Symptom investigation and Recovery Journal

[ZenAlex]

I've been feeling quite irritable and my internal issues have been amplified. I was sitting in a meditation state and I took the b12 sublingual and I felt weird.

May stop taking it.

[ZenAlex]

Formulated a diet that's not really low carb, but have cut out baked beans, medjool dates and rice and replaced with chia seeds, avocados and increased my tofu. 

That cuts 150g of carbs from those foods, and total carbs by 100g, and getting carbs from not so high carb foods.

It's a stab in the dark but we'll see what happens.

Will start it next week and see what happens.

Diet I will try - 

Oats - 60g, 100g avocado

Alpro coconut milk

Cashews

--

Salmon (alternative between eggs and salmon)

Banana

Pineapple

strawbarries

blueberries

avocado

-----

Sweet potato

tofu 300g

asapargus/mushrooms etc

gravy

spinach salad w/ olive oil

chia pudding

Maybe some nutritional yeast

--------

Carbs around 210 down from 320ish. 

Will probably not do much but lets see. Have cut out Rice, Dates and Baked beans, so I don't see any real detriment, still hitting micros easily. 

Only concern is saturated fat up from 15g to 23g, but that doesn't seem too bad. Only around 9% of daily cals.

Edited May 1 by ZenAlex

[ZenAlex]

Hmmm, so I took a more trusted NHS test for Covid 19 on the recommendation of people within a long covid community. 

Specifically says it doesn't detect vaccine antibodies. 

It would make sense. 

Only problem is no improvement in 8 months. FFS. 

[ZenAlex]

Over the next couple of weeks I'm just going to chill. 

Lower carbs by around 100g-120g, see what happens, and just alter diet bit by bit and see what happens. 

I cannot find any obvious answer so just going to have to take stabs in the dark. If it is covid it will just bit a matter of time. 

I don't want to try drugs like anti-histamines because I have no idea if it is at all related and it could cause harm. 

If my GP doesn't figure it out I'll try another GP. 

I'm going to stay off work for the mean time, I'll take a couple of weeks away from researching all of this, just in case it's all just being exacerbated by me trying to figure it out in the first place. I doubt it since I wasn't researching at all when the symptoms started, but whatever. 

[ZenAlex]

Getting a continuous blood glucose monitor soon, have found one that doesn't require a smart phone. Will see what happens with repeated blood sugar monitoring.

Will be getting an ECG fitted next week. 

I'm gonna do more research this week, but the main thing is placing a sheet of paper in my kitchen to reflect on to remind myself to be actually doing something practical, as at times I can procrastinate and also be focused purely on speculation and theorising but getting no where. 

Taking care of the physical - If the final couple of tests the GP does comes back with nothing and I continue to get palmed off by this GP practice then I'm going to sign up to another GP, and take along all  my notes.

I'm going to ask for a histamine prick test. I don't want to go ahead and just start taking anti histamines and hope they do something. I looked into the low histamine diet but it requires far too much avoidance of foods that are healthy for me to want to risk doing it without proper guidance and without knowing if histamine is the problem. 

Yesterday on lower carb there were some interesting moments. I felt a bit more aware consuming more fat and protein, but I had a bit of a bricky feeling in my stomach. It went away though. I'm not even on really low carb so it probably wnot make a difference but making changes and monitoring reactions is important. 

====

I'm going to keep doing my therapy, but one thing I'm considering at some point is finding a MH professional that specialises in psychosomatic problems as I am open to the possibility that my issues are related to mental health problems now impacting my body, so it's worth a try.

-------

I'm doing a complete overhaul on my physical and mental health and hopefully it will all be worth it. 

I'm noticing quickly feeling burned out after mental exertion at times. 

Lets fucking go. 

[ZenAlex]

On the weekend I was completely alone. I cleaned, meditated and calmed my symptoms right down.

I managed to get my mind reasonably calm, and listened to some ambient music, and some of the old positive feelings at times came back

Inner peace and zen + Ambience can be so beautiful sometimes. It takes the mind to incredible places. Makes me wonder if the greatest forms of beauty come from within the mind rather than in the senses.

I'm going to create a finalized plan and list of things to do this week, then next week I'm just going to take completely off and chill. I will rest in nature and meditation, and all this will lead up to next weekend and I can hopefully enjoy the boxing and the end of the football season.

After this I'm probably going back to work. I'm not going to spend any more time researching this for a while and just stick to following a list of practical things to do and see what happens. 

Still having thoughts of suicide. It is a back up plan if all else fails. I know how I'd spend my final days. 

But I don't want to die, I want to get better. Lets go dude.

 

[ZenAlex]

I registered with another doctor, and take a list of symptoms to them and will be speaking to my psychologist now about my symptoms that are probably psychosomatic and see what happens.

I feel like my symptoms are too non-specific to really figure out what they are with further research. 

concentrating and researching right now is literally hurting me, I don't know why I am like this. 

Lets see what happens. 

I'm in between the belief that I could have done more and I've done as much as I could and maybe have done more than most people would

I dunno man, I feel like the last 8 months have gone by so fucking quick. Another year over in 4 months.

[ZenAlex]

Long covid - Post Exertional/Exertional malaise

Somatic symptoms

These are the things that make sense more than anything else now.

[ZenAlex]

I don't know what else to do.

moments of beauty give me hope.

 

Even just typing this sometimes aggravates me and brings on stomach tightness.

[ZenAlex]

Covid or other viral infection or somatic symptom issues. These are the two things that stick out to me more than anything else. 

All I am doing right now is researching a bit on somatic symptom issues in case that is the problem.

I'm getting frustrated with my psychologist a bit because he doesn't follow through on his promises sometimes.

Thinking of changing over.

Have been off work for months now. 

I am still going to remain hopeful. Another doctor may take me more serious. I have a doc appointment next week with my new surgery. 

I can try other psychologists.

I feel like am 3-6 months away from being Ben from Leaving Las Vegas.

 

[ZenAlex]

Been contemplating suicide quite a bit. I have up and down periods with suicidal ideation.

Part of me at times seems to make peace with the idea of being dead, but just concern over how I'd do it.

Seeing another doctor on friday. My psychologist recommended referral to a psychiatrist regarding the possibility of somatic symptom disorder.

Not sure I want to mention anything related to mental health as they'll immediately use this as an excuse to say my issues are just stress and not do any fucking medical tests.

Will probably focus purely on potential medical issues and advise of my physical problems in detail. These doctors have good reviews.

Need to articulate what I'm going through accurately and carefully. My last GP just didn't give a shit.

Sometimes I wonder if I even care about getting better anymore.

I'm trying my best to communicate my symptoms to my psychologist, but defusion is primarily what we're focused on. 

I wonder if we're ever going to get to the core of my mental health issues which have been exacerbated over last 9 months by whatever is going on inside of me, but were pre-existing so maybe this period of pain was necessary to get to the route cause of that.

 

[ZenAlex]

I'm trying not to catastrophise but no improvement in 9 months kind of sucks.

All I'm gonna do is keep a symptom diary and keep trying to communicate my thoughts to my doctor as carefully as possible. 

I hope that all of this will help me appreciate the fragility of life as much as possible and one day I'll recover.

So many people have it so shit and I didn't even realise just how bad and hopeless it is for some people.

I'll appreciate what I've got a lot more. 

I don't want much, just for these symptoms to clear up enough for me to exercise again. I don't care about being rich, popular or whatever else. 

Just good health and peace. 

[ZenAlex]

I seem to have had meaningful session with my psychologist today. Perhaps if these physical issues hadn't have exacerbated my MH problems then I'd never have gotten back into therapy and I'd just stay a withdrawn emotionally numb man forever.

Got another doc appt next week.

Fingers crossed. 

 

[ZenAlex]

Have been linked on long covid forums to a discounted gut microbiome test which I will receive today. We'll see what happens with this.

Spoke to my GP today. She sounded a bit dismissive but said she'd look into a long covid clinic. Advised I had exercise intolerance issues. 

[ZenAlex]

I'm  very confident now the issue I have is likely dysautonomia caused by Long Covid. 

Have mentioned this to the doc, being referred to the right clinic. 

Have spoken with work who are getting me in touch with occupational health.

Don't want to get my hopes up, but we'll see what happens. 

Will continue to use this difficult period as an opportunity to better understand myself.

Edited June 20 by ZenAlex

[ZenAlex]

fuck