Finally thought I should try Methylfolate after a long while.
What should I be aware of? Do I need to supplement potassium also?
I read
@Freddd 's post and I think that's what he was saying. Will a load of bananas do?.
Any other gotchas with methylfolate? Safe to take alongside opiates?
Are you going to be taking B12 as well? In general you should always take B12 with folate, because folate alone can mask a B12 deficiency. It can hide B12 deficiency symptoms, allowing damage from B12 deficiency to occur with no warning.
I think it's very possible you may need to supplement potassium, though I can't say for sure. But you should educate yourself about low potassium symptoms - they can be quite severe and occasionally life-threatening. For me, low potassium induced by methylfolate caused severe fatigue. Other times I've gotten muscle spasms. It can cause arrhythmias and other cardiac symptoms, also muscle spasms. Read up on it.
I think in general low potassium symptoms hit within about 3 days after starting methylfolate so be on the lookout for anything unusual. That's when my severe fatigue hit.
As to how much potassium you may need, we're all different. Bananas may do it for you, they didn't for me. For one, I couldn't tolerate all the calories and sugar from bananas. Someone else on the board tried taking lots of bananas but still needed more potassium, and had to add in a supplement.
The methylfolate can cause your cells to start dividing more rapidly - it can cause your body to need more potassium, and that need can be quite a bit, and hit rather suddenly. It's also related to how much methylfolate you're taking.
For me, when the fatigue hit, I titrated up gradually, to 1000 mg of potassium over 2 or 3 days, in divided doses, and currently still need (some 6 years later) about 800 mg extra potassium a day (in divided doses), it's just part of my regimen now. I found potassium gluconate to work well and I tolerate it well. Some people take more, some less.
The really important thing is don't take a huge amount all at once - you could do 200 mg every couple of hours and just see how you react. The daily RDA for potassium is 4500 mg, so taking 1000 mg is roughly 25% of the daily requirement. I also found that low-sodium V8 is very high in potassium (and low in calories and sugar!) and drink it daily.
I don't know about taking methylfolate with opiates - I'm guessing it would be okay but don't know for sure.
