I just became vegan and need help

[arthurf]

I'm 21 years old, I was in China living with a friend last mouth and I became a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I was doing okay like that for about 2 weeks. Then I came back to South Korea (where I study), and I decided to do the next step, and became a vegan (about a week ago).
There is 2 problems I have to deal with:
1st - I live in a dormitory, and I had already paid for the dormitory's food.
2nd - I have no refrigerator or stove.

I will probably have to move out of the dormitory, but I need to find a solution for now.

so I firstly bought a multivitamin, and I'm drinking about a 1 little of soymilk a day.
I was really concerned about eating the 50g, so I bought some peanut butter and corn bread.
But I know I'm missing some nutrients, and I stated have pain on my knees and on the top of my feet, I think most of the pain comes from the "Extensor Hallucis Longus Tendon" muscles, but I also feel that my legs bones are getting weaker and it's getting harder to walk.
I got worried and stayed reading a lot in the internet. I ate some bananas and I also ate out some days, I'm living in a small city and koreans basically eats rice, kimchi and meat.

The problem actually is that I'm not getting all nutrients, and I don't know what's missing. I don't know what's making my legs hurt.

I went to the local hospital and asked them for a blood test. They told me they don't have and that I should go to another city to do it. so I went to a drug store nearby, and they told me I could get a blood test in a kind of a private hospital (I don't know how to translate that). So I went there and there told me they do have the test, but I think my insurance doesn't cover it, they didn't told me how much it would cost, and they weren't willing to do it, they were looking at me like I was silly for trying to cut meat out my diet.

So I started to get hopeless, so re-analyzed all the nutrients I was getting and decided to ask for help here.

My multivitamin information:
Vitamin A 5000 IU
Vitamin D 400 IU
Vitamin E 30 IU
Vitamin C 500mg
Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) 12.38mg
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) 10mg
Vitamin B3 (Niacin) 99.2mg
Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid) 25mg
Vitamin B6 7.3mg
Vitamin B9 (Folic) 400mcg
Vitamin B12 18mcg (is it enough?)
Fe 18mg
Zn 18.67
Cu 2mg
Mn 1mg
Calcium sulfate 11.04mg
Calcium iodide 0.1962mg
Selenium dry yeast 18.52mg (Se 10mcg)

the 1 litter of soymilk is about:
Protein 32g
Sodium 920mg
Calcium 820mg
Vitamin D3 10mcg

even if I take the banana in consideration, I think the nutrient I'm not getting enough is one of the nutrients bellow:
(the value in the front is what I found in wikipedia to be the recommended quantity to take daily)

Sodium 2300 mg (I think I can't get enough from the soymilk)
Potassium 4700 mg (I should eat a lot of bananas to get to this value) wow
Fiber 25 g (I think It's okay)
Protein 50 g (I also think It's okay)
Vitamin K 80 μg
vitamin B7 (Biotin) 30 μg
Phosphorus 1000 mg (can get from soy, but not that much)
Iodine 150 μg
Magnesium 400 mg
Selenium 55 μg
Manganese 2 mg
Chromium 35 μg
Molybdenum 45 μg
Chloride 2300 mg

Do anybody thinks it's because of one of those minerals?
I think I'm also lacking fatty acid, but I don't think they could start to give me pain that soon. I really don't know.
I really want to be a vegan. And if I have to, I can buy a small refrigerator and a portable stove. but I'm new at this and there is no vegan around to help me. I'm really newbie, I know I'm eating wrong, please help me!
If I have to I will probably have to switch back to the lacto-ovo vegetarian diet just to I don't get more sick.

[Korn]

Hi arthurf , and welcome!

What makes you think that your hurting legs has anything to do with lacking certain nutrients?
How do you know that you miss some nutrients?
If you have heath problems now and has been eating vegan for a week, there's simply no reason to assume that it's because you have been eating vegan or that starting to eat dairy products will help....

[CoolCat]

I agree with Korn. That you are ovo-lacto-vegetarian for a month - and vegan for the last week - can not manifest in any of the health issues you describe unless you would be really starving yourself and had not any fat on you to begin with. But you have had some meals and supplemented with fruit. Certainly your bones can't become weaker from being vegan a week.

Do you have access to nuts? They give you fat and protein and don't require refrigeration. Nuts and fruit should already provide plenty of what you need. Supplement with your multivitamin to get your B12. Even if you lived of soymilk, corn bread and peanut butter with nothing else it would take a lot of time to manifest health issues.

[harpy]

Hi Arthur - I'm with the others, I don't think it's at all likely that you would have developed nutritional deficiencies in such a short time. If you can manage to eat a good variety of whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains you will be fine in the longer term too.

So I would try and relax a bit and see if you can find more of a variety of foods to eat. The fridge could be helpful but as you have already paid for the dorm food maybe you can try asking them to prepare something for you, e.g. something with tofu/bean curd if that's available where you are?

I gather it can be hard to be vegetarian or vegan in S. Korea (although Seoul doesn't sound too bad!) but you could try Googling "Korea vegan" as there are a few articles where people say what sort of things they eat.

[arthurf]

Wow, thank you for the replies, I got replies faster than I thought.

I was getting a Confirmation Bias, after I got the pain in my legs, I started to think that anything I was feeling different to be related to the vegan diet.

I also could not understand how my vegan diet could cause the pain in my legs, so I had to post here, maybe somebody could know what the problem was.

So after I got the replies, I had to stop to think, if I had to cut the vegan diet from the list of possible causes. what probably would be the factor causing me the pain?

It's probably my flip-flops! I had been wearing it for the whole summer. And if I google it, there are so many websites about how they can damage our health.

Why didn't I thought about it before? okay, so I will wear something else, and I will post back here what happens.

Thank you everybody really much.

I have another question.
there are two essential fatty acids: alpha-linolenic acid and linoleic acid.
From what I studied, we all get LA easy and we should not worry about it. so about the ALA, I know I can get some flaxseed oil supplements in the internet, but I read somewhere that I should keep it refrigerated. Is it true?
but I also found in wikipedia that I can get a lot of ALA from kiwi seeds and Perilla.(I can get it quite easy in Korea) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-linolenic_acid)
Should I just don't care about the supplement and just get kiwis?

@CoolCat I can get nuts really easy, they are just not cheap, I bought some, but I can get cheaper in the internet. I will probably do that.

@harpy the dorm food is really random, sometimes they have really good vegan food (tofu, soy sprouts, etc), sometimes not. but I think it will be okay, I can just supplement the dorm food with my multivitamin, soymilk and peanut butter.
And about Seoul, I'm 3 hours away from there.

[artichoker]

The vegan society says that green leafy veg and grains can also be a source of alpha-linolenic acid. And here's a medical abstract also mentioning that green leafy veg and walnuts can be good sources.

[harpy]

That's good, Arthur! I often get pains in my feet and legs if I don't wear the right shoes so I suspect your alternative hypothesis may turn out to be correct.

Re the EFAs, I hadn't heard about kiwi seeds and perilla as sources. As you may have read, the ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 oils is also meant to be important - it's discussed here as well http://www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=777 which I think is why walnuts (say) may be less good than flax (say) as a source. You're right though that you do need to refrigerate flaxseed oil otherwise it goes off and is even more horrible than it is to start off with

[Andy_T]

Hi Arthur,

way to go!

I'm missing walnuts in the list of foods high on alpha-linoleic acids. that's what I take, together with flaxseed.
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/a...nic-000284.htm

Best regards,
Andy

[arthurf]

I just want to report that I stopped wearing my flip-flops and in less than a week my feet stopped hurting, I was still feeling some pain in my knees, it took some more days, but now it's alright. now I just need to get vegan shoes

I bought 4kg of peanuts, and I eat everyday a cup or more, plus the food in the dormitory. Everything is going okay, and I can keep like this until I move out.

I'm vegan for a lifetime

Thank you everybody!

[CoolCat]

yay arthurf!

[harpy]

Excellent news