SHMT or CBS first?

[Mindy]

I agree with you: the B6 in the multi is probably not causing the symptoms. I think the doses that cause head tightness are over 100 mg.

There are 4 available forms of B12: cyano, adenosyl, hydroxo/hydroxy, and methy. The cyano form is considered the least desirable, I think it's because it doesn't occur in nature and not everybody can convert it (like me). So, your doctor probably means the other three. You might check with him.

There really is no such a thing as a no-sulfur diet, just like there's no such thing as a histamine-free diet, but we do our best. For low sulfur, I did quinoa (buckwheat and amaranth are OK, too), carrots, celery, zucchini, and greenbeans, sweet potatoes, nuts except peanuts and Brazil nuts, coconut and olive oil, fruits (except four on the list that I forget.) Dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free, nothing with eyes. I forget what dairy substitute I used, probably almond since I don't think rice was on the list.

Mindy, you never said whether the antibiotics contained sulfur - is that the source? It could have nothing to do with the spray, if that's the case.

As I thought more about my low sulfur diet, I realize that I gradually increased sulfur items over the course of the 4 months, so it's not really fair to say I was on it strictly for that length of time. It was just much more than it was a few months ago. The hard part is nothing with eyes. I'm also trying to follow the no yeast diet (b/c of all the ABX I've taken), which doesn't work very well with the low sulfur diet Plus, I'm pretty thin as it is and need the protein to maintain sugar levels.

I was taking amoxicillian, which isn't a sulfa drug; however, from what I've read it likely contains some type of sulfites/sulfates for preservation. The same is true of the Nystatin and esp. the Unisom I was taking. I think the combo of these with their preservatives sent me over the top.

Thanks for the overview on b-12; I believe the cyano is what's in most regular, cheap B complexes, right? I will have to experiment with adenosyl, hydroxo/hydroxy, but I plan to stay away from the methyl. Is there a way to determine which of these 2 would likely be best based on my SNPs?

 

[Mindy]

Valentijn, if I knew this, I could have saved $70! Thanks!
I'm GG, CC, AA, and no call - the last one is probably normal, too.

Mindy, have you checked out these and your MTRR A66G?

My results for the SNPs mentioned above are as follows. Valentijn - I think my results are the exact same as yours. However, could someone please tell me what they mean? I don't quite understand how to tell. Thanks!

MTRR a66g -/-
MTRR rs1801394 - AA

SUOX:
rs11171718 - GG
rs705703 - CC
i5000977 - AA
i5000976 --

PS - I noticed that you don't have CFS nor MS (nor do I), so I'm curious to know your background in understanding this complex cycle? What's interesting from my perspective is that I work for a crop nutrition company in marketing, and I market these nutrients for plant nutrition (ie, commercial agriculture). So I speak with agronomists all day about the 17 essential nutrients. I focus on potassium, mg, calcium and boron (for crops of course!).

My husband is also a PhD agronomist and thought it was hilarious that I have a sulfur toxicity issue Of course, this is relevant b/c in order to get our nutrients, they start by being in the food we eat.

 

[caledonia]

I am willing to try the spray again once CBS is under control. Question about that...do you know if people have been able to go back to eating sulfur foods once CBS is addressed? How long does it take to address it?

I'm on round II of trying to address CBS. I started by completely eliminating sulfur and had great results. I started slowly adding sulflur foods back in without a reaction. But once I added in RX drugs in addition to the sulfur foods, the sulfur/ammonia are creating worse problems than before. This is really scary b/c I can't seem to get rid of my current UTI and I need more ABX but am afraid to take them b/c of the head symptoms.

I treated for CBS for three months, until my sulfur strips got to 600. Now I can eat any sulfur foods I want. I still take 25mg of molybdenum, boron and vit. E succinate for maintenance.

ps. the Free Thiol diet (see the link in my signature) is what I used. You can still eat meat.

pps. maybe you can get the antibiotics compounded without the sulfates/sulfites? It will cost more, but you're only going to need them for a short time.

 

[Mindy]

I'm not sure if the spray could start methylation by itself, but the hydroxycobalamin in combination with folate in the diet could be feeding methyl donors into CBS, causing an effect. Based on my experience, even tiny amounts of methyl donors can do this.

My suggestion would be to do a trial of folinic acid by itself, instead of doing the spray and see if that's any better. Or if you'd rather do the spray, then treat CBS first, then go back to using the SHMT spray.

Note that SHMT is one of the "leaky gut genes", so you should also look at your gut before going past SHMT and CBS. The reason is that once you restart methylation, there will be an increased need for magnesium and/or potassium, and with leaky gut, it will leak out as fast as you're putting it in. This can become a dangerous situation (speaking from experience here).

You would do a stool test and then if it shows imbalances, treat the gut with a 4R gut rebuilding program.

caledonia - hi caledonia. I wanted to ask about the symptoms of leaky gut. I'm now not even tolerating herbs for my UTI; this has NEVER been an issue before. I tried collidial silver and grapefruit seed extract. I can take them the first day, but then experience extreme head pressure so much that I have to stop them. I read that culprits of leaky gut are antibiotics, antacids and NSAIDs. I have taken several rounds of these sense my last stool test, which wasn't terrible.

You said you've experienced leaky gut, and I"m wondering if your experience was similar. I'm reaching for anything at this point b/c I'm really overwhemled by this right now. Had a call with 1 dr. last week and went to urgent care this wknd and still no answers. Have another call w another dr. this week; hope to learn more. Thank you.

 

[caledonia]

caledonia - hi caledonia. I wanted to ask about the symptoms of leaky gut. I'm now not even tolerating herbs for my UTI; this has NEVER been an issue before. I tried collidial silver and grapefruit seed extract. I can take them the first day, but then experience extreme head pressure so much that I have to stop them. I read that culprits of leaky gut are antibiotics, antacids and NSAIDs. I have taken several rounds of these sense my last stool test, which wasn't terrible.

You said you've experienced leaky gut, and I"m wondering if your experience was similar. I'm reaching for anything at this point b/c I'm really overwhemled by this right now. Had a call with 1 dr. last week and went to urgent care this wknd and still no answers. Have another call w another dr. this week; hope to learn more. Thank you.

I have bad leaky gut and am doing ok with herbs. You might be taking too much and maybe that is causing a lot of die off. Try cutting back and see if that helps. You might be able to increase gradually up to a full dose after being on a smaller dose for awhile. The reason it's worse this time, might be because your gut is in worse shape, more bad bugs, etc.

 

[Mindy]

I have bad leaky gut and am doing ok with herbs. You might be taking too much and maybe that is causing a lot of die off. Try cutting back and see if that helps. You might be able to increase gradually up to a full dose after being on a smaller dose for awhile. The reason it's worse this time, might be because your gut is in worse shape, more bad bugs, etc.

caledonia, yes, i think my gut is in worse shape, but i've also overloaded my system with a lot of drugs and herbs. When I stop the antimicrobials, it definetly helps. I'm just wondering if the gut issue would cause head symptoms like this. It also feels like I've been having a more difficult time breathing, which is very odd for me.

Does any of this sound familiar, as part of your issues? I talked to my dr. today, and she's going to order the methalyation profile from doctor's data and a liver genetic test as well. I'm sure this will help, but in the meantime, this is really scary. Thanks for your response.

 

[caledonia]

I haven't had head symptoms like that, but I've had magnesium overdose symptoms from very tiny amounts of magnesium that I used to tolerate. So stuff like waking up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations, anxious and sweating. So, yeah, no fun.

I'm getting improvement from doing gut herbs, but you're not, so it sounds like stopping them is the thing to do for now. I've heard that if you have a gut barrier issue, you also have a lung barrier and a brain barrier issue, so maybe the breathing thing does make sense in that context. Or it's an allergic reponse to one of the herbs?

Have you done a stool test to see what gut bugs you have and what supps/meds are effective against them?

 

[Mindy]

caledonia - I'm still having symptoms of extreme head tightness/pressure when I take supplements. I tried taking d-mannose with nothing else added and the first couple of doses were ok, then I got the terrible head pressure. I stopped for a couple of days and the symptoms subsided very slowly. I'm just taking a probiotic for the urinary tract to keep my UTI symptoms at bay. After a day, I added a chinese herb for UTIs that says it is sulfur-free, and of course, got the terrible head pressure again. I took molyb and Sparga (Nutramedix supplement to detox sulfur) and the symptoms are reduced but not gone away by any means.

I am at a real loss as to what is happening and why. I feel like it is sulfur increasing, but I don't understand why. My sulfate test strips still show about 1200 despite being on low sulfur diet for weeks now. I went to a new local dr. who is an MD but focuses on nutrition to see if she could help b/c I'm not getting a satisfactory response from my MTHFR dr (who is phone only). She said I'm in uncharted territory and didn't understand my 23and me results. She suggested I take the Levoquin for my UTI and try to manage my head symptoms with charcoal and molyb, but I'm scared to b/c I had such bad reactions from the tetracycline a couple of weeks ago for the same UTI.

Do you know if this head pressure is a sign of high sulfur? I think the antibiotic also caused high ammonia, and my MTHFR dr. said if ammonia is high, taking meds will increase that. But that still doesn't explain the sulfur.

 

[caledonia]

caledonia - I'm still having symptoms of extreme head tightness/pressure when I take supplements. I tried taking d-mannose with nothing else added and the first couple of doses were ok, then I got the terrible head pressure. I stopped for a couple of days and the symptoms subsided very slowly. I'm just taking a probiotic for the urinary tract to keep my UTI symptoms at bay. After a day, I added a chinese herb for UTIs that says it is sulfur-free, and of course, got the terrible head pressure again. I took molyb and Sparga (Nutramedix supplement to detox sulfur) and the symptoms are reduced but not gone away by any means.

I am at a real loss as to what is happening and why. I feel like it is sulfur increasing, but I don't understand why. My sulfate test strips still show about 1200 despite being on low sulfur diet for weeks now. I went to a new local dr. who is an MD but focuses on nutrition to see if she could help b/c I'm not getting a satisfactory response from my MTHFR dr (who is phone only). She said I'm in uncharted territory and didn't understand my 23and me results. She suggested I take the Levoquin for my UTI and try to manage my head symptoms with charcoal and molyb, but I'm scared to b/c I had such bad reactions from the tetracycline a couple of weeks ago for the same UTI.

Do you know if this head pressure is a sign of high sulfur? I think the antibiotic also caused high ammonia, and my MTHFR dr. said if ammonia is high, taking meds will increase that. But that still doesn't explain the sulfur.

Sulfur and ammonia detox through the same pathway, so you have to address both at the same time. So if you only address sulfur, and not ammonia, sulfur could still be a problem. For ammonia, you can do yucca, and also reduce meat in the diet. I just did yucca and kept meat and it still worked. It may take 8 weeks or more to address CBS. It took me about three months. It probably would have gone quicker if I had also reduced meat.

Heartfixer has a good CBS protocol which I used successfully, except I did the Free Thiol diet and no Yasko RNA supps. I found out about halfway through that the charcoal is supposed to be done in flushes, not every day as it will clog you up.

I suggest avoiding Levaquin as people have had severe permanent bad reactions to it. Google "floxie" for more info.

So my suggestion would be to follow the complete CBS protocol, not just the sulfur part, and also work on the gut with a 4R gut rebuilding program.

For antibiotics, you may be able to do self muscle testing to pick out one that you can tolerate. There are several videos on Youtube which explain how to do it. You can practice on the supplements you have at home until you feel confident in your ability to do it. I use self muscle testing often and consider it invaluable for reducing bad reactions to supps, meds, and foods. It's not 100% accurate, but maybe 95%? You have to use your common sense too, in conjunction with it.

 

[Soccermanjb]

I thought I would comment here on shmt because I have a double mutation in that gene. I hope anyone can help. I planned to start supporting the shmt with iron nucleotides and low dose folinic acid like Yasko suggests. All i've done so far was add in about 12mg of iron and after 3 days my digestion is moving faster and and stomach is really flat and my skin is itching a lot more and I'm feeling like my histamines and allergies are up. I know that supporting shmt moves methylation back to short and long routes so that detoxing can begin. My question is, can just adding in iron start the detoxing this fast? I guess it makes sense it could if it is helping redirect methylation. I have been house bound and recliner bound severely ill with cfs for 3 years. Thank you in advance. Could itching be for low folate? Should folinic acid be what I start with instead of iron? Now on my 4th day I am starting to have prostate pain and other prostate symptoms... Now i am more frequent urination too. Every time I try to start methylation this happens to me.. Is it low potassium or maybe I start to high with supplements? Why do I get prostate pain? Please help! @Freddd