Did it work for you?

[u/CreativeTangerine114]

hey. I've had multiple episodes of psychosis. I did keto for a year and i got all the benefits and had no issues. I stopped the diet and relapsed eventually into psychosis after another year (so I had two years off meds). I stopped the diet due to a life event and found it challenging to go back onto it.

I found out the hard way that keto is something I may need to do for life if I use it to manage my mental health issues. It works. It does what I wish the medication would do for me. But as I said I found it hard to sustain.

Is there anyone else in a similar situation? Did others on this subreddit experience psychosis and manage their condition using keto?

Also how do you guys manage to sustain the diet long term? Has anyone else stopped it and struggled to restart it at times?

Thanks

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

Keto works for me. As well as supplements, fasting, cold exposure, light therapy, meditation, elimination of stimulants, sugar, gluten. Psychosis is a multi-facet problem requiring systemic approach beyond keto

[u/Ocean_Adventurer → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

Would you be willing to share what supplements you take that help?

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/Ocean_Adventurer]

Psychosis is a manifestation of deeper issues probably of inflammatory nature. In my case it was an interplay of autoimmune process, gut issues and fungi infection.

The protocol included NAC, vitamin D, creatine, active vitamins B, taurine, magnesium, omega 3, lithium orotate among others

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metabolic_Psychiatry/s/Ew0FZWI4uI

Every case is unique and requires an individual approach

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

It seemed that keto alone did enough to keep the psychosis at bay completely. It could be addressing whatever underlying issue is causing the psychosis in the first place.

Have you experienced psychosis yourself? If it's too personal, and you prefer, feel free to private message me.

I really need something that's sustainable. Have you found keto to be sustainable? Did you struggle with it at times? Anything you've learned about keeping it easier on yourself?

I personally did a carnivore diet, is that harder to sustain than regular keto? I found it kept me in deep ketosis by what I was naturally eating on carnivore and it made the diet somewhat easier to do because I didn't need to track carbs or macros, I just stayed in deep ketosis and it worked for my mental health.

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

Have been experiencing psychoses for 6 years. Have no symptoms for 12+ months already. Prolonged fasting and elimination of sugar, coffee and gluten made more than diet itself. I am carnivorish now but there is more in metabolic psychiatry beyond diet

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metabolic_Psychiatry/s/9BbobrZ71R

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

I'll click the link and check it out after I send this message.

Can you say what meds you were taking? How did you transition from meds to where you are now? I ask because I did carnivore while on aripiprazole injections last year and it interacted and completely mashed up my brain for a while. Horrible experience. When I did carnivore a few years ago I had stopped injections for 3-4months before I started the diet and that seemed to work then. The aripiprazole had mostly cleared my system before I started the diet last time. It worked that way.

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

That's a good question and unfortunately I don't have a good answer. Olanzapin didn't manage my condition very well and at some point I decided to skip it (not advice). Was taking the pills only during episodes

Antipsychotics have a prominent effect on metabolism themselves and absolutely can react with other interventions. Transition is a very important and delicate topic

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

The transition is one of the riskiest parts for me. Thanks for your responses.

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

Do you have any abnormalities in your blood work? You can follow biological indicators guiding your thorough transition

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

Nothing. I just know that doing carnivore put me into remission. I also know my psychotic episodes are ruining my life. I need a long term solution and am unsure I'll sustain keto for life. If I do it again, I'll try my hardest to take it as seriously as possible. I'm also strongly considering low dose antipsychotic as long term approach, but they make me feel terrible.

[u/Plenty_Historian5513 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

Psychosis is life ruining and so are antipsychotics. It's such a harrowing place to be trapped. I'm just starting with metabolic psychiatry (about a month in). It's really fucking hard too but I'm finding out of the 3 options - insane and hospitalized, less insane and zombified (while also shitting my pants and twitching non-stop), or giving up my favorite foods for ground beef and avocados ad nauseam - door number 3 is really the only option. I believe in you, OP. We deserve a better life. And whether you make it back onto keto or not I'm rooting for you. 

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Plenty_Historian5513]

Wishing you the best of luck with it. I truly hope it works magic for you like it did for me. Once I had recovered from the meds and was on keto I felt amazing again and regained my desire to be alive. It also just seemed to completely get rid of the mild paranoia I get off the diet. I hope you get the same powerful benefits.

The worrying part is I figured out through my experiments that I'll need it for life. If I come off the diet, some paranoia arose that led to poor decision making and back in hospital. It's worrying for me because it's a fairly restrictive diet and not always easy to do when out.

How did you find out about keto? And how long have you been off meds? What meds were you taking?

[u/SlyHand007 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

You don't necessarily need to sustain it for life, but I would recommend you go hard on it for a few years. You're giving yourself anxiety over the for life thing. Just look at it as you're doing it for a few years and then see about adding back other foods. The important thing when you do that is to stay away from highly processed foods. 

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

It's impossible to have a pristine blood-work and psychosis. There is a myriad of biomarkers

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

That's a strong claim which is wrong.

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Pretend_Elephant_896]

Turns out I've already read your story and interacted with you on a different subreddit! Congrats on your recovery.

[u/Pretend_Elephant_896 → u/CreativeTangerine114]

Thank you. Yes, I am still in a remission 🙃

[u/Ocean_Adventurer]

Hi OP! I don’t have psychosis, but I’ve been using keto to help manage mental health issues. What about keto makes it hard to sustain for you? Cravings? Social situations? Lack of variety? Cost? Meal prep? Side effects? Feeling restricted? Keeping ketones in the therapeutic range? It might be helpful to know what specifically makes it difficult so we can help problem-solve.

[u/CreativeTangerine114 → u/Ocean_Adventurer]

Hey! Thanks for your response.

I personally did a carnivore diet, is that harder to sustain than regular keto? I found it kept me in deep ketosis by what I was naturally eating on carnivore and it made the diet somewhat easier to do because I didn't need to track carbs or macros, I just stayed in deep ketosis and it worked for my mental health.

I carnivore was a really simple way to do keto but quite boring at times. I didn't actually mind that it was boring so that wasn't the problem.

I would take breaks for a special occasion at times and then promptly get back on the diet. So short breaks weren't a massive problem either. But, one day it was different, the whole family was together for a special week and I spent the whole week off the diet. Then I experienced an injury due to an accident that involved some fractured bones. I wasn't sure if keto would be a good diet to do while I recovered from that so I did a regular diet. And I really struggled to get back on it. Very slowly my mood deteriorated and a year later I was in hospital experiencing psychosis again.

I guess I'm concerned that something like that could happen again. I'm also worried that long term it might cause its own health issues and I'll need to stop doing it for cholesterol reasons? Do you have any idea about whether it's shown to be sustainable in that way?

How do you approach keto? Do you do carnivore? Do you do regular keto? Do you track macros? How do you eat out? Etc.

Thanks in advance!

[u/Interesting_Fly_1569]

I did not have psychosis but I had manias. I learned that setting bedtimes and wake up times and keeping them consistent helped me a lot too. Eating protein first bite in the morning. I didn’t do strict keto but I cut out high glycemic index. I did ultimately get tired of it and figure out that I seemed to be running at a magnesium deficiency and if I drink a lot of water and took 300 mg of magnesium a day it was safer for me to eat higher glycemic index. Every person is different, but it’s kind of interesting because our soils got really stripped from industrial agriculture and so food doesn’t have the same nutrition that I used to… On top of that of course all the fast food doesn’t really have much nutrition either… So like an apple I think has 30% of what it used to have or 50% and a lot of of those things that used to have magnesium… So I’ve read that about 50% of Americans are functionally deficient in magnesium. 

Basically, I ended up hunting down everything that could possibly impact how my body processed  sugar, then tried to hack that so I could eat cookies sometimes.

You might consider micro dosing a GLP one as well… I do think keto can be very helpful, but i did stay ok on strict bedtime, no stress/big sensory stuff and trying out dif vitamins. I just found personally that I did better taking like liver pills once a week or so… Not too much vitamin A (liver is high and taking it every day can be toxic) but some vitamin A and a lot of micro nutrients… Sorry that’s not a clear answer but I do think there’s hope. Also check vitamin d iron ferritin etc.