why not declare your upvalues outside of the OnUpdate so that you don't have to mess with the locals inside of it
Code:
local frame=CreateFrame("Frame")
local foo,bar,text
frame:SetScript("OnUpdate",function(self)
if not foo then
foo,bar,text="foo","bar",""
end
text=foo..bar
end)
this way you dont mess with globals and you retain the info between onupdates
also 60 upvalues is a tonne can you post your code and maybe we can find a better solution all together?