Peak stress management

Smoker's Lounge
101

I’ve never left new England. I had plans to go to California to see my grandpa finally back in 2020 after the original plans back in 2019 were rescheduled so he could visit my aunt. At least he got to visit her before he passed.

I do eat sushi and I have been tested for parasites yes. That’s always the first test they run on me. I’ve had enough xray, mri, fmri, and all that scan shit for the last decade now. They can never explain my back pain until this year ugh. I tried telling them before my spine started warping.

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102

I wish I had that training before I was half done with an apprenticeship. Yes, it was very boring at that point. When I was
learning something I already had, I just went into my head. Many a conversation with my self and lots of planning. (not that I had time to carry anything out after class :rofl:)

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Though thinking about it now while looking on my shelf and then realizing I just had to budget 155 for a decent pair of work boots that I won’t have to replace for years. I’ve been on top of everything reducing meals to about 3 a day with snacks between to make sure something is always in my stomach at least. It only dropped 2 meals a day this week out of my food plan, but as others have mentioned I should get on buying in bulk more often. I don’t have a car, so I’ll have to wait on the good graces of family to help out there. Plus they have the memberships to Costco and BJs. I get my avocado oil there as I like to use it in combination with rendered fat to deep fry my foods when I’m making something I can deep fry or I want to make leftover rice into something interesting and tasty. Plus a calorie bomb after that

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I know I shouldn’t get mad, but he never actually explained the actions out loud for those of us who can’t see what he’s doing. Not until the end of class and then he explained how the tool works like an elbow. He didn’t mention how the mill movement functions like a neck and head though :thinking:

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I’ll also add now with a more clear head to actually think better about what I’ve been doing is that I got a oil filter cone stand, oil filters to fit the stand, and then after that I filter once more through a 200 micron mesh if not a 400 micron mesh to catch any fine sediment that passed through the triple funnel setup.

I do that to clean up my oil after frying and after the oil is used up to clean it up for use in baking later. Once clean it smells like fresh o no Matter how many times I use it. Even fish smells don’t really take over. Not as much as a good mushroom powder used to make a deep fry coating with the bread crumbs. It’s way cheaper to make fresh homemade panko in my opinion :yum: tastier too. Plus I can use my sourdough I’ve learned to manipulate in any recipe that uses flour. I do have to keep my non fully fermented dairy to a absolute minimum though. Long aged cheese if I can find it for under 4 for a chunk is a treat. The higher milk fat though the less issues I get from the product. Oddly my favorite sour cream i could use to make my own eventually. So many farms around here. I could stop by a creamery and get some milk that’ll be perfect for it when that time comes. My local brew store also has cheese making supplies and a yogurt machine for Oddly only 50. Its made to use canning jars. That won’t be soon though as I have to save up for the supplies. Whey protein usually has whatever sets off my dairy issues in it. Lactose doesn’t as I just hate skim milk not react from it. My nutritionist has seemed to agree with all the different things that set it off yet others don’t means i likely have a form of Casein allergy. Not all forms of it do though. Only heat treated seems to do it. If handling dairy i have to make it a slow cooker meal or incorporate it into a sourdough. The exceptions are only hard cheeses, long aged cheddar with crystals forming in it, live culture dairy, and any dairy that hasn’t reached polymer temps recently.

From what I can seem to tell the aging process will do something to the polymer casein to make it not set off my allergies. If I clarify butter I have to take all day or the butter will make my stomach set off all day again.

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They should be checking your thyroid every time you get blood work. It’s shocking they haven’t in so long. Did you always have these issues or did they ‘appear’ at a certain time in your life?

Also they should be checking your B12 and iron (ferritin) whenever you get blood. Really they should be checking your entire nutritional status, but the majority of doctors wouldn’t even know how to do that.

Do you take any vitamins? Have you ever noticed any improvement or change from taking any type of supplement?

You have balls of steel man I don’t know how you do it. I’ve been having problems the last couple years that are a joke compared to yours and it’s sucked all the life out of me. Its very impressive that you can function so well considering, you must be a tough sob haha

Oh ya good tip about the fryer oil too, I’ve always wanted to get a deep fryer but didn’t want gross oil sitting around all the time.

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The last time they did a deficiency blood work was around this time last year I believe when I fainted after blood was drawn. I had insanely low potassium levels. They gave me 3 of the yellow horse pills for it. I’ve always had this metabolism. As a kid doctors intervened as I was too under weight eating 3 times a day. Following the 2000 calories rule makes me waste away without anywhere near what I burn at rest.

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Well that’s a major clue there. Is your potassium generally low when you get tested? Can you feel it when it’s low, like is it a recognizable sensation? If so any pattern around when it happens?

If a guy who’s eating like Michael Phelps every day has low potassium it should be a very obvious signal to professionals that something is going wrong along the way. It sounds like you’ve seen some pretty crappy doctors, no offense. Unfortunately it seems to be the trend…

Have you ever tried a naturopath? Many aren’t great but some can be very good at diagnosis. You want a readl MD of naturopathy or an MD who practices ‘functional medicine’, not the hippie at the local strip mall lol.

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Oh, none taken. Those doctors have been oblivious. I believe when I was a kid something similar happened as well with blood levels. I do have a noticeable change yes. I feel weak and unable to exert any strength at all. Vision gets blurry and cloudy. I get extremely sleepy and sleep near constantly. If I don’t keep my heart rate down it’s very painful as well with my ribs feeling like they’re crossing or pinching flesh.

I haven’t tried one before. I just got my nutritionist last month actually :sweat_smile: I’m hoping she won’t be useless after she goes through her list to try to help.

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That definitely sounds like hypokalemia, but maybe different as well. Sorry for prying with questions…one thing I’ve learned from my shit is information is king. The more eyes on your problem the more likely it is that someone will know what’s going on.

Also if you can go to a doctor with a name (ie it sounds like I have X) you have a far better chance of them pretending to give a shit (because you did their job for them lol). Would you mind if I pmed you some questions?

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I don’t mind at all. Plus anyone with a similar experience could maybe get some answers as well when they read anything in the threads I make lol

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Sounds like thyroid problems to me as well, or a permanent state of ketosis, do you know what your insulin levels are?

Sometimes when we have a serious life threatening situation in our younger years, or especially if its a constant, like any kind of abuse in the family, our autonomic nervous system can get stuck in the flight or fight mode. Birthing problems can cause the same effect, by causing a baby to go into shock, which can stop automatic reflex actions being broken in the first year of life, that control the automatic nervous system.

Check out the Wimm Hoff breathing technique on YouTube, it helps re set the autonomic nervous system, by holding ones breath on empty lungs at the end of a 30 cycle deep breathing round, your primitive brain starts to panic from lack of oxygen, but your blood is in an alkaline state so its like a forced fight or flight state, then when you can’t hold the breath any longer, you breathe in and hold for 15 seconds tensing all your muscles, this forces oxgen into the deepest parts of the body rhat normally don’t get enough because of lack of exercise or sedentary life style. After 3 or 4 rounds holding your breath longer each time, your autonomic nervous system re sets and you relax.

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All blood tests come back clean. Though various levels that by themselves can be coincidence, but together become a borderline for hyperthyroidism.

A part of it though is something someone told me today that when I overeat it’s not normal for it to be so painful that it feels like being punched in the diaphragm… my overeating is pushing past eating only a pound of food in one sitting.

My doctor’s want me to stop dabbing so much lolllll. Not possible if I’m going to keep maintaining this increasing appetite. I tried a day off. Tomorrow will be the day I do it properly knowing what digestive issues I’m in for.

I’m finally at 140lbs and maintaining it without losing it to 126lbs randomly at one point in the day. I drop to maybe 137lbs at worst.

Since making this thread I’ve since resumed taking Depakote after a 10 year break, started a 24 hour prilosec, and use music to calm myself. Thinking back on it that’s how I syrvived that year at the job at Panera. I was allowed to listen to music constantly on the floor. Weed helps too, but honestly music works best. Glorious music endorphin rushes keeping me stable throughout school.

As far as breathing techniques I use them all day just to breathe. I’m on manual breathing if I want to breathe an amount of oxygen that doesn’t make me feel like I’m at low oxygen levels. I’ll start by putting my tongue on the gum line behind my top front teeth. It slightly opens my airways and stops the mild choking feeling I get if my mouth is closed. Then I slowly breathe in manually controlling the muscles in my chest by my pectoral muscles to relax them and tense up my abdominal muscles to breathe into my upper airways first. Then i breathe down into my abdomen to get the other half of my lungs filled with air. Once I’ve started to relax my abdomen I have to manually control my throat muscles to contract them or the pressure of my inhale will go in too fast and my lungs won’t fill up fully.

That’s just step 1 of opening my airways.

Step 2 is doing the same thing, but now through my mouth not my nose. Angling my tongue to the same spot it would otherwise be in on the gum line.

I do each step for about an hour to 3 hours depending on anxiety and stress levels. If I can’t have that time in the morning it’ll go horrible later.

I was diagnosed with aura type migraines, so that could be an explanation as to why all this is needed in general otherwise I’ll snap :sweat_smile:

As for diet I’m at a 2lbs of meat, 2lbs of carbs/starches, heavy onion, heavy garlic, heavy shallot, and an I should have diabetes level of sugar.

I get tested for diabetes regularly. With my diet I’m at high risk. Though I’m shocked they don’t look at my heart more. Somehow with a family history of heart issues I’m the odd one out here. I lived on a 1600mg cup of coffee I’d drink anywhere from 3-6 times a day for a year and never had a single issue from it lol. Aside from caffeine addiction. 600mg caffeine is my baseline for enough at once or I get sleepy. I’ve tried down to 25mg caffeine at once for a pick me up. 600mg or bust. 4 years of testing what works for me and that rule is fairly constant.

I now also supplement my diet with potassium. As much as I can manage. For now I’ve reduced sodium intake. Not to a healthy level mind you. I still eat like I’m trying to gain weight lol. My body does use water way too fast apparently. My nutritionist thinks I drink too much water. My body definitely disagrees. I drink for thirst response and directly after I’ve had salty or sweet foods.

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Constant thirst can be a symptom of untreated diabetes.

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Yeah it can I know. I’ve been keeping an eye on it as I show symptoms that I should be, but I have no tests saying I have any issues with insulin or any of my levels being off past my potassium levels constantly being low.

I also sweat excessively in general. I have to replace the water I lose or I get severely dehydrated. I also salivate enough to technically be drinking my spit all day. Better than constantly spitting or letting it pool and drool.

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