The Diet That Almost Killed Me. Twice.

I thought I was doing the right thing for my health while inching closer to death.

Are you married to that diet?

That was the question my surgeon asked me after he asked what kind of diet I was eating. I didn’t realize, at the time, that my eating habits would do a complete 180.

I just spent a week in the hospital after another gallstone attack, which somehow filled my body with infection. Little did I know, until I saw that surgeon, the gallstones also injured my pancreas causing a pseudocyst that another surgeon had to drain first.

Jeez, the hits just keep on coming.

OK Dave, what were you eating?

Don’t worry, I’m coming to that.

You see, a few years previous, when my mom was still alive, we watched a lot of programs on our local PBS (Public Broadcast System) station. Well, it was through those programs that we were sucked into the...wait for it…

Whole Food Plant-Based Diet.

I had no clue that would be the start of my downfall.

Learning the ropes

I started reading the “suggested” books and documentaries. Watched YouTube videos and followed the vegan gurus. Names like Greger, Egglestien, and Caldwell, among others. There are quite a few vegan influencers out there.

I moved my mom and me toward a plant-based lifestyle as much as I could.

Mom was actually the holdout. Although she agreed that it sounded great, she still wanted certain things like beef roasts, pork chops, and fried chicken. Not every day. But when she wanted them, she wanted them. No arguments.

Hey, she was a 78-year-old, semi-paralyzed stroke patient who couldn’t take care of herself. I’m going to tell her no? I don’t think so.

So we lived closer to a plant-based lifestyle for the next couple of years. Eating more plants and less meat. Tried to cut down on the sugars.

Again, she was the holdout. I’m sorry, I’m not going to be the one to tell a 78-year-old junk food junky that she can’t have her chocolate and cinnamon rolls.

One problem. Because they were there, I ate them also. A junk food junky raised a junk food junky.

Second problem. I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I have gluten sensitivity. It’s nowhere near as bad as Celiac Disease, but it does cause me problems if I have too much bread in a day. Both mental and physical.

We kept up this lifestyle for a few years until she died in 2019 at 81.

Trouble on the horizon

During those few years, little things started nipping at me. Small bouts of angina. Nothing major.

I refused to acknowledge them because I had my mom to take care of. I couldn’t do that from a hospital bed, you know.

I also noticed that my back would bother me more and started having leg cramps from hell. I would just shake it off and live with it, though.

Hey, I’m a guy. We do those things.

Things just get worse

After my mom died in 2019, I went whole-hog into the whole food plant-based lifestyle. I sometimes spent whole days on food preparation and trying out recipes I found in books or online. I felt like I was in the kitchen cooking and prepping more than anything else.

Most of it tasted like crap.

During the time between 2019 and 2021, I started having more physical difficulties. Things just kept getting worse. Things like:

• Angina got worse. Actually debilitating at times.
• Pain in my hip happened more and more. Every time I moved the wrong way, I was in pain.
• My jaw started dislocating for no apparent reason.
• Cholesterol panels got worse.
• Blood glucose kept creeping higher.
• Constant brain fog to the point where it almost sounded like I had a mental problem.

Then the gallbladder attacks started. The worst pain I’ve ever felt. And I’ve had kidney stones! Sitting on the edge of my bed for 6 hours, completely motionless until the pain went away.

Then disaster struck. I had an attack that was so bad and lasted so long, that it took all I had to text my brother for help. By the time he called, I was down to one-syllable words and broken sentences.

He got to me and had my sister-in-law call for an ambulance.

I spent a week in the hospital with continuous bags of antibiotics and saline draining into my veins. I found out later that if I had tried to wait this attack out, I might not have lived through it.

Glorious.

More Protein

And here’s where we come back to the opening question of our story.

I go see the surgeon that is supposed to take my gallbladder out. He filled me in on how bad things really were. That included a large pocket of toxic fluid that would become the largest pseudocyst that a second surgeon had ever worked on.

That’s when he asked me what I ate. I told him I ate whole food plant-based diet. I will never forget his next question. I had never heard it asked in that way.

Are you married to that diet?

No, I was just eating that way because it’s supposed to be best for my health. I realize now, that I was wrong.

He told me he needed me to get as much protein in me as possible. He knew that with the fluid pressing against my stomach that it would be a tall order. He then told me to drink at least 3 protein shakes a day and that, in his mind, chicken would be the best protein source for me, if I could eat it.

In the meantime, I have to see another surgeon who will do the procedure to drain the massive pseudocyst in my belly.

Alrighty then!

I still didn’t know how bad things really were. Remember that debilitating angina I mentioned earlier? Yeah, I was still not admitting to it. Things were worse than I or anyone else really knew.

Down the carnivore diet rabbit hole

The procedures to drain the pseudocyst were not exactly fun, but by the time it was over, was able to eat again. After the gallbladder surgery, I could eat what I wanted again.

During this time, I started looking for high-protein recipes. During my search, I ran into the ketogenic diet. To much work. Too much to think about.

Then I started running into a lot of videos for the carnivore diet.

What?

Eat only meat, eggs, and dairy? Oh hell yeah! I’m an egg-eating machine! I love eggs!

Bacon? Who doesn’t love bacon?

Steak? Yeah, baby! I’m all over that!

And cheese? Food of the gods, I tell ya!

So here I am. Now eating eggs, bacon, ground beef, and cheese. Guess what happens.

• My blood pressure dropped to the point where I was taken off my blood pressure medication.
• I started having more energy.
• I started feeling stronger again.
• the brain fog lifted and I was able to think and speak like a normal human being.

I was a happy camper!

Brush with death again

In December 2021, I was feeling like shit. Three-day fever, achy, and just not feeling that great. My brother talked me into going to the emergency room.

He thought it was covid. I knew it wasn’t. I figured it was just my yearly head cold from hell.

I relented and went anyway.

As soon as I told them that I was a heart patient, all hell broke loose.

All said and done, by the time I left, they diagnosed me with flu, pneumonia, and a life-threatening heart condition.

After 3 days and numerous tests, I was told I couldn’t leave the hospital without a defibrillator vest.

Sudden death was serious possibility. My heart was that bad.

Oh, come on! After everything I’ve already been through over the past eight months. Now I have to deal with this?

Wasn’t that vegan diet I was on for years supposed to keep this from happening? They told me it would.

Did they lie to me?

After all the tests and the angiogram were done, I needed a new heart valve and a double bypass.

And it needed to be done as soon as possible.

Once again, in the pre-surgery interview, I was told I needed to eat a lot of protein. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I had gone full carnivore and drank a protein shake with each meal.

Everyone was surprised how well I went through the surgery and recovery. I think it was the fact that I was only 55 and was eating a high-protein carnivore diet at the time.

Recovery wasn’t half bad. I went home and recovered on my own. I didn’t even need the pain medication they prescribed.

Research and conclusions

While recovering, I did more research. Watched more lectures and videos from researchers and doctors like Bart Kay, Ben Bickman, Drs Baker, Chaffee, and Berry. Among others.

I’ve watched interviews of former vegans who also got sick and went to the carnivore diet and got well again. I even saw an interview with a former vegan influencer, who went carnivore and spilled the beans that many influencers are no longer vegan but still claim to be, in front of the camera.

They do that because they would lose their income stream if they admitted to it. So they keep up the facade.

In the end, I’m convinced that the whole food plant-based diet ruined my health and almost killed me. Twice.

Since going full carnivore, here’s what’s happened to me in the past year.

• Lower blood pressure
• Lower blood sugar
• Best cholesterol numbers I’ve ever had
• Clearer thinking and speech
• My jaw no longer dislocates unexplainably
• My hip no longer bothers me
• More energy
• I’m no longer in pain

And those are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

I no longer buy hundreds of dollars of supplements I can’t afford. Don’t need them anymore. The only things I still use are protein powder and a vitamin D supplement.

The takeaway? In my opinion, don’t go vegan if you want to stay healthy. It almost killed me twice. Don’t let it kill you too.

If you’ve made it this far, I want to say that this style was a experiment. I’ve been reading a few posts that say that you should write as if you are having a conversation with a friend about things in your life or that you know through experience, and something controversial. I think I covered all three. Oh yeah, and a clickable title and subtitle that makes the reader want to know what the hell you’re talking about…hahaha.

Everything I’ve written here is true to my recollection. Everything here did happen to me and all of the opinions stated are my own.

Let me know if it worked for you or if was just tedious. I will take all constructive criticism on the writing style with this one.

If you want to criticize the diet, be a writer. Write your own article with your own opinion. That is what we are here to do after all, right?