Diet
Most Important
No Gluten
No Nightshade
No Corn
No Nuts
Helpful for Me
No Eggs
No Dairy
Supplements
Most Important
10,000 IU Vitamin D
500mg Magnesium
Helpful for Me
Multivitamin
Fish Oil
Salt/Zinc/Calcium/Potassium --> Important for Vitamin D/Magnesium balance
Latest Update
I've added a substantial dose of Vitamin D to my supplements, and it's as if the light switch to my world has been turned on. It cut my POIS symptoms down to a very mild sense of congestion in my head, and a mild fatigue for about half a day. In general, my energy levels are WAY up and my mood has improved dramatically.
For reference, my blood tests said I was at 40 ng/ml and that is technically within reference range. Obviously it wasn't enough. Different doctors have different ranges. The vitamin D council says 60-80. I'm shooting for 80, and will continue having my blood tested until I get there.
One test that was very helpful for me is called the Spectracell vitamin test. It's a very precise vitamin deficiency test which highlighted Vitamin D for me when the normal blood test didn't.
About Me
I've struggled with bouts of severe depression/anxiety/mental fog all of my adult life. It was only six years ago that I started seeking help.
I saw an array of doctors, mental health professionals, and even a therapist. I tried many different anti-depressants, supplements, and nootropics. While the SSRI's actually did make me feel great, they made me a bit manic and disrupted my working memory to such a degree that I stopped taking them. I can send a list of all that I took if anyone is interested. Lexapro and Brintellix were the most helpful with the fewest side effects for ME. However, I couldn't tolerate the mental blunting from either.
When I had exhausted as many doctors as I cared to, I still didn't want to give up on life. I searched endlessly online for similar stories and possible "fixes." What I encountered that resonated most closely with my symptoms was Celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I tried going on a gluten free diet and felt better than I had since I went through puberty. I was elated.
As time went by, I slowly started feeling down. I'd get light headed after every meal, my energy levels were nil, and I'd still have inexplicable bouts of depression/anxiety/brainfog that lasted over a week. At first I thought I wasn't being careful enough with gluten, so I limited my diet down to only whole foods. Right now I only eat:
Sweet potato
garlic
onion
chicken
tofu
salad
carrot
celery
cauliflower
broccoli
olive oil
coconut water
peanut butter
rice
strawberry/raspberry jam
maple syrup
vanilla
cinnamon
pepper salt
I limited myself to this diet with the discipline of a Shaolin monk.
After doing lots more research, I decided to try taking magnesium because the exhaustion, lightheadedness after meals, and depressed mood all seemed to fit. The first three days of taking it, I was EXHAUSTED. I was so, so tired. On the fourth day, I suddenly had tons of energy, my mood was way up, and I was no longer getting light headed after meals. I still take magnesium (and calcium so I don't become hypocalcemic). My understanding is that when you have an deficit of magnesium, your body sees the new magnesium and wants to use it all up immediately, even though your reserves are not back to a healthy level. You spend it all, then feel utterly exhausted. It took about a week (I know I said four days) to fully accommodate to having magnesium in my body again.
You may have noticed I haven't once mentioned POIS. That's because I still didn't know about it at this point. After all of these magnificent revelations that increased my quality of life dramatically, I STILL had inexplicable bouts of extreme depression/anxiety/brain fog/exhaustion (sensitivity to noise too). I had begun recording my meals and feelings in a "gut diary" soon after I discovered my sensitivity to gluten. I can't recommend doing this enough. I realized that every time I had an ejaculation, a bout of depression would follow for a week afterwards. I continued googling since that had availed me greatly. This is when I discovered POIS.
I went to my GP, a urologist, a gastroenterologist. None of them had heard about it except the urologist.
My GP had simply never heard of it.
The gastroenterologist had never heard of it, but she also had me do some blood tests. (The timeline here is all wacky, but I'm just including salient details). The blood tests came back saying I had elevated liver enzymes which I ignored for a year.
One year later, I saw the urologist about POIS. She had me do a dexamethasone suppression test to measure my testosterone, prolactin, and a few other things. The night I took dexamethasone, I had a wet dream. The following day I had NO symptoms! At that point I was reasonably certain the gluten thing was an auto-immune thing, but after this test, I felt certain the POIS thing was also auto-immune related, most likely the very same illness that makes it horrible for me to eat gluten.
At any rate, she suggested I start taking NSAIDs whenever I have an orgasm. I told her, I probably shouldn't because I have elevated liver enzymes. She checked my chart (I'm still in awe of the incompetence) and had me get my liver checked again. This time, the tests came in twice as high so I had even more tests done. As it turns out, I have heterozygous genetic disorder that causes antitrypsin deficiency. This is used to moderate immune system response in the lungs to foreign particulate. It can cause liver disorder. So I saw a hepetologist. He wasn't concerned since i'm only heterozygous, but he wanted to do a liver biopsy. He didn't even ask about my diet or anything so I said no.
I did more reaseach and came up with five different things I could try to make my liver enzymes go down. The very first idea I had was to stop eating nightshade. I ran my ideas by yet another doctor and my GP, they both agreed my 4-5 step experiment would be worth while.
One week after stopping nightshade, I had a wet dream (I don't masturbate, or have sex or anything because of how horrible POIS is. I'm sure y'all can relate). The symptoms were about 50% as bad as they'd been a week before when I was still eating nightshade. Moreover, the joints in my hands suddenly felt fluid. They had been stiff for years, and I never even noticed until the stiffness was gone.
I was reluctant to jump to conclusions about nightshade, so I just kept going. After a month of no nightshade, my POIS symptoms (if I had a wet dream), were as follows:
Slight difficulty thinking in the morning
Slightly subdued mood until noon
normal by around 4:00pm.
It's been a week longs than a month now, and my symptoms are about half as bad as I just described. I will say that if I become sick (with a cold or something), my immune system flares up and the symptoms return slightly, albeit much more mild than before. Today, my symptoms are 98% resolved.
Apparently nightshade takes more than a month to completely exit you system so if you try this diet, give it time, be disciplined.
Anyways, that's my long winded story. I had many food sensitivity tests (IgG, mediator release test, genetic tests). The IgG said I was sensitive to banana/gluten/dairy/egg. The mediator release test said I was sensitive to pork most of all (go figure).
I'm leaving lots out because there is so much data, and I've tried so many things. I'm at a point now where I'm not afraid of trying to date, and i'm able to keep my mood consistent indefinitely. I wouldn't say I'm cured, because I'm not. I simply have a diet that can keep my immune system quiet to the point where I don't experience POIS symptoms. We need research, but in the meantime, this is really helping me out, and I super hope it can help some of you guys too.
If you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask. I'm not on here often, but I'll do my best. This community has been very helpful for me, and if I can give back I will.
What I plan to do now is systematically reintroduce some of the foods I cut out back into my diet. My hope is that one day I can start going to restaurants today, even if only sushi or something simple like that (no soy sauce though obviously). I've had my blood taken two days ago to see if I'm deficient in any other vitamins/minerals and other odd things like choline and inositol (this is all to see if I can help my liver out some). I also have more ALT/AST liver enzyme test results coming to me next week to see if nightshade helped with that too.
