Latapy - My story

[Latapy]

I have opened a thread a long time ago talking about my hair test results, but, back then, the forum still didn't have this section. I have been lurking around here on and off, but the brain fog doesn't really help me to write much and I am currently quite incapable to do more than the basics on my daily routine. I started to get excited after protocols started appearing, because for people like me, who are unable to think by themselves, lacking in mental ability and without the strength to read hard stuff and understand it, believe me, this really helps a lot.
There are people who criticize those who need a "guru" to follow... Man, perhaps yeah, I need one. I don't have enough knowledge and the capability right now to know what to do and to think what is best for me. I need help, someone who can help me and give me a road map to follow for my issues since I don't have the knowledge to do it on my own right now. I've actually realized most people don't understand a tiny bit of what is going on, because it is too complex and usually trying things on our own blindly only ends ups on doing more harm than good. But I admit my ignorance.
My sincere apologies if my writing is a bit messy and repetitive.

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I am 26 year old dude (W: 67 Kg; H: 183 cm) from Portugal, Europe. I am currently unemployed and I was never able to have success in all my different attempts in college and struggled a lot on high school.

Since childhood, I have always been a very anxious and stressed kid. When I went to 5th grade, it was where my OCD, ADHD symptoms started to get stronger. Also, I remember always having some digestive and skin issues. Constipation has been part of my whole life as far as I can remember.
The other day, I found that I was born already with pus coming through my eye (I guess conjunctivitis).
I know had to take antibiotics when I was very young due to infections. Still, during my life, I had episodes of tonsillitis and other "pus-symptoms". I will write all my health issues down below.

Eventually, at the age of 14, around my 9th grade, my parents sent me to a psychologist and eventually to a psychiatrist where I started taking SSRIs...
I've been 10 years straight on conventional medicine (2006-2016), took a lot of different antidepressants and other drugs: Sertraline, Citalopram, Fluvoxamine, Clomipramine, Prozac, Zyprexa and so on… It's sad, but the truth is that I have completely lost track of what I took during those years. I've probably have taken more other drugs, but I don't remember right now. I was also prescribed with Ritalin and Risperidone.

I quit all medications 2 years ago.

Then, I tried alternative medicine with different supplements and therapies - quantum biofeedback, omega 3, 5-HTP. Basically, what alternative medicine usually recommend. I've also removed dairy, sugar, gluten and start to eat more nuts, seeds and more fish. I had to follow an "Anti inflammatory diet" (whatever that is). Lost a lot of kilos (12kg).
For the first moment of my life, I actually felt a little better. This was different indeed.
Though, I ended up leaving her, because some symptoms still remained after 6 months of consultations and, back then, what annoyed me was that she would literally ignore when I would tell some symptoms that I was still having. She would always look at me with "it's all in my head" or regarding mental focus she would say that I couldn't still concentrate yet, but one day I would eventually do. Other thing I've noticed is that I had become more serious, arrogant type of a person with that diet. Lost also a lot of libido, she said to me that I was not so "basic" person anymore.

After leaving her, I start doing some research to improve my focus and I found intermittent fasting. Well, I always hated the fact that after having lunch, I would get very tired right after and wanting to take a nap. This helped me became more alert and I can say that this made my productivity increase a bit. Though, I was only focusing on mental performance to study better and not paying much attention to foods. Completely clueless while doing it. I was definitely really underfed while doing it...

As I have said, constipation issues was also a thing I wanted to solve. So I followed a raw high sugar diet - Wai Diet - that claimed it would solve my IBS issues. Well, I will summarize it as 2L OJ, fruits, raw egg yolks (sometimes 10 per day) and raw salmon, olive oil and some nuts per day. It was almost a full liquid diet and completely zero salt added.
However, I developed symptoms that were probably due to high blood sugars, I suppose. Adrenalin overshoot, causing me feeling wired and super energetic/stressed all the time. Also, super super cold. I would get eosinophilia from all that OJ also. Lost a lot of muscle mass, felt really weak, my insomnia got worse and it was around that time that I started to get heart palpitations. My skin is still a little orange after that diet. Of course, back then, I couldn't understand what was going on.... The only good thing was that yeah, it really made me poop without completely straining. The toilet trips were way better comparing to what I used to have.

Then I found Ray Peat, but I never followed any of his ideas in particular. I have to say that I tried to re introduce dairy one time, but the side effects were just unbearable (arthritis, sphelgm, lots of sebum, pus, etc. The classic dairy symptoms).

The past year, I went to another alternative physician. Basically the same thing: detox, anti inflammatory diet, supplements.
However, on this one, she said to me do a hair test. I will post the results on the other sub forum and talk about them there.

I ended up leaving her too after 6 months, because I was done with all the IV treatments and still not feeling better. Once again, I also didn't like her posture. I mean, it's pointless. That authoritarian and cold arrogant atittude, I really hate it. And the classic "it's all in your head" argument always appears.
I mean, perhaps what I was doing with her could be indeed the answer to my problems, but the way I was being received and treated there completely made me give up on the treatment. I was really feeling hopeless and she would just ignore my symptoms I shared with her or I felt like sometimes she simply didn't know and she was not willing to do a little extra effort to understand them.

This is my full list of symptoms. I can reduce most of them when I restrict a lot of foods:

Spoiler

- Brain fog
- Brain fatigue
- OCD
- ADHD
- Chronic fatigue syndrome – physical and mental
- Easily startled
- Always feeling scared
- Bad communication skills
- Irritability/Moodiness/Mood swings/Unstable emotions
- Racing mind
- Brain feels scattered
- Difficulty following conversations
- Difficulty following step by step instructions
- Difficulty on making decisions
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Poor ability to tolerate stress
- Anxiety/Fears/Worrier
- Social Anxiety
- Panic Attacks
- Chronic Stress
- Anhedonia
- Dysthymia
- Feeling always depressed
- Low libido
- PSSD (Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction)
- Memory problems
- Cognitive dysfunction
- Insomnia/Problems falling asleep
- Needing more than 8 hours of sleep (waking up several times during the night)
- Dream a lot
- Waking up not feeling rested
- Low motivation
- Think about the future/past a lot
- Get fixated on things
- Problems letting go of thoughts
- Unable to process quickly
- Constantly need to prove myself to others
- Fidgeting/Restlessness/Jittery legs
- Can’t keep an eye contact with people
- Negative thoughts
- Procrastinate a lot
- Spend more time planning than implementing
- Lots of ambition, but too little motivation to implement
- Feel awake when should be winding down/in the late evening
- Feeling tired but wired at the same
- Poor coordination
- Dyskinesia and Akathisia
- Unusual sensitivity to sudden sounds
- Sensible to light
- Gingivitis, gum disease
- Mouth ulcers, canker sores
- Weak gums
- Herpes simplex virus (mouth)
- Low appetite
- Hair falling
- Beard loss (not growing beard where it usually grow)
- Gut problems (IBS, constipation - severe, sometimes up to 10 days, slowed motility, SIBO, Candida)
- Pinches of vivid red blood in stool
- Bloating
- Excessive flatulence
- Nervous tension / Always feeling very tense (shoulders almost near my ears)
- My breathing is not smooth
- Fungus overgrowth
- Acne, dry skin, very elastic skin, hives, itching, eczema, dermatitis, dermatographia, sebhorreic dermatitis, skin spots, dandruff
- Orange/yellowish skin
- Bad circulation in hands, feet and in general (cold extremities)
- Intolerant to cold
- Water retention
- Trouble Urinating
- Tinnitus
- Tingle sensations
- Varicose, spider and bulgy veins
- Dark purple circles under eyes
- Ingrown nails
- Chilblains
- Excess sebum
- Get sick easily / or seem to ‘catch’ everything
- Mucous, Nasal drip
- Itchy/Runny nose
- Tonsil stones
- Hemorrhoids
- Pilonidal cyst
- Back pain, joint pain/Arthritis
- Gout
- Joint Stiffness
- TMJ/TMD
- Random pains in some parts of my body, whole body aching
- Heart Palpitations/Extra systoles
- Pounding heart
- Low blood pressure (under 100/70…. Doctors, of course, tells me that is better to be low than high)
- POTS
- When standing up fast. start seeing everything black + tinnitus, almost fainting
- Increased intraocular pressure
- Muscle jerking/twitches
- Periodic changes in visual field, visual snow, floaters
- Tingle sensations everywhere, but especially in my toes before falling asleep (sometimes it even feels like there's something crawling inside them). Also, seeing action, drama, nostalgic movies/series/cartoons, playing video games, especially those with plenty of action, and even news increases this sensation to the point that my heart starts to beat irregularly and also start to feel completely cold and sweaty, And, of course, tons of goose bumps and stress. I simply try to avoid all these for now. I find them not useful at the moment too.
- Seem to be allergic and get inflammation from most foods (something like gluten, all grains, all potatoes, all nuts, all dairy, all legumes, eggs, carrots, fruits) that can completely exacerbate all those symptoms above if I eat them. Also, I can reduce most of the symptoms if I avoid tons of foods.

Extra information:
I want to also add that I used to have tonsillitis and, as a baby, I had tons of ear infections

Despite having taken all those SSRIs and drugs, what I really want to know and fix is the root of all my issues. Because, after all, I started taking antidepressants, because I was already having plenty of problems way before that.

I will be still posting some episodes, experiments that may or not help understand my issues better and perhaps eventually log what I am/will be doing.

 

[Canari]

Hola Latapy, it is not in your head but about your autonomic nervous system in a clear way for me! Something even probably happen before you were born, this infection or what caused you to be sensitive to it. Do you know what happened during the pregnancy of your mother? All what you say about your story correspond to this, and that is what led you to take antidepressants, because they do not know how to regulate the nervous system. Your gut problems are also typical of this. Any early shock in life can cause what you have, and I can tell you that there has been already the first courses of somatic experiencing in Portugal, and this can change what you have and regulate the autonomic nervous system, which is just an organ as any other and can be hurt, and this is not believed enough. When there are courses in portugal, there is a super assistant from Brazil, for me she has been the best, but I cannot travel to get more as I have to go to peninsular spain. The posture in this method is totally different and gives you the lead so that you can do for yourself as much as possible.

 

[Latapy]

Hello @Latapy. Some of your story really resonates with me. One exception is all those drugs you mentioned I only tried similar ones at 21. I got better from pssd and drug-induced mania, weight gain, possible liver damage, and so much more a couple years later. It was very very hard but extremely rewarding. If you truly do have a disorder --- keep in mind treating that (if it's safe and you have a correct diagnosis), will fix a ton of your other related neuropsyche problems. Like some people do treat OCD and it helps there panic attacks, ADD, etc. I know for me treating the main issue addressed like 80% of my issues. Also for OCD and or ADD -- those Atypical Antipsychotics make no sense. Definitely seems like medical incompetence on the part of your physicians. I quickly realized I had to discard whole classes of medications (almost all of them), lest I risked more damage. I am "twitchy/fidgety" anyways, but stimulants increase this.

Yeah... But finding a good quality person to diagnose me is very hard. Actually, all doctors/practitioners that "diagnosed" me were fully certain about it.

dyskinesia and akathisia

Interesting, I've never heard of these terms before. And, holy shit, I actually got some dyskinesia symptom when I was trying to re introduce dairy. It was at night when I was trying to fall asleep. Really scary. It felt my whole body was vibrating and moving on its own if that is what dyskinesia is.

Regarding akathisia, if restless leg is included there, then, yeah, I always had some issues to stay still. Mostly before falling asleep, I start moving my feet and legs a lot, because I really need to do it. It feels "involuntary", yet you are completely aware of it. Sometimes I would have those "autistic" movements like moving my back back and forth. Though, I think I was like this even before taking SSRIs...

You may feel lost right now but it doesn't need to stay that way at all. Ideally no drugs is the best. It's difficult to find a doc you can trust when it comes to psyche, but often possible. For me treating the right thing made life like 100 times better. It was a double edged sword though. Because I saw the time I lost and all that pain, but I saw my potential once again. Also I was lucky/unlucky enough that my eventual chosen specialist suffered from the same thing I did. It was his speciality and he understood it.

I've lost the count of how many psychiatrists I went and psychologists. And, all of them, diagnosed the same thing. But, of course, this does not that makes them correct...
I really lost hope from conventional medicine and docs for to solve my issues. Even alternative medicine... Visiting them would always make me more depressed and hopeless, to be honest.
I actually felt like I've improved much more when I start reading about spirituality, ego, enlightenment, zen and that kind of stuff. It helped me to become more conscious and aware of my feelings and thoughts.

For school - get "letters of accommodation". If you want to return I mean. Try and get extra time, flexible deadlines, and "isolated exams" (writing tests alone).
At the Counselling And Disability/ Learning Disability Center (or whatever it's called at any particular school). This helped me get closer to grades I needed, and coupled with the correct medication (and tons of arguing), helped me graduate. But I realized this really late. After SNRI/SSRI-damage I was too scared to get help. If you establish a true "disorder", you can get some help at post-secondary+ programs. Even if you don't believe in the diagnosis, it can help you in the school system.

Very hard for me to anything extra, but also money man, money... I can't really go to school. I've tried too many times (8 years) even with special needs, because my psychiatric actually wrote a paper to be able to have those extras. That is a lot of money and investment (and not from my money, because I don't have it. All from my parents' money...).
I was trying and trying, but I wasn't simply being honest with myself and keeping throwing sand to my eyes. I couldn't admit that I was incapable to have success there. I was always missing classes, skipping exams, not able to wake up on time, etc, and I thought I was just lazy (that was what everyone said to me after all) and I would beat myself up.
I really lack energy.
There are days I feel illiterate and I can't understand what I am reading. I easily forget things, repeating myself a lot, have difficulties to follow a conversation and even doing daily tasks like brushing my teeth seem a burden sometimes.
Then regarding physical work, if I eat certain foods my body feels completely sore and I can't even do a long walk. My body fully aches completely. It feels like I have been beaten or that someone had thrown some bricks at me. This also happens plenty of times when I wake up. Really hard to get out of bed.

Also what is your main goal? Cure PSSD? Repair all drug damage / depression?
I'm sure you'll get better with the help of this forum.

I don't know, I may be different from others, but even if I wanted to blame completely SSRIs for everything, it would be simply dishonest from me. My issues were already there even before taking them. PSSD or not, my issues existed long before that. And I suppose people didn't start taking SSRIs because they were feeling good. Of course, it could have make our issues worse and add even more issues. On that, I can't deny.
But, right now, my main focus is to be able to do the basics, have energy to get out of bed and have a "normal" life, seriously.
Of course solving the root of my issues is what I really want, but that may be asking too much. And perhaps not that important if I start to feel better.
I hope so. I am trying to see if I can share as much information about me as I can. And, of course, understand a little better what more knowledge people say, because it is very hard for me to keep up with most people's pace here.

 

[Latapy]

Hola Latapy, it is not in your head but about your autonomic nervous system in a clear way for me! Something even probably happen before you were born, this infection or what caused you to be sensitive to it. Do you know what happened during the pregnancy of your mother? All what you say about your story correspond to this, and that is what led you to take antidepressants, because they do not know how to regulate the nervous system. Your gut problems are also typical of this. Any early shock in life can cause what you have

Sometimes I wonder about that...
I don't know what happened during my pregnancy. My mother only says that she remembers to have some vomiting after eating grapefruit. However she doesn't remember if it was during my pregnancy or during my brother's pregnancy. So not useful...
Now, it is interesting that both me and my brother got the cold hands and feet from my mother. Also, being the type of person that feels always scared, anxious and wants to stay at home all day. My mother is like this. Me and my brother are like this. Apparently, my grandfather was a very conservative person, so my mother would be always afraid of him and so on. Curiously enough, she married to my father who has the exact same traits as my grandfather.
However, my brother doesn't have the same issues as me.
I actually got the OCD part from my father (he has some too. But he is still able to have a life, so to speak). All the constipation, skin issues, all comes from my father too.
I could have had an early shock in life also, but I can't remember...

, and I can tell you that there has been already the first courses of somatic experiencing in Portugal, and this can change what you have and regulate the autonomic nervous system, which is just an organ as any other and can be hurt, and this is not believed enough. When there are courses in portugal, there is a super assistant from Brazil, for me she has been the best, but I cannot travel to get more as I have to go to peninsular spain. The posture in this method is totally different and gives you the lead so that you can do for yourself as much as possible.

It seems interesting and I could indeed search about those courses. But, to be honest, I don't feel like to...
Also, money...
I mean, now with the ideas here on Hackstasis, I want to see if I feel well on them or not. I rather try one thing at a time, otherwise it will be too many confounding variables. It actually confuses me even more and feel like not wanting to try anything at all.
Perhaps a bad posture, I know...
However, I feel so much hopeless when a person is trying to treat me on conventional, alternative, whatever.
Can you imagine, I was the type of person that would go to the psychiatrist with a big smile in my face and even get happier when he would say to increase the dosage of the SSRIs and even trying different types of drugs. My mum would literally cry, because I was already sleeping 16 hours per day and doing nothing. Probably higher dosages was indeed not the best solution. But I would trust so much my psychiatrist that I wouldn't care. I was always thinking like this after "Now with this dosage, it is going to be it. Finally, I am going to be cured!". Naive perhaps... Dunno.
Now it is just the complete opposite. I have serious difficulties to trust someone to treat my issues. I am always skeptical. Obviously, failure after failure, kind of forced me to be like this. Unfortunately, it can't be helped. I always feels like there is no point. I am sure most people here feel the same. Only here and in other health communities I feel like I have comprehension, good support and hope.

On the good side, I can say this also made me grow up.

 

[Canari]

Also, being the type of person that feels always scared, anxious and wants to stay at home all day. My mother is like this. Me and my brother are like this.

We rely on the mothers nervous system for our regulation! At least totally until 6 months of age.
This is enough to create some reduction in the capacity to self regulate, even with none other shock. then you never know what stays inside and what it resollve, or it can be one little aspect only from an event... so it is usless to search very hard with the mind. We can trust the body and work with this. No need to searchhard into memories, as it is even stressful!

Unfortunately, it can't be helped.

True, it is automatic.

I am sure most people here feel the same. Only here and in other health communities I feel like I have comprehension, good support and hope.

Support is more important than anything else for the ANS.

I rather try one thing at a time, otherwise it will be too many confounding variables.

work on ANS is helping the job that you do with nutritional balance.
And you know what!!!!!!!
...
You cannot do one at a time.
lol because you are doing the job with your ANS all the time anyway! We all do. We just have never learned how to optimize it...

We all have it, we all use it, but it is disregulated and we need to balance it. Not doing it can slow the supplement process. Anyway you do... just feel the good effect of support, just feel the difference in you, between self search and being in the hands of a psychiatrist! This is it, this is what it is about, no more but no less!

I hope some of you will try to learn through the free website and videos from Irene Lyon, or even her free facebook group... it is self learning and self help, totally.