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Question re taking B2 with other Bs

Mary

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Okay, so I am behind the times :confused: have only just very recently been reading the "B2 I love you" thread. I had tried taking B2 a couple of years ago but it made me very tired, so I stopped it. I knew next to nothing about it and didn't realize that I might still need it. This was kindly pointed out to me by @Violeta.

I have quite high ferritin (way over the top of the high range) and longitudinal fingernail ridges, both indicators of B2 deficiency according to former member Christine (Dog Person).

According to Christine, B complexes and B vitamins in general can deplete B2 as B2 is needed to activate (can't think of the right word here) those vitamins, and if that's the case, then no wonder I am deficient. I've taken lots of Bs for a long time.

So I'm restarting B2, but at a much lower dose than before. My question is, should I stop my other Bs (low-dose enzymated B complex, pantothenic acid, niacin at night for sleep, methylfolate, MB12, P-5-P), at least for awhile, to allow B2 stores to increase.

I have experienced rather strong detox type symptoms since restarting B2 a couple of days ago. I'm probably taking about 30 mg. a day (I've just been sprinkling some from a 100 mg. capsules twice a day).

I may end up getting the co-enzymated form, although Christine said that wasn't necessary. But I have been reacting quite strongly to the B2. I haven't detoxed for many months, I thought I was through with it, but apparently not! But these detox symptoms feel quite different than mercury detoxing. I have been getting very tired and achey and grouchy, although not spacey (which I used to feel with mercury detoxing). I may take a day off today from the B2.

Any input would be appreciated - thanks!

Mary
 

Mij

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2,353
@Mary I've had longitudinal ridges on my fingernails for over 15yrs and this could mean many things. I had very low ferritin, b's, low stomach acid and compromised assimilation of nutrients due to gut issues- possible inflammation.

Since taking coenzymated b's and 'fixing' my gut issues my ferritin levels have normalized, but I still have ridges.

I'm looking into taking more biotin.
 

Mary

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@Mary I've had longitudinal ridges on my fingernails for over 15yrs and this could mean many things. I had very low ferritin, b's, low stomach acid and compromised assimilation of nutrients due to gut issues- possible inflammation.

Since taking coenzymated b's and 'fixing' my gut issues my ferritin levels have normalized, but I still have ridges.

I'm looking into taking more biotin.

Interesting - I've had low stomach acid for a long time, and it's been helped a great deal by taking HCL. How did you fix your gut issues?

But I had the opposite issue, very high ferritin, and I react very strongly to the B2, which would make sense if Christine's theories are correct, that when starting to take B2, it releases stored iron and perhaps toxic metals, which would all cause detoxing. I may just have to do another self-lab experiment!
 

Mij

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2,353
@Mary I took Betaine for years but it did not change my low ferritin issues or anything else that I'm aware of.

When I started taking Pepzin GI zinc and digestive enzymes in the last year my ferritin levels went way up into normal range. I was surprised by my lab tests. This is a huge improvement and I feel my gut is absorbing properly based on this result.

I also increased my B12 and take coenzymated b's.
 

brenda

Senior Member
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2,266
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UK
@Mary

I stopped b2 as well and have just gone back on it but have reduced the dose right down of activate b2 to maybe 5 gms daily as l have got increased inflammation. It is good for me l know but l am taking it easy as l have high ferritin and don't want it any higher. I also have the nails. I thought l was starting to get folate deficiency due to the inflammation so took a tiny dose of b complex this morning as l havent any methyl folate in.

This afternoon my mouth is sore so l took a speck of folonic acid so l will see how l get on later when my IC flares if inflammation is up.

I think that C said to get b2 up first but l think a lower dose is best. My stools are staying okay but on C' s dose they turned light.
 

Mary

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@Mary

I stopped b2 as well and have just gone back on it but have reduced the dose right down of activate b2 to maybe 5 gms daily as l have got increased inflammation. It is good for me l know but l am taking it easy as l have high ferritin and don't want it any higher. I also have the nails. I thought l was starting to get folate deficiency due to the inflammation so took a tiny dose of b complex this morning as l havent any methyl folate in.

This afternoon my mouth is sore so l took a speck of folonic acid so l will see how l get on later when my IC flares if inflammation is up.

I think that C said to get b2 up first but l think a lower dose is best. My stools are staying okay but on C' s dose they turned light.

Thanks, Brenda. Can you tell me what C's dose is?

also, you said you're taking 5 grams of activated B2 daily - I'm sure you meant mgs, right?

I read perhaps 6 or 7 pages of the thread B2 I love you, and it was a bit overwhelming, although very informative! I'm very grateful you started it.
 

brenda

Senior Member
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UK
Thanks, Brenda. Can you tell me what C's dose is?

also, you said you're taking 5 grams of activated B2 daily - I'm sure you meant mgs, right?

I read perhaps 6 or 7 pages of the thread B2 I love you, and it was a bit overwhelming, although very informative! I'm very grateful you started it.

Thanks Mary. Ha-ha yes mgs! C told me to take 15 mg three times daily l think. We had different amounts l think. It is hard to remember.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
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4,930
C. told me to stop my B complex, but to take the B2 with B1 and manganese and to get 400 mcg folate/day from food. As soon as I noticed B12 deficiency symptoms, I was to add B12. I was to add B5 and B6 “later”.
B12 deficiency symptoms include light urine, sore mouth and throat, low energy.

My instructions were:
Start with 12.5 mg B2 twice/day and work up to 0.25 mg four times/day. Take with food that contains fat and a little calcium. Do not take with caffeine.
Start with 0.5 mg manganese twice/day and work up to 1.0 mg four time/day. Take at least 1/2 hour before food or 2 hours after.
Take no more that 4.5 mg B1/day.

I don’t think she was correct about the B1, at least for people with ME. Medline says 5 - 30 mg/day (for healthy people). I was taking about 16 mg/day and did a NutrEval test. My B1 was very low, so they recommended 50 mg/day.

I have also gone higher on the Mo because it has stayed low on my hair mineral tests.

 
Last edited:

Mary

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Messages
17,334
Location
Southern California
C. told me to stop my B complex, but to take the B2 with B1 and manganese and to get 400 mcg folate/day from food. As soon as I noticed B12 deficiency symptoms, I was to add B12. I was to add B5 and B6 “later”.
B12 deficiency symptoms include light urine, sore mouth and throat, low energy.

My instructions were:
Start with 12.5 mg B2 twice/day and work up to 0.25 mg four times/day. Take with food that contains fat and a little calcium. Do not take with caffeine.
Start with 0.5 mg manganese twice/day and work up to 1.0 mg four time/day. Take at least 1/2 hour before food or 2 hours after.
Take no more that 4.5 mg B1/day.

I don’t think she was correct about the B1, at least for people with ME. Medline says 5 - 30 mg/day (for healthy people). I was taking about 16 mg/day and did a NutrEval test. My B1 was very low, so they recommended 50 mg/day.

I have also gone higher on the Mo because it has stayed low on my hair mineral tests.

Thank you. This is very helpful. I do have a question, though - you say you were to start with 12.5 mg. B2 twice a day, and then work up to 0.25 mg. (way less!) four times a day (only 1 mg. a day total). Did you mean 25 mg. four times a day? I can't figure it out :eek:

Has this helped you, that you can tell? Are you still following this protocol? And did you have any sort of detox reaction, in the beginning at least?

And is "Mo" short for manganese?

Thanks - I really appreciate all the information, trying to find my way here.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
@Mary
I found them: Here are the instructions I had from C:

"Do not eat anything that is zinc, iron, niacin or folic acid enriched! This is extremely important. Also limit your foods that are very high in folic acid like peanut butter, spinach, asparagus, legumes especially lentils, leafy greens and broccoli. Eat an apple every day - the pectin helps remove the excess bile from the body.



B2 absorption is greatly increased with a bit of fat and calcium. So try a small piece of cheese that is not calcium, vitamin A or D enriched. I suggest using a raw milk cheese which is made from grass fed cattle. In the use we import this type of cheese from France.



After a week, if you are feeling good - which you should, I will suggest you increase the dose of B2 to 25 mg/dose.



1/2 hour before Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner

12.5 mg. B2



Breakfast

CoQ 10



Lunch

125 mcg. B12



Bedtime

Probiotic



Please do not supplement anything else from your list. Most important that you not take the vitamin D and Vitamin C you listed.These were dramatically depleting your B2.



Let me know how you feel each day. If your mouth/tongue gets sore or you feel tingling sensations in your legs, feet or hands, then you will need to take more B12 a second time in the day at breakfast.



Also observe your stool color/consistency and urine color. Initially you may start increasing bile production to remove your excess stored iron and copper in your liver. This can cause the stools to become gassy, loose with mucus and various shades of green/orange or yellow (which are the colors of bile acids). It may also have a bit of an acidic feeling. The acids can also back up into the stomach, so you may want to keep a bit of dry toast (unenriched!) available to sop up the acid.



Also, when the iron is released and is transported into your bloodstream you can feel quite agitated or even hot. You can be more easily angered when under stress as well. So be cognizant of this to avoid any upsets with family or friends.



'm very sorry your eyes have the rips. I hope you have some eye lubricant ointment which will keep the moisture levels up so you don't have further effects. Once when we gave my dog Louie his heartguard preventative, in an hour his conjunctiva turned flame red. It swelled so badly and his eyes became so dry he could not even open his eyes. We ran to the drug store and purchased GenTeal Gel tears. It took 4 days before he could open his eyes more than just slits. Since you need B2 to produce xanthine oxidase enzyme which is used to detoxify the body of xenobiotics, he did not have enough to detoxify his heartworm drug and it dramatically affected his eyes. My poor dogs have suffered so many things it's nearly unimaginable.



The symptoms you describe sound like iron is circulating at a higher rate - whether it is unbound is unknown. Your liver probably does not have the capacity yet to produce lots of additional transferrin, so what you are circulating is probably very saturated. As I told you, when more iron leaves your liver and it is reabsorbed back through the intestine with the bile acids and it goes into the bloodstream. The body senses this increase in iron in the blood and believes it is in an immediate danger mode.Because this is normally why the liver would let the iron out into the bloodstream. It should never happen when taking B2 if you didn't have excess in the liver, but since it seems you do, and it came out, your body is just responding to it normally. The increase in stress means to raise the calcium and the sodium which can lower the magnesium - which can make the eyes drier. So this is a possibility of what is occurring.



Becasue you are not taking all the other supplement and all the vegetables high in FA that kept using up your B2, it could not allow the iron out of the liver previously is what I suspect has made the change. The hourly waking is possibly your sensing the hourly release of hormones by the adrenals, telling your body to be ready to flight or flight. Since your symptoms sound like you are circulating higher levels of iron alread,y the additional hormone release with subsequent release of iron could wake you.



One thing you can try is to eat several apples at bedtime. The pectin binds with the bile acids and removes them from the body.They also are high in potassium which helps balance the sodium. By taking more iron out, and not recirculating it, this could help the sodium stay lower.



See why I told the forum it is very important to understand what is occurring in the body , the symptoms and what to do, before starting this set of supplement suggestions? It is very difficult to go through - I certainly know first hand having gone through it. May nights my mouth would be so dry - I could barely get it open because it was so stuck shut if I took too much B2 before bedtime.



Thanks for your kind words on the forum. It was sad to me to see so many people have such strong pro and con and argue. I want to help people, not upset them. But then the nutritional imbalance can affect emotions very strongly in this situation. I used to have rages the day before my period, when my estrogen dropped, revealing the high level of circulating heavy metals and unbound iron and copper. Estrogen actually is a strong chelator of metals - that's why I believe so many women take estrogen to not experience the hot, hourly sweats. But as you know, many still get cancer becasue my opinioin is that their level of free radical metals is too great for the estrogen to overcome and it damages cellular DNA. And without B2, the vitamins that repair the strand breaks can not work to do this.



I love understanding how it all works, but applying it and rebalancing is difficult. I suggest you take much less B2 than what you currently are taking, or do not take your second does in the evening. Also, try the apples. This could also minimize the night time symptoms. If you are taking the probiotic at bedtime - maybe switch it to breakfast as well.Probiotics also increase the resbsorption of the vitamins from the intestines.



t's like I wrote - once you have a confirmed diagnosis - it means that all storage locations are empty and that is considerable. It also means that eating too much of one thing, or combining foods that are very high FA, high iron, high zinc (and all the others that require lots of B2) would cause what little is circulating to get used up right now, as you saw yesterday juicing vegetables which I suggested you not do. You now must be very observant of what you eat - looking things up on the USDA nutrient lists to see what foods are high in these nutrients.

You won't be able to put any B2 back in storage until all the excess iron and copper are removed from the body and that may take years - your stools, urine and how you feel will let you know when you get there. So this is why you just keep putting in B2 all day and all night - keeping it there in the intestines for the body to continuously absorb what it can at the time to keep everything working. You can only circulate so much in the blood at a time, this is why if you ask more of what is in the blood, it would have normally went to the storage locations, got a little extra and used that so you would have uninterrupted energy production. But no storage = sudden drop in all systems. But, as I explained, if you take too much and release too much iron, your liver is not ready to produce extra transferrin yet, so too much iron would end up in a free radical state - which is what caused your adverse symptoms before. As iron hits the bloodstream, it jacks up the sodium, which drops the magnesium and potassium = dry mouth and eyes.

Rich would have missed it because it has only been recently that people have realized that B2 is involved in the energy production system.

Read this yesterday in a World Health Publication. They knew that not enough B2 was put in the enriched breads, but that was because it was not cost effective. When the breads were first enriched, they added milk powder for the B2, but that also became too expensive. I did a map correlation of high CSF - those places that eat the highest amount of wheat are the countries with the highest incidence of CSF! Why they didn't require that this be put on labels of all wheat products as a warning - is beyond me. Surely the ink cost would not have been an issue for printing?

Guidelines on Food fortification source: The calculations show that addition of folic acid to wheat flour would achieve the goal of supplying 70% of the EAR to nearly all consumers of wheat flour (that is to say, to 50% of the population). The case of vitamin B12 is also favorable, in fact, particularly so. Its level can be reduced to 0.010 mg/kg (from 0.040 mg/kg), which will help to reduce the overall cost of the program while still satisfying the nutritional target (i.e. and additional intake of 100% of the biological requirement (EAR) of this nutrient for almost all individuals who consume wheat flour).

In contrast, the addition of vitamin B2 at a level of 4/5 mg per kg is not sufficient to meet nutritional goals, and therefore other sources of this nutrient (e.g. dietary supplements) would have to be supplied to the target population."

She has been wrong about a number of things but the basic idea that we are deficient on b2 is correct but it needs to be built up slowly in sensitive ones. I am very pleased with my progress taking very small amounts. My stools are guiduing me as to whether I am taking too much b2. One thing that was not discussed much on the I Love B2 thread, was that she said we should aim at getting most of our nutrients from food.

I wish I had been as aware of my body then when I was working with C. I have looked but she does not seem to be publishing or posting. She did email me last year and asked to be friends but I said unless she apologised to the people she abandoned, no. I think we got the best of her ideas and if they are adjusted to each individual and tweaked, I think that they can greatly assist us in getting things moving in our healing.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
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Did you mean 25 mg. four times a day?
Yes, of course, 25mg. :confused:
Has this helped you, that you can tell? Are you still following this protocol? And did you have any sort of detox reaction, in the beginning at least?
I have been somewhat sporadic in following this, but am currently doing it. It has helped me. I will try to put a more detailed update on the B2 thread. I do not recall much detox reaction. The only time I have noted a problem was when I decided to take a whole 8 mg molybdenum at one time to avoid taking the time to split it. (Only someone with ME would understand this.) Being hit with that much Mo at once seemed to make my liver unhappy.
And is "Mo" short for manganese?
Yes
did she recommend you stop vitamins C and D? I read in the "B2 I love you thread" that C and D interfered somehow with B2.
Yes, she did recommend that I stop vitamins C and D. Also iron, copper, selenium, phosphatidyl serine, and milk thistle.

Did you pick up from what you read that C. opposes ever eating foods enriched with folic acid?
 

Mary

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Yes, of course, 25mg. :confused:

I have been somewhat sporadic in following this, but am currently doing it. It has helped me. I will try to put a more detailed update on the B2 thread. I do not recall much detox reaction. The only time I have noted a problem was when I decided to take a whole 8 mg molybdenum at one time to avoid taking the time to split it. (Only someone with ME would understand this.) Being hit with that much Mo at once seemed to make my liver unhappy.

Yes

Yes, she did recommend that I stop vitamins C and D. Also iron, copper, selenium, phosphatidyl serine, and milk thistle.

Did you pick up from what you read that C. opposes ever eating foods enriched with folic acid?

Thanks so much for all the info. One more question, if you don't mind - do you know why she opposes taking milk thistle when it's so supportive of the liver?

Yeah, I did glean that she opposes folic acid-enriched foods. I hardly ever eat any processed foods, so I don't think this is an issue for me, but I have been taking 1600 mcg. of methylfolate (and a lot of other supps).

I've been having a very strong detox reaction to pretty small amounts of B2, am going to stop it for a couple of days. I wasn't taking manganese, and will add some in today - I'll try 1/2 of a 10 mg. capsule.

And I will look for any more B2 threads by you - thank you again! :)
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
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She was opposed to me taking milk thistle at that time because it uses up B2 so fast. I was having enough liver problems that she thought I might go into liver failure. She did mention giving it to one of her dogs and if being only a short-term fix.

Although C. preferred getting folate from food, methylfolate is fine. 1600 mcg is quite a bit. Maybe that is part of your detox problem. Folic acid is the form that causes problems.

Uhm, if you haven’t already taken that 5 mg of molybdenum, maybe you shouldn’t. C. was concerned that ½ mg might be too much for me. I don’t know if that was just me or if everyone should start low.

If you would like, I can PM you all of my personal notes from C. I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much information, but too little can be a problem, too.
 

Mary

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She was opposed to me taking milk thistle at that time because it uses up B2 so fast. I was having enough liver problems that she thought I might go into liver failure. She did mention giving it to one of her dogs and if being only a short-term fix.

Although C. preferred getting folate from food, methylfolate is fine. 1600 mcg is quite a bit. Maybe that is part of your detox problem. Folic acid is the form that causes problems.

Uhm, if you haven’t already taken that 5 mg of molybdenum, maybe you shouldn’t. C. was concerned that ½ mg might be too much for me. I don’t know if that was just me or if everyone should start low.

If you would like, I can PM you all of my personal notes from C. I didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much information, but too little can be a problem, too.

Okay, that's very good info re milk thistle - I had no idea it uses up B2.

I am cutting my methylfolate to 800 mcg., will see how it goes.

It was 5 mg. of manganese, not molybdenum, that I took yesterday. And I've been detoxing so much, I will cut that way back. I wasn't thinking - you had posted you were to take 0.5 mg. of manganese, not 5 mg. Though I am feeling a bit better today, did not take any B2 yesterday.

I would love it if you would PM your notes from C. I feel like I'm flying in the dark here and the more information, the better - thank you! :)

I'm reacting so strongly to the B2, I don't think anything has hit me this hard before, even things that caused mercury detoxing - which makes me think it may be a huge issue for me. :sluggish:
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
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4,930
I'm reacting so strongly to the B2, I don't think anything has hit me this hard before
C. said to keep the doses low enough that you have a minimal reaction. A big reaction can mean that you are getting a lot of oxidative stress.