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Im convinced I have extremely high Glutamate levels, life is hell.

Messages
99
Have you tried anything for the SIBO? If so, did it reduce anxiety symptoms? I am speculating that it is possible that the corticosteroids you took, which are immune suppressive, could have allowed the bacteria in your long intestine to proliferate and get the upper hand, causing SIBO, and thereby leading to you anxiety symptoms.

The SIBO website I linked to earlier also suggests herbal antibiotics like allicin and oregano oil. You can take high doses of allicin without ill effect.

A gradual reduction in sugar (slowly over a period of several weeks) might possibly also help starve off the SIBO bacteria.
Have never tried anything for SIBO or candida but was considering a product called 'Canxida remove' it seems to have both things you mentioned aswell as other things, its made by a Dr on youtube who makes videos about Candida and SIBO. I know that sounds dodgy but he seems genuinely informed. https://www.youtube.com/user/CandidaCrusher



Ive been googling arginine and found an old post of yours where you say snorting 100mg worked better than taking 10g orally. Do you still think thats a good idea? Im going to buy some arginine pyroglutamate online right now. EDIT: The Pyroglutamate version isnt available in the UK, which is strange.

I know what @joeblow604 means when he says it doesnt quite fit anxiety. Thats something ive told drs and others since this has been happening but technically it is anxiety.

@Hip I believe i am bordering on psychosis a lot of the time and at times completely lost within it. Last night when I made this thread I was completely lost within the illness.

I think what I will start by trying the 3 supplements you mention that worked for you the best aswell as ordering the L-arginine pyroglutamate from the states and go from there.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,874
Ive been googling arginine and found an old post of yours where you say snorting 100mg worked better than taking 10g orally. Do you still think thats a good idea?

That's how I take my arginine pyroglutamate, and it has the advantage of having a very fast onset of action (intranasal starts working within 20 minutes, compared to the 1 hour or so onset if taken orally).



The Pyroglutamate version isnt available in the UK, which is strange.

I noticed that as well. I had to buy mine from the US.



@Hip I believe i am bordering on psychosis a lot of the time and at times completely lost within it. Last night when I made this thread I was completely lost within the illness.

I also had some mild psychosis symptoms. Extreme levels of anxiety can induce some psychosis (it is called anxiety psychosis). Psychosis is where your ability to interpret reality becomes diminished, so you can become bit unclear about the meaning of the things that you observe. You might start asking yourself: "what does that really mean?", when for example watching a TV program or seeing an event occurring in the street.

The supplements and drugs that I found help counter psychosis are listed at the bottom of this post. The anti psychotic drug amisulpride worked quite well, not surprisingly. Well, actually it was surprising, because I used the very low dose amisulpride protocol (I take 12.5 mg daily), which has been used to treat depression and ME/CFS, but is well below the dose used to treat psychosis (the psychosis dose is 400 mg ot 1,200 mg), so I was surprised that such a low dose did help reduce my mild psychosis symptoms.

And for some reason, the drug amiloride 5 mg (a diuretic) helped a lot with my psychosis symptoms. For the last few years I have taken amisulpride 12.5 mg every day, and if I feel that I am getting a return of some mild psychosis-y symptoms that I used suffer a lot with, I will take amiloride 5 mg once daily, and this does help. I am not sure why though. Amiloride affects the electrolyte levels within cells.

If your doctor is unwilling to prescribe these drugs, you can if you like obtain them prescription-free from the reliable online pharmacies listed in this post. (It's hard to find amiloride for sale cheaply as a single drug, so I buy the combo drug amiloride 5 mg + hydrochlorothiazide 50 mg; the latter drug is a diuretic and blood pressure drug.)

In order of potency, I would say that the best anti-psychosis drugs and supplements I found are: N-acetyl-glucosamine (the best), very low dose amisulpride, amiloride, niacinamide. I would often take all these together, to counter my mild psychosis.


By the way, if you are aware that you have some psychosis symptoms, then almost by definition, your psychosis is only mild, because as psychosis gets more severe, people are no longer even aware that they are suffering from it. This is due to one of the characteristics of psychosis: that it greatly reduces your own self awareness, and your own understanding and perception of your mind; so when you have higher levels of psychosis, you are not even aware of the situation. Even with mild psychosis, your self awareness and insight into your own mind becomes hazy and vague, so it becomes harder to understand and describe your own mental states.

I usually have a good insight into my own mind, but I found during days or periods when I had these mild psychosis symptoms, you lose much of the clarity of your self perception of mind.

This contrasts to something like anxiety, when usually you are able to perceive, understand and describe to others these internal mental states quite accurately.

Even mild psychosis is quite a disconcerting feeling, and only further adds to the suffering caused by severe generalized anxiety disorder. Fortunately, the psychosis I experienced was not present on all days; it would wax and wane, just like the anxiety symptoms would.
 
Messages
99
@Hip


Ive got tumeric and flax seed oil around the house, how long should I keep taking these things for to see if they have an effect?


RE: Psychosis

The thing is, when its at its worst I dont realise that things have gotten worse, I always believe in my own mind that im always like this but its not true, yet im 100% convinced that that is the case (at the time)

But i do realise i am immensely suffering, Like you said yourself, I have found myself praying for it to end and im not even religious. When it has calmed down and i go back to my 'baseline' I look back and think "wow, what happened there, i was so convinced i had been living like that forever in a state of torture"

The baseline only ever returns if i keep things incredibly simple and allow myself to eat junk food for comfort, I could be in the torturous state for weeks.

Horrorfying.

Also something really strange -

Smells disturb me, air freshners especially, its like PTSD or something.
The smells of air freshners and chemicals really disturb me and remind me of deep things, haunting memories, this only happens when im in the torturous anxiety. Its actually not possible to put into words what im trying to explain.

Not sure if that would be classed as a psychosis symptom or not.



//
RE: Arginine
Yep, Ill have juicey import fees to look forward to, no doubt :[

I am guessing you had the same struggles with Drs in the UK as we all seem to have? ive not even been diagnosed with anything by my UK psychiatrists after years of seeing them, its rediculous. I ended up becoming a patient of a californian doctor well praised on the internet about this kind of stuff called Dr.Mariano.

I spoke to him the other day over Skype, he did actually suggest an Anti-Psychotic called resperidone 0.25mg x2 a day

We ran out of time but I have big worries over taking that drug or any anti-psychotic, ive read about gynecomastia and premanent movement disorders. Obviously with the state of termoil my mind is in, its hard for me to make the jump and brush aside these concerns about a drug.
 
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caledonia

Senior Member
Yes on the organic acids test, your glutamate is much higher than your GABA. That can contribute to feeling anxious.

I have a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis from years ago. I did benzos originally, then switched to Zoloft, which worked ok for many years. Then I tried to get off the drug. All hell broke loose with an extremely horrible withdrawal syndrome that screwed me up for the better part of a year.

I'm now in the middle of a 9 year long slow taper off this drug. I'll be off by 2021. There is a whole forum filled with people who have experienced the same thing. This is why I suggest that people explore other options first before trying these drugs.

I'm at a dose way below therapeutic level, but no longer really experience generalized anxiety.

I also had higher glutamate relative to GABA.

Here is what worked for me. When I was still having problems, supplementing PharmaGABA or theanine and reducing glutamate in diet. I had to dose the PharmaGABA or theanine three or four times a day as it wears off in about 4 hours.

50% of processed food contains hidden glutamate, so I avoid all processed food. Which you're doing too, so that's good. However, there are some foods naturally high in glutamate, such as tomatoes, mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, and one more I can never remember. And anything with umami flavor, like fish sauce. So I avoid those too.

My anxiety got a lot better some time after I got my last mercury filling out. My GABA/glutamate ratio improved. I also had resolution of my autoimmune thyroiditis, and my hypoglycemia got better.

Mercury can cause anxiety and many other problems such as fatigue, undermethylation, etc.

I can see fatigue drop offs in your Kreb's cycle. Especially since you're supplementing with B vitamins, that leaves mercury and/or arsenic as possibilities.

You also have very low glutathione, which can be caused by mercury.

I'm doing Cutler frequent dose chelation to chelate out my mercury, arsenic and lead. See my signature link for more info about Cutler's protocol.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,874
I am guessing you had the same struggles with Drs in the UK as we all seem to have? ive not even been diagnosed with anything by my UK psychiatrists after years of seeing them, its rediculous.

My doctor did suggest seeing a psychiatrist, but at the time, I did not take up the offer, partly because I did not want to admit to myself that I had a mental health condition (it's a blow to your self-image and self-esteem), and partly because my anxiety made being in the presence of other people, especially "authority" figures or in formal situations, very very uncomfortable. So I have no idea what a psychiatrist may have been able to offer me.



The thing is, when its at its worst I dont realise that things have gotten worse, I always believe in my own mind that im always like this but its not true, yet im 100% convinced that that is the case (at the time)

But i do realise i am immensely suffering, Like you said yourself, I have found myself praying for it to end and im not even religious. When it has calmed down and i go back to my 'baseline' I look back and think "wow, what happened there, i was so convinced i had been living like that forever in a state of torture"

I don't think that in itself is psychosis. It seems more like the depth and severity of your anxiety is so all-encompassing, that you forget that this anxiety symptom is actually just something that happens to you and your mind. You don't make a distinction between "you", and this terrible anxiety affliction that happens to you.

That's normal though; you get the same thing in depression sometimes: sometimes depressed people don't think they are depressed; they think that the depressed state is just how they are (this is especially the case in the dysthymia form of depression, where people assume the depressed state is just their normal personality).


Psychosis is more to do with confusion and difficulty in interpreting reality. I'll give you an example: on a day when my mild psychosis was fully present, I was watching a documentary about the helicopter mountain rescue services in the UK, airlifting injured climbers or walkers to hospital. Pretty normal documentary, yet as I was watching it, and afterwards too, I kept asking myself: "But what does all this mean? What is the significance of all this helicopter rescue? How does this fit into the scheme of things?" These are questions that a healthy mind would not even consider. But when you have some psychosis, you have trouble seeing the significance and meaning of things, you can't seem to pigeonhole them appropriately, and so normal things can become mysterious and strange, in a disconcerting and mentally uncomfortable way.
 
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99
@caledonia What markers indicate the GABA/GLUTAMATE inbalance on Organic Acids?

Should I be supplementing something to boost gluthatione?

Ive had mercury levels tested twice in the past couple of years, undetectable thankfully, hopefully blood testing is accurate.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,874
50% of processed food contains hidden glutamate, so I avoid all processed food. Which you're doing too, so that's good. However, there are some foods naturally high in glutamate, such as tomatoes, mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, and one more I can never remember. And anything with umami flavor, like fish sauce. So I avoid those too.

Did you actually test whether ingesting glutamate increased your anxiety levels? For example, by buying some monosodium glutamate (MSG) powder, and eating a good quantity of it, and checking what effect if any it has on your symptoms? There is so much self-propagating fear mongering about MSG on the Internet, that I wanted to test it for myself. Result: I observed no ill effects from consuming MSG.

I think it is a good idea to avoid processed foods though, and cook using fresh ingredients.
 
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antherder

Senior Member
Messages
456
I had vitamins and minerals tested and I am deficient in them all

Hi, jack blogs,

Copper in excess is known to cause anxiety. Can I asked what kind of test you had done that showed you were deficient in copper? Someone can have a copper deficiency, but also have excess copper at the same time. It's a good copper vs bad copper thing. Taking a supplement containing copper if one is copper toxic could be very harmful. Also, did your iron tests include saturation?

Some of your other supplements could be making you feel worse. I can't tolerate b vitamins.

The baseline only ever returns if i keep things incredibly simple and allow myself to eat junk food for comfort, I could be in the torturous state for weeks.

Have you ever looked into salicylate sensitivity? I could never understand why I felt better when I ate crap, until I realised I had this problem. Most fruits and vegetables are high salicylate. I'm not sure if salicylates could cause anxiety, but they definitely make me more irritable, and spaced out, insomnia is worse too. The symptoms may be variable for different people.

I also have trouble with high sulfur foods and sulfites, and glutamates too. Things like air fresheners and perfumes are often high salicylates. If you have an aspirin sensitivity, you might be more likely to have a food salicylate problem.

I don't follow a low salicylate diet as it's too limited, but just a lower one than before as I was eating a ridiculous amount by consuming seven to nine serves of veggies and fruit a day, in an attempt to make myself better..
 
Messages
99
Hi, jack blogs,

Copper in excess is known to cause anxiety. Can I asked what kind of test you had done that showed you were deficient in copper? Someone can have a copper deficiency, but also have excess copper at the same time. It's a good copper vs bad copper thing. Taking a supplement containing copper if one is copper toxic could be very harmful. Also, did your iron tests include saturation?

Some of your other supplements could be making you feel worse. I can't tolerate b vitamins.
Havent looked into salicylate sensitivity.

I tested copper and zinc by blood test. The requisition form said 'copper + ceruloplasmin'
but the results just showed copper.

Copper 79 ug/dL (86-148)

Iron tests did including saturation and I believe it was 26%

Im going to stop the supplements for a short while and keep the diet the same and see how things turn out.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
Did you actually test whether ingesting glutamate increased your anxiety levels? For example, by buying some monosodium glutamate (MSG) powder, and eating a good quantity of it, and checking what effect if any it has on your symptoms? There is so much self-propagating fear mongering about MSG on the Internet, that I wanted to test it for myself. Result: I observed no ill effects from consuming MSG.

I think it is a good idea to avoid processed foods though, and cook using fresh ingredients.

Yes, if I eat, say, enough mushrooms, salsa or fish sauce, I get anxiety.

Interestingly, I have eaten Nacho Cheese Doritos, which do contain MSG, with no ill effect. But it was just a few of them, not the whole bag.

Maybe I was below the threshold where I react or something. I do have some capacity to tolerate glutamates now.
 
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caledonia

Senior Member
@caledonia What markers indicate the GABA/GLUTAMATE inbalance on Organic Acids?

Should I be supplementing something to boost gluthatione?

Ive had mercury levels tested twice in the past couple of years, undetectable thankfully, hopefully blood testing is accurate.

Glutamate and Gamma amino butyrate. Look at the percentiles. Roughly, glutamate is in the yellow and GABA is in the green.

Direct glutathione supplementation can be problematic for various reasons. NAC is precursor to glutathione. If you don't tolerate that due to sulfur (thiols) you can do glutamine and glycine which are precursors to NAC. And/or you can do vitamin C which helps with recycling oxidized glutathione back to reduced glutathione.

Blood testing only shows recent exposures. If there is no current exposure, mercury may still be hiding in the brain and tissues from past exposures.

The best test is a hair toxic metals and essential elements test, interpreted with Cutler's counting rules. You can't usually directly see mercury on the test, but you can detect its presence by disordered mineral transport. It's like fingerprints at a crime scene to detect that a criminal has been there.

If you go to the Cutler section in my signature link, there is a link to the right test to get, and info on how to get it interpreted for free.
 
Messages
99
Glutamate and Gamma amino butyrate. Look at the percentiles. Roughly, glutamate is in the yellow and GABA is in the green.

Direct glutathione supplementation can be problematic for various reasons. NAC is precursor to glutathione. If you don't tolerate that due to sulfur (thiols) you can do glutamine and glycine which are precursors to NAC. And/or you can do vitamin C which helps with recycling oxidized glutathione back to reduced glutathione.

Blood testing only shows recent exposures. If there is no current exposure, mercury may still be hiding in the brain and tissues from past exposures.

The best test is a hair toxic metals and essential elements test, interpreted with Cutler's counting rules. You can't usually directly see mercury on the test, but you can detect its presence by disordered mineral transport. It's like fingerprints at a crime scene to detect that a criminal has been there.

If you go to the Cutler section in my signature link, there is a link to the right test to get, and info on how to get it interpreted for free.
Thanks for the info, ill do the test.
Do you need to send off a hair sample?
Do you think my low Copper and Zinc blood results could be useless?
 
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99
Im really starting to wonder if the folate and b vitamins ive been taking are making everything worse.
Ive been taking 3mg of folate and big doses of all the individual b vitamins per doctors request.
Is severe anxiety caused by methylfolate and b-vitamins a common experience thats shared?

The thing that started this mental health hell of was methyl-prednisolone (medrol)

I dont understand what methyl means, but could there be something to the fact the steroid that put me in such a state of madness has a methyl atom attached to it?

@caledonia
 
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caledonia

Senior Member
Thanks for the info, ill do the test.
Do you need to send off a hair sample?
Do you think my low Copper and Zinc blood results could be useless?

Yes, you need to cut off some hair (generally at the nape of the neck) and send it away to be analyzed. I think it took about 2 weeks for results? So not too bad of a wait.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of copper and zinc on a blood test.

One of the Core Four support supplements for Cutler chelation is zinc. People are usually low in that due to mercury. White spots on the fingernails is a sign of deficiency.

Copper is usually not supplemented unless it's low. Some people can have high copper and that's similar to having mercury.
 

antherder

Senior Member
Messages
456
@jack blogs,

I'm not sure why the lab would only show one copper result if both were requested, maybe someone else might know why, or could it be lab error, that they forgot to include both? You really need both results to evaluate your copper status. Urinary copper levels can also be of value.

If that test result is your serum copper, then just want to mention that there is a genetic copper storage disorder called Wilson's Disease that can present as psychiatric in some sufferers, anxiety, depression, even psychosis, etc. Low serum copper is one of the hallmarks, along with low ceruloplasmin. (NB: Ceruloplasmin, like ferritin, is an acute phase reactant, so could be falsely elevated when inflammation is present.)

A lot of doctors don't know about this disease, or that low serum copper is an indicator, because that finding is not what is expected of a copper overload situation. They might conclude that you have a copper deficiency. As WD is technically a liver disease, docs often don't know that it can present as psychiatric, and/or neurological. It can also cause endocrine problems, heart problems, kidney problems, etc. LFTs can be normal too.

Apologies everyone, feel like I am always banging on about copper, but I've read some horror stories about people with WD being institutionalised for decades with psych symptoms, or being misdiagnosed with Parkinson's or MS, so I just gotta mention it when I see low copper results, just in case. Especially since it is actually treatable, if diagnosed early enough, and fatal if it isn't.

I'm not suggesting you have WD, there are lots of things that could cause your symptoms, but your copper test result is low enough according to the WD literature, to at least warrant further investigation to rule it out, especially since anxiety is a symptom.

I was told that I must have a dietary deficiency of copper, based on my slightly low ceruloplasmin and serum copper, but I know I don't, and a dietitian confirmed this. I think I have a malabsorption problem that has caused a build up of unbound copper, which I suspect may explain my lifelong anemia problem, as copper is an iron antagonist. My zinc is also low, and zinc is another copper antagonist.

What did your doctor say about your copper result? Also, have you ever taken antihistamines?
 

caledonia

Senior Member
Im really starting to wonder if the folate and b vitamins ive been taking are making everything worse.
Ive been taking 3mg of folate and big doses of all the individual b vitamins per doctors request.
Is severe anxiety caused by methylfolate and b-vitamins a common experience thats shared?

The thing that started this mental health hell of was methyl-prednisolone (medrol)

I dont understand what methyl means, but could there be something to the fact the steroid that put me in such a state of madness has a methyl atom attached to it?

@caledonia

Yes, B vitamins can really jack you up and make you feel nervous/anxious. I have a lot of trouble with them except for very small amounts of B12 and niacin.

Once your methylation cycle gets cranking, even if you discontinue the supps, it can go for months without any inputs. If you want to put on the brakes faster, discontinue the supps and use niacin which soaks up methyl groups. I have instructions in my document Roadblocks to Successful Methylation Treatment.

I think any steroid, regardless of methyl formulation, could make you mad depending on your adrenal status. I get anxiety even from cortisol cream used for bug bite itches.
 

Chocolove

Tournament of the Phoenix - Rise Again
Messages
548
The thing that started this mental health hell of was methyl-prednisolone (medrol)

Major Side Effects
You should check with your doctor immediately if any of these side effects occur when taking methylprednisolone:

More common:
  • Aggression
  • agitation
  • anxiety
  • blurred vision
  • decrease in the amount of urine
  • dizziness
  • fast, slow, pounding, or irregular heartbeat or pulse
  • headache
  • irritability
  • mental depression
  • mood changes
  • nervousness
  • noisy, rattling breathing
  • numbness or tingling in the arms or legs
  • pounding in the ears
  • shortness of breath
  • swelling of the fingers, hands, feet, or lower legs
  • trouble thinking, speaking, or walking
  • troubled breathing at rest
  • weight gain
Incidence not known:
  • Abdominal cramping and/or burning (severe)
  • abdominal pain
  • backache
  • bloody, black, or tarry stools
  • cough or hoarseness
  • darkening of skin
  • decrease in height
  • decreased vision
  • diarrhea
  • dry mouth
  • eye pain
  • eye tearing
  • facial hair growth in females
  • fainting
  • fatigue
  • fever or chills
  • flushed, dry skin
  • fractures
  • fruit-like breath odor
  • full or round face, neck, or trunk
  • heartburn and/or indigestion (severe and continuous)
  • ...
 
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99
@antherder My dr just said copper and zinc is low so take 4mg copper every morning and 50mg zinc monomethionine at night. Maybe worth mentioning i was low in everything.
Magnesium, selenium, copper, zinc, b1 all the the way to b12. Vit A, D, E K k2.

Ive gone over my old tests and the latest ones and realised they did actually test for ceruloplasmin but it was under 'protein metabolism'

2016 - Ceruolopasmine was 30 mg/dL (25-44)

Ceruolopasmine was tested in 2012 with copper. Copper was 98 ug/dl (86-148) and Ceruloplasmine was 32 mg/dL (25-44)

In 2014 copper was 99 ug/dl (86-148) Ceruoloplasmin was 28 mg/dl

am i safe?


Also, my dr recently recommended i try hydroxyzine, whyd you ask?
 
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Gingergrrl

Senior Member
Messages
16,171
@jack blogs I thought I'd posted this but it must have been in another thread b/c can't find it!

Have you been tested for anti GAD65 antibody? It's an autoantibody that blocks the enzyme that converts glutamate to GABA.