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How much methylfolate and B12 do YOU take per day?

Messages
20
I'm just curious what everyone else's current methylfolate and B12 dosage is. I've been increasing mine by a ton the past few days trying to get out of what I think is folate deficiency, and today I got up to 14 pills of Solgar Metafolin but still feel like I may need more. B12 was about 8,000 mcg MeB12 and 12,000 mcg AdB12.

I'm kinda surprised I've had to get this high because I'm only heterozygous for MTHFR C677T and A1298C. From my understanding, homozygous ones are the more deficient of the two. Maybe something else isn't allowing the folate to fully absorb? Not sure yet. I cut out whey and glutathione precursors at the recommendation of Freddd so perhaps those are still clearing out.

I've seen there are a few others here that also take super high doses. For those that are on the mega doses, how long until you found you were out of the deficiency symptoms? Were you able to cut back once the deficiency was over?

I just thought it would be interesting to see how much everyone else is currently taking. Feel free to jump in if you want to share.
 

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
1200 mcg mB12 with 2 mg folinic acid (at most)

if I take any more folinic acid I won't sleep, brain so wired. I can easily take more mB12 but that won't have effect without the folinic acid (I take Leucovorine)

It demands these supplements to get it to work at all in me: Lithium, Progesterone, Selenium, Magnesium, Molybdelum, Jodium, Zinc, saturated fats + ways to get it out of the body (movement, sweat, bile, #2's)
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
I'm also hetero for those 2. I'm currently at 9.1mg MFolate, 9 mg MB12, 7.5mg AdenoB12; + 500mg L-carnitine fumartate I've been increasing the folate by 100-200mcg every couple days, based mostly on my small symptoms set: acne on face and at back of neck.
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
I'm kinda surprised I've had to get this high because I'm only heterozygous for MTHFR C677T and A1298C. From my understanding, homozygous ones are the more deficient of the two.

Being heterozygous for those 2 is what is known as compound heterozygous. The effect is virtually the same as being homozygous for the C677T
 

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
Being heterozygous for those 2 is what is known as compound heterozygous. The effect is virtually the same as being homozygous for the C677T
say what now? Would you please check that I'm "one of those" too?

because I'm heterozygous for:
MTHFR C677T
MTHFR A1298C
MTRR A664A
BHMT-08
and
CBS C699T

and have a bit of brain fog today.
you're talking about the first two right? So I'm compound heterozygous, right? And should look into this

ps. I like how koala's are having a conversation amongst themselves on this page :)
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
say what now? Would you please check that I'm "one of those" too?

because I'm heterozygous for:
MTHFR C677T
MTHFR A1298C
MTRR A664A
BHMT-08
and
CBS C699T

and have a bit of brain fog today.
you're talking about the first two right? So I'm compound heterozygous, right? And should look into this
Yes, I'm just talking about the first two. It's not completely straightforward though.

If you inherited a 677T from one parent and a 1298C from the other the effect is almost the same as homozygous 677T. Activity around 30% - 45% of normal

If you inherited both from one parent that gives you one mutated strand and one normal strand and the effect is less, more like the effect of heterozygous 677T only. Activity around 65% of normal.

We can't tell from our 23andme results. They just give us what our 2 alleles are, not which side we got them from. Our alleles are just listed alphabetically.

The MTRR polymorphism you have probably isn't significant. Note how the letter at the beginning and end is the same A664A? That means that the change in allele has not changed the protein that this gene codes for. It is unlikely then that the activity of the gene is affected by this change very much if at all.

ps. I like how koala's are having a conversation amongst themselves on this page :)
:)
 
Messages
20
1200 mcg mB12 with 2 mg folinic acid (at most)

if I take any more folinic acid I won't sleep, brain so wired. I can easily take more mB12 but that won't have effect without the folinic acid (I take Leucovorine)

It demands these supplements to get it to work at all in me: Lithium, Progesterone, Selenium, Magnesium, Molybdelum, Jodium, Zinc, saturated fats + ways to get it out of the body (movement, sweat, bile, #2's)

Yeah I feel kinda wired at night sometimes too when I take the methylfolate too late. It's a tough situation though because if I'm low on the folate, I start getting my nausea symptoms. So it's choose between that, or being too wired/anxious to sleep and I already have bad insomnia, so I'm screwed both ways.

I'm thinking of trying to just load up on a ton of folate early in the day and see if it can hold me over through the night. I know a few people here have said the folate helps with their restlessness and insomnia at night, but that doesn't seem to be the case for me so far.

I'm also hetero for those 2. I'm currently at 9.1mg MFolate, 9 mg MB12, 7.5mg AdenoB12; + 500mg L-carnitine fumartate I've been increasing the folate by 100-200mcg every couple days, based mostly on my small symptoms set: acne on face and at back of neck.

How do you normally break your folate doses up? Do you just spread it evenly throughout the day or take more at any particular time? Have you ever been in the paradoxical folate deficiency Freddd talks about and what type of dosage did you use to get out of it?

I ask because I see you're on a very high dose like me and I feel like no matter how much I increase, the deficiency symptoms start creeping back within an hour or 2. I'm tempted to take a Deplin sized dose all at once to see what happens. Today I did 6x 800 mcg folates in the morning with my B12s and it doesn't seem to be enough : /

Being heterozygous for those 2 is what is known as compound heterozygous. The effect is virtually the same as being homozygous for the C677T

That does make sense. I thought that the A1298C one was a little less "severe" though. Maybe I misunderstood something I read but I was under the impression being homozygous for C677T was one of the most deficient.
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
I thought that the A1298C one was a little less "severe" though. Maybe I misunderstood something I read but I was under the impression being homozygous for C677T was one of the most deficient.

The interaction of different mutations is not entirely predictable and sometimes doesn't seem to make sense. Homozygous 1298C does have some effect though much less than 677T. Heterozygous 1298C has an insignificant effect and yet when paired with a 677T has been shown to be nearly as detrimental as homozygous 677T.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
How do you normally break your folate doses up? Do you just spread it evenly throughout the day or take more at any particular time? Have you ever been in the paradoxical folate deficiency Freddd talks about and what type of dosage did you use to get out of it?
I'm dividing it more or less equally 5:30 AM, midday, 6:30PM. Early on I had significant outbreaks on my scalp, not realizing that it was folate related. My symptom now is very minor, outbreak on face. When I notice this, I increase my dosage by 200mcg, 1/4 of an 800mcg tablet. This tends to lead to a short period of euphoria, as Freddd has noted. (I like it:) Yesterday I'd been telling my mate how well I'm feeling w/ my current regimen, then realized I was actually in this euphoric state! ha! And it IS true, I'm getting better.) This euphoria is not the same as an excitotoxic reaction, such as I get from sulfurous supps, like ALA. However, I tend to need extra K+ after increasing folate. And at those times can feel irritated, agitated. I've had good results by popping an extra B12 at those times. Both of those events were at night, so it wasn't near my usual B12 dosing. Fortunately, I went right to sleep w/ the B12 in gums, awoke feeling fine.

It took me a long time to begin raising my dosage enough, I was very cautious. I'm so glad I finally broke through that mental barrier. I don't think, in the scheme of things, that this is a truly High dose. but it certainly beats the .5-1mg I thought was adequate for months. BTW, for me, pituitary glandular was extremely effective for insomnia. And now, as my methylation improves, I'm finally sleeping well, staying asleep, returning to sleep easily after wakening in the night, for the first time in my life.

Heterozygous 1298C has an insignificant effect and yet when paired with a 677T has been shown to be nearly as detrimental as homozygous 677T.
That's me! My initial blood test for MTHFR showed only the 1298C, the text indicated this to be virtually insignificant. 23andme showed 677 as well. This has certainly not been an insignificant impact on my life!
 

Star-Anise

Senior Member
Messages
218
yay @ahmo :) I can relate to your story.
thank-you for starting this thread @Jay1218 I've been titrating my dose of methylfolate up too in order to battle this edema problem that I'm getting that Freddd suggested is related to folate deficiency. Seems to be working *somewhat,* it will go away when I increase dose, but will come back again, lol, so I increase the dose again, and so forth..
Currently, I'm @
methylfolate: 500 mcg in am, 166mcg at lunch
methylB12: 500 mcg in am, 500 mcg at lunch
adenosylB12: 2.15 mg in am, 2.15 mg at lunch
 

helen1

Senior Member
Messages
1,033
Location
Canada
I've worked my way up to these over the past 6 months:
1 mg mB12
2 mg adB12
800-1600 mcg mfolate in divided doses; the amount varies as it depends on how I've feeling
 

pela

Senior Member
Messages
103
Jay1218, Freddd has mentioned a few times recently that taking too much vitamin b1, 2 or 3 can increase the need for folate. Are you taking a b complex with 100 mg of B1? If so it could be too much.

I am taking 8 mg folate, 10 mg AD B12, around 20 mg Mb12 sublingual and 1 mg Mb12 by injection.
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
I'm just curious what everyone else's current methylfolate and B12 dosage is. I've been increasing mine by a ton the past few days trying to get out of what I think is folate deficiency, and today I got up to 14 pills of Solgar Metafolin but still feel like I may need more. B12 was about 8,000 mcg MeB12 and 12,000 mcg AdB12.

I'm kinda surprised I've had to get this high because I'm only heterozygous for MTHFR C677T and A1298C. From my understanding, homozygous ones are the more deficient of the two. Maybe something else isn't allowing the folate to fully absorb? Not sure yet. I cut out whey and glutathione precursors at the recommendation of Freddd so perhaps those are still clearing out.

I've seen there are a few others here that also take super high doses. For those that are on the mega doses, how long until you found you were out of the deficiency symptoms? Were you able to cut back once the deficiency was over?

I just thought it would be interesting to see how much everyone else is currently taking. Feel free to jump in if you want to share.

HI Jay,

Did you ever clearly get methylation started? Have you tried both ALCAR and l-carnitine fumarate (separately) to see which works? If no startup then did you try SAM-e, TMG, Biotin, D-ribose, zinc, vit D, magnesium and a few other things that can deadlock methylation and ATP startup? Higher doses don't do any good at all if you are still missing deadlocking essentials.
 

Moshi

Senior Member
Messages
194
Location
Sweden
Excellent thread (I've been thinking about starting it myself) it is interesting to see and compare dosages in the protocol as them seem to vary so extreemely....here is what I'm on today (started protocol about 6months ago):

MethylFolate: 2,200 mcg daily
MethylCbl: 5000 mcg daily
AdenosylCbl: 4000 mcg daily
Carnitine Fumarate 600mg daily
SAMe 200 mg daily
TMG 650 mg daily
D-Ribose 5g daily

I'm doing great between 10am and 12 noon (high on cobalamins?) but still have severe crashes in the afternoons (last at least 3 hours often until bedtime) I just wish I would "last" longer in the day...I'm contemplating blood sugar imbalances (that what it feels like) even though my diet is very controlled ("healthy")....ideas anyone?
Just found out my serum cobalamin level is 1476 pmol/Litre !! Pretty good right?
 

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
(not important:
Seeing all your doses I got reading and thinking that taking only Leucovorin and mB12 may not be smart. I've ordered adenosylcobalamine and metafolin and will go low and slow. Thanks OP and all responding)
 
Messages
20
BTW, for me, pituitary glandular was extremely effective for insomnia. And now, as my methylation improves, I'm finally sleeping well, staying asleep, returning to sleep easily after wakening in the night, for the first time in my life.

Yeah I thought things were improving with my sleep a couple nights ago but then they regressed last night.

I've been having insomnia combined with anxiety at night for the past few months where I will literally lay in bed staring at the ceiling for at least an hour to 2 before finally falling asleep. I also sometimes get this really weird sensation where I'll start dozing off, but my body will almost fight me to stay awake and I'll jump as I'm drifting off, like it doesn't want to sleep. It's really strange...

So a few nights ago, I actually fell asleep pretty quickly and had decent sleep. Same thing the next night. But then last night, I fell asleep really easily at first, woke up to go to the bathroom after a couple hours, and then had like a 2 hour insomnia/anxiety session. So I had a whole 2 days of good sleep and now it looks like I'm back to where I was.

Jay1218, Freddd has mentioned a few times recently that taking too much vitamin b1, 2 or 3 can increase the need for folate. Are you taking a b complex with 100 mg of B1? If so it could be too much.

I am taking 8 mg folate, 10 mg AD B12, around 20 mg Mb12 sublingual and 1 mg Mb12 by injection.

Hi Pela,

The B-complex I'm taking is the Douglas Labs one. Only 50 mg B1, 20 mg B2, and 50 mg B3, and I just started that a few days ago. It seems to be low dose enough to where it wouldn't be interfering with anything.

HI Jay,

Did you ever clearly get methylation started? Have you tried both ALCAR and l-carnitine fumarate (separately) to see which works? If no startup then did you try SAM-e, TMG, Biotin, D-ribose, zinc, vit D, magnesium and a few other things that can deadlock methylation and ATP startup? Higher doses don't do any good at all if you are still missing deadlocking essentials.

Hi Freddd,

Yeah I do feel like I've definitely gotten it started, but something is certainly missing. Here's kinda how I started off to give you an idea:

I recently restarted methylation a couple weeks ago (I attempted it a couple months back and stopped because I wasn't tolerating it well. Maybe this was a bad move in hindsight, but I was stuck and didn't know what to do).

The first few days of restarting it, I did around 200 mcg folate. I definitely felt something (more energy, nausea got a little better, better focus and cognitive ability), then after a few days my symptoms came back. I kept upping the dose every few days: 400 mcg, then 800, 1600, and so on and now I'm up to like 14x 800 mcg pills per day.

At the beginning of the folate, I only had hydroxy B12 and I was doing 2,000-4,000 mcg per day. I stopped the hydroxy and added in methyl/adeno B12 about a week ago. I now have that up to about 12 mg adeno and 8 mg methyl B12. I go through periods of the day where I feel pretty good, but still a lot of rough patches.

I just ordered some carnitine fumarate so will get that going when it comes in. My b-complex that I just got has biotin in it and I've been doing d-ribose, zinc, vitamin d, magnesium, etc. for months now so I don't think it's those.

Haven't tried TMG or SAM-e yet because I was trying to take things one step at a time (same reason I didn't start carnitine right away).

Every time I've increased the folate, I've had a day or 2 where things start feeling better, but they quickly regress again around the 3rd day or so. That's what led me to believe I was in some sort of deficiency and had to just keep increasing until I was out of it. But now at 14x pills per day and with the proper B12's on board and still not feeling 100%, there's gotta be something else I'm missing too.

Should I add in the TMG and SAM-e right now with the carnitine, or should I do the carnitine first, see what happens, then add those afterwards? I was just trying to take it slow so I know what's working and there weren't too many variables.

Thanks.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
I'm dividing it more or less equally 5:30 AM, midday, 6:30PM. Early on I had significant outbreaks on my scalp, not realizing that it was folate related. My symptom now is very minor, outbreak on face. When I notice this, I increase my dosage by 200mcg, 1/4 of an 800mcg tablet. This tends to lead to a short period of euphoria, as Freddd has noted. (I like it:) Yesterday I'd been telling my mate how well I'm feeling w/ my current regimen, then realized I was actually in this euphoric state! ha! And it IS true, I'm getting better.) This euphoria is not the same as an excitotoxic reaction, such as I get from sulfurous supps, like ALA. However, I tend to need extra K+ after increasing folate. And at those times can feel irritated, agitated. I've had good results by popping an extra B12 at those times. Both of those events were at night, so it wasn't near my usual B12 dosing. Fortunately, I went right to sleep w/ the B12 in gums, awoke feeling fine.

It took me a long time to begin raising my dosage enough, I was very cautious. I'm so glad I finally broke through that mental barrier. I don't think, in the scheme of things, that this is a truly High dose. but it certainly beats the .5-1mg I thought was adequate for months. BTW, for me, pituitary glandular was extremely effective for insomnia. And now, as my methylation improves, I'm finally sleeping well, staying asleep, returning to sleep easily after wakening in the night, for the first time in my life.!

Another encouraging post, thank you @ahmo .

I was wondering if you started the b12 and folate first -- before adding in other b vitamins, and also how much of the other b-vits are you taking in relation to the b12 and folate?