New CFS/Anxiety member - SNPs back, kindly seeking advice

[Greenboy83]

Hello all,

First post, though I've spent many hours reading insightful threads from this great community. Recently embarked on this methylation journey, and I'm desperately seeking advice. Anxiety and exhaustion led me to prematurely leave my job in the US and return to the UK - I am fortunate enough to have a new job and career starting again in the US in 4 weeks, though at present I wonder whether my health will allow me to do so.

Anyway..

Main symptoms:

Constant mental exhaustion/fatigue/tiredness. Always wake feeling like I've not slept
Very wired, can NEVER relax, muscle twitches, always an elevated level of anxiety, depression
Racing thoughts, struggle a little with sustained eye contact, low self esteem
Skin atrophy (most concerning symptom). Skin has thinned dramatically all over in the last two years
Elevated cortisol
Joint pain (feeling of systemic inflammation)
Kidney eGFR reduction (was at 50% but seems to be slowly recovering)
Physical energy doesn't seem too bad, though I'm usually too mentally tired to attempt.

23andMe SNPS:

CBS 699T, A360A +/-
MTHFR A1298C, 677T +/-
MTRR A66G +/+
MTRR A664A +/-
COMT V158M, H62H +/-
BHMT 02, 08 +/-
VDR Bsm, Taq +/-
AHCY 01, 19 +/-

My thoughts:

CBS up regulation (CBS +/- and BHMT +/-) causing excess sulphate and ammonia, former causing overactive HPA axis stress response / cortisol, latter causing NMDA hyperactivity (excess glutamate)
Depleted BH4 due to above, causing depletion of neurotransmitters.

Constant demand for cortisol production causing breakdown of collagen into amino acids to fuel cortisol
Elevated cortisol causing both breakdown of existing collagen and inhibiting fibroblasts in creating new.
I have ordered the sulphate strips for testing, should be here early next week.

A couple of questions:

How accurate is this? Will an elevated sulphate result (800+) also be indicative of elevated ammonia? (are they always proportional?)

Will a blood serum ammonia test be as useful in diagnosis as an amino acids test? (former can be obtained on the NHS quickly and cheaply).

Will a normal sulphate result categorically mean no CBS issue currently exists?

Should I supplement Molybdenum now to support BH4? What about Hydroxy b-12? (Understand I should avoid methyl b-12 due to CBS drain). Obviously will look to follow the low sulphur diet if test confirms elevation and supplement with Yucca, charcoal etc. What if sulphate is normal? Should I also test for sulphite before moving to MTHFR and glutathione support?

Would you recommend any specific tests to get a more accurate status like methylation pathways panel or OAT/amino acids test? Funds are currently limited so I have to be wise here.

Any advice on reducing hyper activity in the short term? Magnesium helps a little, but not much. Xanax or phenibut brings great relief (GABA opposing excess glutamate), but I use this VERY sparingly knowing the consequences. I've ordered GABA powder.

Any other thoughts or advice are extremely welcome and appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Hip]

Any advice on reducing hyper activity in the short term? Magnesium helps a little, but not much. Xanax or phenibut brings great relief (GABA opposing excess glutamate), but I use this VERY sparingly knowing the consequences. I've ordered GABA powder.

Many people have found the non-addictive anti-anxiety protocol detailed on the following thread very effective:

Completely eliminated my severe anxiety symptoms with three supplements!

Rather than using drugs or supplements that lower anxiety via GABA mechanisms (and GABAergic medications tend to have tolerance / addiction problems), the above anti-anxiety protocol likely works by targeting the brain inflammation that may be the underlying cause of anxiety / wired symptoms.



Your muscle twitches, joint pains and skin symptoms, especially in the context of also having generalized anxiety disorder and depression, suggest the Chinese HIV-like virus (which in spite of its name, is unrelated to HIV) might be worth looking into. Many people with this Chinese virus report feeling much better after two years, so if you have this, you expect to feel somewhat better in a while.

 

[Valentijn]

CBS up regulation (CBS +/- and BHMT +/-) causing excess sulphate and ammonia. . . .

No, they don't do that. It's a myth started by Yasko, based on her apparently inability to understand research.

How accurate is this? Will an elevated sulphate result (800+) also be indicative of elevated ammonia? (are they always proportional?)

Sulphur strips are intended for industrial use, and are sensitive to variations in pH. Hence it's very unlikely that they will give an accurate reading in urine. There are blood tests available from some labs.

Will a normal sulphate result categorically mean no CBS issue currently exists?

There has never been any researching indicating that very mild up-regulations of CBS ever cause problems. To the contrary, they slightly reduce risk factors of various disease. CBS is only known to cause pathological problems when it is significantly down-regulated.