220 days i, long-lasting symptoms, tips for management

Hi, I'm a Snus and later Velo pouches user since many years. Quit over half a year ago. I dont't want write much about symptoms, I experienced, to not repeat what many of other people's wrote. It was similar. Anxiety with a peak in 4th month!, ER visit thinking something wrong with my heart. Anxiety attacks when driving car. Head pressure, racing thoughts, trouble sleeping, low energy, constant stress. All that coming in waves with some good days in between. Very slowly improving.

What helped me:
- this subreddit, really when I got first anxiety attacks it helped me understand it's from nicotine
- contact with a doctor - performing all health checks, blood works etc.
- reducing stress, having tons of rest (stress could trigger symptoms for days)
- reducing caffeine to 1 coffee a day, later went back to 2 cups
- 0 alcohol
- glycine/collagen supplementation
- wearing a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) to learn erratic glucose levels that were triggering symptoms
- lot's of movement, also some higher intensity workout

Glycine

Let me elaborate about glycine as this looks like a game changer for me.
For many months I was taking 100-200mg of magnesium diglycinate that was helping me with sleep. It was giving me some relief.
But about a week ago I tried 5g of glycine (split into 3 doses during the day), after reading that our diet can be deficient in this amino acid.
I instantly noticed much more energy, better sleep overall, much better feeling. Then I decided to switch to 20g of collagen which is a glycine-rich protein. (20g of collagens is roughly 6.5g of glycine). My thinking is, that for an active person whole collagen protein will be better than only glycine.
Before that I was struggling to do 10k steps a day which before quitting was nothing. After starting supplementation I notice I'm doing 12k without feeling overly tired. I'm slowly going back to my exercise routine. Still lot of work to do...

CGM

This device showed me that I was having both high peaks over 180mg/dl after some meals as well as crashes below 60mg/dl.
During crashes I was experiencing increased heart rate during my walks, chest discomfort/aches. This was apparently triggering a lot of anxiety.
I'm learning to
- avoid meals that spike my glucose
- provide enough calories to avoid crashes
- working on proper electrolytes intake and hydration

Thank all of you! This reddit was a real help in this hard time.

Posted Dec 7, 2025, 12:51 PM UTC

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