Foamroller wrote: »

If dairy is the thing reacting with Metformin, I'd cut it out:(

Read Dr Fung's series on fasting and why addressing the twin cycle of insulin resistance and dysfunctional beta cells in pancreas is healed with fasting. Lowcarb is good for many things, but is only a part of repairing metabolic syndrome.

If I were you, I'd also go to forums with people who have PCOS. Maybe they have more specific details/protocols/experiences to sgare.

I remember those carb coma moments. I had them after 15-20 mins. They come back sometimes, but not so severe.

The PCOS forum that I'm in has most of the same folks as here, really. And Insulin Resistance is not limited to PCOS. Many men and diabetics and others also have it.

I am struggling with fasting, not due to the fasting itself, but rather due to the ... bathroom situation of loose stool for 4+ hours due to bile dumping if I go past about the 8 hour mark of fasting. I do not have a gallbladder, and so I get times where if I go too long without eating, my body will dump bile into my empty stomach, which burns on the exit path. I've yet to remedy this, but I'll look up the series you suggested.

The Dairy did interfere with the Metformin, but I am not longer taking Metformin due to that complication. My endocrinologist doesn't want me to go back on the Metformin if I can help it, due to the weird complications I developed.

Also, I've had dairy daily in some form since 1/15/15 which was my start date. This postprandial somnolence did not return until about six weeks ago, so maybe June? I went from January to June without issues, then starting again in June, it resurged. Because dairy was not prohibitive the first 4.5 months, I'm reluctant to put it first on the firing line now.

deksgrl wrote: »

Is it the PureVia sweetener that you can't find now that you were using and you were not having this reaction? I found some on Amazon.com 800 packets for like $26.

Yes, PureVia alone was not triggering a reaction, but I've since found out that dextrose is the main ingredient. So dunno how I feel about going back to it alone. I have been using Pyure, which is Stevia and Erythritol plus "natural flavors" or something, which is completely different than the ingredients how on their website, so I don't know which to believe. It does seem though, that all of this coincided tightly with adding the Splenda...

Foamroller wrote: »

Look, you're describing what could be a quite grave symptom of pre DM or DM falling asleep after meals. This is something that keto clearly hasn't resolved in your case.

I totally understand going through rough times and that sometimes one needs space to regroup. Take your time sorting out. Just remember that the protocols you're currently doing do NOT seem to be working, in both health and weight loss regard.

There are all too many things in life we don't have any saying about that are upsetting. What you choose to eat or not is one of the VERY few things in life that is FULLY and SOLELY within your control. As someone who used to be chained to the bathroom myself for unpredictable amounts of time, I literally tried EVERYTHING to fix this problem. After much trial and error, I can now leave my home without being afraid I get tummy attack. I'm NOT saying you should do what I suggest that has worked for me. You've got lots of other tips here too. It might even not work for you. But that's the chance you gotta take when not fitting into neat diagnose boxes.

I also get if it your reluctance is from fear. We're all afraid of something. Change can be very scary. But nothing worthwhile comes for free. If someone told you 4 yrs ago you would ditch carbs, what woulda been your reaction back then? Challenge yourself and you will grow.You Americans say: «There's no free lunch».
Exactly. So fight to get your health back!

The first 4.5 months I was on a low carb diet, I don't remember a single occurrence of this issue. It has only resurfaced in the last 4-6 weeks, so I really don't think it is that this way of eating isn't working. And my endocrinologist has tested a panapoly of things to make sure, but he has said repeatedly that my numbers across the board do not even indicate pre-diabetes, much less T2. I have a different doctor a couple years ago, before I went low carb, who assigned me a blood glucose meter, and had me test fasting, before meals, after meals, and all kinds of nonsense. According to her, the numbers couldn't have been more normal if they were a test sample's baseline.

So really, I just have to isolate what I did wrong in the last 4-6 weeks. And it isn't that I don't feel like I can give up AS altogther or dairy. It is that without going into too much details, I have literally crammed a year's worth of stress, logisitics, major event stressors, and daily life mess into about a week or two. I've had to literally force myself to only think of one thing at a time to continuing functioning.

I know that I could give those things up, but during this time of extreme duress, during which I'm quite pleased to say, other than a planned slightly higher carb day for my birthday celebration last week - even then, still didn't knock out of keto, I have stayed on plan flat out. During this time of extreme stress that has at least a week or four before it starts winding down, I'm not wanting to make any major changes that jeopardize my ability to stay on plan.

Four years ago, I essentially told my doctor to shove off about lowering carbs because I was so far immersed in the addiction and misery of recovering from a failed abusive marriage that I could not see any hope or possibility. It's taken a lot of work and hellish misery to get to the point of even starting considering LCHF, much less diving in with enthusiasm.

Admittedly, changing that much does scare me a bit, but mostly because it forces me to consider redefining everything... I've knowing this was a likely step down the road... But honestly, grocery budget is non-existent right now, so I'm doing about all I can do with my food at the moment...

Dragonwolf wrote: »

KnitOrMiss wrote: »

Foamroller wrote: »

If dairy is the thing reacting with Metformin, I'd cut it out:(

Read Dr Fung's series on fasting and why addressing the twin cycle of insulin resistance and dysfunctional beta cells in pancreas is healed with fasting. Lowcarb is good for many things, but is only a part of repairing metabolic syndrome.

If I were you, I'd also go to forums with people who have PCOS. Maybe they have more specific details/protocols/experiences to sgare.

I remember those carb coma moments. I had them after 15-20 mins. They come back sometimes, but not so severe.

The PCOS forum that I'm in has most of the same folks as here, really. And Insulin Resistance is not limited to PCOS. Many men and diabetics and others also have it.

I am struggling with fasting, not due to the fasting itself, but rather due to the ... bathroom situation of loose stool for 4+ hours due to bile dumping if I go past about the 8 hour mark of fasting. I do not have a gallbladder, and so I get times where if I go too long without eating, my body will dump bile into my empty stomach, which burns on the exit path. I've yet to remedy this, but I'll look up the series you suggested.

The Dairy did interfere with the Metformin, but I am not longer taking Metformin due to that complication. My endocrinologist doesn't want me to go back on the Metformin if I can help it, due to the weird complications I developed.

Also, I've had dairy daily in some form since 1/15/15 which was my start date. This postprandial somnolence did not return until about six weeks ago, so maybe June? I went from January to June without issues, then starting again in June, it resurged. Because dairy was not prohibitive the first 4.5 months, I'm reluctant to put it first on the firing line now.

Perhaps have a look and see if the kind or amount of dairy has changed? You might have unknowingly changed the type or amount of dairy that you primarily eat and have perhaps hit a tolerance threshold.

What else has changed, recently? Have your protein or carbs creeped up? Has the percentage of carbs as sugar/non-fiber creeped up?

Unfortunately, it might also be the AS that you're using now. So you can either forego the AS and either not consume the foods you feel you "need" it in or just deal with it without. It can be done, I assure you. I've actually grown quite fond of what the coffee shops called "breve lattes," which use cream (or half and half) instead of milk, and I'm such a supertaster that all coffee tastes the same to me (bitter). I also quite enjoy most teas without any sweetener, even the black/orange that is most iced teas.

The amount of dairy might have increased slightly. I likely am consuming more cream cheese that before, but that has corresponded to less sour cream (almost NONE) and slightly less hard cheese. My heavy cream consumption has remained level. For the most part, the hard cheese only decreases when eating more cream cheese in savory applications. Otherwise the hard cheese and heavy cream are pretty consistent.

So far today, I ended up doing an unplanned morning fast (work got slammed) and nibbled on some macadamia nuts around 11 am, lunch at 2:30 pm or so. I didn't have my tea this morning, but I almost never get the sleepies after it - maybe the coconut oil counters it? I had some Pyure stevia/erythritol, but bypassed the splenda completely today, and so far, no slump. I think I'm going to skip out on the splenda for the rest of the month, use up the PureVIa stevia at work and the Pyure at home, and rule that out first without changing anything else.

I can't do the unsweetened teas "dry" or without anything, as the tannins cause a chemical reaction in my mouth making it waxy and raw feeling. I've gotten to the point of using one stevia packet for 12-14 oz of tea. And I've always preferred STRONG tea. My tea looks like most folks' black coffee. But also still cannot stand coffee in any form. LOL

I don't think the protein has creeped any, because my meals are primarily the same. Carbs either, as I'm keeping a loose ongoing count daily. And pretty much my diet has remained the same overall, other than slight tweaks as mentioned above and the splenda...

DittoDan wrote: »

I have had this for 40 years. Daytime sleepiness disorder. I have read four books on sleeping disorders, had three sleep apnea tests, try all kinds of things. I was hoping Keto would cure, but it didn't. Whole countries of people have this problem they take siestas. I have to be very careful when I take road trips.

The only thing that helps me are two fold:

1) If I take a 10 to 30 minute power nap after I eat at lunch, I'm good and perfectly alert for at least 6 hours. When I was working two jobs, I would take an additional nap at 6:00 pm, before going to second job. Failure to do this invariably caused me to fall asleep at my computer with head bobbing. I have been taking lunch naps since I was 18.

2) Water fasting makes it very difficult for me to take my nap, but usually the fast alone keeps this from happening. Today I tried to take a nap in my car (I'm water fasting today) and I couldn't do it. Yes, I read that you have problems with water fasting, so thats out.

I never drank coffee in my life, and 40 years of working, I can tell you that there would be more people like me if they didn't drink coffee. Every place I ever worked uses coffee as a stimulant. They drink gallons after lunch.

A lot of the daytime sleepiness comes from sleep deprivation. There is a minimum number of hours a person has to sleep every day. Failure to meet the goal, will result in daytime sleepiness. It all adds up too. That's why people "sleep in" on Saturdays ~ to catch up on their sleep that they lost during the week.

And a lot of people kid themselves when they state they "only" need 4 hours of sleep a day. I hope those people don't pilot planes, buses, trains or cars. Just about every study shows that 7-8 hours in optimal. Yeah, I know. there will be someone here reading this and they will state, "I only sleep 4-5 hours a day and I'm fine". You're probably an old person. And its still not good for you. The older you get, the less sleep you need, but 4 hours ain't enough for optimum health for anyone.

The military conducted testing to get the most "alertness" out of combat people is to let them take power naps as I described above. They can stay "on guard" longer than a single nights sleep. They gave this a fancy name (of which I can't think of now) ~ but I have been doing it all my life, most people know this, again ~ "siesta".

My theory is that there is a gut microbe that causes this. And I think it runs in families. All my family had this problem, my siblings and parents. My dad especially.

Whats really weird, is I can't fall asleep after lunch ~ laying down. I have to sit up in a chair with a slight angle. My car is perfect. But I'm in Michigan and the weather isn't 100 degrees like in Oklahoma. So I can't help you there.

If you figure it out, let me know. Until then, I'll keep taking my power naps.

Oh, BTW, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?

I don't have daytime sleepiness as a whole. I'm alert 98% of the time. 2% of the time, I literally narc out, if that much. I will be sitting here typing or reading for work, my mind will slip a gear, and I'll wake up. Most of the time I get zero warning, and I don't know anything is happening until I'm waking. Sometimes it is instantaneous, sometimes it is longer. Usually super short at work and during daytime, longer at home and/or in evenings.

I did have sleep apnea, but after I lost a good deal of weight, the machine made it impossible to sleep, and the pressure WOKE me. My provider would not adjust the pressures anymore without another test, which I can't afford. However, I've been tracking my sleep with my activity tracker, how I feel, my fiance's observances, and while I do still snore, 90+% of the symptoms are gone. I'm not saying that I've cured my sleep apnea, because I've no way of knowing without testing, but nearly all the symptoms I had that caused me to get tested 8+ years ago are gone and what's left is manageable.

I'm FAR more alert in the afternoons and evenings, as I'm a natural night person, but I work at 7 am. My body doens't wind down well for sleep until 11 pm or so. I get up around 5-6 am. I usually average out 6 pretty decent hours of sleep, which is much better than my "maybe 4" from years past. I'm working to up my sleep, but to do it so it remains consistent is a fight against my natural sleep cycles, but I'm far more alert and a morning person since going low carb. I used to not fully "wake up" until 10 am. Now, usually, 10 minutes after I'm up, I'm raring to go.

I don't really do the power nap thing much anymore, because it's bad for my thyroid stuff, but I usually just power through. If this was a sleepy thing, that would make sense. My doctor originally explained it as my body didn't have enough fuel to digest my food and keep my conscious, so it would temporarily shut down non-essential functions while digesting - but I can say it's never happened while I was standing up, moving, or in a vehicle. And I mean NEVER. Typically just while seated/reclined in a chair.

the gut microbe thing would actually go a long way to explaining some things. I know my gut biome is probably atrocious! I find it difficult to incorporate fermented items (or even find them, really!) and probiotic type things into my eating, because they are hard to find, carb heavy, or just utterly unknown to me. Do you have any more details on that?

DittoDan wrote: »

From everything I read, you aren't getting enough sleep. Now the next question would be, have you tried sleeping 7-8 hours @ day for a solid week? You need to get to bed sooner. Until then, if I were you, I would never expect to solve your dilemma. I think you are overthinking your problem. Try the basics first, get enough sleep and go from there. Until you do that, you're just wasting time.

Along with all of this is "insomnia". Do you have it? There are several types of manifestations of it:

1) Can't fall asleep (sounds like you)
2) Wake up early into the night and can't get back to sleep
3) Wake up near the end of sleep (to use the bathroom) and can't get back to sleep (me)

Reasons a person can't get back to sleep:
1) You are a type A person that has many problems that have to be solve and you think about them ~ which keeps you from sleeping
2) You try to solve other peoples problems (family) and the thinking keeps you awake
3) You try to solve problems from work and the thinking keeps you awake
4) (you fill in the blank) and the thinking keeps you awake
5) pains, uncomfortable beds, too noisy, too quiet, lights, temperature, other external disturbances, etc ad infinitum.

There are many solutions to the above, mostly involving a "distraction" to your mind/thinking. And there are many solutions to help you "unwind" sooner in order to get enough sleep. Every sleep disorder book I read have a plethora of solutions, just read them and follow.

I do have some gut microbe stuff for weight loss/diabetics ~ but none for sleep disorders, like I said, its just a theory of mine...

BTW, I had the after lunch narcolepsy today, I didn't have a nap after lunch...

I hope this helps,
Dan the Man from Michigan
Keto / IF / Sedentary
93 pounds down, 31 to go.

Dan,

I have zero problem actually falling asleep. The majority of the time, I do not wake up, and I rarely have any problems getting back to sleep. I do wake up on occasion to use the bathroom, but I don't generally have any problem falling back asleep. Stress/problem solving does not keep me awake - generally I use meditation music before bed to clear my mind. Once I'm in bed, I'm pretty much asleep like a light (according to my FitBit tracker, I'm asleep deeply in under ten minutes). I do not often wake, except to use the restroom or from extremely loud noises (we have upstairs neighbors that are intermittently very loud from midnight to 6 am, at random). I generally wake and am fully alert within minutes.

While yes, I may need more sleep, I've already improved my sleep by over 50% of previous amounts and 75% or more improved quality. I am progressing as best I can. No, I haven't ever slept 7-8 hours every day for a solid week, even on vacation. My body doesn't generally want that much sleep, and never for more than 2 days in a row. For example, I had a 4 day weekend, slept 8+ hours the first two days, on day three, I woke up at either 5.5 or 6 hours of sleep, and couldn't even nap.

My body is just naturally geared toward nighttime activity. I'm always my most alert in the afternoons and evenings. Mornings were miserable for me before. They are no longer. Keto has definitely made me a functional morning person. I tend to lose track of time in the evenings, because I'm bustling about from one task to another in the "getting *kitten* done" zone. It will be 8 pm, I'll do the dishes and blink, and suddenly it's midnight.

All of that being said, I'm not actually SLEEPING when I "narc" out. It's usually a blip. And it's never proceeded by yawning, feeling tired, needing to get up and move, or any of that. It is more of a "crash" like some people have after their coffee or sugary snack wears off. And it's been nearly solved by my dietary changes in the first 4.5 months I was on this WOE (I think I can literally count on one hand the number of occurrences I had in the first 4 or so months of low-carbing it). The only return or resurgence of this effect has been in the last few weeks.

This weekend, following some suggestions about alternate ways to improve my insulin sensitivity (reducing the insulin resistance reaction), I purchased a supplement to help. In taking this supplement, I literally CRASHED HARD AND FAST after EVERY SINGLE MEAL OR SNACK. All day. Every day.

I really can't see that as progress - or as getting worse before it gets better. I've got Splenda free for several days now, and the non-supplemented times I've done the food-crash thing might have been related to the erythritol.

Also, I know we've discussed taste buds triggering insulin release, which is part of why AS stall some folks, but since a huge part of the taste bud sensation is scent based, do y'all think that the scents of certain foods (like huffing over a donut for example, or the uber-fragrant smell of some of my floral teas) can trigger that response, even if you don't actually eat them? Just wondering...

Carly