Up then down again on the Freddd Protocol

[ahmo]

I read somewhere that sublingual folate gave you twice the absorption, thus the question about halving the dose when you switch to sublingual.

I need half as much. But not everyone has reported the same thing. I know of at least one who's said no difference. That's why I didn't have a clear direction for you.

Currently, I get a lift after the folate, but nothing extra after the B12. That’s odd, because

I never get a lift from anything I take. Except when I was titrating Mfolate up, and would get speedy. So maybe you're expecting something different from what you're getting? Any other symptoms you can track?

Indeed folate makes me crash after a while. Which fits Dr Walsh’s schema for undermethylators: rectify the deficiency if there is one, then go low or stop.

This is clearly how it happened for me. At my high I was at 30mg. Sublingual cut that down to 15mg, but proceeding along, 2 years on I'm now at 2mg.

i’d concluded that fatigued adrenals were the most important cause. After my worst crash, in 2011, I bounced back quite well on starting hydrocortisone.

The best thing I've done and do for my adrenals is coffee enemas. After detoxxing for a year, I had a major clearing of my adrenals, which seemed to bring with it almost a reset to my temperament: irritability, agitation, low tolerance of frustration...things which had plagued me for decades, now only appear under extreme stress or need for detox.

IMO everyone with anxiety & social anxiety should try out the zinc & B6, as 10% of the population is pyroluric, according to Dr Walsh’s database.

 

[Johnmac]

Thanks once more @whodathunkit.

Woke with a headache this morning, & not much energy. Too much folate? (But it is supposed to be activating.) Too much B12 (which is supposed to slow you down)?

Or not enough of one or both - as you suggest?

Making the decision to raise doses isn’t helped by my ‘theoretical’ confusion about m-folate. Walsh’s ‘undermethylators’ (I supposedly am one) aren’t meant to take any, beyond topping up a deficiency. But MTHFR people (I am one of them too) are meant to have trouble converting folic into methyl-folate - which suggests I need more.

In 10 days I’ve had an uptick, a slump, a less dramatic uptick…now back to a slump. (The slump is no worse than my low energy before the protocol.)

This FP round is different from earlier rounds. Then I crashed badly, with fatigue, abdominal tension, anhedonia, anxiety, disinterest in everything. It was LCF - sometimes exacerbated by m-folate. This time it’s only fatigue.

Yes, I am comfortable with raising doses - I'm basically a gung ho person who has had to part-learn restraint. But jumping in with both feet is my natural way. Raise m-folate AND mB12? (I notice you mostly talk about the folate.)

To answer your question, I felt nett worse after my slump this week. I.e. the recovery wasn't as good as the earlier good patch.

Thanks @ahmo. Basically on the highs everything feels good (mental & physical). The lows don't drop mood or cognition too much, but energy goes thru the floor. Also I'm getting headache & ear-ringing.

As of today, the 800mcg doses of m-folate no longer give me the lift.

I shall have a shot at coffee enemas when I get some energy back - thanks.

 

[Johnmac]

Just saw this on Dr Walsh's website, FYI:

Presentation: A Methylation Mystery - Finally Solved!

Abstract: In the mid-1970s, the great Carl Pfeiffer observed that undermethylated depression and schizophrenia patients were strikingly intolerant to folate supplements. This was completely unexpected since folate/B-12 therapy generally is very effective for enhancing methylation capability. Even more troubling was the fact that most overmethylated mental patients clearly thrived on folate supplements. In working with more than 25,000 mental-illness patients, we confirmed Pfeiffer’s surprising findings regarding folate therapy. For example, nearly all undermethylated depression patients reported intolerance to folic acid, folinic acid, or methylfolate. After more than 30 years of intensive study, this mystery was solved in year 2010 by the emerging science of epigenetics. This presentation describes (a) the epigenetic impact of folates on serotonin and dopamine reuptake, (b) the important role of methylation imbalances in psychiatric disorders, (c) the distinctive symptoms and traits associated with undermethylation and overmethylation, and (d) the benefits of methylfolate/B-12 therapy in autism.

 

[Johnmac]

NB: I didn't paste the above to make a case for anything: I don't know enough to do that. Just to show the Walsh thinking.

I'm agnostic on all this, tho I've been on the FP DQs for two weeks: daily 15mg mB12; 2400mcg m-folate, + AdoCbl + carnitine.

Fatigue hasn't changed - I sleep 12 hours a day; no energy for work. It's the on-off chronic fatigue I've known since my teens.

However mood is surprisingly good. Gut is brilliant, cognition okay. Addictive & OC tendencies shrinking markedly. Skin looks great. (I look well.)

So that's a strange dichotomy. Any explanations?

 

[ahmo]

@Johnmac My gains have mirrored your's. My energy levels are still very limited.

 

[Johnmac]

Thanks @ahmo.

I'll go with the Fred approach on folate for now, seeing as I am on the FP.

I notice you, Fred & others talk a lot about adjusting m-folate doses - but talk less about adjusting B12.

Does that suggest folate ramping & lowering is likely to be more important?

Fred seems to have topped out around 19mg per dose, going by the snippets of his that you posted (back a bit). With his famously bad genetics, I'm hopeful that my maximum will be somewhat lower than that. (Cost is a concern.)

The headaches of the first day have gone. Gut, mood etc are good. Energy-wise, I'm presently better than I was before re-starting the FP, but still fatigued. I'm not sure what to do next. But as it's only been 2 weeks, waiting a bit seems an okay choice.

 

[ahmo]

Does that suggest folate ramping & lowering is likely to be more important?

This has been the case for me. It feels as if the B12 absorption is longer lasting or more saturated, and for me, I don't experience direct effects from B12 levels. I always test my body when I change folate levels, to see whether I need to change B12 as well. My B12 is currently down to about 2.5mg, transdermal.

The headaches of the first day have gone. Gut, mood etc are good. Energy-wise, I'm presently better than I was before re-starting the FP

Once I was on full doses of FP, Fred predicted that over the year, I'd regain my physical energy, strength, as he did. Unfortunately, altho things have improved, I'm still unable to exercise every day, or to do very much.

 

[Johnmac]

Any theories on why your energy hasn't recovered yet?

To the best of my understanding, in his epic recovery my friend @stridor went through three stages - lots of HM chelation, the FP, then finally nailing hidden bacterial infections. (I know nothing about the latter, tho I suspect I'll have to learn at some stage.) I think he still does all 3.

Thanks for the B12 info. I have MTHFR, so I guess that means I need more folate, right? Which may be why I seem to be responding better to m-folate than mB12 presently.

Since re-starting the FP my gut is able to handle magnesium & C, which normally upset it. Why would that be?

I seem to be gaining in energy, gradually. If I stabilise, I guess my question would be, 'What next?' I don't want all the gains to slowly evaporate, like last time.

 

[Johnmac]

Freddd says paradoxical folate deficiency hits when you take too little folate; & that 90% of people get a bout or two of it before they learn that the problem is not too much folate but too little.

I appear to be atypical. Last year I spent some months on the FP at the same lowish does, but never got PFD. Instead, I got a slow diminution of the big initial gains - till I was back where I started.

The time (my FP Mk II - I'm about 3 weeks in), I got no start-up effects as usual, and have had some gains. But energy is the laggard: it's 30% better, but I am still fatigued much of the time.

More often than not I get an energy lift after taking the m-folate (800 mcg three times a day) - often quite a good one, lasting many hours. The other 3 DQs don't do anything in immediate terms. Cutting the B12 from 15mg to 10 hasn't changed anything for better or worse.

Two questions arise:

1. Does the above suggest raising the folate, or waiting longer?

2. I can't make head nor tail of Fred's PFD symptom lists in the Guide to the Freddd Protocol. What PFD symptoms should I watch for?

Thanks!

 

[sflorence]

Thanks once again ahmo.


* Alpha lipoic acid (which I use in the Cutler chelation protocol) sparks me up quite well. However two years ago it freed up way too much mercury, & I was getting massive thiol sulphur reactions - e.g. bedridden from a bit of onion juice on my lettuce. The Rich protocol (which is where I started with all this) fixed that in days. There was no methyl B12 in that protocol - only methyl folate.


* Quite a big discovery this year is that I have pyroluria. Taking the zinc & B6 for that banished anxiety overnight - notably the ‘dread’ kind - and softened up my skin nicely. It didn’t do anything else much. IMO everyone with anxiety & social anxiety should try out the zinc & B6, as 10% of the population is pyroluric, according to Dr Walsh’s database.


Sorry for the randomness of the above - you never know which bits others will find useful.

Hi!

I have had the SAME exact response to you on the freddd protocol. After a few months of doing better all of a sudden it stopped working.
Funny enough, I had such a similar experience to you that I cut down on my hydrocoritsone by more than half, but later had to increase back to my normal dosage when the protocol stopped working.
So what helped you get the positive effects back from the Freddd protocol? How is it working for you right now?

Two more questions for you

1. I have had another extremely similar response to the Andy Cutler Protocol. I am so sensitive to thiols after doing 20ish rounds that it is very hard to have a normal diet.
How did the Rich protocol help you in coping with the Cutler Protocol after effects? The only thing I haven't taken that he recommends is the Folinic Acid and also the phosphatidylserine complex, but then again I haven't read the entire protocol very closely.

2. What form of B6 are you taking? I take p5p and it does a good job of helping with my anxiety but I have to take like 400mg/day to get the effects.

 

[Johnmac]

I've switched to a different protocol which I find more effectual. It's based on the transdermal B12 oils, & is also easier, less complicated & less crash-prone - for me at least. There's at least one thread on it here somewhere - it has "B12 oils" in it I believe. In a nutshell all the extras such as methylfolate & potassium & carnitine aren't required (partly because B2 is making the B12 work properly), & gains are more steady & sustained.

I'm off hyrdrocortisone, T3 & DHEA altogether now, & have also cut out some of the big array of supplements I was on.

I don't know how the Rich protocol ended (for a couple of years) my dramatic thiol reactivity. As I wasn't taking methyl B12 I hypothesised that it was the methylfolate. But who knows? The thiol problem came back last year, when I was on methylfolate. I don't know if I still have it as I've been wanting to get my methylation protocol stabilised before I chelate again. I'll have another crack at ALA & Cutler soon.

I take B6 and/or P5P - whatever I have: but it doesn't seem to make a difference which.

I take maybe 50mg/day of each at present - don't seem to need more, tho the dreaming gets more vivid when I up the dose, which can be nice.

 

[sflorence]

@Johnmac

Interesting. I am also on the oils right now, and doing b2 as well.

I am surprised that you can now fare without HC. Did you try desiccated thyroid before going on t3?

 

[Johnmac]

Yes, I was on dessicated thyroid for a couple of years before I had an RT3 problem & switched to T3.