Welcome to the “Fasting Experience Reports” category! This is your space to share the highs and lows of your fasting journey, whether it’s your first fast or one of many. Dive into discussions about your motivations, strategies, and the physical and mental transformations you’ve experienced. Feel free to share tips and advice that could benefit fellow members. As we embark on this journey together, remember to be respectful, genuine, and considerate of each other’s privacy. Your story is unique and valuable, and it could be the inspiration someone else needs. Let’s create a supportive and engaging community, united by our shared commitment to fasting and wellbeing. Happy sharing!
Hey thanks for creating this forum! I’ve been fasting for ~20 years, mostly juice, “lemonade,” or just water with electrolytes (i.e., snake juice) more recently. Last year during early summer, I dry fasted for I believe about 3 days (probably around 80 hours). I had been doing 2-3 day water (w/ electrolytes) fasts pretty regularly, like weekly or bi-weekly, in an attempt to lose fat and just get some fasting benefit since I hadn’t done much fasting in the past years. I can’t remember at this point if I had been doing some dry fasting much before, but probably did a day or two in the month(s) before my 3-day. I didn’t do any special prep for 3 days dry. I tried to get exercise in the form of walking at least to help hold onto muscle during these fasts. It was summer and hot, and I walked ~3 miles - not sure how many of the days I did this. I remember having a big challenge with saliva while walking in the heat. By the end of the fast, I didn’t have much saliva production, and it eventually went to nothing (I think it was in the days following the fast). I wound up with swollen salivary glands (which I think were evident by a week or less after breaking the fast). My saliva was gone for a month or so after all was said and done! I was sucking on sour candy and doing 1-2x/week acupuncture during that very uncomfortable time. I was so worried I’d never get my saliva back again! I eventually got into an ENT after my saliva had slowly come back to normal (because they booked like 2 months out) and he theorized my saliva had gotten very thick and gummed up the works in my glands - he’d never heard of something like this happening, or even heard of the concept of dry fasting for that matter. I’m dry fasting today, and now I only do ~36hr dry fasts followed by water fasting to avoid the saliva issue. I’m wondering if anyone is out there that’s dealt with something similar or if there are any theories as to why it happened. I can imagine that walking in the heat could have contributed, but wondering about activity levels of other dry fasters. I want to continue strength training through my fasts at least. I may have been overzealous with the walking trying to lose fat?
What an interesting experience! But now we know what is possible, saliva can get too thick. Sounds super uncomfortable. I believe the most important thing about about cleanses and fasts is to always listen to your body and be kind to yourself. The preparation and refeed information on this website is incredible for that, those protocols are gold! If perhaps you had done the correct preparation something like that wouldn’t have happened? Light exercise and movement is really good when you fast and if you are nose breathing you will be drawing moisture into the body still. Perhaps you were mouth breathing, this would most certainly dry your mouth and release excess moisture from the body, mouth breathing can cause enormous thirst.
If the walking felt comfortable and good, in spite of the heat, then I can’t see that it would have been harmful. If you were sweating profusely, then perhaps walking earlier or later in the day when it was a bit cooler would be more sensible. There are many factors that could have contributed to that and many prevention’s you can take to avoid it happening again. If I were in your situation, I would become very conscious of my breath and teach myself to nose breathe.