Thank you for your reply boolbooly
I continued on keto genic Diet for 5 weeks. During this time I didn't have any refined carbs. I only got my carbs from the vegetables which was 50gms a day. I went from housebound to bed bound and needing someone to look after me as I had absolutely no energy. I also permanently had the shakes even though my blood sugar was normal. Obviously being in this state I couldn't continue the diet and went back on to a whole food diet. Within 24 hours the shaking had stopped and 2 weeks later I was back to my old energy levels. I came to the conclusion that my body is not capable of deriving all of its energy from fat metabolism. But it was worth a try even if it did get a bit scary!
Looks like you made the right choice for you. For the record, I deal with the "shakes" too, and also muscle aches that I didn't understand until I got my DNA results from 23andme. I now make the assumption that my muscles suffer from the loss of too much carbohydrate, because I have the "power athlete" gene and I'm homozygous for it. Which means, my body doesn't get a choice, it makes much more strength muscle fibers than endurance ones. Although it would be logical for endurance to = carbs, that's not always the case. For power, sprinting, and quick reaction, the muscles must have a ready supply of many chemicals and enzymes. I'm not sure that they are all easily made from fats, I'd have to recheck.
Long story short: your body makes special energy molecules so that you have some energy to move in the first 10-30 sec of any activity, whether it's reaching for the lamp to turn it on, or beginning a timed sprint. Otherwise it would be, "Tell muscle to move." (Wait 10-30 sec for glycogen to be broken down.) Now you move. From what I gather, people with my genetics make more of those precursor molecules, and the time is longer. Hence, more power / strength. Any romp through Youtube for "strongman contest" will show that strength requires not only large muscles but a ton of calories. None of those guys, to my knowledge, is keto. Nor do they care if they are very large, including carrying extra fat on top of giant muscles, usually on a very tall build.
So I've backed up a bit from keto also, first because of the shakes and aches, and now because my genetics is telling me something. But previously my wya of dealing with it is:
1. Warm baths with epsom salt.
2. Something like Emergen-C but with less sugar, my current favorite is PowerPak, for electrolytes. This can stop the aching in minutes.
3. Glucose. Yeah, I know, the opposite of keto. But it didn't seem to push me out of keto for longer than two hours per 4mg tablet. Stops the shakes. One reason I could cheat like that is I used the children's definition of keto as much as possible. My %fat approached 85% on some days. But I was counting by measuring my diet in grams. If you want to know the trick to doing that, the only book I know that has the formulas is:
Ketogenic Diets
4. Oxygen. This is good for most people with ME/CFS. But it can really help with muscle aches.
5. Recently I looked into my new thyroid drug, called liothyronine. It helps increase metabolism of oxygen and glucose. I haven't tried it on a strict keto diet, but on a more general one, I can tell my recovery from activity is increased. I don't want to speak too soon, but my muscle aches from yesterday's activity are minimal compared to what they usually are.
I had some negative effects from stopping the keto diet. I was using it to curb migraines, and as a result I've had about two migraines a month since I stopped being strict -- compared to 1 every 2 months before. My current carbs per day is around 100-125g which is still low, but it's not keto anymore, it's just controlled carb. Note that sometimes people will quote 400g of carbs per day as normal. It's not. That's the number found in research about endurance athletes. THEY need that much, not everyone.
Recent studies talk about how ME/CFS patients have more AMPK than usual. This is a... molecule? hormone? messenger? to the body that says "stop what you're doing, you're out of energy." It also spurs the growth of new muscle and connective tissue to support whatever activity you were doing. It's partly the source of the "wall" that runners talk about. Some or most of us have that messenger sending that message constantly. Since glycogen is an intrinsic part of the building of new muscle cells, it's possible that many ME/CFS patients can't make the metabolic switch to keto. At least not with a reasonable amount of discomfort.
One way to check is to try a fast. When I fast I feel pretty bad for the first couple of days, but then I'm ok, if a little shaky. The end effect is that I feel much much better once I stop the fast, I mean, better than before. If the fast doesn't work, or you begin vomiting, then no, there is no way for your body to switch to keto. In 24 hours you're "in keto" if you fast on water alone. Bad effects can show after 18 hours though, so if you start to vomit, immediately stop, you're missing an enzyme. Tell your doctor to test you if he/she can, for any missing liver enzymes. If no horrible thing happens for 24 hours besides feeling like you have a flu, and you make it for 36 hours, and the flu becomes a mild one or it goes away... then theoretically you're able to do keto for short periods. Children are transitioned to keto like that, with a supervised fast. Some of them can continue to the diet, and others can't do the diet effectively and therapeutically.
We're not all the same. Viva la difference!
Many wishes for your recovery and good health!
