So I've been trying to get methylation going for a few years.
Just taking a good multivitamin gives me temporary tinnitus, maybe made me feel a bit better but not much.
Here's what worked for me to get me to respond methylation protocol vitamins.
First stage: making the body accept magnesium, and hold it in. I have dystonia/pain in my right side shoulder, neck and hip. This is a signal that potassium and magnesium are very low in these regions.
Classical magnesium stack: Taurine, b2, b6, Magnesium (elemental and citrate forms are my favorite). Boron and normal doses of most other nutrients are in my multivitamin. I'd take 100mg b2 and b6 several times a day, I'd take as much magnesium as I could without getting diarrhea, perhaps up to 1.5g a day. Atm I only have to take 400 mg a day.
Roadblocks:
- Low vitamin D status. I found that after taking magnesium, my body which was trying to expel magnesium through diarrhea soaked it up fairly fast. Wikipedia says:
I can see a few sources on pubmed for this, none of them saying the exact magnitude of effect, but in my experience the magnitude is fairly high. I take 10k IU 2x a day.
- Zinc. It turns out that if you have high magnesium, all your enzymes are working much faster than normal and you use up zinc very quickly until you high a certain homeostasis. I take 50 mg 3x a day.
- Cellular anti-oxidants and glutathione cofactors. I noticed that even if I could get my body to accept magnesium, 4-10 hours later I would get.. ahem.. catastrophic diarrhea in which I would lose all my body's magnesium and all my muscles would get tight/painful again and I would feel terrible. It took me quite a while to figure out that vitamin E was what was needed, and from there I tried boosting glutathione. It turned out being a big success, I'd be able to absorb and hold on to even more magnesium than before.
My theory on why vitamin E improves my magnesium retention so much? I think that perhaps intracellular taurine or b6 is being oxidized, which then causes the body to leech out magnesium rapidly. As for why 4-10 hours later I get high oxidation, I think it might be because methylation etc uses up a lot of nutrients and things can go out of balance, causing disruption of anti-oxidant systems. There are other possible theories on this.. but anyways vitamin E was absolutely essential for holding onto magnesium.
Here is the site I found for glutathione cofactors: http://www.immunehealthscience.com/glutathione-cofactors.html
I didn't look too deep, just used that list and it seems to work. I take 200 mg selenium 2x a day, 400 ie vitmamin E 3x a day, 1g vitamin C 4x a day, alpha lipoic acid 600 mg 2x a day.
Also I found that taking too much zinc causes me to lose magnesium really fast. I can only take 50 mg spread out 3x a day. I believe the mechanism behind this may be because zinc is a powerful oxidant, so if you take too much then I go back to the same problem listed above. '
- Probiotics. When you are first trying to get mangesium homeostatis right, you tend to get diarrhea, and your gut can become very alkaline. Minerals in high amounts are alkalizing. It is important NOT fast during high doses of magnesium, and it is important to take probiotics during your meals. If not, your gut bacteria get way out of wack, bad bacteria thrive on alkaline environments.
- Drink lots of milk and eat lots of yogurt. Dairy is a source of phosphorous, potassium, it creates a lot of stomach acid so your gut is more acidic. Animals experience huge growth spurts while drinking milk so you know it is fairly nutritionally complete. I use it to fill in any gaps in my supplementation.
Stage 2:
The normal b12 protocols and cofactors, such as TMG, Sam-e, high dose methylb12 / adenosylb12. Jarrow b-right 3x a day. This part wasn't hard for me.
Overall
The hardest thing for me was getting my body saturated in magnesium and zinc. Zinc would do more harm than good with anti-oxidant systems working badly. Magnesium wouldn't absorb/stay absorbed without the proper ratio of magnesium:zinc, without vitamin D, vitamin E etc.
The B vitamins weren't doing anything until I managed to get zinc and magnesium high. Zinc and magnesium are used in pretty much every metabolic pathways so I think getting them high is the foundation to health.
So far I'm not getting huge motivational and well being improvements, but I've only started to get the gears turning for a few days.
The biggest benefits atm are MUCH sharper vision, much better nervous system health/control, less pain, less tension.
My fatigue has NOT drastically improved yet so this isn't like a recovery thread or anything, I just wanted to give some tips for people having trouble getting results with methylation. I'm responding much more to b vitamins etc now. Hopefully I start healing.
Just taking a good multivitamin gives me temporary tinnitus, maybe made me feel a bit better but not much.
Here's what worked for me to get me to respond methylation protocol vitamins.
First stage: making the body accept magnesium, and hold it in. I have dystonia/pain in my right side shoulder, neck and hip. This is a signal that potassium and magnesium are very low in these regions.
Classical magnesium stack: Taurine, b2, b6, Magnesium (elemental and citrate forms are my favorite). Boron and normal doses of most other nutrients are in my multivitamin. I'd take 100mg b2 and b6 several times a day, I'd take as much magnesium as I could without getting diarrhea, perhaps up to 1.5g a day. Atm I only have to take 400 mg a day.
Roadblocks:
- Low vitamin D status. I found that after taking magnesium, my body which was trying to expel magnesium through diarrhea soaked it up fairly fast. Wikipedia says:
Vitamin D refers to a group of fat-soluble secosteroids responsible for enhancing intestinal absorption of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphate, and zinc.
I can see a few sources on pubmed for this, none of them saying the exact magnitude of effect, but in my experience the magnitude is fairly high. I take 10k IU 2x a day.
- Zinc. It turns out that if you have high magnesium, all your enzymes are working much faster than normal and you use up zinc very quickly until you high a certain homeostasis. I take 50 mg 3x a day.
- Cellular anti-oxidants and glutathione cofactors. I noticed that even if I could get my body to accept magnesium, 4-10 hours later I would get.. ahem.. catastrophic diarrhea in which I would lose all my body's magnesium and all my muscles would get tight/painful again and I would feel terrible. It took me quite a while to figure out that vitamin E was what was needed, and from there I tried boosting glutathione. It turned out being a big success, I'd be able to absorb and hold on to even more magnesium than before.
My theory on why vitamin E improves my magnesium retention so much? I think that perhaps intracellular taurine or b6 is being oxidized, which then causes the body to leech out magnesium rapidly. As for why 4-10 hours later I get high oxidation, I think it might be because methylation etc uses up a lot of nutrients and things can go out of balance, causing disruption of anti-oxidant systems. There are other possible theories on this.. but anyways vitamin E was absolutely essential for holding onto magnesium.
Here is the site I found for glutathione cofactors: http://www.immunehealthscience.com/glutathione-cofactors.html
I didn't look too deep, just used that list and it seems to work. I take 200 mg selenium 2x a day, 400 ie vitmamin E 3x a day, 1g vitamin C 4x a day, alpha lipoic acid 600 mg 2x a day.
Also I found that taking too much zinc causes me to lose magnesium really fast. I can only take 50 mg spread out 3x a day. I believe the mechanism behind this may be because zinc is a powerful oxidant, so if you take too much then I go back to the same problem listed above. '
- Probiotics. When you are first trying to get mangesium homeostatis right, you tend to get diarrhea, and your gut can become very alkaline. Minerals in high amounts are alkalizing. It is important NOT fast during high doses of magnesium, and it is important to take probiotics during your meals. If not, your gut bacteria get way out of wack, bad bacteria thrive on alkaline environments.
- Drink lots of milk and eat lots of yogurt. Dairy is a source of phosphorous, potassium, it creates a lot of stomach acid so your gut is more acidic. Animals experience huge growth spurts while drinking milk so you know it is fairly nutritionally complete. I use it to fill in any gaps in my supplementation.
Stage 2:
The normal b12 protocols and cofactors, such as TMG, Sam-e, high dose methylb12 / adenosylb12. Jarrow b-right 3x a day. This part wasn't hard for me.
Overall
The hardest thing for me was getting my body saturated in magnesium and zinc. Zinc would do more harm than good with anti-oxidant systems working badly. Magnesium wouldn't absorb/stay absorbed without the proper ratio of magnesium:zinc, without vitamin D, vitamin E etc.
The B vitamins weren't doing anything until I managed to get zinc and magnesium high. Zinc and magnesium are used in pretty much every metabolic pathways so I think getting them high is the foundation to health.
So far I'm not getting huge motivational and well being improvements, but I've only started to get the gears turning for a few days.
The biggest benefits atm are MUCH sharper vision, much better nervous system health/control, less pain, less tension.
My fatigue has NOT drastically improved yet so this isn't like a recovery thread or anything, I just wanted to give some tips for people having trouble getting results with methylation. I'm responding much more to b vitamins etc now. Hopefully I start healing.