I'm one week out of no opiates or pain killers. The neuropathic pain can be unpleasant and scales. It's obvious my cortisol levels have struggled to keep balance. For now, I'm waiting a couple weeks to see how stable I become. Overall, even though perceived pain is worse, I am more mobile, which is encouraging. Stress does seem to increase at unexpected times, perhaps withdrawals, and that sends the pain loop through the roof. Then I whine and cry.
Tramadol withdrawal in someone with low functioning adrenal glands is brutal in itself. There have been sleep disturbances and general sadness here and there but I am rebounding. The obvious issue for me is the stress that the pain is putting on the body. It causes withdrawals from both the opiate loss aspect and the loss of added serotonin (happy chemical) and norepinedrine.
GABA at night helped some with sleep disturbances.
Overall, I've been looking at natural pain relievers. I've tried GABA during the day. Makes me sleepy. DLPA to boost endorphin production. Nothing gives significant relief. I've tried high fat diets, high protein diets. Diet is probably one of the better methods for pain control.
For this week, I'm back to a longevity diet. You can google Okinawa Diet, Sardinian Diet, etc. Primarily plant based. With some added protein and fats. I seem to function better on these two diet. There is a Venn Diagram if you look up the Blue Zone on Wikipedia.
I am adding coconut oil to that diet. I know I'm burning a lot of cortisol. It makes sense that you need more saturated fat to make cholesterol to support the adrenal cascade. Coconut is full of saturated fat but also low in omega 6. I'm not entirely sure I'm not getting nerve compression from the tumor of the spine. Omega 6 do encourage inflammatory agents.
I do eat protein, beans and nuts. Though I get less issue of those than meats. I also add a little fish and pork and chicken here and there. Pork is a good fatty meat product.
The problem is with adrenal fatigue, we don't process sugar well. So any sugars (carbs) for me seem to be problematic. I've tried combating that issue with a high protein (high quality grass fed, omega 3s) but it seems to make the pain loop worse. I'm not sure why, being that a combination of amino acids in proteins make endorphins (natural painkillers). I can theorize that any inflammatory agent makes the tumor swell which makes the pain reaction worse? It's the only plausible thing I can think of at this time but who knows.
Struggling to get my caloric intake to baseline. Will continue to look at those ratios and get back on it. Now I'm probably at 1000 calories, 1200 on a good day. Not burning nor using foods as efficiently as I want. Doc will take an A1C and see where my levels are this weekend.
