Diet

Diet comes up frequently in recovery discussions because it can meaningfully influence inflammation, gut health, immune signaling, and overall nervous-system load—but responses are highly individual. Some people report improvement after simplifying their diet or removing specific triggers such as gluten, dairy, refined sugar, alcohol, or ultra-processed foods, while others notice little change. Mechanistically, this makes sense: food sensitivities, dysbiosis, or metabolic stress can drive low-grade inflammation and repeated immune activation, which may worsen symptoms in already-sensitized systems. For individuals who are reactive, reducing inflammatory or irritating inputs can lower background stress on the gut–immune–brain axis and create a more stable baseline.

At the same time, diet is not a universal solution, and “one perfect diet” does not exist for these conditions. What helps one person may worsen another, especially if restriction becomes excessive or leads to under-eating, nutrient deficiencies, or additional stress. Improvements attributed to diet often occur alongside other stabilizing factors—time, trigger avoidance, better sleep, fewer crashes—making it hard to isolate diet as the sole driver. The most consistent theme in anecdotes is personalization: identifying and removing foods that clearly provoke symptoms, keeping meals simple and nourishing, and avoiding aggressive dietary experiments. For some people, this gentle, individualized approach helps reduce symptom volatility over time; for others, diet plays a minor supporting role rather than a primary driver of recovery.

Anecdotes (Community Reports):

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSSD/comments/18lwynk/strict_diet_for_3_months_this_is_the_result/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSSD/comments/q03uci/gut_microbiota_theory_how_i_finally_cured_my_pssd/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSSD/comments/16mxe47/seeing_some_improvement_on_elemental_diet/