Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Alcohol

I recommend only drinking alcohol on very special occasions.

I had three glasses of mulled wine last night; for medicinal purposes of course! You know it has clove, star anise and cinnamon in it!?!?

Inflammation in the spine kept me up all night but as Jesus know, sacrifices had to me made!

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Last night's alcohol seems to have worked out better for me than for poor Robin: I had 3 whiskey sours and slept like a baby!

No discernible impact this morning. I have a bit of lingering stiffness lately, so I can't positively say zero effect. My holiday season has been less than ideal, with many recent starch and dairy indulgences (potato chips! sour cream! blue cheese! crackers!). But scotch is now on my 'yellow' requires more testing list. When I get back to strict NSD I will try it again and let you know.

Well... I had baby potatoes, some kind of bread, a sea food appetizer, and I even nibbled on the corn. The real heavy hammer probably was the chocolate mouse cake!

It was two days ago and I am suffering!!! Also, I am having serious sugar and starch cravings now too! I have really poked the bear. I wouldn't say that I woke the dragon because it has not been sleeping for a year.

I am strongly suspecting a lot of people with symptoms of AS but no AS type of bone degeneration (but other bone erosion) are more likely suffering from chronic "conlonizations/infestations" of biofilms that live in our gut and organs; just waiting to be fed.

There probably comes a point where the biofilms are so large and entrenched that NSD is useless. I am waiting for a shipment of EDTA as a heavy metal chelator to try and break down biofilms. It can be dangerous to use. I hope customs doesn't give me troubles. I have worked in a paint manufacturing industry without environmental protection and that probably makes my mercury amalgam fillings trivial!

Never give up!

Lol, I hear you! So hard this time of year to be good!

What's great about knowing about the starch connection is that we get to control our fate. I knew that cheating would come with a price, and it has. I'm also confident that once I go back to strict NSD for a few weeks I'll be back down to my usual 0-1 pain levels. It's nice to be able to make choices this way.

Rum, gin, and brandy might be the best choices, See #3 below.

#1. Fully Organic is Part of the Inflammation Management Strategy

For me, experience shows that sugar and starch, without a doubt, increase discomfort. But when avoiding wheat or corn I am also inadvertently avoiding gluten and mycotoxins since those foods contain one or both of those toxins. Corn is the highest in micotoxins and I notice that I react highly to it. Aside from corn and wheat, others that I react highly too are soy and peanuts. Peanuts are in he soy family (peanuts are not nuts) and both are high in phytic acid which is a problem to many people, and the former also is high in aflatoxin from mould. Furthermore, most of those foods are GMO'ed to be Round Up ready. So to isolate what is keeping us from possibly healing is a complex mess and the conclusion is that all probably are harming us: starch, Round Up, mycotoxins, gluten, phytic acid, GMO,... The answer simply seems to be go fully organic. But I digress.

I suspect that most of us have sensitivity to all of those compounds -- starch, gluten and mycotoxins, phytic acid,... -- since it is very likely that our guts are dysfunctional.

#2. Non-starchy Foods Can Still Trigger inflammation due to contamination: Example...

Can we be aware of ourselves enough to know which of those compounds are effecting us most at any moment? For example: Four day-old leftovers of high cellulose plants like broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, spinach, cucumbers,... may have grown invisible mould and now harbour micotoxins. You eat it then have a toxic reaction and wonder, "what did I do wrong???"

#3. Re-distilled Alcohols are Least Likely to be Contaminated by Mycotoxins

Alcohol is an inflammatory in many ways. It also raises blood sugar and other toxins such as acetylaldehyde which will definitely add discomfort. If the alcohol is "clean" -- without mycotoxins that are common in beer, wine and other naturally fermented alcohol -- do we recover faster in comparison to "pure" (re-distilled) alcohol?

Re-distilled alcohol like brandy, rum and gin are the least contaminated if the toxins are left behind during the distillation processes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22232264 That explains why I could tolerate distilled beverages much better than beer and wine. I thought that it was an "allergy" but it is more likely the micotoxins; there is a difference! Now, does the re-distillation process also eliminate gluten? I don't know. It probably is removed since it is a big molecule!

#4. Detoxification is Necessary

Some micotoxins have a half-life in our bodies of over 30 days! And a given micotoxin might take six days to be reduced to half concentration in our body, or six months in another person depending on genetics and diet. High fiber diets help at eliminating mycotoxins by supporting cellular detoxification pathways but the fiber also sequesters the mycotoxins that our liver dumps into the gut, hence keeping our body from reabsorbing it. Consumption of activated charcoal or bentonite clay are promoted as ways to aid in sequestering toxins in our gut. Some people will pop a few activated charcoal capsules when eating in a restaurant to counteract questionable foods. Activated charcoal has also been used in hospitals to absorb many types of toxins and poisons. https://draxe.com/activated-charcoal-uses/

Aside from sequestering toxins in the gut so as to excrete them, I believe that other detoxification modes are important such as using alpha-lipoic acid, liposomal L-glutathione, vitamin C D E, etc. Using all these supplements may at best keep us stable if we continue to put toxins into our body by not eating organic foods.

Don't forget to exercise and SWEAT!! Time in a sauna will help get toxins out since the skin is the largest organ in our body and the toxins bypass the liver and kidneys which reduces the workload on those organs.

Just food for thought.

I have found it is not so much what you drink but how much. If you drink enough to get a hangover the some proses will start off an A.S. flarup. Personally I have found it less bother to reduce my alcohol intake to a minimum. Not just because of its effect on my A.S. but because most of my medication state take no alcohol with these drugs.

Frederick,

I think that you're right, that for AS sufferers the existence of micotoxins in alcohol is irrelevant. In my experience any alcohol sends me to Hell -- I can not tell the difference in effects whether it is beer, red wine or brandy.. ohhhh... a good brandy!!! But I will test that theory with more attention to the details of the pain and report back.

Stay Strong!

I contradicted myself. Earlier when I stated that beer effects me more than a "clean" alcohol I was thinking of my experience before I started to damage my gut for six months to a year triggering my first major AS symptom flare. During that "gut damaging" time the difference between alcohols waned. These days I can't tolerate any alcohol, sugar or starch. But the next time I'm at a bar I am going to order a few brandies!!!

I still have not given up nuts, coffee or chocolate, but am trying to wean myself. I lack discipline and deserve NO SYMPATHY!!

Stay Strong!