Healing is a beautiful thing. Many of us are working hard to bring this reality to the world. Most in mainstream medicine are either unaware of the healing power of our native metabolism or just don't understand it enough to be an advocate for it yet.
However, it's crucial to be aware that some minor and major pitfalls could be in your path. If you understand them at the onset of a metabolic health journey, they are easily avoided on the road to recovery, putting you in control of your health.
As described many times in these blogs and on this site, most conditions that have been categorized as chronic and progressive actually aren't. Once people realize this, they are excited to start their metabolic healing journey.
Avoid Suddenly Becoming Over Medicated
Let's first look at the most pressing potential pitfall.
Many people who are about to start a healing journey utilizing metabolic therapy tend to be on several prescriptions trying to manage a current condition. As an individual starts their journey to flip back into their native metabolism, one of being fat adapted, taking days to weeks of maintain Nutritional Ketosis, many things begin to change in the body.
The physiologic state of Ketosis is one of balanced hormones, lack of inflammation, and oxidative stress unless brought in from an outside factor. In this state, the condition's root cause is being addressed, and the body begins to rapidly heal, gradually, and sometimes rapidly, removing the need for the pharmaceutical (s).
If not correctly monitored, pharmaceuticals that are managing a symptom but not the root cause of the disease can now drop this person into a hypotensive or hypoglycemic state. Thus, one's medical provider must know that you are about to undertake this metabolic therapy and constantly report your blood pressure and glucose levels as they drop. The physician will be able to manage titrating down the medications until the patient potentially no longer needs the medication at all.
This can be the case for many different classes of pharmaceuticals, especially psychiatric and mental health drugs. Again, much of the insulin resistance, high glucose, high insulin, and high fructose environments that are the root causes of many of these conditions are no longer manifesting in the condition. Along with the physiologic state of Nutritional Ketosis, the body begins to heal rapidly. As such, titration of meds to to be addressed.
Since medical schools still don't teach about nutritional ketosis and its healing properties, I recommend sharing a copy of the "Clinical Guidelines for Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction" from the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners with your physician. This provides an in-depth look at the physiologic state of Nutritional Ketosis and its history of clinical use.
Beyond the hypotensive and hypoglycemic scenarios mentioned above, similar conversations should occur with your physician monitoring your mental health medications.
Dr. Chris Palmer and Dr. Georgia Ede discuss this in detail in their books Brain Energy and Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind.
Many physicians are rattled when they realize this well-established therapy has not been brought to their attention. It also tends to transform their future practice. Once you understand who funds and helps set the curriculum for most medical schools, you begin to understand why this knowledge is not taught, but that is a topic for another day.
Now, let's address a minor avoidable pitfall to be aware of when implementing Metabolic Therapy.
Avoiding the Keto Flu
As an individual begins to restrict sugar and ultra-processed carbs from consumption, blood sugar drops, lowering insulin levels naturally. All of this is a good thing. However, this results in the kidneys excreting more sodium. Since there is a homeostasis balance between sodium and other electrolytes in the body, the drop in sodium might temporarily disrupt levels of different electrolytes.
This can lead to symptoms referred to as Keto Flu. The general feeling of suffering from the flu is completely avoidable with proper salt, potassium, magnesium, and electrolyte supplementation during the body's couple of weeks of transition to becoming fat-adapted again.
Many experienced physicians and coaches recommend allowing the body and gut microbiome to transition back to this native metabolism over a couple of weeks. It is never recommended to make radical changes all at once. The body always prefers a gentle transition.
As you can see, returning to your native metabolic physiology can be an easy and worry-free process once you understand how to navigate potential pitfalls.