The Elimination Experiment, or Fatigue Testing

After five doctors and no answers, I'm determined to figure out why I'm always tired so I'm attempting some elimination tests.

The Paleo-Hashimoto's diet I been on has been very successful. I have not had any episodes of exhaustion. The "exhaustion" is when I am so tired I can barely move, lifting my arm takes enormous effort, and the only thing I am capable of doing is lying in bed. I'm not tired or sleepy and I can't sleep, I just can't seem to move. It's very frightening. It's the memory of those exhaustion episodes that helps me maintain my will power and keeps me from eating gluten and chocolate. I believe it's the gluten that provoke the autoimmune attacks on my thyroid.

The underlying fatigue started when I moved into this house eight years ago, maybe even a few years prior although it wasn't very apparent. I don't feel like exercising. I can often work through the fatigue with walking, gardening or projects, but no bike riding or stretching/exercising and even sitting still and reading feels like great effort. I experience the fatigue more in the spring and summer, and most often in the afternoon. I feel so tired I just want to nap, usually around 2pm to about 5pm.


Fatigue Theories:

Hay fever allergies are known for symptoms of fatigue and it's a little coincidental that most of my fatigue takes place in the spring and summer. As a child I lived in the country, dealt with hay fever, and as soon as I came of age I headed to the city where all my hay fever issues went away. I've now moved back to the country to get out of the pollution. There isn't much I can do about hay fever other than take drugs like Benadryl. Benadryl will clear up the respiratory symptoms like runny nose, sneezing, and sinus congestion, but it also causes fatigue. If all this fatigue is caused by hay fever allergies, my only alternative would be to move back to the city where I don't have allergies, but then I would have to suffer chemical exposures which are worse.

Air-borne chemicals  During the spring and summer the city sprays the streets, sidewalks and parks with herbicides and my neighbors spray their lawns. I do notice during the spring and summer there are days when if I go for a walk my lungs start feeling heavy and hurt. In addition, when my neighbor does laundry, it stinks to high heaven and pollutes the whole neighborhood. Incredibly toxic. Is it causing the fatigue?  Other than staying inside all summer, there isn't much I can do about air-borne chemicals other than to continue to do what I can to avoid exposure.

Mold  In the dirt? In the air? Spring and summer is when the ground and air warms. Does it activate mold growth? Every now and then if I dig in the garden, I become very tired. Might be a correlation or the correlation is the exercise? I don't know. I'll not dig in the dirt and use it as a test.

Computers and electromagnetic field exposures  I can keep track of the time I spend on the computer, but other than that it is another uncontrollable variable as I have to work.

Water-borne chemicals  I tend to feel tired once a month consistently and this leads me to believe there might be a connection to the city's water treatments and the fatigue I experience. I love soaking in the bathtub. I can take very short showers and see if that makes a difference and during the time period in question, avoid bathing all together and use it as a test.

Adrenal fatigue  Any number of things can contribute to adrenal fatigue, but stress is the number one factor.  I tend to be very reactive to emotions and sensitive to stress, but I don't have much on a daily basis. Bathing in hot water affects body temperature and puts a lot of stress on one's adrenals which could also affect energy levels. I have done some experimentation with adrenal support and nothing has made a difference. I'm at a loss for what else to try. No bathing might make a difference.

Diet  I've done well to reduce my intake of bad foods, but I still have my guilty pleasures and most of them are NOT on my Paleo-Hashimoto's diet. Although I don't eat a lot of the forbidden foods, every now and then I do treat myself.  Dried fruits are high in carbohydrates and affect blood sugar, and I'm addicted to raisins and dates as snacks. Yogurt (dairy) is known for inflammation, and unfortunately, when I get bored with the same old foods I treat myself with high fat, no sugar, plain yogurt. Potatoes are also high in carbohydrates (sugars) even though I eat them rarely, I haven't stopped completely. Grains are not on the diet either and I rarely eat gluten-free grain products with rice flour, potato flour or other substitutes, but every now and then for something different, I do. Rice is a carbohydrate and even though I don't eat it nearly as much as I did prior to starting this diet, I start feeling discombobulated if I go without it for up to two weeks. I also eat a lot of eggs, more than any human should consume. Are they causing fatigue? Let's find out. Can I give up these foods for three weeks? I'll need to add some recipes to my diet that will keep me full and satisfied like more beef and lamb.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome  One doctor suggested chronic fatigue, but I don't seem to have the other symptoms that accompany this condition. If so, there is nothing I can do about it.

Menopause and Hormonal Changes  Maybe. Not much I can do about this, either. Old people feel tired and nap a lot. I'm in that in between stage - I'm not old enough to retire, but I'm old enough to start feeling like I should. Damn.


Elimination Plan:

For three weeks I am not to soak in hot baths. Brief showers only except between the 19th and 25th when I sponge bathe in distilled water. No eating problematic foods (eggs, yogurt, dried fruit, potatoes or rice, gluten-free flours) for three weeks. I can't avoid the outside which would be ideal, but I can't stop what little exercise I'm getting and it's summer. I need sunshine for vitamin D. I'll keep track of everything I'm eating as well as anything unusual that I do or that happened during the day, for instance, air pollution encounters, labor-intensive projects, when I take a shower, and how often I'm on the computer.

Notes and Highlights:

The first day: NO FATIGUE. The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth days: NO FATIGUE.  Even after strenuous work, walking, or computer time, I didn't feel the normal afternoon fatigue. There were a few days when I felt a little tired around 6pm, but nothing that stopped me from functioning. I had high hopes that I was doing something right until the evening of the ninth day.

Day eight I was exposed to long grass and my hay fever symptoms went crazy. Later that night, I wanted to eat eggs. I couldn't stop thinking about them. It's the only thing I wanted to eat, but I didn't. Sinuses were painfully raw and respiratory tract was uncomfortably congested. The next day allergy symptoms were still bothering me, but not as bad. Later that night I started pacing around the kitchen like a caged animal. I'm hungry, but nothing looks good. I didn't eat rice although I know it would have stopped me from pacing. Tenth day woke up tired and stayed that way all day crashing around two in the afternoon and sleeping for two hours. Allergies?? Or maybe coming down off of allergies?

Around day five I started feeling like I want to exercise! Nothing strenuous, just stretching and movement, but normally I don't even feel like I'm capable of any kind of exertion.

After a week of no raisins or dates, I didn't even care. I really thought I'd have problems giving up the sugary stuff.

Air-borne chemical encounters clearly gave me headaches and migraines usually within a few minutes and the intensity depended on the encounter. Getting one whiff of that sickly-sweet laundry detergent wafting over from my neighbor's house nearly killed me one morning. I ran back into the house and stayed there for a few hours with the windows closed until I thought their laundry was done. Didn't seem to have any correlation to fatigue, though.

Around day seventeen I was COLD. My whole body cold. And hungry. I wanted to take a bath just to warm up, but instead crawled into bed for about an hour. Didn't sleep because I wasn't tired. Hungry all day, but nothing sounded satisfying. Later in the day I wanted to eat eggs. I didn't. I ate rice...I couldn't wait any longer.

The Challenges:

I added a "forbidden" for one day and stop for four days to see what happens.

RICE: no negative effects, felt better, no hunger and no fatigue

GLUTEN-FREE CUPCAKE WITH SUGAR: YUM! I couldn't help myself. I was awake later than usual (lots of energy), I seem to have more hot flashes, and slightly tired about four hours later with slight headache, but no crashing type of fatigue.

EGGS: The cravings indicated eggs might be an issue, maybe associated with hay fever? Eggs are really high in zinc which assists detoxification. As soon as I ate them I kept having to clear my throat. Then I ate them again and again all day. I felt a little tired at the bewitching hour (2:00pm), but not much and no crashing. I ate them again and had no reaction at all.

YOGURT: The yogurt was heavenly, I slept good after, and awoke with lots of energy the next morning. It's not yogurt!

POTATOES: Yum! I baked them as French Fries in olive oil. No fatigue. I do wonder if I ate them a lot or repeatedly for days if they would also produce fatigue. So several weeks later I tried that and experienced no fatigue.

GLUTEN-FREE PANCAKES: These are made with rice flour and some other stuff. I eat them so infrequently, maybe once every two or three months so it's been a while since I've had them. I went picking blueberries and thought this would be a good opportunity to make blueberry pancakes and test the reaction. I ate one pancake and felt really awful. About an hour later the headaches started and then I crashed and slept for two hours. All before noon! Fatigue and headaches the rest of the day.

BATH: I was getting a strange rash on my calves before I started this experiment which only got worse every time I took a bath. It nearly all went away during the bathing elimination phase.  I took a fast dip in a cool bath thinking a hot bath was causing the rash, and my calves started burning anyway. I had planned to take hot baths the whole day to test the fatigue, but if one short cool dip would cause the burning, I decided to wait to add hot baths later. I took that cool dip when the chemicals in the water are at their worst.

About a week later, I just wanted a bath and it was time to do a bath challenge. To soak in hot water. It was wonderful. Two hours later I did it again. I felt tired immediately after and crashed, sleeping for two hours. Took another bath and the headaches and nausea started. I jump in the shower with a gallon of heated distilled water and tried to rinse the water off. Even so, I woke up the next morning with nausea, pain in my lower back, a headache and fatigue and later that afternoon, crashed and slept for one hour. It took two days to recover and the whole time I felt groggy and tired. Is it the chemicals in the water? I've had problems with them in the past. Or is it the heat stressing my adrenals? I have no idea. Maybe both. But the rash didn't come back with the second bath. I think maybe the rash and nausea are from the chemicals and the fatigue is from the heat.

DRIED FRUIT: Oh, raisins and dates...my addiction. I was surprised it was so easy to give them up. For me, dried fruit might as well be straight sugar. I had a bad feeling and almost considered not using them as a test, but I needed to confirm. I bought a small bag of dates and immediately felt sick after eating some. Ate a few more of the dates the next day and around 2pm crashed for nearly FOUR hours. Good to know.

DIGGING IN THE DIRT/MOLD THEORY:  This was the last test. I cut all my lettuce and gave it to the food bank then the next morning I dug out all the roots. I dug deep and got my nose down in the dirt to make sure the exposure was good. No fatigue at all.


Conclusion:

Besides the normal dietary restrictions of gluten, sweeteners, dairy, tomatoes, mushrooms, pork, shellfish, high glycemic fruits, juices, junk food and processed foods:

*Stay away from hot baths.
*Stay away from bath during city treatment periods.
*Stay away from flours or grains (other than rice).
*Stay away from dried fruits.

*Limit egg intake.

*Continue limiting rice intake no more than once every ten days.

*Avoid potatoes and yogurt because they aren't on the Paleo-Hashimoto's diet, but if I treat myself, I know these items not causing the fatigue.

*Hay fever reeks havoc on my body. Oh well.

*Stay away from chemicals. Knew that.

The closer I get to following Dr. Kharrazian's Hashimoto's diet, the better I feel. The rice is still a cheat but I don't have a clue why it makes me insane not to eat it. I'll avoid potatoes and yogurt, also cheats, even though they don't affect me. That random fatigue episode after the hay fever reaction is puzzling, but I feel closer to an answer. Non-scientific tests done at home without laboratory control are really inconclusive at best. I have no idea if combinations of things create the fatigue or other variables, but this is the best I could do.

The plan and challenges took about two months total. I'm so tired of eating pot roast...