No. I have been to lots of doctors. More recently I have been told that we no more about the surface of the moon than we know about the neurotransmitters in the brain. We assume GABA is the fix for a lot of problems but in fact it might not even have anything to do with sleep or mood, etc… The most common advice you will see here, which I 100% agree on, is eat healthy, excercise, practice meditation (very important to brain health IMHO) and do Yoga if you can. Any other supplements, vitamins, etc… are all just experimentation and nothing has consistently worked for different people. Some people have gotten much worse messing around with vitamins like B12. I have stopped all vits, take a probiotic and thats it. Get lots of sunshine and live your best life.
The keto diet increases the ratio of gaba:glutamate
The wise Google says " Supplementing with magnesium, the amino acid taurine, kava root, and herbs like valerian, passionflower, and lemon balm have all been shown to help treat GABA deficiency symptoms by increasing GABA
About decreasing Glutamate, the Wise Google says " Lithium, as well as iodine and boron, can also assist in lowering Glutamate . Calcium intake in food may need to be reduced or limited if calcium is too high. Magnesium is also able to bind to and activate GABA receptors."
I’m doing both.
How are you affected by alcohol? I understand alcohol is pro-GABA and anti-Glutamate.
I’m reminded that one of the best PSSD recoveries over at PSSDforum was attributed to being prescribed lithium.
Thread on PSSDforum discussing Ketogenic diet’s potential for global demethylation: http://www.pssdforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=2132
Why not try Baclofen for GABA?
I don’t drink alcohol, take drugs or smoke cigarettes. I stopped 9 years ago. I’m trying to avoid prescription drugs as well but got stuck with Benzos as my only solution to get sleep at the time.
I will check on Lithium as it is a simple element (but so is Cyanide, Lead, Cadmium and Mercury…) and if is sounds like a good idea and I can get it from Thailand I will take some.
So far, 1000 mg of Taurine in the morning has kept me smooth and easy going. I can’t recall any anxiety since I started 2 weeks ago, but I did have depression and de-motivation. At The time I was skipping the second daily set of 5-HTP 100 mg, L-Tyrosine 1000 mg and L-Dopa 350 mg on an empty stomach in the afternoon.
I now take it twice a day, I’m feeling better. I also increase magnesium by 50%, take vitamin B6 60 mg and Zinc 20 mg. I will look at reducing vitamin D from 10000 IU of D2 to 1000 IU of D3.
I also stopped using Aspartame and changed it for 1 1/2 tsp of sugar in my coffee. That’s 6 gr of carbs. Plus 6.25 gr for the for the evening beef, cabbage and tomatoes, 0.75 gr for the lunch spinach and 1.5 gr for the almonds. I get a total of 14.5 gr of net carbs per day, which is 2.9% of my daily calorie intake. To stay ketogenic, you have to be below 4%…
I get 91 gr of protein from meat, 6 from spinach, 2 from cabbage, 1.2 from tomatoes and 7 gr from almond (before bed snack, 2 tbsp). Total 107.2 gr or around 20% of my calorie intake. To stay ketogenic, you have to be below 26%. I could take more (nice, I will)
The rest is saturated fat, mostly ghee, tallow, extra virgin coconut oil and lard.
I’m ketogenic as demonstrated by the sweet taste of water. (Water taste sweet when you run on ketones)
By increasing fat, I gained 2 kilos in the last 2 months. I think I’m ready for a 1-3 days water fast to kill those damaged cells. Fasting is easy when you’re ketogenic. You don’t feel hungry, just empty stomached. You don’t get energy drops as your feeding on your fat and protein reserves. I wonder if my insomnia will get worst and if I can take amino acids (they are macro elements: energy; and can break a fast)
Day 175 Sleep is improving. 7.5/10. I got to sleep late t 11:30 pm, slept non-stop until 5:30 am and got 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Than I tossed and turn the rest of the time. I did fall asleep in between and although I was having dreams, it was not the very superficial sleep I got after I crashed.
I believe if I continue the diet and supplements, I will get 8-9/10 sleep like I did for a month before taking collagen and antibiotics. I’m not sure my guts flora is fixed yet.
The rest of the day is normal, with normal sexual functions.
My motorcycle road rashes are healing well. I don’t think it took longer than normal for them to heal.
Do you still stand by your statement that sulforaphane permanently improved your sleep?
Nope, I don’t. Or at least I’m not sure. I don’t know what it did but it got messed up 2-3 weeks ago after I took antibiotics and collagen peptides after a motorcycle crash (I had road rashes).
Now I’m in a trial and error process again to see what will restore my sleep. Last night was 3.5/10. I never achieved deep sleep and the night was long.
Yesterday during the day, I had two times the cabbage tomato and beef stew I usually take only once a day and I took two fat bombs which contains almonds and cream cheese. I also took my second set of the amino trio a little late, around 5 pm(5-HTP / Tyrosine / L-Dopa) so it was only 4:30 hour before bed time… Maybe it’s the before bedtime almonds or the fact I didn’t eat steak that day. I took probiotics, 2 different kinds, so today I will have to stop both of those. No stew, no probiotics, I’ll eat steak only and skip the second amino trio in the afternoon.
Let’s see if I sleep better.
Day 177 of amino acids experiment, Day 310 of Carnivore ketogenic diet.
I think I nailed it. Yesterday I had a coffee with 6 gr of sugar, 150 of spinach (2 gr of carbs), 600 gr of rib eye steaks, 5 tbsp of ghee and my usual supplements, vitamins and minerals. Before sleep, I had a little cheese and almonds.
I’ve been taking Taurine 1000 mg. It makes me feel much more mellow, less irritated and more patient with people and my kids. Yet, with the 5-HTP 100 mg, Tyrosine 750 mg and L-Dopa 350 mg, I’m still strong, self confident, focused, motivated and in a good mood. Without this trio, I can get a little anxious, depressed and lack feelings but it not very acute. I’ll know soon enough what my baseline is, I’ll have a water fast for 1-3 days when I get a break at work (which might not be for a while, I’m entering high season)
I slept 8.75/10. Fell asleep within 5 minutes while I was trying to meditate, slept for 7 hours uninterrupted and woke up and tossed a few times the last hour with dreams and deep enough sleep.
Yesterday was a 3.5/10 night where I felt like I was on speed all night. The difference was only the diet. The day before yesterday, I had tomato, cabbage and beef stew. Tomato is bad according to this article:
https://www.jacobsladdercenter.com/doc/research/other/How-to-Increase-GABA-and-Balance-Glutamate.pdf
But what did me was the qty of almonds I had in the day. I eat 30 gr of almonds before bedtime, my fat bombs are made of 40% almond powder and cheese, both rich in Glutamic acid… Almond has 5150 mg of glutamic acid per 100 gr, tomatoes 256 mg and cheddar cheese 182. Yeah, definitely the almonds. (soy is also very high in Glutamate on top of having phyto Estrogen. It doesn’t sit well with me…)
It’s a tricky balance. Glutamate is the precursor of GABA. You need some, just not too much.
Here some articles mentioning the qty of Glutamate or Glutamic acid per food items:
Ozeph, I know your primary concern is insomnia, but could you tell me how your sexual sides have been doing lately? My problems are with numbness and libido. Have you witnessed major changes in those two areas? Did you have major sexual side effects still before the dietary changes?
I can about answer that one for him since I’ve asked the same question (because I have the same issues) about 10x
The short answer is his diet improved those symptoms significantly and likely more than anything else he’s done. If there’s one thing you were going to try, that should be it IMO
Well, I’m 100% normal, want sex everyday, have morning erection, sensitivity and erections are normal, since the 3rd month of diet semen is not watery and for the last month body odors have returned.
Sex drive is not as bitingly urgent as it was in my 30s but I’m 51 so once a day is good enough.
I did have low sex drive or none at all, desensitization, inability to climax, no morning erection, watery semen etc…
@ncsugrad: Well said. Couldn’t have said it better.
Now I can pinpoint exactly what I’m eating wrong and what’s good. Almonds are out, bring on the meat… and the fat !
My last symptom is insomnia and I just pinpointed the exact cause: Glutamate (and Glutamic acid). I take too much, I’ll sleep like I’m on speed. I eat a balanced quantity, i sleep like a log.
Trials and errors goes a long way.
That’s great to hear. Ok I’m going to try to slowly transition into this diet. It will be hard to do but looks like just need to do it.
Did you have numbness and no desire to have sex for a long time, or were your sexual sides more occasional and short-term? I guess I’m curious just how bad your sexual sides were, basically, and how long it took them to resolve once you changed diet. I’ve been living with this numbness for 7 years.
I didn’t have it when I crashed. I was prescribed Alprazolam a few months earlier for a broken hand and after the crash the doctor kept me on it. At first I became hypersexual. But my balls were hurting all the time (they just stopped hurting like a month and a half ago) and I felt like a sharp needle prick in my ball sack whenever I was near climax. That would turn me off of course. I still have it sometimes, but the intensity is so low I barely notice.
Then I quickly built a tolerance to Alprazolam and I was prescribed another drug. Sex drive dropped every day, eventually to zero. It was strange to feel nothing at all when looking at what I remembered to be a pretty girl. Emotions dropped flat as well. I didn’t care for no one, even myself.
Morning erection stopped, the tip of my dick became numb and masturbating was not pleasurable. Plus I couldn’t come anyway and I wasn’t horny so I stopped. My balls were hurting more and I lost all body odors. I didn’t smell like a man anymore.
I lost all motivation. Without sex drive, I didn’t feel the need to work hard and make money more than I need. (and neurological symptoms were bad. Sometimes I could barely walk, my thoughts were incoherent, it was hard to speak, I had anxiety like I didn’t know existed. A real torture, just sitting there doing nothing. I felt I wanted to die. I had chronic headaches, stomach ache, gastric reflux so bad I had to put pillows and try to sleep at an angle or my stomach content would pour into my lungs and I would choke in my vomit.)
In short, it was looking as if things were getting worst. I was wondering if my balls were hurting because they were attacked by my immune system or something. I was scared. I though I would have to stop working, I couldn’t drive a car as my coordination was getting bad and I was unsure of myself. I have 3 kids and could barely stand the turmoil in the house. I considered renting a room nearby to get some peace and quiet.
Something had to be done and as you know, you look everywhere and it seems no one has a solution.
And by a series of coincidence, I had a friend that told me you can heal anything with diet. He didn’t tell what to eat though. Then I watched a video of someone curing his complete insomnia, anxiety and depression by going on a carnivore diet. For some reason, I didn’t connect to the idea. The next day, another friend told me about the same guy and how amazing he recovered just by changing this diet. I was intrigued. To topple that, when i came home, late that night, the only thing I had in the fridge was a whole chicken breast I cooked the day before. I microwaved it and that’s all I had that evening for dinner.
I didn’t know at the time, but that was the first day of a carnivore / ketogenic diet that lasted more than 10 months now. Three days later the headaches, the stomach ache and gastric reflux stopped, along with most of the neurological symptoms. The sexual symptoms took longer to dissipate. A few month in the diet, my sperm became thick again. After 20 years of taking fin, I had forgotten it was supposed to be like that. Morning erection came back, my balls were hurting less, sex drive was slowly getting back but numbness remained. I took a long time to come back and I took other supplements which I think helped.
At this point, I am mostly symptom free; and then one symptom would come back, less intense and for a short time and disappear again. Pfs episodes are a lot less frequent and less intense. I’m pretty much normal most of the time.
I’m not cured ! If I quite the diet I’m back on the boat, but I honestly think if I keep at it long enough, I will be cured. I’m expecting this to happen within one to four years. (I’m an optimistic)
Meanwhile the diet has done wonder to my body and I feel more in shape than I have been for decades.
So that’s the diet story.
Hey @Ozeph I’m on about 5th day of Oxaloacetate to lower glutamate. I’m noticing some ever so slight changes but nothing I can confidently report. I think something is slowly happening. I think Glutamate could be one of our issues… so many of us go on high protein / keto diets for the increase in T , I wonder if we are creating some of the anxiety and insomnia with all the high glutamate.
You’re totaly right, from what I understand,
The 3.5/10 night I had two days ago was due to too much almonds, which are very rich in glutamic acid at 5% of almond weight. It’s what you would eat if you wanted more glutamate. I must have eaten 6-8 ounces of almonds that day.
Meat is fine although liver is not. Eating healthy is not enough. We have to eat low glutamate / glutamine / glutamic acid food.
I posted 4 sites that talks about the content of these 3 in food yesterday. I will look at them often for reference. It’s directly correlated to the quality of my sleep.
I have backed down my protein intake in 2 ways. I fast a minimum of 24 hours at least once a week. I did 48 hours this week (always start on monday) and did almost 72 hours last week. I started to noticed my skin changing back to be a little more oily. I also think that along with scavenging Glutamate from my blood with the Oxaloacetate, that my brain glutamate levels will be lower, hopefully encouraging neurogenesis. One slight difference I notice in sleep is now that when I hit snooze on my alarm… I can actually almost go back to sleep. Its weird, I can feel like something in my brain is improving at reconnecting with those last minutes of sleep in the morning. I still have major issues and wake up several times a night most nights. But I’m going to stick with targeting Glutamate to see what happens.
Also… I noticed that the different sleep meds I take require spacing them from food at different intervals. Phenebut is really needs to be used on an empty stomach. Zolpidem not so much. Klonopin is best 2 hours after eating. Seems like certain foods effect absorption of the meds.