I'm writing this after 2 weeks using FMN form of Vitamin B2.
For years, long before ME, Relaxation has been my holy grail. My nervous system has been modelled into the warrior polarity of the warrior/worrier seesaw. I had the childhood stressors that intensify things for MAO and COMT aggressive tendency, as well as growing up in a household full of warriors. When I was at my worst, pre-GAPS, the worrier was as enflamed as the warrior. what a mess.
Here’s what I wrote at the end of the first day with FMN: My mood is so different today; kidneys felt stressed yesterday, today nothing. Right now I can’t even remember why I was planning to fast starting in 2 days. My next step, which I must have felt bad enough to want to do sooner than later, was to follow Critterina’s lead, and do a 3 day fast for resetting autoimmune system. I was still fending off the peroxynitrite bear on my back. And I do recall standing, staring into space and unable to put my finger on why this fast had seemed so important. Something dramatic had shifted my physical and emotional states, so much that there was a discontinuity. On the second day I’ve written I really feel calm, much more centered. It feels like I’ve taken off a leaden overcoat.
From mid-January, I spent 10 weeks in an intensive fungal-bacterial-viral removal effort. I was seeking to eliminate all the sources of ammonia in my life. I’d been chasing the source of my excess ammonia/peroxynitrite for a couple months….And this seems to be exactly where FMN has been interacting. I’ve stopped looking for ammonia, though I might still consider Sanum homeopathics to go on w/ Candida, to get on top of the bloating. But for now, peroxynitrite is my focus. Or maybe it’s more accurate to express it as avoiding oxidative stress.
I’d gone up to 6 molybdenum tabs AM/PM to help mop up the ammonia. Now I’m back down to 3. My need for malic acid, another of my primary ammonia solutions, has decreased to needing none some days. Butyrate, also for ammonia, was reduced following my purge regimen, and my need now has reduced further. Same with the ALCAR I’d recently begun to mop up peroxy. (I say mop up because that’s the closest I can come to a description. The cycles are still pretty much beyond my zero-working-memory brain.) Reduced Ubiquinol and manganese. I’d decreased my carnitine (LCF) from 4/day to 3 during my purge period. With the FMN I further reduced it to 2 only. This might coincide with B2’s relationship ATP. Another benefit from my purge was reintroducing nuts and seeds back into my diet, things I’d removed to get on top of autoimmune stressors. But this, and the high carrot intake, seemingly led to weight gain. Since beginning FMN I’ve dropped a couple kilos.
It also has let me introduce a small amount of green veg into my life. I’ve been unable to eat green veg since discovering a year ago that the veg folinic was blocking methylfolate, and pushing my needs for methylfolate into an unending thirst. Inspired by enthusiastic B2 reports, one suggesting it would enable eating green veg., I experimented with 3 days of B2 at the beginning of the year. Results: feeling I’d poisoned myself with ammonia. FMN has made a few sprigs of parsley possible again.
It would appear that I wasn’t totally off the mark during the months that I made comments re MAO suggesting a tendency toward histamine problems. I later couldn’t find specific evidence for this, and that particular research project has not risen to the top of my to-do pile in these many months. However, I started down this FMN path based on the comments @ppodhajski made re FMN being his main response to MAO-A problems. MAO is my single homozygous snp. Yasko’s drops helped during the early days. As my detox practices and implementation of B12/Folate and Deadlock Quartet elements moved on, my body no longer wanted the drops. From daily to a couple times a week, weekly, and now rarely, only when in some version of crisis/crash.
Since adding FMN all of my histamine-reducing and mast cell-stabilising supps have reduced, sometimes none for a whole day. Not only that, I’m now daily consuming a spoonful of fermented kraut or yogurt. And there are onions (high thiol/sulfur) in my sauerkraut, as well as beet, both of which I’d been avoiding for nearly 3 years. Also my need for antioxidants has, thankfully reduced. I think my purge was really taxxing on the body. I can’t otherwise account for what had become an overwhelmingly huge need for antioxidants, met especially with carrots and green tea. Additionally, there are antiox supps, which I also am now needing much less of. I’ve gone from 3l green tea/day to one. I didn’t anticipate the mood downer this would precipitate for a couple days, but I’m now ingesting a lot less caffeine. And less carrots. As I state frequently, I assess my needs and dosages by self-testing. This means there’s a degree of *objectivity*, in that my decisions to, e.g. cut back on green tea, doesn’t come from my mind, an idea, but is the response I get from my body when I ask the question.
I’ve noticed during the 2 years I’ve been working with methylation and detox, that a number of times there have been significant and specific improvements in my state. However, I’ve also become quite aware that there’s fundamentally a very low ceiling to my available energy. My brain doesn’t get any sharper, my body doesn’t get any extra exercise. I don’t know how many more tweaks are available to me. I think I’ll go ahead with the Myarisan experiment, ferment it into yogurt. But I no longer feel the need for a 3 day fast for immune reset. Some very profound changes have happened. Far less histamine and mast cell flares. Less feeling of being on the edge of a crash, although I’m now far more aware and just start eating carrots to ward it off. But the calm, the greater sense of centering, the newly remembered pleasure of enjoying the twilight are very welcome.
Each step of healing, from the moment I dropped gluten and dairy, until this newest addition of FMN, has resulted in a calmer and more resilient nervous system. Whatever has or hasn’t happened in other parts of my body, these shifts have been profound. Meditation has been returned to me. One of these days I may even be able to walk slowly, to stop rushing in all my movements. I feel that this new calm has at least 2 aspects. One is greater energy, so that there’s less energy spent in fighting inertia. And somewhere else there’s less stress. Resulting in calmer adrenals, less provocation for the mast cells which flare when adrenals are stressed.
I also discovered last year that I have significant ataxia, suggesting cerebellar damage. Close my eyes and walk heel-to-toe without falling over...not so easy. I hadn't tried it recently, but I now find it's not nearly so profound. I can't say at what stage this shift came.
I still have only a scant understanding of FMN. Still, I can understand how ppodhajski could say that this is about all he’s using for MAO. It’s been rather remarkable for me.
What I'm using:
Source naturals 18mg FMN
The Benefits of Coenzymated Sublingual Vitamins - In order for vitamins to be utilized by the body, they must first be converted into their active coenzyme forms. Coenzymated B-2 sublingual goes directly into your bloodstream in its active form, ready to go to work immediately. This avoids loss that may occur not only during digestion, but during the liver's conversion process as well. Flavin mononucleotide (FMN), also called riboflavin phosphate, is one of the two metabolically active coenzyme forms of vitamin B-2. FMN is itself the precursor for the other B-2 coenzyme, FAD. FMN is involved in a wide array of enzymes and has many roles in energy production from our food, as well as bio-converting B-6 to its coenzyme form.
Sorbitol, mannitol, natural peppermint flavor, and magnesium stearate.
A few references that influenced me re FMN
I only saw this 2012 thread after I wrote this entry. There's some interesting info re coenzymated vitamins:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/are-coenzyme-b-vitamins-bunk.15280/#post-248247
For years, long before ME, Relaxation has been my holy grail. My nervous system has been modelled into the warrior polarity of the warrior/worrier seesaw. I had the childhood stressors that intensify things for MAO and COMT aggressive tendency, as well as growing up in a household full of warriors. When I was at my worst, pre-GAPS, the worrier was as enflamed as the warrior. what a mess.
Here’s what I wrote at the end of the first day with FMN: My mood is so different today; kidneys felt stressed yesterday, today nothing. Right now I can’t even remember why I was planning to fast starting in 2 days. My next step, which I must have felt bad enough to want to do sooner than later, was to follow Critterina’s lead, and do a 3 day fast for resetting autoimmune system. I was still fending off the peroxynitrite bear on my back. And I do recall standing, staring into space and unable to put my finger on why this fast had seemed so important. Something dramatic had shifted my physical and emotional states, so much that there was a discontinuity. On the second day I’ve written I really feel calm, much more centered. It feels like I’ve taken off a leaden overcoat.
From mid-January, I spent 10 weeks in an intensive fungal-bacterial-viral removal effort. I was seeking to eliminate all the sources of ammonia in my life. I’d been chasing the source of my excess ammonia/peroxynitrite for a couple months….And this seems to be exactly where FMN has been interacting. I’ve stopped looking for ammonia, though I might still consider Sanum homeopathics to go on w/ Candida, to get on top of the bloating. But for now, peroxynitrite is my focus. Or maybe it’s more accurate to express it as avoiding oxidative stress.
I’d gone up to 6 molybdenum tabs AM/PM to help mop up the ammonia. Now I’m back down to 3. My need for malic acid, another of my primary ammonia solutions, has decreased to needing none some days. Butyrate, also for ammonia, was reduced following my purge regimen, and my need now has reduced further. Same with the ALCAR I’d recently begun to mop up peroxy. (I say mop up because that’s the closest I can come to a description. The cycles are still pretty much beyond my zero-working-memory brain.) Reduced Ubiquinol and manganese. I’d decreased my carnitine (LCF) from 4/day to 3 during my purge period. With the FMN I further reduced it to 2 only. This might coincide with B2’s relationship ATP. Another benefit from my purge was reintroducing nuts and seeds back into my diet, things I’d removed to get on top of autoimmune stressors. But this, and the high carrot intake, seemingly led to weight gain. Since beginning FMN I’ve dropped a couple kilos.
It also has let me introduce a small amount of green veg into my life. I’ve been unable to eat green veg since discovering a year ago that the veg folinic was blocking methylfolate, and pushing my needs for methylfolate into an unending thirst. Inspired by enthusiastic B2 reports, one suggesting it would enable eating green veg., I experimented with 3 days of B2 at the beginning of the year. Results: feeling I’d poisoned myself with ammonia. FMN has made a few sprigs of parsley possible again.
It would appear that I wasn’t totally off the mark during the months that I made comments re MAO suggesting a tendency toward histamine problems. I later couldn’t find specific evidence for this, and that particular research project has not risen to the top of my to-do pile in these many months. However, I started down this FMN path based on the comments @ppodhajski made re FMN being his main response to MAO-A problems. MAO is my single homozygous snp. Yasko’s drops helped during the early days. As my detox practices and implementation of B12/Folate and Deadlock Quartet elements moved on, my body no longer wanted the drops. From daily to a couple times a week, weekly, and now rarely, only when in some version of crisis/crash.
Since adding FMN all of my histamine-reducing and mast cell-stabilising supps have reduced, sometimes none for a whole day. Not only that, I’m now daily consuming a spoonful of fermented kraut or yogurt. And there are onions (high thiol/sulfur) in my sauerkraut, as well as beet, both of which I’d been avoiding for nearly 3 years. Also my need for antioxidants has, thankfully reduced. I think my purge was really taxxing on the body. I can’t otherwise account for what had become an overwhelmingly huge need for antioxidants, met especially with carrots and green tea. Additionally, there are antiox supps, which I also am now needing much less of. I’ve gone from 3l green tea/day to one. I didn’t anticipate the mood downer this would precipitate for a couple days, but I’m now ingesting a lot less caffeine. And less carrots. As I state frequently, I assess my needs and dosages by self-testing. This means there’s a degree of *objectivity*, in that my decisions to, e.g. cut back on green tea, doesn’t come from my mind, an idea, but is the response I get from my body when I ask the question.
I’ve noticed during the 2 years I’ve been working with methylation and detox, that a number of times there have been significant and specific improvements in my state. However, I’ve also become quite aware that there’s fundamentally a very low ceiling to my available energy. My brain doesn’t get any sharper, my body doesn’t get any extra exercise. I don’t know how many more tweaks are available to me. I think I’ll go ahead with the Myarisan experiment, ferment it into yogurt. But I no longer feel the need for a 3 day fast for immune reset. Some very profound changes have happened. Far less histamine and mast cell flares. Less feeling of being on the edge of a crash, although I’m now far more aware and just start eating carrots to ward it off. But the calm, the greater sense of centering, the newly remembered pleasure of enjoying the twilight are very welcome.
Each step of healing, from the moment I dropped gluten and dairy, until this newest addition of FMN, has resulted in a calmer and more resilient nervous system. Whatever has or hasn’t happened in other parts of my body, these shifts have been profound. Meditation has been returned to me. One of these days I may even be able to walk slowly, to stop rushing in all my movements. I feel that this new calm has at least 2 aspects. One is greater energy, so that there’s less energy spent in fighting inertia. And somewhere else there’s less stress. Resulting in calmer adrenals, less provocation for the mast cells which flare when adrenals are stressed.
I also discovered last year that I have significant ataxia, suggesting cerebellar damage. Close my eyes and walk heel-to-toe without falling over...not so easy. I hadn't tried it recently, but I now find it's not nearly so profound. I can't say at what stage this shift came.
I still have only a scant understanding of FMN. Still, I can understand how ppodhajski could say that this is about all he’s using for MAO. It’s been rather remarkable for me.
What I'm using:
Source naturals 18mg FMN
The Benefits of Coenzymated Sublingual Vitamins - In order for vitamins to be utilized by the body, they must first be converted into their active coenzyme forms. Coenzymated B-2 sublingual goes directly into your bloodstream in its active form, ready to go to work immediately. This avoids loss that may occur not only during digestion, but during the liver's conversion process as well. Flavin mononucleotide (FMN), also called riboflavin phosphate, is one of the two metabolically active coenzyme forms of vitamin B-2. FMN is itself the precursor for the other B-2 coenzyme, FAD. FMN is involved in a wide array of enzymes and has many roles in energy production from our food, as well as bio-converting B-6 to its coenzyme form.
Sorbitol, mannitol, natural peppermint flavor, and magnesium stearate.
A few references that influenced me re FMN
I only saw this 2012 thread after I wrote this entry. There's some interesting info re coenzymated vitamins:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/are-coenzyme-b-vitamins-bunk.15280/#post-248247
