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B12 causing food cravings

Messages
54
Location
Australia
12 months ago I began Rich's methylation protocol and within days of starting the perque sublingual hydroxycobalamin I got neuro excitation and with it huge food cravings.

After 2 months the excitation (nerve buzzing and tension) was so extreme I stopped taking the B12 but even now 12 months later I am still feelinga bit buzzy and dreadfully hungry and have put on 12kilos in weight. What can I do to stop this dreadful craving for food? I think it must be related to some deficiency or neuro changes.

Eating protein helps a bit.

Anne
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
12 months ago I began Rich's methylation protocol and within days of starting the perque sublingual hydroxycobalamin I got neuro excitation and with it huge food cravings.

After 2 months the excitation (nerve buzzing and tension) was so extreme I stopped taking the B12 but even now 12 months later I am still feelinga bit buzzy and dreadfully hungry and have put on 12kilos in weight. What can I do to stop this dreadful craving for food? I think it must be related to some deficiency or neuro changes.

Eating protein helps a bit.

Anne

Hi Anne,

Just a few ideas, no answers. I haven't heard this response before. B12 deficiency can cause a nutrient specific anorexia, specifcally a distaste for meat, dairy and eggs, the only b12 containing foods. What might an intense reversal with some healing look like? I had more or less constant nausea for some years. After a short while of healing the nausea went away and I was unusually hungry for some weeks. When I took adb12 and my mitochondria started working better I also went through a period of hunger. Some of these neurological things go in stages. Changes start occurring and each time a demyelination heals things change, and that happens over and over with each little step of healing. If a person stops taking that which is causing the healing MAYBE the healing stops there without completing or something. I don't know anything for sure here. All we can do is speculate. There is an old saying "When walking through Hell, keep walking". I do know that each round of neurological healing takes about 9 months to get as far as it's going to get. Meat contains mb12, adb12, methylfolate, l-carnitine among other things. You could definitely have some kind of induced deficiency from a brief burst of healing. Maybe some neurological changes got started and then stopped. I don't know but it would appear possible and in line with how these things appear to work.
 

Crux

Senior Member
Messages
1,441
Location
USA
Hi Anne P ;

I find that when my potassium is low, one of the symptoms is an increased appetite. Increasing potassium foods, not so much the sweet ones, may help.
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
Since I started boosting my b12 levels from 300 to well over 500/600 I noticed increased appetite (like in the good old days before onset), especially extreme the day after exercise. I consider this a good sign, I have put back on 20 lbs after losing 45 lbs and am at a good BMI. I guess it could be a problem if you cannot use the extra calories due to fatigue/exhaustion and therefore becoming overweight, but for me it's a blessing since I feel definitely better with the increased appetite.
 

Sparrow

Senior Member
Messages
691
Location
Canada
I get very definite and VERY strong cravings (and anti-cravings) for certain foods, but have learned to trust them. For me, they seem to come as the result of a lack or surplus of something in my body. There have been many times that I've been confused about a particular strong craving until a test result came back, and then it made perfect sense. I never would have believed how perceptive my taste buds can be. :)

So no help on stopping cravings in general, but it might be worth seeing if you can pin down specific foods you really seem to want, and allow yourself to eat lots of them in particular where that's viable. Or maybe to try to figure out what might be in that food that you could supplement.

The only other kind of craving I get is a huge one for sweets and/or fats, but that's a sign for me that my blood sugar is out of whack, so goes away if I'm more careful to eat more regular snacks or more healthy calories in the future.
 

chilove

Senior Member
Messages
365
I've definitely experienced a lot of food cravings.. unfortunately only for food I can't eat due to my food intolerances.. the cravings are uncomfortable.. I do think they are related to some nuero excitation thing.. dopamine is probably involved somehow...
 
Messages
54
Location
Australia
Interesting responses to my query, thanks.

Fredd's info on the nutrients in meat is useful and maybe why eating meat helps even though I can't tolerate supplements of those things.

Crux pottassium suplements hurt my stomach but maybe a potassium salt substitute may help?

Chilove how do you manage to resist the food cravings? I find it difficult even when I know something I eat (especially carbs) will give me pain or other symptoms.

Anne
 

chilove

Senior Member
Messages
365
Hi Anne,

I asked my doctor about it the other day and she said my dopamine is probably too high and to try taking some 5htp to increase serotonin. It WORKED!!! Very well actually... I had to cut back because I didn't have an appetite at all for a couple days.. LOL...

I started on 100mg 3 times per day and settled at 50 to 100mg twice per day...

Made me happier too!

Not sure what the long term implications of taking it are yet.. haven't had the time to do that much research yet. It's just an amino acid though.. I can't imagine that it could hurt anything too badly..