I’ve been diagnosed with Gilbert’s Syndrome as a teenager and in recent years became interested in water fasting for it’s proclaimed health benefits. Typically I do 3-7 days of drinking only water and the occasional herbal tea (mainly green tea) a few times every year. Around day 4-5 my jaundice starts to get pretty severe which so far led me to go no longer than 7 days, because I started to become concerned with my increasingly yellowing eyes and skin. Apart from that, I always feel very clear-minded and energetic on my fasts. Some studies suggest that the increased Bilirubin might have anti-inflammatory and antioxidative properties. I’m still a bit worried I might be causing harm by going for too long and putting too much stress on liver, kidneys etc. Upon breaking my fast, the jaundice fully disappears within a couple of days, typically it takes around the same amount of time I fasted for and I feel more healthy and energetic in following weeks.
I would be interested to find out if anyone has more insight into the relationship between increased Bilirubin levels from water fasting and related, potential health benefits/risks. Any ideas around that topic are very much appreciated, thanks guys!
Please do not take ANY medical advice offered here at face value as many people have opinions rather than medical fact much less medical training.
With that being said, if you are asking for jumping off points for your own research, head over to PubMed and dive in. This will not give you a doctorate but is a good place to start your personal medical education. It will absolutely help you to ask more and better questions of your care team and also reassure them that when they give you advice, you won’t cherry pick what parts of treatment protocols you will follow.
This will also allow you stay up on any current treatments your care team might not yet know about so you have have a more balanced dialog. They are experts, yes, but not omniscient.
I’m concerned that someone with a liver disorder started long-term water fasts Without having this conversation with their doctor before. There are a lot of things that feel good while they are slowly destroying your body in the process. Please please please have a conversation with your doctor about single and multi-day water fasts before doing another one.
I’m currently fasting today will be my 6th day fasting and I have the same symptoms around my 3rd day I start to get yellow eyes and skin my eyes are more noticeable I feel fine no headaches not lightheaded no nausea nothing I feel great is just the jaundice that scares me and makes me want to stop I wanna do it for 14 days but I’m in the same situation debating if I should stop or not not because I’m hungry or feel sick but because of the jaundice this truly sucks it’s so frustrating I drink plenty or water and urine is not dark but stool is yellow kinda orange sorry if that’s too much info but I mean
Some say women are more prone to gall stones from prolonged fasts from lack of gall bladder stimulation. This can happen in either gender though but seems to be more reported in women. My suggestions would be to add some bile acids and maybe a small amount of fat like a table spoon of unsalted butter in your tea.
Have you ever considered photo therapy like they use in newborns? I’m not sure how it would work for you but I’ve used in an single instance with an adult patient. It was years ago but it had a small effect. I wouldn’t suggest it long term because tanning booths seem to have to high of an irradiance and poorly controlled spectrums for chronic use but I would make a good n=1 experiment. It seems the desired spectrum is 430nm-490nm. That spectral range is just beyond UV-A and the safest device I know of that has those ranges along with UVA is this https://www.sperti.com/product/fiji-sun-tanning-lamp/
Good luck Happy new year and happy fasting