optimal amount of potassium while increasing methylation, and how much is too much?

[Kathevans]

Paradoxical folate deficiency (if I remember rightly) is when the body starts getting and using more folate but starts showing symptoms of not having enough. This seems paradoxical because you are already giving the body more folate so why is it starting to show deficiency symptoms? It's the body's way of letting you know it wants more because it has started to utilize what you've been giving it, but there isn't enough to go around.

Greg, the Transdermal B12 Oils guy, says that this heightened need is actually your body 're-stocking' a depleted system. I think Fred calls it 're-feeding'. In either case, it's a substantial deficiency. I'm glad to hear this phase doesn't last longer than a few months---the cost in Methyl-folate alone is substantial.

I'm still titrating up on the Folate, myself, and have reached about 10,000mcg. This is along with one squirt each of the Methyl B12 Oil and the Methyl/Adenosyl B12 Oil. My potassium needs have risen from from 900mg/day, or 3 servings of the NOW Potassium Gluconate to about 1500mg, or 5 servings (increased to relieve my main symptom of rapid heartbeat--it works almost instantly). My problem is that I've been taking the K+ 300mg at a time in a big glass of water and I've begun to get indigestion from it. Ugh.

If we are supposed to keep the potassium and magnesium separate, how do you do that? I've been taking the magnesium with vit C and lemon juice with lunch and dinner, but it seems it might be easier to take 600mg of K+ with those meals and the magnesium/C mix in between.

I've also found taking folate at least 4x/day works better for me (I actually even find myself taking it at night to resolve symptoms (frontal headache mostly/runny nose) but as I'm also often taking it on an empty stomach, yuck! I suppose it's no wonder I'm feeling a little queasy.

Are you always having supps with food?? I'm relieved to be taking the B12 via oils transdermally. One less thing passing through the stomach.

 

[PatJ]

I'm glad to hear this phase doesn't last longer than a few months---the cost in Methyl-folate alone is substantial.

The amount of time depends on the individual. The only reason I stopped at all was due to a severe crash that I've never recovered from. I took a minimum of 10mg/day of methylfolate (sometimes up to 25mg) for at least eight months, while taking 3.5g/day of potassium and the demand showed no sign of slowing down until I was forced to stop the treatment by the crash.

 

[Kathevans]

Well, @PatJ , that is very disheartening. I'm so sorry to hear that. I have to say I have a fair amount of trepidation as I increase my levels. I don't want to push to far or too fast. But the truth is, I feel as if I'm responding to my body. Last night, for example, as I went to bed I had symptoms but didn't want to take more supps at bedtime and so ignored them. I slept one hour and was wide awake with an insistent headache. I took 800mcg of folate which did nothing; then an hour later, another 800mcg, which, within bout 20 minutes alleviated the headache and put me back to sleep for another four hours.

Do you have thoughts as to what happened, or is it still a mystery? Or just bad luck?

Whatever we do, it isn't easy. And the decisions we make are not made lightly.

Has anyone done a thread about crashing on Fred's protocol and speculating about it? Just wondering.

 

[PatJ]

Do you have thoughts as to what happened, or is it still a mystery? Or just bad luck?

If you mean what happened to you with your headache, it's on Freddd's list of 'Either hypokalemia or folate insufficiency or both' so you probably needed more folate or potassium (looks like folate by your description.)

If you mean what happened to me with my major crash, then I'm not sure. My balance got worse one day and stayed bad for the next week. Walking felt as if I was walking on a trampoline (a bouncy sensation.) A week later I was getting out of bed and had a massive blood pressure drop. I could actually feel my blood moving downward with very little vasoconstriction to stop it. I started gasping, saw stars, felt incredibly nauseous and dizzy and fell back into bed. Whenever I tried to get up I vomited. It took a couple of days before I could get out of bed for very short periods. After a month I could stay upright for 15-30 minutes at a time before having to lie down. Now, almost two years later, I can only stay upright for 45-60 minutes before having to lie down due to OI symptoms. I'm housebound and bedbound for much of the day.

I had some OI symptoms before that crash but they've gotten so much worse since then. Maybe all the potassium battered my adrenals? I wondered about a mini-stroke but I didn't seem to have any other signs of stroke during or after. For whatever reason my body suddenly got much worse at regulating my blood pressure and hasn't improved much since the crash.

When I finally saw my doctor (he had to make a house call) he didn't have any idea what had happened. He has since left town and I can't make it to see a new doctor (even if I could find one with my town's doctor shortage) because I can't stay upright long enough, and the stress and PEM from traveling would wipe me out for days or weeks.

 

[Kathevans]

@PatJ This is a horrible result to all your efforts. I'm so sorry. WIthout good medical support, or the ability to even participate in what might be there, it's hard to see a way forward.

 

[PatJ]

This is a horrible result to all your efforts.

It was a bad outcome but did have an upside. I discovered how much OI was influencing my life, such as feeling cold, brain-fog, air-hunger, and especially my frequent and apparently sourceless irritability (which turned out to be from hypoperfusion due to OI). Once I was forced to lie down so much more I found that I could think better, breath better, and my mood greatly improved. I learned which symptoms were related to OI and can now manage my condition better.

I've never read of anyone having this type of reaction to Freddd's treatment so my reaction might have been unrelated, or just a very rare occurrence.

Freddd's treatment did help me learn that I need methylfolate and high quality methylB12. I now take 1mg methylB12 and 1600mcg methylfolate per day. I avoid l-carnitine fumarate because it causes my potassium demand to increase.

 

[Kathevans]

@PatJ When we are at our best, we can learn from anything! Good for you!

I appreciate your posts and your information...it made me think more deeply about what I'm doing which is always a good thing. I, too, haven't taken l-carnitine, though simply for the fact that I've had my hands full trying to figure out the others. Like you, what comes to the surface is that the body changes over time, and specifically, changes to those things we are putting into it. The changes may not be obvious at first, but, then, in worst case scenarios, as yours, can hit like a ton of bricks.

My own progress (! regression, perhaps) with this condition was slow for many years, then faster over the last three or four, I believe because of a methylation block. Undoing it is still the challenge.

The best to you--

 

[grapes]

PatJ and all, I saw your mention about now having problems regulating your blood pressure. I am having the same issue...and I'm now wonderful if I was pushing the methylation too hard....

On April 6th, I started using Freddd's information to improve my methylation issues. i.e. super high B12 and high iron. It was also clear by doing genetics that I had a folate issue anyway, and having a headache seemed to be my sign. So I started raising folate. I'd go up, see my headache go away every time...then return, then go up, then it goes away...etc. I made my way up to 3200 mg...and finally no more headaches due to higher need.

I was also all this time taking potassium via V8 juice, which helped a lot..though didn't start until the 5th day of starting the raise of folate.

THEN...I caught a bad bacterial upper respiratory infection about three weeks ago...and though I was still taking the 3200 mg folate, I had stopped the V8/potassium a good week before I got sick..and while sick.

Also, I had started the antibiotic "generic augumentin" about six days after I got sick...and I was noticing increased fatigue, rising blood pressure (got up to 156/96) and a pounding heart (the latter which I'm pretty sure was related to rising cortisol). I THOUGHT all those symptoms were due to the antibiotic, as many people report high BP on it.

Well, now I realize that the increasing fatigue was probably due to having stopped my intake of potassium. The high blood pressure "may" have been the antibiotic, but I also wonder if it was due to the higher folate/improved methylation, as well.

Now Freddd mentioned that the combo of higher folate and COQ10 shot his blood pressure up. I DO take high dose ubiquinol---have no choice. I apparently make NO ubiquinone or simply stopped converting it as a result of mold inhalation a few years ago. Spectracell showed I was "functionally deficient" while even on 1000 mg ubiquinol. Bottom line, I'm very much past that upper respiratory infection, yet still have blood pressure issues and have to control high cortisol which wakes up me REALLY early in the morning--too early.

For example last week, a week after I stopped the antibiotic, I found my blood pressure down from the 156/96...but at 120/107. That diastolic of 107 is bad!! I started back on low sodium V8 and here's what has gone on since then with my BP:

128/99
123/91
116/85
111/89 (last night)

So yes, I've brought the diastolic down from 107, but my diastolic is still too high, even while the systolic has come even farther down!!

As a result of all this, I decided to take my folate down and see how I do. For the last few days, I've only been on 1200 mg, while still taking the potassium. I'll be retesting my B12 to see if I've gotten below the "over 2000". My iron already started going down before I started Freddd's protocol.

P.S. I have started a thread about my methylation journey: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ng-off-hydroxy-b12-starting-methyl-b12.50562/