The Carnivore Diet

The idea is to take the probiotics as far away from the antibiotics as you can; at least a couple of hours. I was told to take the antibiotic morning and night so I was taking the probiotic around midday. I stopped the antibiotics after 10 days but am still doing the probiotics.

It sounds like whatever is causing your cysts was happening before the carnivore diet, and the diet change hasn't helped so far. It might be something you want to look into more to see if you can get to the bottom of what's going on. Maybe see if you can get some blood testing done to see if that leads to any insights.
 
Yep, it seems so. I've been to the doctor, he saw the cyst and told me to go directly to the hospital to have it surgically removed! He said I could wait tomorrow morning since it won't be as crowded as it is by sunset. I'm a little bit disappointed since I mentioned him some of the backgrounds along with my worries and confusion and he didn't suggest anything. Not even a blood test or possible clues. I should have been more precise in my speech, sure, it's always after the fact you realize that.
Anyways, tomorrow morning, I'll go to the hospital first thing in the morning to have it removed! I'll push some kind of blood test and try to avoid getting vaccinated along...
 
It finally has been removed, though it was not that benign. I spent 9 hours in total at the hospital. Good opportunity to read! I've been through complete anesthesia and will have a nurse take care of the wound(hole) till it's fully recovered. Today, when she changed the really tight bandage all over my head, blood was pumping. I'm under antibiotics and ultra yeast 3 times a day for 5 days. I'll add probiotics to that as soon as I get them.
I'll go ask the doctor some blood testing, and I've decided to not be so strict anymore because I don't want it to happen a third time! I'm a bit confused but relieved, it was really inconvenient and painful on the spot.
I'll stick to meat being my base food, without being too restrictive on the sidings. :-/
Curious to have others feedbacks.
 
Starshine said:
I had a terrible spot on my face that popped out and grew like crazy, just in time for Christmas gathering. It was a good exercise for my self-consciousness. It is between my nose and right eye and seemed more like a cyst than a pimple.
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I'm not carnivore, but I'm close. I just have some coconut butter I'm eating, and then the only carbs are spices, tea, and supplements. But I thought it was curious you said this because I had some pimple or cyst in the same spot. I went to the ER on January 12th and got an antibiotic for it. The medicine was for 10 days so the infection is gone, and it's still slowly going down in size. I usually don't get sick and if so it's for a day or two and I get over it. But this thing had sort of leaked internally and my eyelids became all puffy so it was a bit scary. :shock:
 
Hi Starshine! Sebaceous cysts are so common, it's hard to say that it's due to your carnivore diet!
Usually they don't require antibiotics (though most doctors prescribe it, not on a scientific basis (1), but on a legal basis) neither hospitalisation, neither general anesthesia (2). It's easily removed by short incision, in consulting room.
(1) An abcess requires 1 thing: to be drained.
(2) Sebaceous cysts are little (under 5 cm usually) and superficial (cutaneous), thus easily removable under local anesthesia.

I started the carnivore diet (1 month ago) it seems good for me: better intestinal transit (nearly normalized), breath smelling better. 3 days ago, i ate cheese and yoghurt and my problems came back immediately. In my case, this diet seems to be good, I'm striving every day against my cravings and it's not easy.
I agree with Gaby that it's not the perfect diet for all.
So the question is: if this diet brought you so many benefits as you reported some time ago, is it worth giving it up, because of a not significant problem? (cutaneous cysts are so mundane). If it was a serious problem, the answer will be easier.

I'd like to say a last thing about little health concern occuring during this diet: the carnivore diet is not a magic wand. It helps but will not solve all our problems, as they are so many other factors involved in health, particularly stress, mind state, lack of nutrients, lack of sleep, lack of sport, lack of sun, etc. Also intermittent fasting should be taken in account? Maybe carnivore diet with 2 meals/day is more suitable than 3 meals /day? as 3-4 meals /day seem to be a popular industrial culture? i say that because, in my case, since I started carnivore diet, when I succeed not eating other things, 2 meals/day seem to be sufficient.
Still so many things to discover about this diet. It's very fascinating and I'm thankfull to all of you for this thread.
 
nature said:
it's hard to say that it's due to your carnivore diet!
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Thanks for your feedback. I agree it's hard to say it's due to the carnivore diet per se. There are still a lot of other factors involved. Maybe it's a particular ingredient in it all. Smoked or cured meat has a lot of histamines. Maybe it's a side effect of hormonal rebalancing, I don't know.

The cyst was inflamed and painful, with a ganglion under the left ear swelling too, and a compression of the ear canal. I followed my doctor's advice in that case, with no regrets. I have to say I had an ear infection of this same ear in 2015, with a build-up of ear wax. I had a wooden earring before that, and I think it is related. Since that time, I had tinnitus in that ear, and then a little episode of eczema inside the canal. That was itchy. The surgery freed me in many ways, that's how I feel anyway.

I've strived on this diet with no problem whatsoever for 2 months approximately. I think what happened is that it restored my gut health during that time. It's like a reboot which brought me so many good consequences. We see many cases of healing in regards to serious chronic/autoimmune diseases, maybe the worse the conditions, the better suited it may be. I still can attest it has been of great help on this given period. Actually, without this cyst problem, I would stick to it. That's why I will keep it as a base, with all the info I have in mind. I know it can be used as a reset. I will include fresh vegetables in small proportion, more fermented food and if I indulge in some sweets, I'll keep it for the evenings. As spring is coming, I'll try to reduce my histamine consumption with fresh foods to see if it can help with hay fever.

I feel great apart of that as I'm able to integrate a better routine since. I wake up at 07:45 every morning, eat, monitor and organize my agenda, do HIT and self-defense once a week, work outside regularly, feel enthusiastic, take Isotonic Quinton approximately 3 times a day, my resistance to cold is better too. I'm getting organized step by step.
I've started reintroducing different food categories without having any negative consequences for now.

I've been eating 2 times a day for a long time without a problem, skipping breakfast and waking up later or more erratically, drinking coffee first thing upon wake. After listening to the podcast on coffee and understanding the metabolic stress that occurs while doing so, I started eating before the first coffee, and I've been more and more regular and ordered in my routine since. But I now eat 3 times a day. And a bit less per meal. I'd like to sometimes skip the evening meal but it's always the gathering of the family here. We are used to have a meal that is more important at diner than at lunchtime.

My mother, though, seems to be really ok with it. She makes exceptions with friends, but she lost 9 kg since she started.

Still, we now have 3 different accounts of cysts popping up with no cyst medical history, to begin with.

Edit: spelling
 
Thank you for your reply
I'm currently reading this show from sott, on salt here, and Mark Hyman reminded about the need of salt increase during a low carb diet. I've forgotten that and would like to share it:

That's a really important point. I found in writing my book and doing the research on it, on the effect then with my patients, that when they changed their diet and cut out the starch and sugar which also causes insulin resistance and makes you retain salt and water, because the insulin retains salt, they started dumping salt, they started dumping water. They lost weight. But they didn't feel so good. So I always tell people who are eating a higher fat diet and very low carbohydrate diets to dramatically increase their salt intake.
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The full show is very interesting and gives many advices.
 
That's interesting about salt. I salt the heck out of my steaks which I eat pretty much on a daily basis, usually two for lunch. There's nothing better than the well salted fat on a good ribeye. The very thing that makes the average person cringe and go nooooo, don't eat that! :wow:
 
Mikhaila Peterson is making waves by posting her blood work results on Twitter and on her homepage. From what I can tell, those results look pretty amazing, in a positive sense. She got the test done in December, a year after she started her all-meat, high fat diet.

On that note, I've been on an 'almost carnivore diet' since the middle of November, and I've never felt better! I occasionally eat a tiny amount of greens and e.g. kale, just to appear normal (!) when I'm not dining with close friends or family. I have the same experience as Peterson: I don't need as much sleep as before, and I feel way more 'awake', positive and energized once I get up after ca 6 hours of sleep. I've slipped 2-3 times, and I've noticed the results quite immediately: the old feeling of semi-depression, hopelesness, heaviness and brain fog in the morning returns and will linger for ca 2 days.

I think the key difference compared to my previous low-carb diet is that to feel well, I really must stay pretty close to zero carbs.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1100398771786125313
 
aragorn said:
I think the key difference compared to my previous low-carb diet is that to feel well, I really must stay pretty close to zero carbs.
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I believe the same is for me. I did a strict keto diet, tracked my macros and all that, and I remember my energy not being consistent. Also, no matter what supplements I tried, I was prone to leg cramps. On the Carnivore Diet, I haven't experienced any leg cramps, my mood is positive, and I believe my hormones balanced out.
I fell off the wagon during the holidays as we were staying with relatives and I decided it would make everyone's life easier if I wasn't full carnivore. I figured it was only for a week, how bad could I feel? By the end of the week, I literally felt like I was waddling, not walking, because I was so bloated from eating fiber. When I started this experiment, I thought eventually I would add veggies in, but I'm more and more convinced that I really don't need them.
 
I decided to give the carnivore diet a try and I'm currently on day 10. However, unlike most people here I can't say I'm experiencing the benefits others suggested. I thought I'd ask for some feedback.

My first carnivore attempt was around 3 weeks ago and the 'carnivore flu' symptoms were quite brutal, very similar what many of you reported. Since the carnivore flu is apparently different to the keto flu due to the latter removing fiber, I decided to end the experiment and remove fiber from my diet before restarting it. I mostly drank my carbs in the form of juice with my meals for a week.

The day before I restarted the carnivore diet I had my last meal at 11am and I fasted for 22 hours (water only). I do intermittent fasting regularly, almost daily, and it always puts me into ketosis. I haven't come out of it since then (10 days now) and I've only been eating meat (mostly pork) and drinking water or very diluted zero carb tea since then.

Weirdly enough, during the second attempt I literally had no 'carnivore flu' symptoms, unlike the killer fatigue, headache and digestive issues a week earlier. So either starting the carnivore diet from ketosis, or removing fiber in advance helped alleviate the transition symptoms. But one symptom that was MUCH worse than during keto adaptation was carb cravings. It was to the point of irritation bordering on anger! Honestly, I never thought I had that much will power to persevere despite the cravings.

This is where it gets tricky. After a week of feeling really well on the carnivore diet things changed. Since this Monday I've had cold sweats, fatigue, brain fog, my bowels are bubbly and in the toilet things are very loose.

So maybe there's some bacteria that needed a week to starve and what I'm experiencing now is not carnivore adaptation but bacteria die off? And maybe the carb cravings have to do with critters demanding food? What gave me this idea is the fact that candida infestation causes sugar cravings and the outcomes of my digestion (to put it diplomatically) kind of suggest some sort of evacuation too.

Another symptom that gives me this idea is the fact that I always had a very bad reaction to enemas. It didn't matter whether I used coffee, probiotics of just mineral water - I always felt fatigued, dizzy and anxious for no reason. On day 7 of my carnivore diet I started having very similar symptoms - just not as strong as after enemas. This made me think that whatever enemas were stirring up may be coming out now?

Carb cravings were really bad during the first week but eased a little right before the stomach/fatigue issues started. So maybe for the first week the critters were starving and trying to force me to eat sugar - and now they're dying making me feel horrible?

But on the other hand, there are other things that make me wonder whether my symptoms are simply my body telling me the diet isn't for me. During my last keto attempt that lasted for nearly 2 months I developed a very bad rash. It started as a couple of sores on my scalp and quickly spread all over my body. Over the last couple of days I discovered those same painful and itchy sores on my scalp again, which makes me wonder whether my body is trying to talk me out of my carnivore trial.

At this stage I'm really confused. The whole die off idea may just be a narrative I came up with to justify staying on the diet. Any hints or tips would be super helpful.

The reason why I decided to trial the carnivore diet is that I have some symptoms that come and go, mostly fatigue and brain fogs. I don't know if it's a coincidence but ever since I started doing AHT I've been feeling much better and when my issues returned, they were a lot milder than before. Nevertheless they did return and I decided to try the carnivore diet to see if it helps. Well, so far it hasn't :-(
 
aragorn said:
Mikhaila Peterson is making waves by posting her blood work results on Twitter and on her homepage. From what I can tell, those results look pretty amazing, in a positive sense. She got the test done in December, a year after she started her all-meat, high fat diet.
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She also just put up a new blog post saying she tested positive for Lyme disease - Lyme. Are You Kidding Me? - Don't Eat That - the fact that she says she's probably had it since she was 2 years old is kinda amazing (and scary). I wonder if there's anything from our health research on Lyme that could help her?
 
Ant22 said:
The reason why I decided to trial the carnivore diet is that I have some symptoms that come and go, mostly fatigue and brain fogs. I don't know if it's a coincidence but ever since I started doing AHT I've been feeling much better and when my issues returned, they were a lot milder than before. Nevertheless they did return and I decided to try the carnivore diet to see if it helps. Well, so far it hasn't
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It sounds like it is wrecking your health. You might benefit from some carb source. Although genetics and other factors are different for each individual, I cover a big population with a nice ethnic mix as a family doctor and I do notice that it is mostly non Caucasian people who are very intolerant to carbs.

Perhaps mental fog is more indicative of toxicity? Doing saunas might help in that regard. There is also clays and activated charcoal which could help.
 
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