• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

DL-phenylalanine and the amygdala

beaverfury

beaverfury
Messages
503
Location
West Australia
Anyone tried DL-phenylalanine?

It apparently deactivates enzymes which degrade endorphins and enkephalins, leading to pain relieving effects.

Wiki cites the amygdala as having two opioid receptor types, one of which responds to endorphins and enkephalins. Maybe increased levels of these opioids could convince the amygdala to chill a bit, take some time out by the pool and stop messing with my autonomic response.

The amygdala is implicated in the body's nociception system. The brains detection mechanism of internal bodily function, response to chemical and mechanical stimuli.

'Nociception can also cause generalized autonomic responses before or without reaching consciousness to cause pallor, diaphoresis, tachycardia, hypertension, lightheadedness, nausea and fainting.[6]' wiki

All nociceptors are free nerve endings that have their cell bodies outside the spinal column in the dorsal root ganglia and are named according to their appearance at their sensory ends. wiki
 

beaverfury

beaverfury
Messages
503
Location
West Australia
Also to be considered is this amino acids ability to raise neurotransmitter levels of dopamine, possibly to beneficial mood enhancing and motivational effect.

I just started taking dl-phenylalanine and had two wonderful pain free days immediately. It also took away the feelings of bodily distress which are hard to convey to a healthy person, but have been variously described as sickness behaviour or malaise.
In other words, as well as pain relief i had a feeling of well being.

Unfortunately i put this well being to the test and mowed a friends lawn yesterday, resulting in feeling smashed today.
So....it didnt work for PEM. But what does?
 

aprilk1869

Senior Member
Messages
294
Location
Scotland, UK
You need to make sure you can actually use phenylalanine as it needs BH4 to convert it to tyrosine. My dad's ONE test from Genova shows a problem in this area. Here's a quote from Rich (RIP) on the matter:-

Hi, topaz.

One indicator of BH4 level is to run an amino acids panel and look at the values for phenylalanine and tyrosine relative to their reference ranges. If phenylalanine is high, and tyrosine is low, relative to their lab reference ranges, that suggests that BH4 is low, the reason being that BH4 is needed by the reaction that converts phenylalanine to tyrosine. BH4 is used in some other reactions, too, but they are not as accessible to testing. They are the conversion of tyrosine to L-dopa, the conversion of tryptophan to 5-HTP, and the production of nitric oxide by the nitric oxide synthase enzymes.

Best regards,

Rich

He also has elevated levels of 2-HPAA which is another indicator of a conversion problem.
 

beaverfury

beaverfury
Messages
503
Location
West Australia
Good call aprilk1869! I didnt know what BH4 was. Just had to wiki it. Tetrahydrobiopterin. Cofactor in the production
of serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine.
A deficiency is pretty rare apparently. But so is cfs...and ive got that!

Mutations in the GCH1, PCBD1, PTS and QDPR genes directly cause BH4 deficiency. Additionally, mutations of the MTHFR gene (A1298C variant) and DHFR can interfere with the recycling of BH4 and lead to less severe, but still clinifically significant, deficiencies of BH4. wiki
 

aprilk1869

Senior Member
Messages
294
Location
Scotland, UK
Good call aprilk1869! I didnt know what BH4 was. Just had to wiki it. Tetrahydrobiopterin. Cofactor in the production
of serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine.
A deficiency is pretty rare apparently. But so is cfs...and ive got that!

Mutations in the GCH1, PCBD1, PTS and QDPR genes directly cause BH4 deficiency. Additionally, mutations of the MTHFR gene (A1298C variant) and DHFR can interfere with the recycling of BH4 and lead to less severe, but still clinifically significant, deficiencies of BH4. wiki

A lot of people here complain of low BH4 so chances are you're low on it, so if the phenylalanine stops working for you this might be why.
 

Lou

Senior Member
Messages
582
Location
southeast US
Nothing gives me brain fog more quickly or effectively than phenylalanine. From posts above perhaps low BH4 is at least part of problem. Then again, BH4 supplementation in past had little if any positive effect.
 

aprilk1869

Senior Member
Messages
294
Location
Scotland, UK
What do you do about that? Kuvan is extremely expensive. Is it possible to have a marginal deficiency?

BH4 is also used up detoxing ammonia. So if you have high levels of ammonia you need to look at ways of dealing with it, therefore you'll have more BH4 for creating neurotransmitters. There's a lot of info on this forum about ammonia, you can also research what Dr Amy Yasko has written about it. I'm not sure the best way to test for ammonia but it's included in organic acid tests from Genova Diagnostics and Metametrix.
 

beaverfury

beaverfury
Messages
503
Location
West Australia
BH4 is also used up detoxing ammonia. So if you have high levels of ammonia you need to look at ways of dealing with it, therefore you'll have more BH4 for creating neurotransmitters. There's a lot of info on this forum about ammonia, you can also research what Dr Amy Yasko has written about it. I'm not sure the best way to test for ammonia but it's included in organic acid tests from Genova Diagnostics and Metametrix.

Thank you, aprilk!
 

vortex

Senior Member
Messages
162
Any updates on this ?

Will larger quantities of methylfolate recycle BH4 enough to make up for deficiency ?