[Bitsy]

I have to provide a little background for the setting of this question:

I have a rare metabolic disorder called PKU (phenylketonuria). It is a disorder in which my body lacks the enzyme to process the amino acid phenylalanine (phe), or else the enzyme is not working properly. The result is that unless I follow a certain diet, I perpetually have excessive amounts of phe in my blood. The PKU diet is awful, more restrictive than any sort of food diet, like a raw-food diet, and it includes a putrid tasting, exceedingly expensive powder that makes up the core of the diet and it becomes very difficult to eat enough calories in a day. The powder contains all amino acids in protein except for phenylalanine. The diet eliminates all meat and most dairy products and flour products. (I can eat spoonfuls of sugar and fat until my heart's content, bleh.)

Now the symptoms:

I have suffered from severe dizziness, nausea and fatigue episodes, such that I can't even move. I have to remain lying down and still. If I even turn my head on the pillow, it induces a feeling of vomiting. I used to think these episodes were caused by my not following my diet, but this past January I saw the possibility of a connection between my eating meat and the dizziness/episodes.

I have been off the diet for nearly a year because I spent 7 months in a developing country and wasn't eating much meat--only European canned tuna--because of the unsanitary conditions and, frankly, the way they hung the severed sheep body parts, dripping with blood, out in front of their shops was enough to make most normal people stop eating meat. During those 7 months, I never experienced any dizziness, not even the underlying perpetual mild dizziness that I have experienced in the past. [Note: I have never experienced a severe dizziness and nausea episode while on the diet, however, I don't perpetually experience such episodes while not on the diet]

At the end of December, I had to leave the country and I went to my brother's. The first thing I noticed there was their diet, which I had to start eating according to. Basically, to me, it looked like they were eating meat on top of meat, and not just light meat, like poultry or fish, but heavy red meat. Anyway, within a few days of my arrival there, I felt suddenly an inexplicable depression or emotional heaviness came over me and I knew it was the meat, even if I wasn't eating much meat (I lost weight there, I really didn't like all the meat). After some more time, I felt my perpetual mild dizziness return, and I made a connection between the meat and my dizziness, not just between my dizziness and my PKU diet. After 7 months not on my PKU diet and no dizziness, suddenly I'm eating what is, for me, a lot of meat, and my dizziness comes back...

There seems to be a connection between the dizziness and nausea I experience and eating meat. I don't know. Yesterday, though, and continuing to today, I had such an awful and long episode of nausea and dizziness that starting yesterday I am not going to eat any more meat and see if the episodes stop. Really, I spent all of yesterday lying down in bed and feeling like I was going to throw up any minute. Right now I am still very dizzy, but thankfully the nausea part went away. When I'm in a life situation where I can go back on my PKU diet, I will do that too.

I just wondered if anyone has any knowledge about meat protein that could somehow make it worse for my condition than vegetable protein, or if it is different somehow?

I will see, anyway, if not eating meat will stop these episodes. (I had had another episode some weeks ago. That episode didn't last nearly as long as this one is lasting.)