Hello and thanks so much for the valuable insights to all three of you!
Hearing your experiences made me think that I'll just have to experiment what my body needs and it might work after all
Sharing updates, since it is a few months since my last post. My cold/flu symptoms went away shortly after I posted (estimated two weeks after). I suspect it is due to the addition of L-Carnitine Fumarate (LCF) but I am not 100% sure. For me, LCF (approx. 400mg twice daily) works but ALCAR does not work at all.
That's encouraging! I'm just about to order the LCF—hoping that it won't give me gastritis like ALCAR did. It's better to have it now and have it at hand for when I start again, I guess...
I'll check out that app as well.
FWIW, my gut was in really bad shape when I got here. I had leaky gut and some poop issues, etc. Not true irritable bowel because most of the time I didn't have the gas and bloating, but things just weren't right and hadn't been for quite a long time. From what I understand folate really helps with healing tissues composed of epithelial cells like the gut.
Interesting!! My gut is a complete mess as well. From intuition I'd say that's where it all started... I was diagnosed with SIBO 2 years ago which I managed to get rid of and chronic gastritis which had been around for years. It was so bad that I could eat, eat, eat and would just continue to lose weight. At the time, I was eating a very limited SCD diet with lots of poultry and some fish. I then decided to try to go vegan/low protein+sulfur. The gastritis, which had caused crazy pain for 1.5 yrs and had been around according to gastroscopies for at least 3.5 yrs (probably more like 10 yrs to be fair but I hadn't had it checked before) went away as another gastroscopy 2 months after going vegan showed. Also, the food I was eating started to actually stick to me. It was such a great improvement! I know that very low protein isn't good in the long run but I am trying to fight the Clostridium Spp. overgrowth (I have a severe gut dysbiosis, which 3 independent flora tests over the past 2.5 years have shown. Despite taking probiotics, the last one in February came out as NO(!) Lactobacilli, Bifido Bacteria and other good ones, normal-low candida, while HIGH Clostridium species). And Clostridium Spp. live of protein/undigested foods...
I have been on probiotics for most of the past 3 yrs. They never did me much good. However, recently I have stared to take stomach acid resistant capsules which has made my bowel movements very regular and reduced the bloating. Any bloating always leaves me waking up feeling completely hungover from the intestinal gases/endotoxins... EW!
So I can only recommend trying stomach acid resistant capsules!
May I ask which one you are doing?
I've recently discovered I have gall bladder problems so there's a whole [seemingly new but probably of long duration] thing going on with bile and digestion that I'm sort of in the beginning stages of addressing. I've been taking digestive aids for years but never considered I might have gall bladder problems as opposed to just low stomach acid. But even there thing are improving already
That is SO "interesting"—we really seem to have so much in common health issue-wise,
@whodathunkit ! I'm pretty astonished...
I definitely think something is going on with my gall bladder: Bile has bilirubin in it which gives stool its characteristic brownish colour. However, that only seems to work with me half of the time: the other half of the time, my bowels have EXACTLY the colour of the stuff I have eaten. During these times my MCS/allergic reactions get worse, I get edema/swollen super pale, "wobbly" face and feel generally lousy. At other times, usualIy when my face has de-swollen and isn't pale anymore, I get incredibly yellow in my face etc. Doctors never seems to be able to work it out despite agreeing that I look so yellow... (bilirubin??) Also, my ALAT/ASAT i.e. liver transaminases go up and down quite a bit. It has improved after quitting meat but it's still an unsolved mystery.
Any the indigested food obviously doesn't help my gut either: It gets inflamed and mucus and strings/balls of hardened mucus pass in my bowels. When I'm inflamed like that, I feel like I have the flu, my energy is way down and my joins hurt etc.
I have tried artichoke juice before every meal as a digestive bitter but with little success. So I am more than curious what you are doing for your gall bladder problems! (If you have posted this elsewhere, maybe you could let me know the link as I could not find the thread.) Have you ever tried bile salts? I have tried HCl+Pepsin (when I was still eating meat) and pancreatic enzymes and plant based enzymes in the past but none of that really made a difference to me...
BUT like others who have done high, penetrating doses of Methylfolate, as I progress through the these crashes? illnesses? setbacks? I seem to be getting better
Again, thanks so much for sharing this,
@silverseas2014. You guys' stories are really encouraging! The Methylfolate really seems to be the key for many of us. I can't wait for mine to arrive—hurry up, dear postman!
I have read somewhere here that one should not take it without the MB12. Has anyone taken it on its own? I'm just curious as I am so hyperreactive to 200 mcg of MB12 (before I knew better, I have taken 1000mcg of CyanoB12 injections in the past with NO difference...). I was thinking that maybe something like 50 mcg MB12 could be a starting does with MFolin. I still feel very lost as to any referencing guide with rations/quantities as there seem to be so many different guideline out so if you guys have a good source for me, I'd love to read that.
After much more reading about potasssium--how much is safe, etc., I took a leap into these high doses of Methylfolate. Every time I had one of Freddd's insufficiency symptoms, I doubled/tripled my dose of Methylfolate (and the rest of the DQ) AND took a lot of potassium to ward off muscle cramping and fatigue etc.
Also, could you point me to that guide with insufficiency symptoms and ideas on how to handle them? The potassium source(s) would interest me as well if you still have them at hand.
(I have read lots of different stuff so far but feel a bit lost with the heaps of information out there. So I thought I'd ask the pros!
)
Thanks again. You have really helped me out!