Amphetamine type feelings from B vitamins followed by crash

[flod]

Yesterday I took:

• 200mcg methylfolate
• ~10mg thiamine
• ~10mg riboflavin
• 75mcg molybdenum
• And potassium via bananas and coconut water + phosphorous via a tricalcium phosphate supplement

During the day I felt very focused, like I had tunnel vision. I usually feel oversensitive to stuff, and sometimes have a kind of over-empathetic feeling which makes me a bit jittery around people sometimes and causes anxiety. That was completely gone and replaced with laser focus and a feeling of power, I had a strong desire to lift weights and do pullups etc. which I did. At the same time I felt I had reduced empathy but I did not feel irritable. It sort of reminded me of doing cocaine, which I've done decades ago.

I have also had breathing issues for the past couple of years, often have shortness of breath. That was gone during the day.

After about 10 hours, in the evening, I sort of crashed. I didn't feel tired per se, instead I was kind of wired with a kind of foreboding feeling. Like an emptiness mixed with anxiety, I had trouble falling asleep and it was really just a very unpleasant feeling. The feelings during the crash were to such a degree that I really questioned whether I want to put myself through that again.

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I have experimented with this stuff in the past, about 3 years ago, but stopped when I got long-covid. I recovered a year ago and am getting back into this to mainly correct a folate deficiency which showed up on a blood test, and to correct the various symptoms such as shortness of breath, lack of energy, over-sensitivity to stuff etc., all of which were shown to improve yesterday for example with that mix of supplements.

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I'm assuming the crash is due to re-feeding syndrome, but I'm not sure what my body/brain needed. If anyone has any idea what it may be, perhaps from the clues as to how I felt, that would be appreciated.

In the past, I have felt that "anxious, empty, impending doom" type feeling when I have supplemented with thiamine by itself, and the effect comes on fairly fast after taking it standalone. Also the similar crash with just methylfolate by itself though the negative effect takes longer to kick in. And I have induced shortness of breath episodes by supplementing riboflavin by itself.

I deduced in my experiments years ago that combining those 3 to various degrees does not induce shortness of breath like riboflavin does by itself, and does not immediately create the anxious/impending doom feeling like taking thiamine by itself does. The combination instead created some positive effects, and like my experiment yesterday, some profoundly powerful effects leaning towards the positive end, but was followed by a crash.

I'm not sure what I may be missing. I find I react negatively to methylb12 and my blood test showed I had decent levels anyway. I don't feel it was potassium/phosphate, as the crash felt very neurological rather than body-centric... like my neurotransmitters and mental state was out of whack rather than feeling body-tired... though I don't know too much about that, I'm just guessing potassium/phosphate is less of the mental effects and more the energy.

Any input appreciated thanks.

 

[Dysfunkion]

Normally you're like me, I'm always a bit anxious and social anxiety is one of my big one's but I have enough experience to know that the anxiety and overwelming feelings are just a reduced capacity of my brain to handle the stimulation that other people give me. What do we react to the most in our environment? Our own species, it makes sense that the issues there would be most apparent in stimulating social experiences or similar.

Like you too when this is overridden the issue completely disappears but is followed by a big over stimulated crash afterwards where the wired feeling in some ways continues but the capacity to handle it is no longer there resulting in that weird anxiety ridden impending doom "everything is scary" state. Methylfolate definitely made it worse for me so I dropped it a long time ago, now I only take 2000 mcg of methyl-b12 in the morning largely because if I don't I can't function. I've had this problem much of my life and can't really pin down specifically what it is besides it seeming like something is preventing my brain from using all it has available for the signalling load. I call it fake-xiety because I'm not actually anxious or anything but my brain just can't process things properly. When my immune system is going haywire it can get so out of control I'm barely able to function outside at all. People have gotten similar experience after exercising with a chronic infection like Lyme and I suspect things can activate too under certain stimulating conditions that can do similar alterations in brain signalling. I know what tends to cause this to happen so I can avoid it though getting this bad thankfully.

What is your reaction to methyl-b12 like?

 

[Mary]

@flod - it sounds like refeeding syndrome to me too, though of course I don't know for sure.

I see you took both potassium and phosphorous. When I first started methylfolate, it caused my potassium to tank and I had to add in potassium. And thiamine caused my phosphorous to tank, and had to add in phosphorus as well.

If refeeding syndrome is the problem, then it's possible you didn't take enough of either potassium or phosphorous.

I suggest you try the methylfolate and thiamine separately because if both have triggered a refeeding syndrome reaction, and if different nutrients are involved (e.g., potassium and phosphorous), I think it will be impossible to sort out what is doing what to you, and to find the proper doses to fix it, if you take them all together.

I think low potassium is most common with methylfolate. And I think low phosphorous is more common with thiamine.

So I would start with one of them - the refeeding syndrome reaction (if that's what this is) should hit within a day or 2 - and then try adding in the appropriate supplement, starting low and going slow. It took me 2 - 3 days to find the proper dose of potassium I needed after starting methylfolate. I titrated up gradually.

And then repeat with the other one. And see what happens -

 

[hapl808]

I think people can be sensitive to those - not sure if it's technically refeeding, but I've definitely talked to people who had surprising reactions to methylfolate, SAM-e, etc.

Interesting that you found that in the past with individual supplements, but less when combining them. That's what's frustrating - we're shooting in the dark. Maybe you need to find the right balance, or maybe you're doing the equivalent of trying to find the exactly right mix of lighter fluid brands to dump in the gas tank.

Would be nice if we had some real biochemical research and knowledge - science is very primitive in these complex areas.

 

[flod]

Normally you're like me, I'm always a bit anxious and social anxiety is one of my big one's but I have enough experience to know that the anxiety and overwelming feelings are just a reduced capacity of my brain to handle the stimulation that other people give me. What do we react to the most in our environment? Our own species, it makes sense that the issues there would be most apparent in stimulating social experiences or similar.

Like you too when this is overridden the issue completely disappears but is followed by a big over stimulated crash afterwards where the wired feeling in some ways continues but the capacity to handle it is no longer there resulting in that weird anxiety ridden impending doom "everything is scary" state. Methylfolate definitely made it worse for me so I dropped it a long time ago, now I only take 2000 mcg of methyl-b12 in the morning largely because if I don't I can't function. I've had this problem much of my life and can't really pin down specifically what it is besides it seeming like something is preventing my brain from using all it has available for the signalling load. I call it fake-xiety because I'm not actually anxious or anything but my brain just can't process things properly. When my immune system is going haywire it can get so out of control I'm barely able to function outside at all. People have gotten similar experience after exercising with a chronic infection like Lyme and I suspect things can activate too under certain stimulating conditions that can do similar alterations in brain signalling. I know what tends to cause this to happen so I can avoid it though getting this bad thankfully.

What is your reaction to methyl-b12 like?

Yup, it sounds like you know the feeling pretty well.

I never used to have this, I was a very socially active / generally active person in my 20's but also did a fair amount of drugs like cocaine, MDMA etc. Something kind of broke for me in 2012 and I stopped partying, quit drugs but also became rather introverted and alongside that, general fatigue, over-sensitivity to the environment, foods, supplements, stimulation, people etc.

re: methylb12, at the moment it seems to fast-track me into that unpleasant "wired" kind of feeling with added irritability. Not pleasant and it doesn't seem to create any positives before a crash, just brings me right there. When I was experimenting with this stuff years ago, I was able to tolerate it though so something may have changed.

 

[flod]

@flod - it sounds like refeeding syndrome to me too, though of course I don't know for sure.

I see you took both potassium and phosphorous. When I first started methylfolate, it caused my potassium to tank and I had to add in potassium. And thiamine caused my phosphorous to tank, and had to add in phosphorus as well.

If refeeding syndrome is the problem, then it's possible you didn't take enough of either potassium or phosphorous.

I suggest you try the methylfolate and thiamine separately because if both have triggered a refeeding syndrome reaction, and if different nutrients are involved (e.g., potassium and phosphorous), I think it will be impossible to sort out what is doing what to you, and to find the proper doses to fix it, if you take them all together.

I think low potassium is most common with methylfolate. And I think low phosphorous is more common with thiamine.

So I would start with one of them - the refeeding syndrome reaction (if that's what this is) should hit within a day or 2 - and then try adding in the appropriate supplement, starting low and going slow. It took me 2 - 3 days to find the proper dose of potassium I needed after starting methylfolate. I titrated up gradually.

And then repeat with the other one. And see what happens -

Yes, both potassium and phosphorous. That came from researching this forum a bit before I dived in again, I noticed your posts mentioning how that was important, so I got myself the tricalcium phosphate supplement. I don't eat dairy either so the added benefit of calcium alongside the phosphorous is probably good in general.

Ok good idea re: trying methylfolate and thiamin separately to hone in on what needs refeeding. I'll try that

 

[flod]

I think people can be sensitive to those - not sure if it's technically refeeding, but I've definitely talked to people who had surprising reactions to methylfolate, SAM-e, etc.

Interesting that you found that in the past with individual supplements, but less when combining them. That's what's frustrating - we're shooting in the dark. Maybe you need to find the right balance, or maybe you're doing the equivalent of trying to find the exactly right mix of lighter fluid brands to dump in the gas tank.

Would be nice if we had some real biochemical research and knowledge - science is very primitive in these complex areas.

Yeah definately shooting in the dark here. And then there's theories like "paradoxical folate deficiency" which are a bit confusing to me... I mean I thought to myself "should I even put myself through this again" yesterday when I had the feelings of impending doom, to think that to possibly get over that I'd have to take a megadose of what caused it... is well yeah... kudos to anyone brave enough to do that.

What inspired me to get back onto this is I took a protein bar last week which was fortified with vitimin b (synthetic folic acid etc.) I didn't think anything of it as I hadn't thought about MTHFR for years, and well I felt absolutely horrible afterwards, extremely irritable... to the point the sound of the gentle breeze outside was really annoying me. Googled a bit in my messed up state and saw Fredd talking about how synthetic folic acid pushes out methylfolate from the cells or something like that and induces folate deficiency... so I was like "wow ok, maybe if I take some of that old methylfolate I have lying around it will fix this"... and it did, in a very short amount of time I felt normal again.

 

[Dysfunkion]

Yup, it sounds like you know the feeling pretty well.

I never used to have this, I was a very socially active / generally active person in my 20's but also did a fair amount of drugs like cocaine, MDMA etc. Something kind of broke for me in 2012 and I stopped partying, quit drugs but also became rather introverted and alongside that, general fatigue, over-sensitivity to the environment, foods, supplements, stimulation, people etc.

re: methylb12, at the moment it seems to fast-track me into that unpleasant "wired" kind of feeling with added irritability. Not pleasant and it doesn't seem to create any positives before a crash, just brings me right there. When I was experimenting with this stuff years ago, I was able to tolerate it though so something may have changed.

There's so much that could have happened, it's easy just say because you recreationally used some drugs that it was the cause but the body is a lot more complex and they could have just compounded something or tipped the scales in the wrong way with something. It could be some kind of toxin messed with your system and your body just wasn't the same after that. I know the reason I started needing all the supplements I do is because I from toxic factors in my environment something just broke in my body too. I just drank coffee before I became a recreational user of various things, I been in and out of substance abuse issues largely because I needed something to keep my mind stable at all costs. After I quit everything nothing changed and I just found better ways through continued experimentation to make it without them. I got high just to get normal and feel ok.

I bet if you tolerated it before and can't now something through your B vitamins completely out of whack, doesn't always need to be supplementing them that does it. When for example things get toxic in the body a lot of deficiencies and excesses occur that get very hard to manage. Since a lot of my issues stem from old poisoning and gut infections I suspect I need so much to function because candida or whatever in there is eating all the food and supplements I throw in and leaving not so much for me.