it ups my BG my whole body hurts scalp to heels .--- very interesting stuff.

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This is the sort of thing I was talking about earlier in this thread. I don't doubt your symptoms but why is aching all over inflammation?

Mr_Pot said:

This is the sort of thing I was talking about earlier in this thread. I don't doubt your symptoms but why is aching all over inflammation?

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From the Wikipedia page on inflammation.. perhaps we should be more specific and talk about inflammatory disorders

• 6Inflammatory disorders
  • 6.1Atherosclerosis
  • 6.2Allergy
  • 6.3Myopathies
  • 6.4Leukocyte defects
  • 6.5Pharmacological
  • 6.6Cancer
  • 6.7HIV and AIDS
  • 6.8Resolution of inflammation
  • 6.9Connection to depression

Inflammatory markers can be measured by blood tests
https://patient.info/health/blood-tests-to-detect-inflammation

And all of this list create those inflammatory markers

• Certain infections (mainly bacterial infections).
• Abscesses.
• Rheumatoid arthritis.
• Various other muscular and connective tissue disorders - for example, polymyalgia rheumatica, giant cell arteritis or systemic lupus erythematosus.
• Tissue injury and burns.
• Some cancers- for example myeloma and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
• Crohn's disease.
• Rejection of an organ transplant.
• After operations.

(List taken from the same link)

My personal experience is that food/gluten intolerance sould be on that list.

Guzzler said:

In my opinion inflamation is not a disease in itself but a symptom. I mentioned it alone rather than go into detail about conditions other than diabetes as per my rotator cuff injury which is a tear.

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I'm not so sure its a symptom , more a pre-cursor to some pretty nasty things which we hopefully can void by not having it.

Guzzler said:

I tore one of the ligaments in my rotator cuff which then caused inflamation of the whole shoulder joint. Perhaps it is the 'ol chicken and egg but in this case I know which pain came first.

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Indeed in physical injury.. I was more thinking of inflammation being a marker for cancer, atherosclerorsis and things like that.