Help with methylfolate (again), Freddd?

[bigmillz]

Hoping to summon @Freddd for help here, I'm getting to the point where I'm totally stuck.

For about 4 months, I was on 6mg mFolate. Seemed to be working well. I tried going down to 2mg, and then 1mg. Noticed I had more energy and was much less irritable. Great!

So I stuck to 1mg, and slowly started getting more tired, and a little depressed. Guess my stores ran out.

Went back up again, this time to 5mg. TONS of energy - it felt pretty unnatural, and more like I was on stimulants. Except I started getting super irritable again, and the energy tapered off after about 2-3 days, leaving me feeling a little depressed, irritable, and lethargic. On day 4, I said "to hell with it" and tried 10mg. Once again, TONS of energy, more than I could handle. And WAY too irritable and anxious. Very overwhelming. Took some niacin and felt much better.

Went back up to 3mg a few days later, hoping to find a sweet spot. Great energy day 1, more energy day 2 (borderline too much), started getting irritable again. Day 3 (today), less energy and still slightly irritable (even after potassium). Actually about to take some niacin again I think. Edit: the niacin helped, feeling much calmer and less irritable after about 30-40 minutes.

Contrary to what I previously believed, it sounds like:
More mFolate (3mg+) = more irritable as dose increases, more energy (but short lived, wears off leading to irritability, depression, lethargy), and oddly enough more apathetic
Less mFolate (2mg) = not abnormally irritable, no huge boost in energy, motivated
Even less mFolate (1mg) = starting to get depressed and less motivated

I've tried potassium over and over and any benefit is borderline placebo for me. A recent blood test put me at 4.3 mmol/L while on 1mg mFolate and no potassium supplementation. It did show that I'm low on zinc & copper (with a poor ratio too), which I'm planning to address next. My homocysteine, B12, magnesium, D3, and everything else were all within range.

My theory is that too much mFolate just overdrives everything, makes me irritable and over energized, and then my body adapts to the energy level, but the irritability remains. But I want to rule out anything else. Obviously increasing the mFolate from 5mg to 10mg didn't decrease the symptoms, so I don't think it's paradoxical folate deficiency.

Should I just tone it back until the irritability subsides, and then accept that I can't feel THAT energetic all the time?

 

[caledonia]

You might be one of the people who are a true overmethylator as defined by William Walsh. The methylfolate helps at first, but then ultimately decreases serotonin. I think the general symptoms would be anxiety/depression, but in my BF it's irritability. He does better with SAMe.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-methylation-in-a-way-i-can-understand.34707/

 

[bigmillz]

You might be one of the people who are a true overmethylator as defined by William Walsh. The methylfolate helps at first, but then ultimately decreases serotonin. I think the general symptoms would be anxiety/depression, but in my BF it's irritability. He does better with SAMe.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-methylation-in-a-way-i-can-understand.34707/

Wow, never thought of this @caledonia. Actually the last few times I read about under/over methylation, I saw so many similarities and overlap between the "symptoms" that I became frustrated reading it. Kind of like when you see the horoscope section in the paper, and every month describes you if you read them all.

First question, don't you mean undermethylation? Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but I found this from Walsh's website:

Undermethylation

Many patients with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, oppositional-defiant disorder, or seasonal depression are undermethylated which is associated with low serotonin neurotransmission. They generally exhibit seasonal allergies, perfectionism, competitiveness, and other distinctive symptoms and traits. A high percentage have an inborn tendency to be depressed in calcium, magnesium, methionine, and Vitamin B-6. These undermethylated persons may benefit nicely from Paxil, Zoloft, and other serotonin-enhancing medications, although nasty side effects are common. A more natural approach is to directly correct the underlying problem using SAMe, methionine, calcium, magnesium, amongst others. Although most undermethylated patients thrive on folates, supplements of folates must be avoided for patients whose problems are dominated by low activity at serotonin receptors. Folic acid, folinic acid, and methylfolate all reduce serotonin/dopamine neurotransmission by an epigenetic mechanism, and this effect overwhelms the folate benefits of improved methylation and serotonin synthesis.

Link: http://www.walshinstitute.org/biochemical-individuality--nutrition.html

I was actually about to drop my mFolate dose down again tomorrow, but I think I might give a week off a shot and see how it goes.

I have tried SAMe in the past, but it seemed to agitate me. Granted the first time I tried 1200mg (per Examine.com) and the second time I tried just 400mg but was also taking modafinil that week. Might've been too much. SAMe definitely gives me acne, I can attest to that. I have a little SAMe left, as well as a lot of TMG (which I seem to fare better with).

Does MSM count as a methyl donor?

 

[caledonia]

Wow, never thought of this @caledonia. Actually the last few times I read about under/over methylation, I saw so many similarities and overlap between the "symptoms" that I became frustrated reading it. Kind of like when you see the horoscope section in the paper, and every month describes you if you read them all.

First question, don't you mean undermethylation? Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but I found this from Walsh's website:

Link: http://www.walshinstitute.org/biochemical-individuality--nutrition.html

I was actually about to drop my mFolate dose down again tomorrow, but I think I might give a week off a shot and see how it goes.

I have tried SAMe in the past, but it seemed to agitate me. Granted the first time I tried 1200mg (per Examine.com) and the second time I tried just 400mg but was also taking modafinil that week. Might've been too much. SAMe definitely gives me acne, I can attest to that. I have a little SAMe left, as well as a lot of TMG (which I seem to fare better with).

Does MSM count as a methyl donor?

Yes, sorry, undermethylator - what you said.

My BF does well with only 200mg SAMe. (one pill, Nutralife brand)

 

[bigmillz]

Noticed something else interesting, this has all gotten much worse since I decided to lower my molybdenum from 1mg/day to 250mcg/day a while back. I also recently tried dropping the molybdenum, until last week I started noticing my typical reactions to sulfur - ate some onions and started feeling generally unwell.

I'm bringing the molybdenum up to 2mg/day for a couple of weeks to build it back up. Per the Linus Pauling Institute, this is a tolerable upper limit, although I plan to go back down to 1mg afterwards:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum

I'm also going to try to restrict sulfur foods during this time.

Oddly enough though, my reaction to thiamine and sulfur foods is distinctly different from what the methylfolate seems to be doing to me. The former I start feeling very weary, clumsy, cranky, and run down; the latter I'm super energized at first, but then it gives way to apathy, depression, not wanting to do anything but pass the time by sleeping. Also, all of my food last week was generally high sulfur (onions in almost everything), yet the past few days of more molybdenum and less sulfur haven't made a huge difference - but I'm still taking the methylfolate.

The weirdest thing is that I was on 6mg mFolate for months without any of this happening. Does mFolate even stir up sulfur that much compared to mB12 alone?

Edit: Tried taking 100mg 5HTP for the hell of it (after realizing today's dose of 2mg mFolate wasn't delivering any promising results), and feeling a little better.

 

[bigmillz]

Wow @caledonia I think you were very on point with the undermethylation/serotonin thing!

I gave 200mg SAMe a (third and lowest dose) shot, and by the end of the first day, my mood took a turn for the worse. 1-2 days later, my acne flaired up, confirming the SAMe once again didn't agree with me.

Still off methylfolate, I decided to try TMG. Starting at a low (for me) 750mg, it quickly leveled out the usual jitters I get when I'm not taking methylfolate. Over the next 3 days, I started feeling GREAT - like, the best days on my log in months.

Today I went up to 1.5g TMG, and it's feeling like a bit much energy wise, but I'm still s***ting rainbows, and still on my 100% negative-feeling free streak this week. I've been more conversational, and more friendly than I have been in months. When I see my friends, I smile again. When I go to my office, I'm excited for the day ahead. It's really that much of a night and day difference lately.

I'm going to let the 1.5g level out for a few days, and then either go up to 2.25g or back down to 750mg depending on how well my body adjusts.

 

[caledonia]

Wow @caledonia I think you were very on point with the undermethylation/serotonin thing!

I gave 200mg SAMe a (third and lowest dose) shot, and by the end of the first day, my mood took a turn for the worse. 1-2 days later, my acne flaired up, confirming the SAMe once again didn't agree with me.

Still off methylfolate, I decided to try TMG. Starting at a low (for me) 750mg, it quickly leveled out the usual jitters I get when I'm not taking methylfolate. Over the next 3 days, I started feeling GREAT - like, the best days on my log in months.

Today I went up to 1.5g TMG, and it's feeling like a bit much energy wise, but I'm still s***ting rainbows, and still on my 100% negative-feeling free streak this week. I've been more conversational, and more friendly than I have been in months. When I see my friends, I smile again. When I go to my office, I'm excited for the day ahead. It's really that much of a night and day difference lately.

I'm going to let the 1.5g level out for a few days, and then either go up to 2.25g or back down to 750mg depending on how well my body adjusts.

I'm glad it's working for you.