I mean faith as in believing in the treatment enough in order to stick it out what I perceived to be a worsening of my symptoms after trying B12.
My symptoms are: extreme fatigue, lightheadedness, sore muscles, brainfog, insomnia, cold hands and feet during the winter. And I got carpel tunnel syndrome a few years before CFS. The rest of my symptoms I had since childhood are: anxiety (but have recently overcome much of it), poor memory, seasonal allergies, eye sensitivity to light, and eczema.
My doctor can't seem to find the root of my problem. The only that that has ever came up in testing, is low Vitamin D. And I've been taking 5,000iu a day. Which hasn’t really improved anything for me.
I've already spent too much money in supplements, so would rather wait before buying even more. I also have some that I've already ordered that didn't come in yet. Which are Solgar Folate Metafolin, and Jarrow B-Right.
I'm taking a Multivitamin, Vitamin D, Magnesium Citrate, and a bunch of other supplments. The B12 that I took was called Advanced B-12, and is a combination of methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin. I took half a pill for roughly one week and just stopped today. The reason is that I do in fact feel that I have been getting worse from taking it.
Hi Tal,
And here we are at that juncture where, because of the unfamiliar and not tested by me product when I can't be sure of what is going on. Methylb12 is relatively unstable compared to hycbl and cycbl. It breaks down rapidly from light exposure. Adb12 is even less stable. The qualities of mb12 can vary by the batch of the crystal itself with which the end product is manufactured. I don't know about adb12 lacking the same quantity of experience and the lack of availability of many brands for comparative testing.
If you were taking Jarrow or Enzymatic Therapy methylb12 and Country Life adb12 I would assure you that the normal startup responses of mb12 and to a lesser extent, adb12, is an intensifcation of all the many symptoms. Also, many experience a rapid changing of characterization of the symptoms. It might seem like the things are getting worse. With the known qualities of the mentioned b12s I could be sure that was happening. Unfortunately with cycbl and hycbl while they may benefit some percentage of the symptoms, an even larger percentage will get worse over time. For some people with a borderline methylation capacity the first few doses of cycbl and hycbl can finsih sutting down the methylation process causing immediate genuine worsening of symptoms. Methylb12 and adb12 don't do this. Often I have suggested that one be started and then the other to separate the startup response of the two different b12s and make them a little easier to bear by not getting hit with everything at once.
extreme fatigue, lightheadedness, sore muscles, brainfog, insomnia... anxiety (but have recently overcome much of it), poor memory, seasonal allergies, eye sensitivity to light, and eczema.
These are all frequent symptoms of b12 deficiencies. I too used to have very high light sensitivity, season allergies and a photo-allergic sneezing from bright light glints. There can be impaired circulation to hands and feet caused by certain neuropathic situations which can cause cold hands and feet but there are also other causes of this as with most b12 deficiency symptoms. Overall "being cold" all the time is a common b12 deficiency symptom as well.
As most all of b12 deficiency symptoms are "non-specific" which causes them to generally be ignored by doctors they also puzzle doctors as the various nonspecific symptoms affect all kinds of different systems of the body and don't seem connected unless one looks a little deeper. So with muscle pain for instance there can be multiple causes of multiple kinds of pain. There can be pain caused by the muscles becoming exhausted by constant contraction/tightness eventually exhausting the capacity to continue functioning as the adb12 is exhausted no longer producing ATP. They can produce lactic acid becoming burningly sore. The can be sore because of inability to repair and grow new muscle cells by virtue of no adb12 for the mitochondria and no mb12 for the DNA replication so that muscles suffer the same fate as the epithelial tissues that become unable to maintain themselves causing inflamed lungs, broken down skin, muscous menbrane changes resulting in inflammation and thick sticky mucous, IBS, nausea etc, neurological changes causing muscle pain via a number of possible mechanisms, hypersensitivity to chemicals, drugs and foods, neurological changes affecting circulation, hypersensitive reactions causing allergies and asthma, impaired neurological functioning and changes causing poor memory, cognitive changes, hallucinations, psychosis, personality and mood changes, anxiety, paranoia and so forth.
The key is that b12 deficiencies do affect all the different areas of the body otherwise seemingly unrelated. The famous triad of hallmark symptoms are a "beef-red burning tongue" (epithelial breakdown from lack of mb12 for methylation in DNA transactions), "severe abnormal fatigue" (mitochondrial malfunction from lack of adb12) and "tingling hands and/or feet" (peripheral neuropathy or impaired neurological function).
It is sort of like choose one symptom from the epithelial breakdown column, choose one symptom from the neurological breakdown column and severe fatigue from the mitochondrial breakdown column. The fatigue can also be centrally mediated becasue of certain neurological changes.
You have multiple symptoms from each column and seem to fit very clearly the form of the triad of symptoms quite precisely. Further, assuming that the mb12/adb12 supplement is functioning reasonably well as such you have demonstrated a rapid startup response to it affirming the b12 deficiency situation.
It would appear that you do have at least 2 of the 4 b12 deficiency subsets; body mb12 and body adb12. Whether or not you additionally have one or two CNS/CSF b12 deficiencies depends upon whether your central symptoms clear with normal sublingual doses or if some or all of them require the much larger doses some people require who have those separate CNS/CSF deficiencies.
The sudden intensification of symptoms upon consumption of the active b12s is a signpost to healing. Those things that respond right away are usually those that heal most rapidly and clear up relatively quickly. While this might seem counter intuitive it is the way this appears to work quite reliably.
I have been accused of overhyping the startup response and I have been accused of understating the startup responses. As far as I know everybody who sticks with it gets through the startup responses in some days to some months depending upon dosage, possibly cofactors and some unknown elements. As the startup responses fade the person usually begins to feel better with symptoms starting to fade away.
My allergies are all but gone, my asthma is gone, the daily nausea is gone, my skin is the best it has been in my life, I can walk down the detergent aisle without discomfort, my health is the best in my life. All of these lifelong from childhood problems are cleared up as well as all the other 200 symptoms except the ones from the car crash and from subacute combined degeneration that was allowed to progress unchecked for 17 years or more.
So good luck. You can listen to those of us who have actually walked this way or not. Number one rule to remember when walking through hell. KEEP WALKING. Don't stop to setup housekeeping there because you don't dare keep going because "what if it keeps getting worse?"
