LDN

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Dear Group,I am reading messages about LDN. Never heard of it before. Nor have my doctors. To anyone who is taking it...where are you from and do your doctors prescribe it regularly? Can anyone give me more information other than the basic things that I have found on Google.ThanksThanks so much for your very detailed reply -My main symptoms are nervous/psychological with gut issues alongside and coming on at the same time (21 years ago). I have loose, irregular and urgent stools, and chronic itching around my rear end(!) I have long been aware that my nervous symptoms are related to my gut, and the only thing that has ever made a difference to my problems has been through addressing the gut. My problems don't seem to fit any of the typical psychological diagnoses - and I've not had any help from conventional mental health .I began the diet 4 weeks ago. I didn't do the introduction phase as my diarrhoea wasn't that intense and my stools were mainly formed. I'm now thinking I should have done the intro phase after all. Basically all my foods have been SCD legal, but I have been eating all of them straight off. I have worked out that raisins and nuts don't help me much, and lentils too.My progress has been as follows. For the first week I felt quite good. After 8 days I had the most enormous crash and felt worse than I have ever felt in my life. I was pretty sure it was a die-off thing.Yeah - almost definitely. I picked up again after 4 or 5 days, and then decided to add in a probiotic - VSL3. I went downhill again on the VSL3, but stuck it out thinking it was die-off, however I noticed that when I reduced the dose I felt better, and when I increased it I felt worse, and it didn't clear after ten days, so I have stopped taking it. I have been off it for 2 days, but I still feel pretty terrible!Well VSL is not legal on SCD anyway, and as you have in any casea singular gut/mind connection going on, it' s probably best to remainas safe as you can with the probiotics. I'd start acidophilus. Either in capsule form or with yogurt. I'd also consider looking into LDN, which does a tremendousamount to boost mental health through helping to finessegood gut ecology. Have you had a yeast test done by a specialist? Or a stool testdone by Genova Diagnostics? You might be dealing with somecrazy strains. I would definitely start over by going on intro for a few days - you might be surprised to find what you can and cannottolerate. Also, intro is the best way to clean your system out -and get rid of a bunch of stuff - to start more freshly. Over time we see a lot of people who think they can just launch - that their symptoms aren't that bad - that they can just pickup in the middle - and unquestionably, while it is still a betterdiet than the one they've been on, most of these peopleend up starting over with intro - because that way they canfigure out where they stand the best and clear out what theystill haven't managed to figure out. And really, it is just 2-5days, so while it takes a bit of backbone, it is not that hard. Just eat a lot of hardy broth to keep yourself satiated. Also, there is a book called The Second Brain:A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine - about the connection between mind and gut - that you maywant to invest in:http://www.amazon.com/Second-Brain-Groundbreaking-Understanding-Disorders/dp/0060930721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8 & s=books & qid=1258577091 & sr=8-1Anyway, I hope something here proves helpful. MaraThanks for listening/reading (!) Any help is much appreciated.Thanks Mara - the problem I have is knowing whether feeling worse is a Herxheimer, or a genuine reaction. Presumably you have to feel relatively stable before adding something so that you can gauge its effect?How far along are you? And what are you eating? Andwhat is your diagnosis again, etc.?I'd add in a thick, hearty meat broth (chicken/beef/veal/ etc.)and aim to have it at leastonce a day for the mean while - its gelatinous qualities are excellent forhealing the gut. This helps heal the gut and settle the gutsimultaneously.If you notice anything going out undigested, take it out for a while orfigure out a way to cook it down further - like pureeing it finely,mincing. As is this is not good for your symptoms, and youare also deriving no nutritional benefit from it, so there is nopoint to it.As for not digesting meat fiber, I'd probably either try tosmoothify some of my meats for a bit or I would eatground meat - something which I've never had a problem with.But that's just me.I do great with commercial ground meat, but others onthe list do not, and some have to begin to grind theirown to get a good reaction - that's the kind of thingthat becomes trial and error for some people.There are also some recipes on pecanbread for chickenpancake objects - assuming you can eat eggs - thismight also help with digesting the meat and you cando this kind of thing with fish as well. And if you playwith them a bit, spices, herbs, etc., they can be tasty.Which particular symptoms are you trying to diagnose?The problem is for many of us at the beginning there canbe confusion and overlap between symptoms and die off.But still, IME, genuine bad or tricky reactions tend to trump die offat the beginning of the diet and it is not always productive toattempt to say that is all right because it is die off - so I shouldcontinue it, whereas that one is not helpful. Because a lotof it comes down to guesswork anyway.Anyway, hth a bit more. It can be tricky and frustrating figuringall this out in the beginning. It gets clearer over time.Mara------------------------------------