increased brain fog on methylation- thoughts? due to b vitamin depletion or something else?

[xena]

i have been on a high does methylation protocol since february with big improvements (30%) in fatigue and digestion. during the same time, my cognitive function (ability to read, short term memory, focus) increased initially and for the past two months seems worsening or at least, delinked from improvements in physical energy. do you all have thoughts as to what could cause this? any ideas for how to figure it out? (doctor is ordering nutreval and 23andme along w/ some others)

i wonder if i'm depleting b vitamins or some other nutrient from the high dose B12 or mthf, leading to the increased brain fog (i saw @picante post about a similar experience). i have become unable to tolerate even a small dose of ALCAR (125mg) and used to take 500 mg w/ good effects. P5P and SAM-e both intially seemed to help and then created headaches/insomnia/weirdness.

i take 5 mg injections of methylB12 2x/day and 15-20 mg mthf, in 4-5 divided doses per day. i also take antioxidants (vitamin e and curcumin), coq10, lactoferrin, ala, probiotics, cod liver oil, transdermal mg, and potassium when i feel muscle twitching and occasionally, charcoal. during the past few months, i took doxy and azithromycin for chlamydia pneumonia- gut function improved when i stopped. i'm pretty sure my main and possibly only cause of illness is mold toxicity as i have no viral reactivation and might not have cpn either (positive and negative tests)

i've experimented with and dropped a multivitamin which contains B vitamins (ultra protective x) and the seeking health b complex due to increased bloating. i did try the bcomplex again yesterday and felt very sleepy

on a possibly unrelated note, i tried nebulized glutathione on friday and had spectacular brain function improvements for several hours.

please tell me what you all if you have any thoughts!

@picante @ahmo @Gondwanaland @Freddd @aquariusgirl (and others!)

 

[Gondwanaland]

Xena, I don't have answers, just a comment from my most recent experience with B vitamins:

One effect from b vitamins frequently overlooked is RBC proliferation. If you get shortage in one of the RBC ingredients you might get anemia symptoms (incl brainfog).

I got anemia from supplementing zinc, which caused low copper. This was my recovery protocol. My ferritin went from high-ish to mid-range (improved iron metabolism by B2+copper).

I think in his most recent post Freddd mentioned low copper issues.

 

[picante]

@xena, I have lots of thoughts about this; in fact, I'm working on a post for a new thread on sulfation / glutamate toxicity / thyroid and how these things might interact.
@Changexpert is experiencing sensitivities similar to mine. I'll tag you when I get the thread started. It has only taken me 3 days, so far .

I don't know whether you got as far as this post on my other thread, but it's important: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?search/22880998/&q=ditching&t=post&o=date&c[thread]=37382

 

[picante]

i wonder if i'm depleting b vitamins or some other nutrient from the high dose B12 or mthf, leading to the increased brain fog

I'm pretty sure you are. It may be a good idea to reduce the B12/Mefolate until you figure out what it is.

Things I unknowingly depleted: B2 (it was difficult to find a form I could tolerate) and thiamine. I couldn't tolerate Seeking Health B-minus, either. I suspect the ratios are wrong for me.

Also, methylation seems to cause a runaway train for me: high glutamate, low GABA, high sulfite, high ammonia, high hydrogen sulfide. These are all neurotoxins (except GABA).
My thread is posted. You've been tagged.

 

[xena]

@Gondwanaland and @picante, thank you!

I'll start by trying to supplement B1 and B2; hopefully the nutreval will give me related information on this.

@Gondwanaland i'm getting results from a recent CBC tomorrow, i'll look out for an increased RBC count (does that make sense?). i have been meaning to supplement zinc/cu but never did it consistently

@picante interested to see how the thread develops. right now, i'm experiencing nasty brain fog and emotional symptoms several hours after taking liposomal glutathione so i suspect this is an issue for me too.

 

[xena]

i think the new intolerance to ALCAR could be an important clue. previously, i was taking 500 mg ALCAR 2x/day with no noticeable problem despite moderate anxiety/depression and now, the anxiety/depression are significantly better improved but i can't handle even 125 mg ALCAR w/o developing a headache and feelings of aggression.

that makes me think the brain fog/ worse memory are related to neurotransmitter production or clearing....
@picante @Gondwanaland and @ahmo, any ideas what would cause a new intolerance to ALCAR? I'm not totally sure what ALCAR actually does

_____________
the other thing i remember is developing a stuffy nose after several days on SAM-e, which i concluded was due to increased histamine production. i added P5P to help speed histamine degradation which helped.

 

[ahmo]

I'm sorry, this is beyond my problem-solving abilities. My only associations are that ALCAR is one of the things I implemented following Martin Pall's antioxidant strategy for reducing peroxynitrite. My body prefers other antioxidants most of the time, but ALCAR was one of the first I added. I wonder if L-Carnitine fumarate might now work better for you? In the context of Freddd's Protocol, ALCAR did me no good, but LCF turned the lights on.

 

[picante]

Check this out, @xena, and see if the list of thiamine-deficiency symptoms (2nd paragraph) seems to correlate to some of yours.
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ticle-on-b1-thiamine.34308/page-2#post-572220

 

[ahmo]

Here's an ALCAR thread re role of choline.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/l-carnitine-fumarate.22087/page-5#post-628546

Caledonia: I thought this was a pretty good website -

http://nootriment.com/acetyl-l-carnitine-vs-l-carnitine/

There are two forms of carnitine, acetyl L carnitine (ALCAR) and L carnitine fumarate. The first one crosses the blood brain barrier and requires choline for conversion. This is taken for brain health. The second one is for the mitos (energy). Choline doesn’t seem to be linked to that one.

Here’s the same site with a page on ALCAR where it talks about using choline -

http://nootriment.com/acetyl-l-carnitine/

This page says ALCAR is used for weight loss without losing muscle -

http://nootriment.com/acetyl-l-carnitine-for-weight-loss/

Here is another link for bodybuilders with something called a CCC stack - l-carnitine, choline and caffeine are used to help lose fat, but it’s not a fat burner per se. So if you take it, it won’t cause you to lose fat unless you’re also exercising.

http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2013/02/forgotten-dieting-aids-choline.html

I found another site that says choline used with regular l-carnitine to help preserve the levels of carnitine in the muscles. Section 14.2

http://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/#summary14-1

I saw another page (sorry didn’t copy that one) that says the fumarate form of carnitine basically does the same (preserve levels in the muscles).

If you google “l-carnitine liver problems” there are many sites that say it helps fatty liver.

This page says that choline also helps liver health and fatty liver

http://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/#summary14-1

So in summary, I would say that yes ALCAR might cause choline depletion which could have a bad effect on the liver, but that L carnitine is ok. And that supplementation can help the mitos, but doubtful a PWME would be able to get fat loss from it because they can’t exercise.


Stuff I have been reading lately suggests that creatine should be helpful for energy and muscles as well as methylation, because a large portion of SAMe goes to making creatine. So if you support with creatine, then SAMe is freed up for methylation and other tasks.

So in other words, if your methylation is not that great, then there can be muscle and energy loss because you’re not making that much creatine.

 

[xena]

Check this out, @xena, and see if the list of thiamine-deficiency symptoms (2nd paragraph) seems to correlate to some of yours.
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ticle-on-b1-thiamine.34308/page-2#post-572220

ooh good thinking! i wasn't sure whether or not those sounded like me so i looked up a few more sources and bingo- b2 deficieny symptoms is a good match
b1:
Early symptoms are nonspecific: fatigue, irritability, poor memory, sleep disturbances, precordial pain, anorexia, and abdominal discomfort.

Vitamin B1:
Beriberi, abnormal blood sugar, depression, fatigue, low
adrenals, nausea, vomiting, gastrointestinal disorders.

Vitamin B2:
Light sensitivity, cracks / inflammation of lips,
tongue, corners of mouth, dizziness, insomnia.

 

[xena]

that's a great find, thanks @ahmo
if alcar can deplete choline, and methylation increases acetylcholine levels also (presumably consuming choline).... and "Headaches, for example, are often caused by a lack of choline, so taking a choline supplement can mitigate your headaches." then some of my symptoms are possibly caused by depletion of choline- actually, that would explain the worsening in memory if choline is needed to make acetylcholine but its being used up

great! off to try some citicoline i have stored....

http://www.purenootropic.com/cholinergics/acetyl-l-carnitine/

ok, putting this here for myself.... good to remember. methylation can consume choline (i think...)

 

[natasa778]

i think the new intolerance to ALCAR could be an important clue. previously, i was taking 500 mg ALCAR 2x/day with no noticeable problem despite moderate anxiety/depression and now, the anxiety/depression are significantly better improved but i can't handle even 125 mg ALCAR w/o developing a headache and feelings of aggression.

I've seen/heard this before, def a bit clue imo

For me personally ALCAR also started being a problem after a while, in that it caused a constant lower back pain, which was getting progressively stronger... Weird but true. I tried stopping and restarting several times to check if that really was caused by ALCAR and yes it was. The pain never failed to go away a day or two after stopping, or to come back a day or two after restarting.

(q10 did the same, but in a milder form - the pain was much milder so it was harder to put two and two together)

 

[natasa778]

PS I never figured out why this was so, and my only clue was that the pain was in the same spot and 'had a similar flavour' of the PMS-linked lower back pain. So something to do with hormones or prostaglandin or such, whatever is involved in PMS lower back pain... (I also occassionally get headaches and aggression as part of PMS package but ALCAR didn't cause those, only the back pain)

 

[Gondwanaland]

You ladies have figured it all already, but I would like to add that DH has been having lower back pain for years. Then lately sulfur intolerance, could not eat soft boiled eggs for breakfast with me. Then last week all of a sudden he craved fried eggs for dinner, and the following morning had no back pain... So he is eating 2 fried eggs + ham and I push some salad into him and he is waking up pain free for several days in a row now

Prior to this Magnesium helped for like 2 months, but he never tolerated B1 or B2. B3 was fine though. B12 made him sleepy and B9 depressed. So choline it is Even though he was having some supplemented choline, apparently the egg yolks with the added vit A, B2, B7, B9, B12 are the perfect combo

 

[whodathunkit]

my cognitive function (ability to read, short term memory, focus) increased initially and for the past two months seems worsening or at least,

This has happened to me. After nearly two years of Freddd's protocol I'm still not happy with my cognitive function or motivation, although it does seem to (finally) be (slowly) improving. BIG gains in physical functioning, though. That's a plus I could not trade for anything. I believe if you can get the physical in order, the mental will eventually follow. Don't quote me on that, though. It's just a theory and I'm still testing it.

Anyway, as ahmo and picante noted, choline seems to be a major player in turning the cognitive decline around. I had a kind of revelatory experience at the end of last year when I tried a combo of two cholines (citi and AGP) + ALCAR + sulbutiamine (a synthetic form of B1/thiamine that crosses the blood/brain barrier effectively) + a nootropic that I can't remember the name of right now that I think now was a failed anti-depressant.

I got quite wired from this combo, but my motivation and ability to concentrate/remember simply surged. It was breathtaking and quite heartening. I even had one day where I did 8 straight hours of house cleaning without forgetting what I was doing, getting distracted (that is, I could stay on task), getting tired, or having a meltdown because I was overwhelmed by all the odd bits involved in task completion. Then a couple days later I crashed and that was the end of that.

But even though I've never gone back to that really great little cognitive window I experienced then, the whole experience did give me hope. I seriously never thought I'd be able to function like that again. Plus after the crash I bounced back physically better than before, and in fact that was the last crash I experienced since starting methylation (knock wood). Mentally I'm still struggling, however, although I'm probably a bit better overall than before the crash.

I think the keys in the cognitive uptick I experienced were the choline, ALCAR, and the sulbutiamine. Possibly the nootropic played into it more than I'd like to admit, but I don't take that any more since I found out it was a "failed" pharmaceutical drug. Anti-depressants messed me up in the past so refuse to ever use them again.

Worth noting is that before this experience ALCAR had never done anything for me. Nothing. I might as well have thrown the capsules in the trash. But with all the other stuff it really added something. I've changed my mind about it.

Currently I'm taking the cholines and sometimes some high dose thiamine. I quit taking the sulbutiamine because I think it gave me dry skin, which I don't need. So I radically increase regular thiamine when I take it, although I don't take it all the time because the benefits don't seem to be there.

I quit taking the ALCAR (along with everything else for a while) because there was some discussion about too much acetylcholine in the system potentially causing polyuria (which I have a problem with), but when I stopped it along with the rest of the stack I didn't notice any improvement in the frequency. So I went back to the choline and thiamine (occasionally).

However, after reading your post I may try to put it all together again. I just took some ALCAR for the first time in a long time. I had already taken choline for the day. We'll see how it goes.

Just posting this in case it adds anything to your thoughts about where to try from here re: cognitive function. I surely do wish I could get that cognitive window back. It was great while it lasted.

 

[xena]

@whodathunkit thanks for sharing- i'm gonna try stacking the citicoline and alcar i have and consider getting some alpha gpc as well. fingers crossed.

@natasa778 that's very interesting! i don't know anything about the neurochemistry of pain or pms but i wonder if the increased acetylcholine from alcar be having an effect?

 

[natasa778]

@natasa778 that's very interesting! i don't know anything about the neurochemistry of pain or pms but i wonder if the increased acetylcholine from alcar be having an effect?

maybe through its effects on prostaglandin? (which is known to be linked to pms and lower back pain)