Vitamin C allergy - what now?

[alicec]

I am puzzled by your comment about VSL#3 and B6. Why do you think they contributed to mineral imbalances?

Sorry I didn't explain myself very well. My experiment stopping VSL3 and reducing B6 didn't seem like a good idea since it was followed by a period of oxalate accumulation. Since oxalates mess with all minerals, I was speculating that this in turn might have contributed to my current problems with various minerals.

 

[Ninan]

@Ninan,

Vitamin C is ascorbic acid, not citric acid. The Kreb's cycle is also the citric acid cycle. However, vitamin C is necessary for making components of tissue and so it's lack causes a breakdown in making tissue similarly to but differently from lack of folate. The AdoCbl, which appears to be formed by most people from MeCbl but not always enough, is necessary for the mitochondria in making ATP. Many of the reactions are due to the increased biochemical reactions flowing from ATP, powering enzymes, AdoCbl directly acting on inflammation and AdoCbl processing fats. 50 hours is puzzling. It may be that a person has no quickly reactive MeCbl deficiency items and there is just the delayed items of healing showing up early on the 3rd day. What are the reliable change in symptoms?

I'm back but not because of B12 but huge amounts of D-ribose. Won't hold for long though.

You mean wich symptoms disappear after 50 hours? Everything gets better. I get a lot of more energy (from bed bound to being up around the house), my brain gets much less sensitive (I can talk to people, even watch tv without crashing). Nothing happens until 50 hours, then it kicks in all at once.

 

[Ninan]

I've received results from my hair mineral testing. Seems I lack a lot of minerals. These are under or just on the lower limit:

Na
K
Fe
Mn
B
Co
Mo
Ge
Li

Not Mg and Zn but that's because I take huge amounts. When I lack those two I notice it.

I guess any of these or several or all in combination could contribute to my problems with B12. But I still wonder why I've had to increase my dose of C so much (from just what I got from food to 5 grams/day) to make the protocol work. Could high C help masking any of these deficiencies? I'm hoping that once I've gotten rid of these deficiencies I won't need such huge amount of C to make it work.

I'm pretty sure I have histamine intolerance now too. Not much I can eat these days and I've lost 10 kgs since december.

Any thoughts on this? Lithium made B12 work much better but without C it doesn't matter how much lithium or folate I take. I have no effect.

 

[Ninan]

New theory on why my need for C, Mg and Zn went up so much: Adrenal fatigue. I took a lot of metafolin and I'm sensitive to methyl groups according to genetics. I think it was too stimulating.

Too much metafolin -> tired adrenals -> adrenals eat all my C -> increased need for C (sometimes handeled with lots of metafolin when I didn't know what it was). And round I went.

Now my adrenals are even worse off because of stress, allergies and ketogenic diet. Complicated stuff.

But at least this could explain my growing need for vitamin C? From no more than diet till 5 grams/day.

 

[Ninan]

On second thought, if this was correct I should experience vit C deficency symptoms when I'm off methylation protocol and taking low dose C like now (100 mgs to none). I don't. But when methylation kicks in Zn and C depletes within days. So... maybe my adrenals just eats all the C when methylation works? But I've been having high cortisol lately without methylation. No huge need for C then. :thumbdown:

 

[alicec]

I'm sensitive to methyl groups according to genetics.

I think you are referring to one of Yasko's myths - some variation on COMT and VDR cause sensitivity to methyl groups.

There is no evidence for it and plenty against it. So I wouldn't be worrying about the genetics aspect of the sensitivity.

 

[Ninan]

I think you are referring to one of Yasko's myths - some variation on COMT and VDR cause sensitivity to methyl groups.

There is no evidence for it and plenty against it. So I wouldn't be worrying about the genetics aspect of the sensitivity.

Ok, thanks @alicec !

 

[Larry_Origins]

Hi Ninan,

You ask some tough questions, tough because there is so little information on them. When I first started to try to figure out what was wrong with me, back in 1978-79, I spent days in the library reading journals, on paper. I came up with CblC disease as being an almost perfect match for the symptoms I had at that time. They were a lot of very distinctive B12 deficiency symptoms all scrambled up with folate deficiency symptoms as without having the actual MeCbl, AdoCbl and l-methylfolate there was no way to know exactly what was what. However, the folate deficiency symptoms caused by methyltrap were considered B12 deficiency symptoms, which they were in the sense that taking b12 (CyCbl in those days). In any case, at that point many were clustering into what was diagnosed as FMS 20 years later and I was called names by doctors. CblC was identified but not understood. What I was able to find out was that most died as infants and those that survived to adulthood, 3 known survivors, were all in nursing homes because of the severity of the neurological symptoms, (basically severe Sub Acute Combined degeneration). In this century, new studies were done and found that there were adults who had survived with relatively small numbers of symptoms until something triggered many severe symptoms and then they get clobbered.

In 1987 in early December I had FMS symptoms but was still able to ski and went skiing with my 3 year old son for the first and only time. A week or two later I woke up in the morning completely crashed and managed to crawl to the bathroom before vomiting. My wife got similarly sick. The doctor diagnosed "a miscellaneous entero virus". She got well after 3 months.

I went downhill from there for 16+ years, adding about 2/3 of my total symptoms either at the time of the illness or the 6 months of change from acute to chronic as many of the symptoms changed. I had just had my first demyelination episode. From there on I developed symptoms of Methylmalonic acidemia and hyper-homocysteinemia, the extreme forms of B12 deficiency despite having "in range" cobalamin (CyCbl and folic acid taken daily). Everything was damaged and none of the tests made sense to the doctors.

Six or seven years ago, it was clear something was missing. Ten of us, all doing well on the deadlock quartet but knowing something was missing, tried glutathione in various forms; some taking NAC and l-glutatamine, some IV infusions of glutathione with their doctors, some various oral forms of glutathione and a person or two taking whey to stimulate the production of glutathione. As far as getting glutathione into the system it was a 100% success. What it did to us though was completely unexpected. T

he first few days the pain the neurological pain went down and at first it seemed pretty good. Then all the b12 and folate deficiency symptoms started proliferating and getting worse. The ONLY differences were in time of onset, maybe at least due to forms and doses, and individual variations of the usual sort of individual variations. The symptoms each of us had before the DQ came roaring back.

At 6 weeks many of us started having obvious demyelination episodes and we stopped the trial immediately and did out best to reverse the symptoms. It took several days of sizable doses of MeCbl, AdoCbl and l-methylfolate to start reversing the glutathione symptoms but things never were as good as before. In hindsight it looks like that was when the copper ran out and started causing problems. We had all been working with the MeCbl, AdoCbl, l-methylfolate (barely available at a reasonable price) for 3-5 years. Something was missing, copper, not glutathione. But again, tests showed us to be "in range".

So I was the most damaged in the beginning, I had the worst response the fastest. 100% of us, there for may different reasons, all had essentially the same bad responses. Some were vegan, most were not. I doubt that all 10 of us had CblC problems. However, 100% of us were intolerant of folic acid. Because of the differences, the different speed of onset, the different severities, and different forms of glutathione or precursors it looked like dose related differences.



However, I was the only one with 2 hour onset and only one person, on whey, took as much as 3 days. The research published in 2011 mentioned the hallmark symptom of "catastrophic B12 deficiency" which I experienced as 2 hour methyltrap onset. It also said that limiting B12 was a bad idea for people with this, that they also had unstable electrolytes (minerals and metals) and low cellular folate. Whether that low folate was a result of treatment or caused by the polymorphism was not specified. However, I had experienced unstable electrolytes all my life and as a child and teen regularly woke up screaming from the spasms I now know are caused by low potassium. Low tissue potassium is a characteristic of FMS/CFS according to the research paper Rich posted after I described my experiences to him.

So, do you have CblC polymorphisms because of your response to glutathione? It's hard to tell. Either there are variations of CblC polymorphisms (which are described as having "very heterogeneous symptoms) that are at the heart of CFS/FMS for a lot of us and it isn't anywhere as rare as thought, or it could be the MTHR polymorphisms and some others or maybe it is merely a matter of dose and if a person takes too much (however much that is) glutathione it's going to do the same thing, or for some combination of all the reasons.

What your reaction appears to say is that you respond to glutathione in a way characteristic of people who generally have good effects from the DQ. Which also could mean that it likely induces other deficiencies appearing as what looks like refeeding syndrome.

Magnesium is fundamental to allowing MeCbl to work in the body. Many people are struggling with getting enough magnesium in their bodies. It;s things like this that makes for so much variation amongst people.

I did some digging using ChatGPT to find out the link between folate and Vitamin C. Here's what i found. I know this is an old post but people might find this information useful or relevant.