Chris improved arthritis, tendinitis, and lost weight on carnivore diet

Hey Doc, I’ve been following you for a couple of years now after listening to you on Joe Rogan. I broke both legs back in November of 2018. Completely shattered my right heel and have 17 herniated disks. I was a mess. I had arthritis in my left ankle so bad I could barely walk. I’m 5’4 and ballooned up to 198lbs. I was miserable and in constant pain. I also developed tendinitis in my right elbow so bad I couldn’t lift a 10lb dumbbell. I made the decision to go on the carnivore diet Feb 1.

I’m down to 174lbs have no tendinitis, my arthritis is gone and my back doesn’t hurt. I have no sugar cravings and am damn near in better shape than before my accident. I just wanted to say thank you for being a voice and showing me how great this diet is.

“This story is about my little son, a boy named Edgar. Although this story is about our entire family, what happened to our son changed our whole life.

Edgar was born in July 2010, grew up to be a completely healthy and well-fed child, only refused to feeding-up and mostly ate breast milk. After a year, I began to make efforts to have more “normal” baby food in his diet – these were cereals, dairy products and fruit puree, cookies and buns, so loved by children.

At the same time, the growth of the child slowed down and until the age of 3 he remained in the height of a 1-1.5-year-old child. Stools became unsolid, but pediatricians calmed down – the enzymes would “ripen” and everything would work great.

He had no visible signs of allergy or intolerance to certain products, with the exception of milk allergy at 6 months, which was manifested by atopy on the skin. Dairy before the year was cut, but after a year, with the permission of the pediatrician, they introduced it into the diet again.

At about 2 years old, he was finally weaned. From this point, over six months, the child lost weight, the big belly grew up, and its lower ribs became deformed. Stools were still unsolid, often undigested.

[h2] The Onset of Illness

We celebrated the new year 2013 with friends, and from their young son our children picked up the rotavirus. For our older boy everything went quickly and without any issues, but Edgar became dehydrated and we had to go to the hospital. With us in the same ward lay a boy with bloody diarrhea, and after 3 days, bloody diarrhea with severe pain and bloating began in Edgar’s colon.

[h2] The Quest for a Cure

As it turned out, the child became infected with “Yersinia enterocolitis.” Blood in the stool and diarrhea did not pass after course of antibiotics. We were transferred to another hospital, where after a colonoscopy and gastroscopy, diagnoses were established – atrophic gastroduodenitis, total necrotic colitis, active severe ulcerative colitis.

The child was prescribed lifelong pancreatic enzymes, mesalazine pills “Pentasa”, a milk-free and gluten-free diet, suggested long-term treatment with prednisone, but I refused, and we had a short course of hydrocortisone injections, which removed blood from the stool. The child was very exhausted, weak and not growing at all.

[h2] A Lifelong Disease and a Child’s Positive Response to the Sun

I could not believe that my beautiful, perfect and so beloved child is disabled, and this disease is with him for life. We went around many professors in Moscow, flew to see a professor in South Korea, we looked for information ourselves, but the same thing happened everywhere – the disease is incurable, but a child can have a tolerable standard of living on medication. This information did not suit our family.

We spent a lot of time traveling to tropical countries because we found out that a child’s exposure to the sun has a positive effect on him – he feels better, gets distracted from thoughts about his illness, grows up a little and gains weight.

In 2015 we went to Vietnam, to the city of Nha Trang. The child at that time had a chronic condition of the disease – we could not enter into remission. It so happened that Edgar caught amoebic dysentery.

[h3] The Quest for a Cure

This was really scary. We cured the infection, but the blood in the stool reappeared, a lot of blood, the already thin child began to lose weight even more. Against the background of exhaustion, an inguinal hernia came out. Husband brought Neocate enteral nutrition from Moscow, and Edgar began to take it, but it did not help to regain weight. We went to the alpine camp of Dr. Alexander Yersen, whose name was given to a bacterium, which served as a push for my son to get Ulcerative Colitis.

[h3] A Journey to a Buddhist Temple and a Return to South Korea

This doctor is revered as a saint in Vietnam, his relics are kept in one of the Buddhist temples near the city of Nha Trang. Walking around the garden in his camp, I asked Alexander Yersen to direct me on the right path, to help my son to heal and become completely healthy. At that moment tears flowed from my eyes, and I believed with all my heart that he would help.

Then we packed our bags and went back to South Korea, to the city of Busan, to the professor, who already saw our son before. After the colonoscopy, the diagnosis of UC was confirmed, pancolitis with an activity of “10”, and the child was presubscribed prednisone. On prednisone, the blood went away and even for a while the stool became very good, something that had never happened to a child before. But after the prednisone was stopped, bloody diarrhea began again.

At the family council, we were decided to move to live from Moscow to Sochi (city on south of Russia on the sea), so as not to leave for wintering in other countries, but to be able to spend more time in the year in the sun. Back in Korea, we were tested for food and respiratory allergens and we detected reactions to an apple (4th grade), flowering peach, mold fungi, birch (6th grade), cat hair and some others.

Allergens have been removed from the child’s food, all of which can cause cross-reactions to these allergens and potentially allergenic foods such as citrus fruits, tomatoes, and others. As a result, the diet consisted of buckwheat, millet, oatmeal, pork, rabbit, onions and crucifers. “It was a very poor diet,” as we thought at the time, and outsiders always regretted Edgar for not eating like everyone else.

But even such an elimination diet slightly improved the child’s condition, he was very thin and always hungry, grew up very slow, and get a depression, like me, his mother. I was under constant stress all these years while he was ill, because I could not significantly improve his condition.

[h3] Discovering the Ketogenic Diet

In an effort to get rid of diarrhea, I reached the point that, on the recommendation of respected Moscow doctors, I removed all the fat from the child’s diet, to the drop, that is, he ate everything skimmed. As the doctors believed, fat was poorly digested and only contributed to diarrhea.

That was a big mistake. In the situation with diarrhea, this did not help, but Edgar’s condition worsened even more – he got tired as soon as he left the house. His skin was flaky all over his body. He was constantly in a state of depression and apathy, almost did not communicate with other children and there was not a moment for his face to express joy.

His speech became intermittent, and he could not remember even the simplest and shortest children’s poem. But the worst thing – after 2 months of such a diet, the child’s blood sugar levels began to jump from 1.8 to 9-12 units, a tremor appeared, sweating even in a cool room, and after analyzing insulin and pancreas ultrasound, it turned out that insulin is 2 times lower of the norm, and the tail of the pancreas  is increased – there are a large number of beta cells.

Above the son hung another diagnosis – type 1 diabetes. It was a blow to all of us.

[h2] Discovering the Ketogenic Diet

I spent all day searching for information on the Internet whether it is possible to cure type 1 diabetes, not resorting to insulin injections. And I found her! It was a book by Konstantin Monastyrsky. He wrote that by completely eliminating carbohydrates from food and eating only animal products, type 2 diabetes, and even type 1 diabetes can be cured if exogenous insulin has not been used yet or no more than a month has passed since its use.

In addition, he wrote about the connection between metabolism and autoimmune diseases, including Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis, as well as allergies, asthma and other diseases of civilization. It was like a bolt from the blue! From that moment, I plunged into the world of studying the ketogenic diet.

[h2] Testing the Ketogenic Diet on Myself

I began to test the ketogenic diet on myself. After moving to Sochi, due to the humid climate and constant stress (due to a child’s illness), I had asthma, which had not bothered me since I was 14 years old. I used the inhaler every half hour – an hour, and even at night I could hardly sleep because of the attacks of suffocation.

After about 1.5-2 months, the number of attacks dropped dramatically, and I could already do without an inhaler, but only with the Buteyko breathing exercises.

In addition to asthma, the change in diet affected my pollinosis – it was just the spring, during the flowering of the trees, and this was the first spring in many years, when my eyes did not turn red, and I didn’t have to carry nose drops and a lot of nasal shawls.

[h2] Transitioning My Youngest Son to the Ketogenic Diet

Inspired by my results, I decided to transfer my youngest son to keto.

To do this, it remains to remove buckwheat and millet from the diet and add lard, fatty meat, olive and avocado oils.

The transition to keto was difficult – on the very first night on such a child’s nutrition, an acetonemic crisis – vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea – came on. I was ready to call an ambulance to take the child to the hospital, but by morning the condition of the child improved dramatically, the vomiting stopped, and the diet was continued.

For another six months, we practiced strict keto – I saw that the child felt much better than before. His skin became smooth and elastic, his mood improved, he very slowly but steadily added height and weight, in the mornings there were mild signs of hypoglycemia, but hyperglycemia was never more.

[h2] Seeing Positive Results

Still, the stool was not as stable as we would like. And we decided to remove completely vegetable products from his diet, except refined vegetable oil, which we add to food occasionally, when the meat is not fat enough.

From this moment began a stable grow of bone mass, weight and height in normal for a healthy child limits! Half a year later, a child with a rather wide bone appeared in our family, well-fed, full of strength and satisfied with naughty things – he seemed born again!

His pancreas function was fully restored – sugar and insulin levels were normal, there was no trace of depression, memory and speech were restored.

Now his diet consists of fatty pork, bacon, offal, rabbit, sometimes – olive oil. 

Periodically, we interrupt the carnivore and introduce a small amount of cruciferous, but lately it has become increasingly discarding broccoli and cauliflower, eating only meat. He also takes vitamin and mineral supplements.

After such a success in curing the “incurable” diseases of me and my younger son, I changed the diet of the whole family. My husband and I are now on a ketogenic diet with a minimum of herbal products, and the eldest son is on a fat paleo diet. This helped remove the symptoms of ADHD and allergies from the older son, and the husband lost over 40 kg and his hormones and liver gradually returned to normal.

I am very happy, after 4 long years of severe illness of my son, to gain ground under my feet, no longer nervous, do not look into the pot of my son with a sinking heart, enjoy every time, hugging his strong body and hear his laugh. Having writing my story, I want other mothers of sick children to also find hope and the opportunity to see them healthy.”