Hello Freddd
I have a general question about start-up symptoms. Would it be correct to say that these are strongest where the need for healing is greatest? My biggest symptoms is POTS - postural orthostatic tachycardia. Since starting the active B12s and the metafolin the POTS has got worse. I have backed off a little on doses, but am prepared to keep going if this is a normal reaction and necessary for healing. It is pretty uncomfortable though, and tiring.
Should I stay at current doses (1 adenosyl B12 lozenge, 3mg methyl B12 and 1/4 tablet of metafolin) until these symptoms ease, or try to increase?
thanks
Nicola
Hi Nicola,
I have a general question about start-up symptoms. Would it be correct to say that these are strongest where the need for healing is greatest?
Maybe. Let me explain. There are two sets of symptoms, in one way of characterising them; functional and damage. Of course some of the funtional symptoms are becausof damage. But others are because the system is out of gas in a manner of speaking. So let's look at adb12 as it has a much smaller universe of what it does. Because of what I didn't know, I did not take adb12 at the same time as I started mb12, but rather 9 months later. While it slowed down my healing it was very informative. When I took mb12 I had just enough conversion to adb12 that the burning lactic acid type muscle pain diminished and went away in 10 days.
I had energy back in 60 minutes. It seemed huge at the time. It was repeated daily for several months but not as strong except when I swtched to an ineffectve brand and all symptoms started returning in 3 days. The abnormal extreme fatigue of 16 years duration was gone. The inrush floored me for that first hour. But as I added other pieces to the puzzle, adb12 and carnitine, I had even larger total increases in energy. Mb12 started giving me energy back, but in 9 months not enough converted to allow healing and growth of muscles and it did not correct all the muscle problems.
The first few months on the adb12 did that. It also restored exercise tolerance and carnitine even more so. With the adb12 there was another inrush of energy. The muscles started loosening. The tight contractions stopped. The whole body spasms had already stopped with the mb12 and this final change allowed me to stop Dilantin. The 18 tender points started becoming less tender. Exercise became easily tolerated and caused muscle growth. It took three years for my thigh muscles to return from being a ridge the thickness of my finger to filling my thigh. With exercise the muscle pain diminished and largely went away. The only places it didn't go away was where damaged neurology ruled.
My heart arythmias, just about fainting on standing, things like that slowly faded away. The only really clear point of notice was when I increased b-right to twice a day, after most of the other things had been started, the last of the arythmias went away immediately. They had diminished from multiple episodes per minute to occasional. Last time I tested it, 3 days on B-right once a day and they were back. I can stand up just fine now. That took a while.
Since starting the active B12s and the metafolin the POTS has got worse.
I would say that they are definitely being affected by the vitamins. In my experience everything affected right off started correcting. As the swings and changes quieted down the things immediately affected tended towards normal. The things I still have trouble with were unaffected by the initial doses.
When the body has adjusted to a malfunctioning situation it makes certain accomodations. When the chemistry is restored to what will allow it to function normally the accomodations go through a period of being too much and the body has to reach a different equilibrium. I and many others have experienced this on hundreds of symptoms. It's like the volume knob on the sound has been turned all the way up to makeup for a low volume source. When you put in a recording made at a higher volume, you get blasted with sound until the volume can be turned down to normal. This is what seems to be happening in our bodies as the b12s start generating stronger nerve signals and more neurotransmitters and more energy.
Making new cells is another matter. The red blood cells can be entirely replaced in 90 days. An inflamed burning bladder or tongue can heal to no pain in 10 days but full healing takes longer. In 6 months my digestive system healed enough that I could tell that milk specifically was a problem. Before that everything was the same, a problem. It took three years or more for my digestive system to fully heal.
Should I stay at current doses (1 adenosyl B12 lozenge, 3mg methyl B12 and 1/4 tablet of metafolin) until these symptoms ease, or try to increase?
Are you taking zinc, A&d, E, C, magnesium and calcium and b-right twice a day? I would consider these more important than increasing the ones you are currently taking. They are all truely critical for healing.
If you do increase the dose, I would do it by taking a second dose of folate and maybe mb12 if it doesn't interfer with sleeping, later in the day. Because of the short serum halflife of b12 and folate a second dose will just level out the serum level a bit but not increase it significantly. The adb12 is most likely entirely adequate until later after everything has staiblized and you try out different balances between mb12 and adb12. It's because of the short serum halflife of the various b vitamins that a second b-complex at a different time can help so much.
My experience is that all things things diminish after an equilibrium is reached. As long as there is an increase in tissue saturation occurring change keeps happening and being felt and the body has to keep readjusting. If you want to try something, consider taking a 1mg mb12 more or less continueously all day, as one is gone add another. As most startup symptoms don't have a linear increase in intensity, it can bring you up to equilibrium more quickly. Things stop increasing in intensity 5 minutes after chewing and swallowing the tablet so you can control the intensity if it gets to be too much. As soon as I did that, the daily intensity of startup started diminishing the next day and was gone in a week
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