Help with CoQ10: How much ubiquinol should I take per day? Recommended brands? Getting ubiquinol through the NHS for free? (I am in the UK)

[daveu]

Hi all,

I am a moderate ME/CFS sufferer (since 2009) who lives in the UK and to also experiences severe myofascial pain in both forearms (this has also been described as severe RSI or fibromyalgia by different medical professionals).

I recently finished a two month course of 100 mg daily of ubiquinol (Co Q10 in its reduced form) and saw an approximate reduction in pain and inflammation in my forearms of 25%. This was very encouraging as it was the first time in a long time I have tried something that has helped with the pain in my arms.

I'm keen to go back on ubiquinol permanently but before I discuss this with my GP I wanted to find out what amounts of ubiquinol other people on this forum were taking? I.e. could I be taking an even stronger dose of ubiquinol and seeing an even greater reduction in pain & inflammation?

One of the reasons I stopped taking ubiquinol is because the brand I was buying from my supplier was expensive: I took Allergy Research Group CoQH-CF which costs £67.15 for 60 capsules

https://www.nutri-link.co.uk/shop/coqh-cf-x-60-capsules.html

One of the reasons I chose that brand of ubiquinol is because this website (https://www.woodstockvitamins.com/blogs/learn/coq10-and-ubiquinol) says to look for the 'Kaneka' logo to ensure you are getting quality ubiquinol. The CoQH-CF product has this logo (which I guess means they use the Kaneka formula to produce their ubiquinol?): https://www.nutri-link.co.uk/documents/ARG/coqh-cf-product-sheet-6-17.pdf

Because my family is a low income family, choosing to continue with this expensive brand of ubiquinol would be very tricky for us. I have read on Dr Myhill's website (https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Co-enzyme_Q10_in_Chronic_Fatigue_Syndrome) that it may be possible to get Co Q10 for free on prescription through the NHS? As I have an NHS Tax Exemption Certificate this may be available to me. Does anyone have any experience with getting supplements on prescription from the NHS? The page on Dr Myhill's website is confusing because it says:

'It is possible for Co-Q10 to be prescribed on NHS Prescription! Co-Q10 is not in the British National Formulary, but it has not been blacklisted in capsule form, and so is prescribable. If your GP is willing to help, then ask him to prescribe ubidecarenone 100mg capsules. The chemist can order any brand that is available to him and the Prescription Pricing Authority will honour the prescription.'

What is ubidecarenone? I am concerned that if I am able to get a prescription for ubidecarenone that might result in a prescription for Co Q10 and not ubiquinol. Dr Myhill's website (https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Co-enzyme_Q10_in_Chronic_Fatigue_Syndrome) says that it would take 1200 mg of Co Q10 in its non-reduced form to get the equivalent of 150 mg of ubiquinol. But in saying that, I would rather take 1200 mg of Co Q10 for free than to have to pay for ubiquinol.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Sorry my post was so long. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Hip]

I took Allergy Research Group CoQH-CF which costs £67.15 for 60 capsules

That is very expensive. £67 for a total of just 6 grams of Q10.

The ubiquinol form of Q10 may be more bioavailable than the ubiquinone form in the over 40s, but I am not sure paying that much for a Q10 product is a good idea.

You can buy bulk Q10 powder much cheaper, for example, 25 grams of Q10 powder for £35.

You can also get better deals on Q10 capsules at cheaper places like Health Monthly or iHerb.

See also the Supplement Shopping Search page of this forum for further discounts at places like iHerb.

 

[Treeman]

I recently bought some from the below. It's cheap and a big dose. I take one in the morning only and have noticed some benefits https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/1488942089...MIx_C16dHU6gIVWuztCh1EwgmZEAkYBiABEgKlC_D_BwE

 

[daveu]

You can buy bulk Q10 powder much cheaper, for example, 25 grams of Q10 powder for £35.

You can also get better deals on Q10 capsules at cheaper places like Health Monthly or iHerb.

Hi @Hip, thank you for your reply. Wow, you are right, I can get ubiquinol with Kaneka for less on iHerb so that is a great start.

I hadn't even thought to check whether CoQ10 came as a powder so thank you for suggesting that! I suppose you could mix a powder into breakfast or a glass of water?

My thinking is I will take 100 mg daily of ubiquinol with Kaneka for a couple of months, and then switch to the same equivalent with CoQ10 powder. If my pain & information reduction tapers off a bit then that will be evidence ubiquinol is more effective for me (I am in my late 30s).

 

[heapsreal]

Something to maybe consider for nerve pain and myalgias that i have found helpful is benfotiamine, which is a fat soluble form of vitamin b1.

 

[pamojja]

My anecdotal experience: I always experienced angina-like chest-pain with stress (physical or mental). When starting to supplement found above 160 mg/d of ubiquinone the pains were gone, also on about half that dose ubiquinol. I think both might be differently effective in different individuals, and experimenting will show your equivalent.

 

[Hip]

I suppose you could mix a powder into breakfast or a glass of water?

You can do that, but I found Q10 powder actually tastes nice, so I just put a measured dose in my mouth and savor the flavor.


If you search aliexpress.com (it's like a Chinese eBay) for Q10, you can get some incredible deals! You can easily find sellers offering 100 grams of Q10 powder for around £25.

See these sellers for example, whose price for 100 grams is shown: £22 - £25 - £24 - £22 - £30.

I know some people do not like buying from China, but I've found that the Q10 powder I bought on AliExpress was some of the nicest and cleanest tasting powder I have ever had.

By the way, the built-in site search on AliExpress is useless, it never seems to find the right products, but you can use a Google search focused on AliExpress instead, like this Google search.



For around £10 you can buy a digital scales with an accuracy down to 1 mg (0.001 grams) for measuring powder doses. That is what I use.



Note that Q10 is best absorbed when taken with food, as Q10 is fat-soluble and best absorbed with fats or oils found in a main meal.

You might like this thread, in which ME/CFS patient @BeautifulDay found mixing grapefruit juice with Q10 ubiquinol greatly improved energy. The psoralen in grapefruit juice causes an increased absorption of Q10 into cells (50% more cellular absorption).

 

[pogoman]

I'm keen to go back on ubiquinol permanently but before I discuss this with my GP I wanted to find out what amounts of ubiquinol other people on this forum were taking? I.e. could I be taking an even stronger dose of ubiquinol and seeing an even greater reduction in pain & inflammation?

Do you have access to Eufortyn made by Sharper Therapeutics as a prescription medicine?
It is a water soluble coq10 marketed in Europe for high cholesterol and may or may not be prescription only, I see its listed on Amazon UK and Ebay.
There are studies showing better absorption altho many are in Italian.

In the US water soluble coq10 is sold by Swanson Q-gel Mega and I now see Qunol sells it.

I did a post about water soluble coq10 a couple months ago, this is the only coq10 that helped me by high dosing and improved my muscle hypertonia that I take a muscle relaxer for.
I'm taking 1K to 800 mg per day.
Both Swanson and Qunol get their water soluble coq10 from Tishcon Corporation, I don't know if there is a connection with Sharper.

 

[Cipher]

If you search aliexpress.com (it's like a Chinese eBay) for Q10, you can get some incredible deals! You can easily find sellers offering 100 grams of Q10 powder for around £25.

See these sellers for example, whose price for 100 grams is shown: £22 - £25 - £24 - £22 - £30.

I know some people do not like buying from China, but I've found that the Q10 powder I bought on AliExpress was some of the nicest and cleanest tasting powder I have ever had.

I'm curious what seller you've bought from, as I recently received a bag of Q10 powder from AliExpress which was clearly counterfeit, as it was water soluble:

(Genuine Q10 on the left from nootropicsdepot)

I bought another one that's still on its way from China, hope that one isn't fake also!

 

[Hip]

I'm curious what seller you've bought from, as I recently received a bag of Q10 powder from AliExpress which was clearly counterfeit, as it was water soluble:

That does not look good.

Looking at my emails, it seems that the last batch of Q10 I bought from China on AliExpress was purchased in 2016, but the email does not detail the vendor, and looking on my AliExpress account, there are no details of previous orders older than around a year.

I guess I could have been sold fake Q10 also, as I never performed the water solubility test you did. The Q10 powder I bought on AliExpress had a nice creamy sort of taste, but I guess that does not prove much.

I have only more recently become aware of how many fake item vendors there are on AliExpress and Alibaba, after reading these articles about Chinese scam vendors:

Can I Trust Suppliers on Alibaba or Made-in-China?
How to Identify a Fake or Bogus Chinese Company
Guide to Buying from Alibaba and importing from China

One Chinese individual on Facebook says that:

As hebei's chemical industry is well developed in China ( it explains Hebei's heavy air pollution). Those chemical scamers mostly come from Tianjin & Hebei province, like shijiazhuang city, handan city, which also ruined the reputation of Hebei's chemical industry. I can say over 50% of the chemical trading company from Hebei are scammer.

Looking at the store user feedback page of the vendor where you bought the "Q10", reading the negative feedback comments, there are hints that this store is selling fake goods:

Warning: Coq10 is supposed to be odorless and tasteless, yet this product has very artificial unpleasant and strong chemical smell. Like plastic or laboratory. Smell is very toxic. Presleep delivery in Flaxseed oil had no wellbeing or other energetic gainage effect whatsoever.

Fake piperine extract powder. It is not piperine, as stated in the title of the article : "50 g-1000 g 98 % Piperine Black Pepper Extract Powder, Hei Hu Jiao, Weight Control,Develop Immunity From Disease Free Shipping ". The color of real piperine extract is from light greenish to creamy white, but I got a brown powder !!!

it's a fake product it's not hyaluronic acid at all

No es de calidad.Llevo utilizando polvo de hace 5 años y siempre espesa .Cuando lo quiero disolver en agua se queda igual de líquido y se va al fondo.los normales k yo compro tarda muchísimo en disolverse y se queda súper espeso.osea k este no se k polvo es pero de ácido hialurónico no es

TRANSLATION: It is not of quality. I have been using powder from 5 years ago and it is always thick. When I want to dissolve it in water it remains the same liquid and goes to the bottom. The normal ones I buy it takes a long time to dissolve and it stays super thick. I don't know what powder is but hyaluronic acid is not

Seems like you can get your money back though, via the 75 day buyer protection:

The negative feedback comments of the other store also indicate it is selling fake goods, unfortunately.

I usually try to find vendors that have a very good feedback rating around 99%. Although beware of vendors with feedback ratings of 100%, where all the comments have the same text, saying something like "great product". If you see the same positive comment repeated dozens of times, then it suggests the vendor is manipulating their feedback comments somehow.






I recent read the following newspaper article, which is good to bear in mind when buying products from China!

Chinese zoo tries to pass off DOG as a wolf

That article made me laugh, they even deal in fake animals in China!

 

[Hip]

I think I was also sold a fake chemical on AliExpress last year. I bought some dipotassium glycyrrhizinate powder from NA Beautiful Store on AliExpress. This is bioavailable potassium salt of glycyrrhizic acid, one of the active principles in licorice.

Dipotassium glycyrrhizinate is supposed to taste sweet (it is 40 times sweeter than sugar). But when I tasted the white powder I received, it had no sweetness at all.

I contacted NA Beautiful Store and explained this, but for months they have been responding in an evasive manner, never actually addressing the problem.

So today I just sent them this message:

If you do not sort this problem out promptly, I am going to post a negative review for the NA Beautiful Store on https://www.trustpilot.com , explaining that you supplied me with a fake product.

 

[leokitten]

Does anyone have advice if CoQ10 is the only treatment (other than low dose Abilify) that ever really improved symptoms for me, then what else might also work?

If I take 1400 mg ubiquinol it takes a couple of hours to start working but it pretty consistently helps with some of the worst ME symptoms for like 6-8 hours before wearing off. The price for that amount on a daily basis is quite dear so only take it when I need to, plus I worry about tolerance.