Gondwanaland
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If he is in pre-acidosis state, potassium is harmful. He is probably dealing with a lot of ammonia, which is very acidifying.I doubt potassium is the culprit, Ford.
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If he is in pre-acidosis state, potassium is harmful. He is probably dealing with a lot of ammonia, which is very acidifying.I doubt potassium is the culprit, Ford.
@JaimeS, sorry about the delayed response.Centrum?! Try some sawdust instead, @fprefect ! I had a colleague in nursing who informed me that those "come out exactly the way they went in" - i.e. they go totally undigested. Far from being a one-time anecdotal thing, Centrum often shows up on 'worst vitamins you can buy' lists.
Getting a better multi = high on the list. Perhaps others could recommend? I take so many tiny doses here and there that I actually have pretty much everything covered without touching a multi... however, I did find these people. Maybe someone can speak to their experience with Pure Encapsulations if they've used them before?
[Edit: if your sensitivity is to the Centrum pill, that may be due to one of the fillers or colorants they use rather than to the vitamins themselves. Though perhaps you're taking a separate B12 and we're talking apples and oranges.]
-J
Please be careful with DMSA or DMPS. Chelation for Mercury. Everyone is so different but it totally messed me up big time. EDTA, too. You need a lot of vitamins in you to handle it.
I did tons of IV minerals to be able to handle it.
Yes, Centrum is crap. There are other better multis out there. Anything you can buy in a grocery store...stay away from.
hi @Misfit Toy.Agreed. Those meds knocked me on my a$$. DMPS caused me to go to the ER. I was so weak and sick with heart flying. Sweating....ugh. No way.
@Gondwanaland, that sounds sensible given my current state. this is a complicated web since mercury is messing with my minerals and possibly adrenal function. i want to test for low aldosterone first so i can try to balance sodium and potassium first. not sure what to do about added allodynia and possibly added tinnitus from potassium though.Agree. The person must be well in order to start chelation. Adrenals and thyroid must be 100% working, and minerals well balanced.
hi @aturtles.I would get away from folic acid. I know from personal experience that it can interfere with the methylation cycle in some disastrous ways. Within an hour of taking it, I was in a nightmare land.
I ran out of l-methyfolate, you see, and on my doctor's advice that folic acid was just as good, used it instead, and -- bam! Dark lands here I come. It was awful. Three days of hell.
That was 11 months ago. I won't touch folic acid ever again. My research and personal experience tells me that, for me at least, it's a disaster. Maybe for you, too. Consider getting off it.
@Kathevans, sorry about the late reply. i haven't been thinking clearly. thank you for the ideas.I really don't know much about orthostatic intolerance, but your comments on salt interest me. Before discovering this forum, I spent a lot of time on Bee Wilder's site called Healing Naturally. She healed herself using diet, basic vitamin supplements, and self care modalities like skin brushing and coffee enemas, and the basic food stuffs she added to her diet were Coconut oil (which frankly I love, but never could get above 2 tablespoons a day before my heart began to pound nightly), a tablespoon of lemon juice in water with meals to aid digestion, and a lot of SEA SALT, again to aid digestion--it apparently increases stomach acid that many of us lack--and to support adrenals.
So some of these things I've brought along with me for the ride. I do believe that sea salt is a better product than basic table salt. It has many, many natural minerals in it that are helpful to the body. Its only drawback is that it doesn't have iodine in it and over two years of using it, I developed an iodine deficiency (Oh, the places we go with our healing efforts!). The physical stiffness that I experienced as a symptom of iodine deficiency was corrected by a very low dose--225 mcg, I think the RDA, only 3 drops--per day.
So Celtic Grey Sea salt has been in my pantry for years and I use it liberally. In fact, while I don't drink an electrolyte drink per se, I do drink a lot of water and add 1/8 of a teaspoon of sea salt to each liter so that I maintain my sodium levels (which have been problematic in the past).
This said, I know that potassium and salt are rivals, and keep my potassium supplementation,when I do take it, separate.
This is my salt story.
@Kathevans, i was referring to your producing methylfolate from dietary folate. with low b12, that could cause pain too. i can empathise with the frustration of discovering years down the road that something you thought was helpful was making things worse. how did the added folate mess with your sleep? more pain or you felt less rested even without pain?Methylfolate production? I was getting from 200-800mcg in the multi B-complex I was taking(was actually taking the full 800/day for years before I realized it was exactly what was causing so much pain)--and have stopped as of three days ago. After increasing the amount first to try for more sleep, which worked for 3 days before going in the other direction... Like you (I think it was you earlier in this post!), it then took 3 more days for the folate to lower enough in my system that I could sleep again. But still not well.
I'm still increasing the D, but only by 100 mcg or whatever the amount is, per day. I'm hoping that helps somewhat. And today I took one of Dr. Ben Lynch's B-Minus, a B-complex that has no methyl donors in it. We'll see how that works.
Unfortunately, I've added an extra and often very disrupting variable today by doing some cleaning around the house (despite my exhaustion, I felt I was living in a pig-sty...) So, on one hand if I clean a little, it can give me a deeper, sometimes longer sleep; whereas if I push too hard, I can end up being up half the night. We'll see!
I think I must sound much less in control of all that is happening to me at this point, which is exactly how I feel. I know that what I need is more of the B-12 for the pain, but also like you, have had a hard time tolerating it. I ran a test a few weeks ago of 1/4 sublingual for 5 days and slept less and less. I think my next move is to go to either 1/8, or even 1/16 and see if I have any reaction. I won't push for so many days this time. I'm too exhausted for that kind of experimentation.
@Gondwanaland, thank you for putting this in a form even i can understand in my current state. i added your list of tests to my own list. hopefully, i can move on that in a few weeks when i am waking nearer everyone else's lunchtime.A RBC panel will essentially tell you about anemia. Anemia causes brain fog and body aches.
WBC panel tells you about active infections and antioxidant status.
Iron panel tells you about anemia, it can confirm or lead to other clues
Thyroid is all about mental clarity and cognition
PCR and lipid panel can tell you if your food is hurting you (going gluten free and lowering carb intake improved my results - note: I do not eat a low carb diet, but learned to balance carbs, fat and proteins)
ESR can confirm infections (unespecific)
This must be transitioned slowly, otherwise you can get worse.i guess i will slowly try a low oxalate diet, mostly since i'm not thinking clearly enough to think of anything more feasible for now.
@Gondwanaland, thank you. i wouldn't have found her post again myself.I think @ahmo had that once
@ahmo, sorry about the very delayed response. i haven't been thinking clearly enough to respond sooner.I didn't experience decreased padding. I was having pain in the ball of my foot, which pointed to stressed kidneys. Could it be that you're dehydrated?
If I interpret your question correctly, the pain was inside the ball of my foot. I experienced it when getting out of bed first thing. Can no longer remember if it lasted through the day. How did I deal with it? I'd have to go back through my notes of the time. I've been using herb Chanca Piedra for several years, as needed. It helps w/ gall bladder, liver, kidney. This is what I used, though there are other brands. I would have asked my body, through self-testing, whether it wanted more or less salt, water.this dull pain is in the flesh below the ball of my foot. it isn't present near my toes. i am not sure whether it is decreased padding. was your pain inside the ball of your foot or in the flesh below it?
@Gondwanaland, sorry about the late reply. thank you for the summary. i never finished that b2 thread due to low mental clarity. my b1 status is an unknown since i haven't found a way to test it. berocca contains 15mg though.I was re-reading the thread No Love for B2 today and found interesting info there. It is pretty intricate, but roughly you need B1 with B2 because B2 lowers serotonin.
But in my current approach with having anemia, I can say that my supplementation is working great for me because I am covering (almost) all bases to increase red blood cells by taking B1, B2, B6, and copper with zinc. I am assuming my high serum iron is becoming bioavailable, because my brainfog and body pain are gone. Folate and B12 are also needed, but I am getting them through food since they are high in serum.
I am also taking B5 and B7 because at the same time I am addressing dietary oxalates, and every now and then I take some B12. I know at some point this regime will stop working, and then perhaps I will retry methylation.
It just seems that I am deficient in so many things, but I feel better addressing it in parts.
@Kathevans, you stopped the b-complex causing the methyl trapping! sweet! congratulations on not going backwards daily. i hope it is sustainable.@Gondwanaland I didn't know that B2 lowers serotonin. Interestingly, the only B that I seem low in on my recent basic labs was B1, Niacin! My doc is now having supplement with 100 mg/day and I've been taking it at night because it does make me sleepy (not to be confused with putting me to sleep).
A little l-tryptophan helped me two nights ago to achieve a lovely (for me!) night's sleep, but last night I doubled my evening magnesium to 300 mg, which I think was a mistake. I actually felt anxious through the early hours of the night. I've been trying to trouble-shoot nightly headaches that are pretty much gone in the morning, and this may be the problem, or a contributing factor. Was it @ahmo who has said that magnesium competes with potassium? I've been taking extra niacin for the slight PVCs that I experience, but it would be better to eliminate the symptoms...
Btw, I have stopped the infamous B-Complex that was causing the methyl trapping, and have been taking the very, very low dose Nature Made, which has no folate or B12. I'm trying to get these through diet for the moment, as well. I am thinking of doubling the tiny dose of Bs or to begin by simply adding some B6 which Sherpa has pointed to as great for sleep/dreams...not to mention important for those high oxalates many of us are working with.
Doing more than one thing at once has only gotten me tangled in symptoms, so I'm trying to take it slow. The Bs very slowly...and a bit of L-tiptop ham for that all important sleep--and with thanks (and let's face it, a bit of envy!) to @aturtles I think we all know how important methylation is. If only we could all dive right into that pool!
But since I seem to have issues with taking potassium just now--makes my kidneys sore--then perhaps I'll stick with addressing some of the gut issues, along with the lower Bs.