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Comment by aszantu | Hacker News Reader

Someone been telling me, my depression comes from bacteria, I KNOW! Pain is... if I eat something plant based, depression and suicidal thoughts come back. Takes about 4 days after I ate the offending food, stays for 3 days, then I'm back to normal and energetic.

Latest experiment was one teaspoon of fermented green squash daily, seemed to work out okay for 5 days or so, then depression came back, BUT I could smell it in my armpits 1-2 days before the thoughts were back.

https://gutsense.org has a lot about fiber - the only fiber I can use seems to be animal based, like eggwhites

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Not a doctor but I'd recommend you look into the carnivore diet. See if that helps with your mental health. Keto is a less hardcore version of the diet that might also help.

I'm on that already :)

Can you elaborate a bit about smelling it?

I've been a bit in hole for the last few months and I noticed that my armpit smell is different. My food all stayed the same.

If the food stayed the same and you are overweight or near it that could indicate diabetes.

Not overweight, average BMI for my body shape/age/gender. I recently went down the diabetes rabbit hole but not of the symptoms are really present. Interestingly enough, when I sensed changes in smell I immediately thought "diabetes" too.

like amonia or something, sour, no ammount of deodorant can mask it, and the smell can't be removed from clothes. When u wash the clothes you can smell it right when it leaves the washing mashine, it dissappears when it dries but the moment it gets a little moist, like water or sweat the smell is back.

I've tried baking soda, different brands of washing detergent, strong vinegar (25%) to no avail.

The smell goes away about 3 days after I go back to a diet of meat and animal fat. Comes back a bit when I drink strong coffee, so I think it's something like a stress hormone. Energy seems more stable without coffee, but coffee doesn't seem to make me depressed (as much as plant based food does).

I've started suffering from that when puberty hit, but I think depression started earlier (i can remember that colors seemed to have vanished from the world one day)

Wow thank you. Describing 90% of what's similar for me. Surprised to see the ammonia smell, cause I've had the smell for about 6 months now. I'm not overweight, no diabetes, generally healthy. I do drink caffeine and consider it my problem substance.

good luck! Struggelign with caffeine addiction as well, i manage one-two weeks at a time, decaf is a bit easier than switching to black tea - but the tea is def. better for my nerves

That seems pretty crazy. What have you tried to remedy the issue? Fecal transplant?

yes, but fecal transplants are not a thing where I live, it would be pretty expensive to do it here.

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