Neurological: I had severe anxiety, depression, brain fog, speech slur, problem solving no so complex problems. It was 80% gone after a few days in the diet.
Physical: I had severe headaches most of the time, muscle weakness: couldn’t stand up for long, couldn’t climb two flights of stairs etc… I had stomach ache, acid re-flux and food wouldn’t go down, it would stay in my stomach. It went away after 7-10 days
I had burning eyes and burning lips. For the eyes, I had to clean them with water many times a day and I kept my lips covered with Vaseline 24/7. 18 months in the diet, the eyes are normal 99.9% of the times and the lips are slightly dry after brushing my teeth. I just recently stopped using Vaseline.
Various inflammation: Joint pain, sinusitis, was bruising easily, cracking joints: went away within a month.
Sexual sides: total lack of libido, zero attractiveness to women, no morning woods, I don’t know if I had erectile dysfunction as I didn’t masturbate or had sex without sex drive. I didn’t feel like it so I just didn’t try.
It took longer. 3 months in the diet, it started to improve. I started having sex again but had weak erections and low sensibility. I was unable to finish. I also had my balls hurting all the time from the moment I crashed and it went down until at 9 months, I rarely felt it.
Sexual sides took much longer to reside. I’m 20 months in the diet (although I changed from ketogenic / carnivore to very low carbs) and everything is pretty much normal. I think my sex drive is still low, but it’s good enough to act normally. Sensitivity might be still a little lower than before. Those two I don’t mind, it makes me more independent from women and I last longer while having sex.
Insomnia went from sleeping just a 2-3 hours despite taking heavy meds and spending the rest of the night between wakefulness and weird dreams, but barely dreaming, more like in between thinking and dreaming. I would toss and turn a lots and be pretty useless the next day: demotivated, tired and procrastinating.
Now I sleep 5-6 solid hours, wake up all of a sudden, have a salty cracker or two and can sleep again the rest of the night, waking up often. It does keep me from tossing and turning.
I also take 5-6 tbsp of oatmeal (with water, microwaved to a thick paste) before bedtime. I do this to produce insulin and decrease cortisol. Same with the crackers. I think I wake up because of a cortisol spike (or nor-epinephrine spike if I have adrenal fatigue, I don’t know) but taking low glycemic index carbs elevate insulin and lowers cortisol and or nor epinephrine and I can rest again.
It is possible to stay in ketosis with 5 tbsp of rolled oat and 1 cracker a day if you don’t have any other carbs the rest of the day. For this, I was eating only meat and either a little lettuce or spinach.
Right now I’m still fat adapted but I will get more ketogenic soon as I will most likely have to fight a nasty virus soon (I live in Asia). I think I read somewhere Ketogenic diet cut by almost half the effects of pneumonia. It also boosts the immune system.
So that’s about it. The effect of the diet was so sharp and fast for some of the symptoms that it’d be hard for me to not see it’s related. I hear it doesn’t work for everyone so I wish you the best of luck with it.
(beware of the ketoflu. Get some info before starting. It’s not an easy ride to get on, but once you’re in, there’s wonderful benefits IMO…)
As i already wrote, your posts made me to start keto diet right after my crash. I definately had benefits from it already, since my brain fog was gone in my 2nd-3rd week of keto. I will strictly keep with it for many months. I have to admit that i have 2 cheats though: sometimes dark chocolate (over 90% which I’ve read was keto-friendly) and I do drink dry white wine on the weekends. I just can’t give up drinking some because this syndrome.