Hi Rick,

Thanks for your message. I'm not active on this forum but I do try to check it once in a while and post when there's something worth posting. I just happened to check it after a while and see your message.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm sorry to hear you're suffering from this disease. It can be particularly overwhelming and hopeless when it first comes onto the scene, perhaps even more so when you're younger and are just beginning to build a life and raise a family, not to say it's not difficult at any age. If you're reading my posts, you'll know that it hit me right in the prime of life, in my 30s. I have lost more than I care to think about because of it, but I'm grateful for the things I still have today. Many of the things I lost were superficial things that were replaceable. It doesn't have to crush you there are things within your control. I wish I had known of the carnivore diet then, but it wasn't a thing really, not to this extant. Of course, there was a zerocarb movement.

As Echoes Long Ago said, get that vitamin B12 up immediately. I used to take the Doctor's Best active B12, though now I eat enough meat that I don't need any supplementation for anything really. You want that vitamin B12 much higher and your doctor should know better. Often the normal range is just the average for the patients in a given area, no matter how deficient they are. Mine is between 800-1200 and that's a good range, even though some will say that's too high. It's simply not. You can take Benfotiamine as well if you like. I too the Doctor's Best for years and I'm not sure if it did anything to be honest with you, but there is certainly some research showing benefits for neuropathy. You can try it and see if you notice a difference, though just because you don't notice a difference, it doesn't mean it's not benefiting you. It's often difficult to tell these things unless the difference is substantial.

To answer your question, yes, I'm still eating carnivore. I can't imagine ever going back. The longer I eat this way the great the benefits I notice. As we say, I've been eating an unhealthy, damaging diet for decades and it takes a long time to see benefit. The amazing thing is I experienced so many benefits immediately, but with each passing month, I see more systematic improvements. The reduction in inflammation and symptoms was almost immediate and things improve more and more as your body becomes healthier. For the first year I only ate meat and salt and drank water (and sparkling water). It was quite obvious early on that my neuropathy was linked to my gut: I would eat certain things and my symptoms would get worse or I would have nerve damage in a part of my body where I hadn't had damage previously. Gluten and dairy were among the worse, and eggs were also quite bad for me. Believe it or not, after just several months of carnivore, I've managed to reintroduce eggs with no issues and I'm eating 4-8 eggs a day or as many as I want really. My gut has healed enough for that. The protein in eggs can be quite inflammatory but not anymore for me. It's quite amazing really.

I could say much more here about how eating just meat has changed my life, but I need to get to bed soon. What also helped me was doing a great deal of research and working with a carnivore/keto diet coach who himself has suffered from neuropathy and is carnivore. In a sense the carnivore diet is easy, and though somewhat simplistic, it's true that all you need to do is eat fatty meat, salt to taste, and drink water (and maybe add some electrolytes initially). But with complex health problems and decades of poor eating you may need to do some trouble shooting to feel your best.

As for cholesterol, there's nothing to worry about unless your LDL is oxidized. This is best measured by checking for fasting insulin or the ratio of HDL to triglycerides, not a raw LDL number which studies have shown is useless. The culprit is carbs, especially refined carbs, but also things like fruit with fructose. Saturated fat and dietary cholesterol have been demonized without any science to back it up. Here is a brief video with some background and details of the science: 🔴The Truth about Cholesterol and Heart Disease - Dr Anthony Chaffee MD - YouTube. For a more detailed, fascinating, and richly rewarding history of how dietary cholesterol and saturated fat came to be demonized, I'd recommend Nina Teicholz's The Big Fat Surprise. The science is quite clear on this at this point even if medical/clinical practice is terribly behind: Just a moment....

I recently did my 1 year blood work and all my markers are better, and some infinitely better than when I was eating a so called healthy omnivorous diet. My LDL has gone up slightly, but so has my HDL and my triglycerides have dropped. My fasting insulin, A1C, blood pressure, etc. are all great. I've also lost 32% body fat and gained 15% muscle mass and bone density.

All this aside, I would recommend doing your research as I did. It also helps to bear in mind that physicians are not trained in nutrition and know very little about the most recent studies on cholesterol and diet. I broke the new to my doctor that I only ate meat when she asked how I lost so much weight and improved my biomarkers in such a short time. The cognitive dissonance was rather humorous to see. Before I had told her I was just low carb.

I would recommend eating only fatty red meat with at least a fat to protein ratio of 1:1 grams (sometimes more fat is even better), salting to taste, and drinking water. Chicken and pork are higher in polyunsaturated fat and are not as healthy. I never feel better than when I eat fatty red meat. Don't be scared of fat or protein for that matter. This diet has given me mental clarity and calm to a degree I didn't know was possible. You can try this for 3-6 months I would say and then start to reintroduce things one at a time if you like. I would even avoid dairy and eggs initially unless you do fine with both. But if you do this as an elimination diet and just do red meat, water, and salt, you can then easily tell what is causing you issues. While you try to figure out the cause of your neuropathy, you must do everything you can to reduce your inflammation, and that means from diet, stress, and anything else that's problematic. Exercise, eat well, and sleep well. This is what you can while you search out the etiology of your particular neuropathy. I hope you find the cause but you may not as I didn't in my case. Thankfully there are things you can do to feel better and live a happier life despite it all. I hope this helps and good luck!