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Default Apr 02, 2020 at 05:47 PM
  #1
So from December to February I was fasting. At first, if my back pained me a little i probably would have just assumed it was from normal wear and tear. But about 3 weeks into fasting I made an appointment with my doctor. Didn't find any cause for it. Around mid January I asked for a referral to a spine doctor because of the pain.. Eventually after a night I thought I was going to throw up.. and at the urging of a doctor.. in late February, I stopped fasting.

The change was immediate. Within about 12 hours I felt massively better. So for a month I ate three meals a day and snacks and I haven't had back pain in 30 days. So yesterday I decided I would try fasting again. I didn't go crazy. I only did a 16 hour fast.

But this morning on the way into work I felt like my back was out of sorts. By the end of the day I was having the same kind of deep deep pain in my upper back. I don't know how to describe it.

- It isn't like it goes away when I get support. It is basically always there.
- It comes and goes fast. 12 hours can make a difference.
- It is like I lose all padding in my back. I can feel every bone and movement.
- The pain is at my bra strap. At first I thought it was the bra irritating it but it isn't.

So I know your saying... well don't fast... I get it but I just feel like this cannot be normal. I should be able to go without eating for more than 12 hours without crippling back pain. And I want to know what the issue is. I have found people who had back pain when fasting but, it just seems like it shouldn't be happening.

Plus, how am I going to lose weight? It basically really helped with that. It is like my body fights me at every turn.
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Default Apr 02, 2020 at 06:37 PM
  #2
Dear Emily,

It is really dreadful that you are suffering this back pain. . Sadly I don't know enough about medical matters to have a well-informed opinion about any causal nexus or lack of it between fasting and back pain. I suffer knee pain and it can be really challenging to deal with it. Weight management is also something I struggle with. Hope you can find answers to your questions. I will be interested in what people write to you in response to this. So sorry you are enduring such pain!

Sincerely yours, -- Yao Wen
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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 07:03 AM
  #3
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Originally Posted by Yaowen View Post
So sorry you are enduring such pain!
Sincerely yours, -- Yao Wen
Thank you. I do not understand it. I have to admit that fasting at all is something that I probably haven't done my entire life... so I wouldn't know if doing it would cause these problems but it seems bizarre that it does. It does seem like I have to go over 14 hours.

I have never noticed a problem before when fasting for blood tests.

I am going to assume that fasting is just off the table for me. Whatever way I lose weight it is going to have to be another way. Which is too bad. I think fasting was the only thing that kept me from gaining the weight back when I went back to eating normally.
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Smile Apr 03, 2020 at 01:51 PM
  #4
I'm certainly no expert with regard to this sort of thing. But here's my thinking with regard to what may be going on here based on the work I used to do with injured workers. (I spent a considerable amount of time sitting with clients in neurologists' & orthopods' offices.)

Back pain in general is frequently related in some way or other to the muscles that support the spinal column. To the degree those muscles are not strong, it leaves the door open to muscle strain & injuries to the spinal column itself such as bulging or even ruptured discs. (I actually have one myself.)

If the muscles in your back are not strong to begin with, & then you're fasting (which weakens the whole body at least temporarily since it's not getting any new fuel to operate on) perhaps the combination of not having well developed back muscles to begin with, & then stressing them further via fasting, is leading to the back pain you're experiencing? And then, of course, if you're spending large amounts of time at work (& possibly at home as well sitting... perhaps in less than ergonomically correct positions) that's only going to add additional fuel to the fire, so to speak.

Here again, I'm no expert with regard to any of this. So it's all just my personal opinion. But I do think it would be wise to take the pain you're experiencing seriously. There may not be anything a physician could see on an MRI or a CT scan at this point. But the pain is telling you something's amiss. And the fear I would have would be that, sooner or later, what is now simply causing pain your doctor can't find a reason for could end up resulting in one or more bulged or even, heaven forfend, ruptured discs. At least these are my non-professional thoughts with regard to your post. Perhaps what may be called for here is some physical therapy services to strengthen your back muscles, or even a pain management program, along with some professional dietary services?

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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 02:26 PM
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Back pain in general is frequently related in some way or other to the muscles that support the spinal column. To the degree those muscles are not strong, it leaves the door open to muscle strain & injuries to the spinal column itself such as bulging or even ruptured discs. (I actually have one myself.)
I have a similar theory. So you coming up with a similar idea makes me feel better.

But some people have made fun of me for it so I had put it out of my mind.

One of the goals of fasting is to deplete your glycogen stores. Once "sugar / glycogen" is gone, your body will switch over to burning fat. The two places that your body stores glycogen is your liver and your muscles. Usually you deplete the glycogen at about 14 to 16 hours of no food.

So it is my theory that the glycogen stores being depleted in the weak muscles cause the muscles to ache.

On a page talking about Glycogen Depletion in the muscles..I found that the feeling is of "Feeling of “Flatness” in Muscle Bellies.

Quote:
Muscle glycogen is stored in skeletal muscle, and along with that comes increased muscle volume due to mainly water being drawn into muscles. One way to judge whether or not you may be having glycogen depletion is to self-assess how the your muscles looks/feel compared to normal. A glycogen rich muscle often holds water, giving it a feeling of fullness and size (which can be a subjective measure nonetheless). If you are experiencing a feeling of flatness or depleted muscles (yes, as crazy as this sounds), it may be due to glycogen depletion."
Quote:
Role of glycogen in muscle fatigue

The most recognized theory for the association between low muscle glycogen levels and impaired contractile function is that glycogen is an essential substrate, the depletion of which results in a reduction in the rate of ATP regeneration. As a consequence, the muscle is unable to maintain an adequate global energy supply to one or more of the processes involved in excitation and contraction, leading to an inability to translate the motor drive into an expected force, i.e. fatigue develops.
The only problem that I see with this is how come when I am regular dieting (but eating like 800 calories) I don't have the problem. When, in theory, I probably can't lose fat without having most glycogen gone?
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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 03:00 PM
  #6
I dk about glycogen, i dont think i ever go without food long enough. I get dizzy and anxious before i run out of glycogen, i think.

But i do have been diagnosed with atypical gallbladder. I dont recall, do you still have your gallbladder? Because that gets messed up when you lose weight quickly. Gallstones form. I think thats part of the reason they tell you to drink a lot of water, to keep the stones in solution. If they fall out of solution, they can become trapped in bile ducts, and then you feel miserable, as bile then cannot flow freely to help digest your food. Personally i massage my right abdomen when it sounds gurgly, as long as it does not make me puke. I used to have miserable symptoms, fever and a backache below my right shoulder blade.
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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 03:19 PM
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I dk about glycogen, i dont think i ever go without food long enough. I get dizzy and anxious before i run out of glycogen, i think.
But i do have been diagnosed with atypical gallbladder. I dont recall, do you still have your gallbladder?
Yes.

I don't know though. It seems to be different. In the middle of my upper back and it seems to come and go pretty quickly only when I fast.

I also have had a lot of blood tests lately and I would assume there would be some evidence on the cbc or such. Though my liver enzymes were elevated last time but the doctor thought that was fluke because tests done just a week before hand were normal.

Oh and ETA I did have an x-ray in February and they saw nothing but the scoliosis. I have an order for physical therapy but I can't do that with corona.

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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 04:32 PM
  #8
They never diagnosed it by any tests for me. Its more of a, im in pain and dying, help me! A relative of mine toughed it out and ended up getting gangrene, because he didnt think a doctor could do anything for the pain.

If youre not nauseated along with the pain, then i guess its not gall bladder. I take Tagamet aka cimetidine - it kills the discomfort - any stomach related discomfort - pretty quickly when i overeat fatty foods.

Are you staying hydrated when youre fasting? I just have this vision of your poor gall bladder collapsing in on itself. I have no idea if thats how it works tho!!

I have managed my gall bladder by watching what i eat and staying hydrated. IMHO, people give in too easily to surgery as a solution, when all they really have to do is stop eating sausages!
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Default Apr 03, 2020 at 04:53 PM
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If youre not nauseated along with the pain, then i guess its not gall bladder. I take Tagamet aka cimetidine - it kills the discomfort - any stomach related discomfort - pretty quickly when i overeat fatty foods.
No I have no stomach discomfort. I thought I had a gallbladder attack in my 30s it was outrageous. I got a high fever and threw up most of the night. And it was over in 24 hours. This was when I was doing Atkins so I assumed I over did it on olive oil or such. ( I think in general I am sensitive to oil). I ate the same oil again in a week and had a similar reaction again.

I am not a massive water drinker but I think I drank enough. I would take a bottle of water with me to work and drink it on the train and when not eating I would have just water. When I was eating I would have a relatively large diet soda plus coffee. At one point when I was suffering the back pain I did try to drink more water to see if it would help.. and it didn't.

Also I think my doctor ruled it out because the classic symptoms are supposedly right side pain and I don't have that.

When the virus is over (or perhaps a little before) I might get it checked out. I am suspicious of that liver result.

I still have a gut feeling about the glycogen though ( and perhaps it weakens the muscles without being fully depleted) I looked up this thing called "glycogen storage disorder" where the body can't properly get glycogen to the muscles (I don't have it) but symptoms include muscle weakness, atrophy, and muscle pain.

If I already have weak muscles in a certain area and I deprive those weak muscles of glycogen... maybe they get weak.

My doctor found the MGUS because of the back pain but after all the tests it seems very unlikely that the MGUS is causing it. Also if you have back pain due to MGUS it typically is chronic.
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Default Apr 05, 2020 at 11:18 AM
  #10
Just an interesting thing... I have for a while had mild random pain on the sides (the area under my arms) I see it as related to my scoliosis and extra weight. However, after Skeezyks suggestion about the weak muscles.. I did some exercise on my "total gym" and targeted the area.. OMG.. wow.. the entire area is in pain today... and I didn't even do that much. Definitely something is going on with my muscles in that area. The pain area... in the middle is all set, 2 days after stopping fasting.
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Default Apr 09, 2020 at 06:13 AM
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I don't know if this is possible but it just really seems like eating a lot of food and especially chocolate seems to work well to reduce the pain. My only theory on it is that menopause has caused pain receptors to be more sensitive ( this is a known side effect ) and when I eat a lot of food especially chocolate these foods reduce pain receptors. Last Wednesday to Yesterday I was in pain almost all over my back area. Some because of exercise. But all of those days I was eating less food in an attempt to diet.

But I cheated on Tuesday night late before bed with chocolate.

Wednesday morning, I woke up for the first time in a long time not feeling wrecked.

Then as I went through the day on Wednesday... I noticed I felt amazing.

But this morning I definitely woke up "wrecked" again. It has been a long time since I ate. (last meal around 4 PM).

I am an expert dieter so I have definitely felt the feeling before of going on a diet and feeling like I lost all my padding but usually it would recover. Dieting in the past has caused changes to hormones early on. I wonder if that is happening here. Fasting or dieting causes a reduction in estrogen and that reduction causes pain. But eating (especially chocolate) causes an increase in estrogen.
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Default Apr 09, 2020 at 06:18 AM
  #12
Do you supplement magnesium? Sometimes just soaking in a bath of Epsom salts is enough as it gets absorbed thru the skin. Thats why doing so is a remedy for exercised sore muscles.
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Default Apr 09, 2020 at 06:26 AM
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Do you supplement magnesium? Sometimes just soaking in a bath of Epsom salts is enough as it gets absorbed thru the skin. Thats why doing so is a remedy for exercised sore muscles.
I had the same thought. I had been supplementing from Jan to Feb. But it didn't really make the difference like eating chocolate and eating more did.

The blood test for magniesum doesn't give you an idea of your status so I had one done in 2018 called "RBC magnesium" which measured the amount of magnesium in your cells. While not deficient.. I was not at the top of the measurement.

However, I have ordered a magnesium drink I plan to take every day. If I sat in my bathtub I might never get up.
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Default Jun 02, 2020 at 05:55 AM
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So I decided to try fasting again.

Mostly because my recent blood tests were terrifying and it seems to me I clearly have insulin resistance. Which is stunning to me. In 2012 I had my fasting insulin measured and it was 5 ul (optimal) recently it was 11. Definitely high. How did it change so dramatically?

I also had my RBC Magnesium measured and it was higher as well. From 4.9 to 5.3 (which is right in the middle of normal)

So far it has been a week and I have no signifigant back pain. I am proceeding carefully.
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