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Why Does B12 Cause Negative Effects?

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Hi Maddie

I am not disagreeing with Freddd, but maybe you felt so good on animal protein only as you may have a gluten and/or carb and/or casein sensitivity. I have IBS and feel so much better when I eliminate all non vegetable carbs - and have been eating like this for years. I have yet to eliminate dairy - but without carbs it is much harder to give up dairy.

It may very well be the absence of folic acid in the veggies or a combination of both reasons.

It is now believed that one IBS causing factor is a folate deficiency (somehting to do with folates role in reforming of stomach and intestine cells). However it is the 5 methyl thf form that restores this, not folic acid. It appears the tide is turning on synthetic folic acid in several quarters.

Hi, Topaz,

Your questions are good ones. I do have issues with carbohydrate, and have been on a very very low carb, grain-free diet for months. I have been gluten free for many years. I do have some issues with milk, but they are minor, and I was drinking milk during my 24-hour animal protein experiment.

I have long-term experience with dietary modification, and eat a very "clean" and carefully crafted diet. [As my baseline! Not saying I never cheat!]

Madie
 

drex13

Senior Member
Messages
186
Location
Columbus, Ohio
Hi Drex13

I see that you take Phosphitydal serine. I started a thread on this a couple of weeks back as I believe it may be the best way to get my cortisol levels down (high evening cortisol which may be impacting quality of sleep and impact on adrenals ofcourse) but didnt get much in the way of a response.

May I ask, why you take it and how you find it? Any brand recommendations as I note that the one that Rich recommends is not available at iherb.

Thanks

Hi Topaz,
I take it because it was part of the SMP. I buy mine from Vitacost, it is a Phosphitydal Serine Complex that also contains Phosphitydal Choline. I have not had my cortisol levels tested, so I don't know if there is an issue there or not.

Drex
 

rydra_wong

Guest
Messages
514
Hi Topaz,
I take it because it was part of the SMP. I buy mine from Vitacost, it is a Phosphitydal Serine Complex that also contains Phosphitydal Choline. I have not had my cortisol levels tested, so I don't know if there is an issue there or not.

Drex
I was advised to take PS for my genes. I tried it. No effect. Maybe it's a should take. I mean I do take other things which have no effect because I am convinced they are a piece of the puzzle. I see where PS fits into the cycle. Just not sure I don't get it from some dietary source or ...? Just never convinced myself I need it. So no effect and I don't take it.

What WOULD get your cortisol down is DHEA. But you have to research it yourself. Before I took DHEA I could not drink coffee AT ALL (all of a sudden as of menopause - drank many cups/day before that). Took DHEA and can drink coffee again. 2 cups of coffee raise your cortisol 33%. The amount of cortisol you can tolerate depends on your DHEA:cortisol ratio. Anyway, IMHO look into DHEA.

There was an "understanding" on WrongDiagnosis that cortisol rises whenever you have a nutritional imbalance (which you will naturally have if you have genetic defects because you cant break down certain nutrients so it "looks" like a deficiency to your body). No one ever showed proof of that so I can't say if it is true...if so, and you get your active supplements EXACTLY right, you could maybe get the cortisol to drift back down. Sounds hard to do...

Rydra
 

topaz

Senior Member
Messages
149
Thanks Ryda

Will look into DHEA. I was waiting for my DHEA result and only got that a week or so ago as my practitioner has been away. DHEA is 'normal' - Im mid-range. Testing was via functional pathology 24 hour saliva test.

Do you think I still may need to address this? My practitioner thought the level was fine but was concerned about my cortisol - which rises dramatically through the day and is high at night and possibly affecting the quality of my sleep.

Thanks
 

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Do any of you know the best timing for taking the DHEA, when cortisol rises all day? I'm low normal in the morning, and high normal at night.
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
Do any of you know the best timing for taking the DHEA, when cortisol rises all day? I'm low normal in the morning, and high normal at night.


Hi Madie,

DHEA needs to be taken on an empty stomach, like l-carnitine and SAM-e. I take it first thing in morning with my ore-meal supps and meds.
 

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
Hi, Freddd,

Do you take it in the morning to reduce high night-time cortisol? I can't afford to have lower AM cortisol levels.

Empty stomach - check - thanks.
 

rydra_wong

Guest
Messages
514
Thanks Ryda

Will look into DHEA. I was waiting for my DHEA result and only got that a week or so ago as my practitioner has been away. DHEA is 'normal' - Im mid-range. Testing was via functional pathology 24 hour saliva test.

Do you think I still may need to address this? My practitioner thought the level was fine but was concerned about my cortisol - which rises dramatically through the day and is high at night and possibly affecting the quality of my sleep.

Thanks

Remember, I am not the average person, nor even the average person with methyl problems, as I have 18 defects out of 30. But I do not trust lab ranges. They will tell you that you are "in range" for an older person or "in range" out of a population of tests that include absolutely NO screening out of sick people. What you want IMHO is to replace the value that is healthy for a 20 year old. LEF says these are the ranges:

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/may2004_report_blood_02.htm
http://www.lef.org/protocols/appendix/blood_testing_03.htm

Also I take DHEA based on how it makes me feel. I consistently test high in DHEA but my doctors are pleased with me because I consitently test as making non-cancer causing hormones out if it. I take this test yearly:
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/ItemLCM4098/Urinary-Hormone-Profile-24-hour-Urine-Test.html

I have this strategy to ward off cancer:
LEF cruciferous vegetable supplement
Vitamin D
selenium (which I started taking again today)

Sorry I cant type any more - there is some stupid CHAT box that popped up and wont go away. I hate how those chat boxes that up your screen - EXACTLY the line you are typing on so you cant see what you type...how annoying!

Rydra
 

rydra_wong

Guest
Messages
514
Hi Madie,

DHEA needs to be taken on an empty stomach, like l-carnitine and SAM-e. I take it first thing in morning with my ore-meal supps and meds.

Freddd-! I did not know it needed ti be on an empty stomach? Why, I wonder? I often take it on an empty stomach because it never hurts my stomach so I take it when I first get up to be sure I don't forget it. I take it with pregnenolne, C, E, D3 (which is a sublingual so also never hurts my stomach). The rest of my pills go into a ziplock bag to take during breakfast.

However DHEA has a half life of only 10 hours. That means it is COMPLETELY out of your system in 20 hours. *I* cannot have that since DHEA is CRUCIAL to my bp (I could die in half a day w/o it my bp is so high). So I take a divided dose - 2/3 in the morning, 1/3 in the afternoon. The afternoon dose is whenevr is convenient for me - with lunch, or with dinner, or in the middle of the afternoon by itself.

Now here's the kicker...when you first start taking DHEA, if you are over 40, you also have waning testosterone (even if female) and DHEA will raise it back to whatever is normal for you. Rising testosterone causes you to (1) break out and (2) get horny. I find that if I let my DHEA go to zero, not only do I have less perfusion and less ability to think/act clearly and effectively, but when I DO take the morning DHEA, I get horny as hell each and every day (the breakout only happend 1st time I used DHEA, lasted a few days). I dont know what you were like when you were younger but I used to get horny like that once a month and called it "bunny mode". I only mentioned it to one friend once and she knew just what I was talking about so I think I am not the only female who experienced this. Rising testosterone via DHEA causes bunny mode. It is very hard to be an effective person when that happens because you dont really care about anything else but MEN. So...be alert to that and do whatever you think best.

Rydra

P.S. DHEA can keep you awake. I never take it past 7pm. Some people may find they cant take it past lunch or some other time of day...?

You cant make progesterone out of DHEA - that is why I also make pregnenolone. I believe that might be anti-cancer also but I dont really know.

I have adrenal issues during allergy season (EASY to tell as I have suddenly LOW blood pressure). I take DHEA all the time and as long as I take it before 7pm it has never prevented me from sleeping. I did never take potassium during adrenal exhaustion (or whatever the adrenal issue caused by severe allergies). Regarding labs taken during allergy season, LEF told me I need tyrosine according to several labs - dont remember which as I - dummy - called them while driving so never wrote down what they said. I found that an adrenal supplement by Nutrocology helped me during allergy season (it is dried adrenal, not really supplements for adrenal). I took some 'supplement for adrenal' herbal remedy from my doctor and it consitenly made me puke so I havent got a good adrenal remedy...I just take adrenal gland itself and when my allergy is over (30 days) then it takes about a week for my adrenal gland to recover and I am fine until next time. So...consider allergies for adrenal problems. I am pursuing getting some kind of peptide injection to cancel mine -- It should be ready in a month or so - it was a 6 month wait for lab results and should be ready soon.
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
Freddd-! I did not know it needed ti be on an empty stomach? Why, I wonder? I often take it on an empty stomach because it never hurts my stomach so I take it when I first get up to be sure I don't forget it. I take it with pregnenolne, C, E, D3 (which is a sublingual so also never hurts my stomach). The rest of my pills go into a ziplock bag to take during breakfast.

However DHEA has a half life of only 10 hours. That means it is COMPLETELY out of your system in 20 hours. *I* cannot have that since DHEA is CRUCIAL to my bp (I could die in half a day w/o it my bp is so high). So I take a divided dose - 2/3 in the morning, 1/3 in the afternoon. The afternoon dose is whenevr is convenient for me - with lunch, or with dinner, or in the middle of the afternoon by itself.

Now here's the kicker...when you first start taking DHEA, if you are over 40, you also have waning testosterone (even if female) and DHEA will raise it back to whatever is normal for you. Rising testosterone causes you to (1) break out and (2) get horny. I find that if I let my DHEA go to zero, not only do I have less perfusion and less ability to think/act clearly and effectively, but when I DO take the morning DHEA, I get horny as hell each and every day (the breakout only happend 1st time I used DHEA, lasted a few days). I dont know what you were like when you were younger but I used to get horny like that once a month and called it "bunny mode". I only mentioned it to one friend once and she knew just what I was talking about so I think I am not the only female who experienced this. Rising testosterone via DHEA causes bunny mode. It is very hard to be an effective person when that happens because you dont really care about anything else but MEN. So...be alert to that and do whatever you think best.

Rydra

P.S. DHEA can keep you awake. I never take it past 7pm. Some people may find they cant take it past lunch or some other time of day...?

You cant make progesterone out of DHEA - that is why I also make pregnenolone. I believe that might be anti-cancer also but I dont really know.

I have adrenal issues during allergy season (EASY to tell as I have suddenly LOW blood pressure). I take DHEA all the time and as long as I take it before 7pm it has never prevented me from sleeping. I did never take potassium during adrenal exhaustion (or whatever the adrenal issue caused by severe allergies). Regarding labs taken during allergy season, LEF told me I need tyrosine according to several labs - dont remember which as I - dummy - called them while driving so never wrote down what they said. I found that an adrenal supplement by Nutrocology helped me during allergy season (it is dried adrenal, not really supplements for adrenal). I took some 'supplement for adrenal' herbal remedy from my doctor and it consitenly made me puke so I havent got a good adrenal remedy...I just take adrenal gland itself and when my allergy is over (30 days) then it takes about a week for my adrenal gland to recover and I am fine until next time. So...consider allergies for adrenal problems. I am pursuing getting some kind of peptide injection to cancel mine -- It should be ready in a month or so - it was a 6 month wait for lab results and should be ready soon.

Hi Rydra,

However DHEA has a half life of only 10 hours. That means it is COMPLETELY out of your system in 20 hours.

That is COMPLETELY wrong. An serum ellimination half life means that half of the serum level is elliminated each period. So you loose 50% the first 10 hours, 50% of the remainer the next 10 hours, ((down 75% from start), down another 50% in the 3rd 10 hours (-87.5% from beginning), down another 50% in the next 10 hours (-93.75%) etc.

In any case, some things if taken with food are digested when all the acids and things come squirting out. L-carnitine is another such, it digests rather than absorbs. While many of these things are not fully inactvated with food, it cuts them down a lot.
 

maddietod

Senior Member
Messages
2,859
What WOULD get your cortisol down is DHEA. But you have to research it yourself. Before I took DHEA I could not drink coffee AT ALL (all of a sudden as of menopause - drank many cups/day before that). Took DHEA and can drink coffee again. 2 cups of coffee raise your cortisol 33%. The amount of cortisol you can tolerate depends on your DHEA:cortisol ratio. Anyway, IMHO look into DHEA.
Rydra

I'm stubbornly sticking with my DHEA-cortisol-sleep questions.

Does DHEA lower cortisol overall after it's been taken for a while? Or does it have an immediate, temporary cortisol lowering effect?

Is the cortisol effect the reason it can interfere with sleep? This seems counter-intuitive if it lowers cortisol, but is best taken in the morning (at least, by Freddd).

What amounts of DHEA are we talking about?
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
I was advised to take PS for my genes. I tried it. No effect. Maybe it's a should take. I mean I do take other things which have no effect because I am convinced they are a piece of the puzzle. I see where PS fits into the cycle. Just not sure I don't get it from some dietary source or ...? Just never convinced myself I need it. So no effect and I don't take it.

What WOULD get your cortisol down is DHEA. But you have to research it yourself. Before I took DHEA I could not drink coffee AT ALL (all of a sudden as of menopause - drank many cups/day before that). Took DHEA and can drink coffee again. 2 cups of coffee raise your cortisol 33%. The amount of cortisol you can tolerate depends on your DHEA:cortisol ratio. Anyway, IMHO look into DHEA.

There was an "understanding" on WrongDiagnosis that cortisol rises whenever you have a nutritional imbalance (which you will naturally have if you have genetic defects because you cant break down certain nutrients so it "looks" like a deficiency to your body). No one ever showed proof of that so I can't say if it is true...if so, and you get your active supplements EXACTLY right, you could maybe get the cortisol to drift back down. Sounds hard to do...

Rydra

Where is the evidence that DHEA lowers cortisol? I have seen no such evidence.

EDIT : found this :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12544381/
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
I'm stubbornly sticking with my DHEA-cortisol-sleep questions.

Does DHEA lower cortisol overall after it's been taken for a while? Or does it have an immediate, temporary cortisol lowering effect?

Is the cortisol effect the reason it can interfere with sleep? This seems counter-intuitive if it lowers cortisol, but is best taken in the morning (at least, by Freddd).

What amounts of DHEA are we talking about?

Hi Madie,

I take 25mg of DHEA a day. I know nothing about cortisol with it and have no seelp effects from it at all.
 

Spring

Senior Member
Messages
133
Location
Netherlands
Back to B12

Question to Fredd or Rich,

I've been taking B12 5 mg/day sc, hydroxocobalamine, for a year now, but now I have pain in my arms and legs, am short of breath and feel like there is water in my head. When I stop B12 this resolves within a few days. When I inject again, this symptoms come back.
The only minerals I take are magnesium and chromium.

Can I've became allergic to the B12 or something in the injectionfluid or do I need to supplement something with it? I read about folate and other stuff and wonder what I should do. When I started B12 I was on a good supplement, but later during my treatment this was stopped.

I would like to continue B12 because it makes me sleep much better.

Thank you,

Spring
 

rydra_wong

Guest
Messages
514
Hi Rydra,

However DHEA has a half life of only 10 hours. That means it is COMPLETELY out of your system in 20 hours.

That is COMPLETELY wrong. An serum ellimination half life means that half of the serum level is elliminated each period. So you loose 50% the first 10 hours, 50% of the remainer the next 10 hours, ((down 75% from start), down another 50% in the 3rd 10 hours (-87.5% from beginning), down another 50% in the next 10 hours (-93.75%) etc.

In any case, some things if taken with food are digested when all the acids and things come squirting out. L-carnitine is another such, it digests rather than absorbs. While many of these things are not fully inactvated with food, it cuts them down a lot.

Huh. Ok, you are right - what I READ is that the half life of DHEA is 10 hours. I assumed that mean it is out of my system in 20 hours.

However, I OBSERVED that if I take it only in a morning dose, I get side effects as if starting from zero. Also in the morning I have all the symptoms that I am looking for DHEA to cancel for me and I am ineffective about even taking the next dose of DHEA to corrct them. I am essentially brain damaged the next morninng if if I do not take an afternoon dose of DHEA. So I am a pragmatist and while you may be technically correct, if it walks like a duck, etc.

If the DHEA is low enough to act like zero in 24 hours, may as well be zero far as I am concerned.

I did notice something dont seem to digest as well with food. I dont remember what. I'll have to pay attention.

Thanks
Rydra
 
Messages
14
Location
SE Florida
In rare instances, when B12 supplementation is started to to correct a deficiency, polycythemia can emerge. This happened to me and I would get very sleepy with severe shortness of breath and sometimes chest pain. My RBC, hemoglobin and hemacrit became very elevated. This is extremely dangerous as it can cause a stroke. Polycythemia can occur for several reasons or idiopathically, or so I've read. It is seen in some types of cancer but most notably it can be due to toxins. In the absence of cancer, perhaps the B12 is clearing toxins faster than the blood and lymph can dispose of them, particularly if one is dehydrated (think adrenal issues). Just a theory on my part and I'm struggling with severe pernicious anemia with no real way to treat it. Those who had these types of severe symptoms might look into polycythemia by getting a complete blood count.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Where is the evidence that DHEA lowers cortisol? I have seen no such evidence.

EDIT : found this :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12544381/

That was a super high dose of DHEA -- 200mgs -- plus, the study didn't specify how much it lowered cortisol. This study also used quite a high dose (50mgs) and doesn't say if the older subjects had high or low cortisol to begin with, but at least in this very short-term experiment, the DHEA helped restore circadian rhythm. That is if I'm reading it correctly…?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10778884/?i=2&from=/12544381/related
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
That was a super high dose of DHEA -- 200mgs -- plus, the study didn't specify how much it lowered cortisol. This study also used quite a high dose (50mgs) and doesn't say if the older subjects had high or low cortisol to begin with, but at least in this very short-term experiment, the DHEA helped restore circadian rhythm. That is if I'm reading it correctly…?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10778884/?i=2&from=/12544381/related
Right, I think moderate doses of DHEA won't lower cortisol, although it will of course alter the cortisol/DHEA ratio.