What about your thyroid? Hashimoto's hypothyroid can cause those symptoms...along with unexplained weight-gain, I had every one of the symptoms you described. Have you checked this?

I'd speculate that it's the thyroid. Tell them to test for TSH, T4, T3, and Reverse T3 (they usually only test for 1 or 2 of these -- the Reverse T3 would be very telling here). My suspicion is that because you were so long in the AI version of Paleo, very low carb, you might have run out of energy and your body has freaked out. I'd suggest you add some carbs back to your diet, by the means of fruits, tubers, some raw & unfiltered local honey, and if you can handle it, goat kefir. I had something similar happening to me a few months ago. I had to eat 200 gr of carbs daily for a week to get better. After that, I stabilized at around 100-130 gr of net carbs daily. Also, don't forget shellfish, organ meat, bone broth, and sea vegetables.

I doubt it has anything at all to do with your diet. 2 years of steady lifestyle without much change and then boom panic and anxiety? I'd see a regular doc and a psych. Get some blood tests done that may shed light on any hormonal/other abnormalities, please don't try to do this alone, the general distrust and contempt for western medicine that can float around this site is alarming. there are great doctors out there and great psychologists or psychiatrists that can save you a ton of unnecessary suffering.

Best of luck.

Yeah, it's not all diet. In normal cases, things like depression and anxiety are caused by life circumstances rather than diet. I mean, diet has an effect, certainly, on your mood, but it by no means provides the content of your emotional life. It sounds like you have some deep work to do, therapeutically, whatever that means to you.

Also, what's your diet like? I'm battling severe rheumatoid arthritis as well and have been on the paleo diet for 6 months. I'd like to compare our diets. Do you eat red meat? nuts and seeds? fruit? How low carb are you?

To really comment on this, id need two things:

A) Some emotional background. Do you have freinds, a happy life. Have you been through anything scary etc. Stuff that might relate to depression or anxiety.

b) What do you eat. You might be missing something, but hard to know what, without a pretty detailled account of your food. Have you tried putting your diet through cronometer to see what you are missing or low on?

Do you drink tap water, wash veggies in tap water or shower in tap water?

1. I don't have an answer to your question.

2. I am not a doctor (disclaimer)

3. I have a feeling that it could be not diet related but L-carnitine related. My herbal doctor advised me against it - he told me that it had severe side effects in some people. Here is something I found:

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-834-ACETYL-L-CARNITINE.aspx?activeIngredientId=834&activeIngredientName=ACETYL-L-CARNITINE

1. If it was triggered by hypothyroidism, you might want to follow Ray Peat's dietary guidelines.

Sometimes a freak reaction/event happens due to a multitude of possible factors - a virus, too little sleep, a stray thought etc and everything that happens after is merely because of it.

Whether diet is affecting this or not, there are starving people who are far more ill than you who are relatively happy. There are kids with cancer who still laugh when the clown comes in to the hospital ward. If anyone was going to be depressed, it'd be them.

After a traumatic event a health conscious person scare themselves into a state of lasting worry. "Oh my god, perhaps it was that carrot I ate...or this.... or that... but I don't want to get my arthritis back....I thought everything was perfect and I had it all figured out but now the future is so uncertain!"

Rather than forget about it -the health conscious, solve everything through diet person- will search for the reason "why do I feel anxious" and cause further anxiety- you get into a viscous cycle.

The trick here is to instead focus on solutions rather than the problem. Ask yourself the following questions:

What things make me feel good and how can I do them more?

I recommend you watch some "Antony Robbins" on depression. Just search and you'll find a couple videos.

You say you take vitamin D. How much do you take? I woukld recommend reading "Sunlight Robbery" to see what you have to do to up levels of vitamin D in your body. There is also a very good thread on the subject on a low carb forum called The Great Vitamin D experiment. It was there that I found my ideal dose to take to recover from severe low vitamin D levels. You have to increase your levels until you "feel happy" - for me that was in the beginning 8000 iU per day. These days I take 5000 iU in winter and 2000 in summer if it rains a lot. I have been taking it for 6 years now and have not had a cold once. Believe me if you feel happy you have tons more energy and no depression.

If you are a woman my guess would be too much estrogen. It causes all of your symptoms and it may have nothing at all to do with being Paleo and more to do with age. Estrogen and progesterone get out of balance in your late 30's to early 40's. Run your symptoms through this test and see what you come up with: http://www.johnleemd.com/store/resource_hormonetest.html

if you were seeing a therapist prior to the attack, i would ask him/her to review what you were working on just prior to the attack. perhaps you hit on something that you don't even realize is important.

I know this is very late and hope it's resolved a little for you now, but do your moods fluctuate? Upwards and downwards, like, monthly? Or does anybody else in your family have anxiety/depression? I started getting this in my early 20s and found out my mum, grandfather and aunt get it too so it's genetic. For the anxiety, I find Focus by Brauer (a spray from the chemist) very helpful. For depression or mood swings, try Vit B6 or Evening Primrose Oil. And perhaps get your bloodwork done for oestrogen/progesterone/thyroid levels too.

And thank you for your post. I have severe RA as well and am into week 2 of the autoimmune paleo diet. No results yet, but you have given me hope in that regard!