The Random Thoughts Megathread v3.0(daily chat)

[Faith reloaded 2]

Reverse t3.... takes me back this does. I studied it a few years ago in detail, quite fascinating stuff

So T3 and RT3 are both metabolites of thyroxine, T4. The position at which the Iodine atom is removed from T4 determines whether the resultant metabolite is T3 or RT3

IIRC, rt3 is the inactive metabolite of thyroxine, T4, where removal of an iodine at a particular position of (One?) of the rings of T4 results in it being inactive

T3 is active thyroid hormone, which is able to enter cells, bind to its nuclear receptor and trigger intracellular cascades etc, which results in physiological changes. It’s formed by removal of an (?) iodine atom at another position

So if your body has too much rt3, you’re not going to have enough active thyroid hormone in your body

[aelmo]

How much protein should people be eating?

i see that some people say that it’s a gram/ pound but that seems like a lot. But then other places I see that it’s 8 grams per every 20 pounds you have. It’s very confusing.

[aelmo]

I'm surprised you want to try being vegan for a week because you mentioned you have low protein (correct me if I'm wrong). I know you can have vegan alternatives but it much harder as far as I know.

I have tried oatly and it's better than the others. I prefer their barista version and the chocolate one is quite, my brother liked it and he can be quite fussy.

I don't even know what real milk tastes like anymore (they taste fake), I usually have semi skimmed on the rare occasion. I have my porridge mostly with water and raisins, and a tiny amount of milk.

​​​​​​I wouldn't consider going vegan, I like to eat chicken frequently.

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Yeah I do but I feel like it’s going to be low either way so might as well give it a try.

honestly the one thing I like about being vegan is that it’s better for the environment. I don’t mind eating animals but I can see all the statistics of the amount of resources that cattle farming uses and it’s ridiculous. I would never go full vegan but I want to try to lessen my carbon footprint as much as I can and if that means drinking coconut milk and eating tofu every now and then then in fine with that.

[aelmo]

I am not vegan but suspect I have a dairy intolerance so still trying out dairy free milks. I used to really like the taste of oatly (instead of cow's milk) in my porridge in fact I think it tasted better than cows milk in porridge. I think some milks suit some things more than others. I have never found a plant based milk that I'd like in tea or coffee. I found a couple of milks that are nice in cereals, a couple that are nice in smoothies. I think cashew milk tastes lovely in a smoothie. These days I'm having hemp milk sometimes and I think it tastes nice in smoothies. Try stuff out and see what seems to work.

I got the alpro barista coconut milk and it’s actually really nice In coffee when you foam it. I think the smell of coconut distracts from the taste. So far it tastes the best to me. oatly is kind of expensive here so I don’t want to have to like it and then start relying on it. Everyone raves about it so it must be good but I don’t want to have to spend all that money on milk. It’s a waste.

but I’m going to keep exploring. I haven’t seen hemp milk here but I might pick it up if I ever come across it.

[usernametaken]

my sister told me I can but I want to be careful just incase because of the side effects to supplements.

This is why I hate going to the doctor's or for a blood test.

I can get the fumarate without a prescription, it doesn't make much difference as I have to pay for my medicines anyway, and it works out cheaper without the prescription.

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Maybe call your doctor and discuss this? They might suggest a low dose. Sorry I'm not speaking about the rest of the concerns you mentioned, I don't know enough about them but the iron thing is something I realised so thought I'd mention.

[Kiro]

Oh haha I meant bird

[Eorlingas]

neelu please put back a bid picture on

[Ya'sin]

I love seaweed. I have tried the dried version but they have salt and sugar added.

I have heard the same about eating too much of something, I think they said that about nuts aswell, you develop an intolerance.

Nothing is pure due to mass production of food, it's loaded with chemicals to help it stay fresh for longer and that is probably another reason why we are learning of new conditions our grandparents never came across.

My parents told me back in their days the older folks could get away eating certain food and still be healthy. The food was fresh, pure, not loaded with artificial stuff.

There's alot of environmental factors but that's a whole other topic.

This is why admire people like James Martin, he has his own plot of land with vegetation. It's amazing. I wish I could do that but only in my dreams.

[Ya'sin]

neelu

Exactly!! I agree. I remember we spoke about this before. I feel so much despair and I do take rest but as you are probably aware, people around us won't understand and will mistake it as something else.

I remember telling a family member and the response was unsupportive and lacked compassion, although they have witnessed my weaknesses.

It's extremely frustrating that I can't get the answers from specialists, instead, I have to search online to diagnose myself with this ongoing problems I've had for a number of years now.

​​​​​​Sometimes I just want to smash my head against the wall because of the lack of help out there and the dismissive response I receive, every single time. They get a receptionist to do their job and 'advise' me.

Have you ever thought about creating an ebook for your condition and diet?

I have one cup of tea a day now, without sugar. I don't have to rush to the loo after eating rice. It doesn't have that side effect.

I tried spatone and it didn't do anything due to its miniscule amount of iron, it just feels futile.

I keep delaying a change because I am scared, not because I'm a greedy moo, but I have a different type of attachment to food. I rely on it for happiness and comfort. I will have to keep up buying the fruit and veg. It's more work and my energy will be down due to feeling sad about the changes. I don't want to be cranky but I know I will be, I have other things going on in my life which is already stressing me.

​​​​​​I look ill, people have already made comments about that. I don't want that attention though where people ask me if I'm ok. My skin is really dull and I have patches of different skin tones, it is blotchy, I can't remember the name of that skin condition but it looks like that.

[Kiro]

neelu please put back a bid picture on

[neelu]

i could vacuum another three room just before maghrib

but i have bigger fish to fry... upstairs, i normally do it first but downstairs needed a vacuum desperately

more handwashing left though and i need to cut my hair

I hate to say this but the early stages of my illness started out like that. My GPs were absolutely useless. All my test results kept coming back within normal range except iron so they just assumed I needed that but my stomach had problems with it, so they told me I just needed more fibre but fibre rich foods were also causing me stomach problems. It took me years to figure out that I needed to radically change my diet by cutting out whatever aggravated my symptoms, especially gluten and since then I've never been anemic but I still become exhausted very easily because anemia was not the only cause of my exhaustion. I know how difficult that is because I love food, I come from a food loving family and about 80% of my diet included gluten so cutting that out (as well as other problem foods) was a MASSIVE step but so necessary. Apparently I've heard that if we eat too much of something, we can develop an intolerance so a lot of people in the West have a gluten intolerance, whereas in parts of the Far East, people can end up with a rice intolerance because that's the staple food over there. I don't know which (if either) of these possibilities may apply to you.

It wasn't until long after I gave up problem foods that I realised they were causing a malabsorption problem in the gut, which meant that even if I ate iron rich foods, the gluten was preventing my body from absorbing nutrients in general which was making me exhausted, but you wont be told that you're deficient in most nutrients because iron and vitamin D are the only nutrients they test for. Also it can take months to get the gluten out of your system so even if you cut it out for a month, you might not necessarily see a difference until you try a more long term change. In my case, it took about 6 weeks to really notice the difference that my joints and muscles weren't aching to much.

On top of that I found out that thyroid tests are quite unreliable and not a true reflection of how it's functioning. Patients who know about this stuff say you need to test specifically the "reverse t3" though I don't know what that means other than it's a different test that should more clearly indicate if there's an issue. NHS thyroid tests have too big a range which means they only seem to pick up extreme cases of thyroid issues rather than mild ones that don't register on the tests but still cause health problems.

If you want an iron supplement then I suggest you take a gentler supplement such as spatone iron (available in boots) or else there's one by solgar called "gentle iron". Gentle iron didn't quite suit me but it didn't mess me up as much as the pharmacy iron so I gave it to an anemic family friend and she said it really suited her. I also think you should consider some natural and dietary nutritional ways to try and fix this. In my experience, anemia is not a lack of iron problem, it's a lack of absorption of nutrients in the gut- fix the digestion and you'll get the nutrition and that should improve things. Dark green leafy vegetables and organ meat (ie kidneys or liver) are literally the best nutrition you can get, even if you only eat such meats twice a week, they contain everything from vitamins to minerals to b12 and a ton of stuff that most of us are deficient in. Vitamin b12 first thing in the morning is meant to help improve energy and cognitive function BUT apparently the vegetarian supplements don't absorb in the body very well and the non vegetarian are probably not halal, so it's better to get food sources of b12 such as beef although certain fish and seafood also contain it in lower levels. You don't need a prescription to buy vitamin d3 either, but I suggest that you should also get it from food sources such as wild caught oily fish. If seaweed sounds unappetising then you can get it as a supplement because some of those are very nutritionally dense as well. In particular chlorella and sarsparilla are worth looking up. There's also a supplement in health food shops called "fatigued to fantastic" which some people say is good but I've never tried it so can't personally vouch for it. I'm just mentioning it so you know what's out there.

You might not like to hear this, but I think you should listen to your body more, so if it's exhausted, it means you need to rest more, even if it's twice as much as everyone else. Pushing your physical limitations will only make matters worse in the long term. I literally know of hundreds of people who can say that from experience. I know this will sound counterintuitive (and whoever gave me this advice years ago, I was dismissive about it until now), but in the long term you'd be better off reducing your reliance upon sugar and caffeine and would be better off finding alternatives to give you a more natural and healthy energy boost that you need- I think juicing the right set of ingredients can help with that. If you're inexperienced or daunted by that, you can always go to a juice stall in the shopping centre and ask if they can recommend something good for boosting energy to help you figure this out or look up online recommendations.

The advice I should've accepted years ago is: don't look for quick fixes because there aren't any. You CAN improve your long term health but that will require long term changes and efforts and emotionally coming to terms with perhaps giving up certain foods and habits you liked. An online friend did tell me that, but I had to learn that lesson the hard way by which time a lot of the damage was too far done to reverse it so I was a bit too late. The key is to fix the gut. Medical NHS doctors will be useless at it but a decent doctor who is also a herbalist and skilled in natural remedies can really help. There's one called Dr Sarah Myhill and there's also one in Leicester that my friend uses called Dr Ruth (I don't know her last name) who has drastically improved her symptoms of fibromyalgia and menopause but also treats other conditions. I'd recommend a supplement called Slippery Elm (made into a powder by a company called Now) whereby you put a spoonful in a cup of boiling water or tea and drink it (maybe add a little honey or something to make it palatable). It doesn't taste nice but it's a nutritional powerhouse, great for replenishing someone with nutritional deficiencies and great at protecting the gut and making digestion easier. Do not buy it as a capsule- capsules usually contain fillers or just aren't as pure but the powder is the real thing.

[Ya'sin]

i could vacuum another three room just before maghrib

but i have bigger fish to fry... upstairs, i normally do it first but downstairs needed a vacuum desperately

more handwashing left though and i need to cut my hair

[Ya'sin]

Have you tried folic acid?

no, my sister told me i could take that with the iron but my surgery said to take the iron on its own

[Faith reloaded 2]

my sister told me I can but I want to be careful just incase because of the side effects to supplements.

This is why I hate going to the doctor's or for a blood test.

I can get the fumarate without a prescription, it doesn't make much difference as I have to pay for my medicines anyway, and it works out cheaper without the prescription.

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Have you tried folic acid?

[Ya'sin]

If your iron is low (without being anaemic) then you can still get iron supplements prescribed. After a while you can purchase some that are less strong. Doctors don't really care. But if your results are borderline (just ok) then they won't bother adding things up, like x feels tired, irons just about ok .
You can say you are feeling tired, out of breath, and mamy other things but they won't think it could be in your blood test results which is quite pathetic and a waste of nhs resources for them to do a bloos test and not give proper advice. And also when they initially prescribe vitamins they don't tell you on their own how much to keep taking afterwards.

my sister told me I can but I want to be careful just incase because of the side effects to supplements.

This is why I hate going to the doctor's or for a blood test.

I can get the fumarate without a prescription, it doesn't make much difference as I have to pay for my medicines anyway, and it works out cheaper without the prescription.

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