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Higher B12 gives symptoms but what is it?

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
after some fiddling around I found a way to titrate up methylcobalamine.
Thanks to @Mary I now keep taking potassium(citrate) and when that took care of cramps, dryness and palps I became aware of a histamine-reaction. So when I titrated up to 2,5 mg I took bifido infantis with it for a week and it went great!! bit more energy and deep restorative sleep, still waking up in the night but refreshed in morning, WOW....

deep sleep, more energy, not heaps mind you. But I find myself doing little things in the house instead of just sitting on my chair and only getting up for the needed things ( food and toilet).

I found that after about a quarter of an hour of having the tablet in mouth I get some energy, nice.

Now i thought, why not take another 2,5 mg after breakfast, at first it went great, more energy, I really try to not overdo it but felt 'not sick' sometimes for two hours. That kept for 3 days.

Now I sleep bad again, don't fall asleep and when I sleep it is very light, and much palps again, but no cramps.

I sort of wonder whether I need more folate or more potassium, as I have only folate as capsules ( and not as lozenges) I cannot test that easily.

How does folate shortage feel like? I felt so great last days, I want that to continue.

for now I'll take some extra potassium, see if it helps the palps. I'm more tired too

( and now that I'm asking, I wonder what over-methylation feels like too...)
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,335
Location
Southern California
Hi @Sundancer - Another possibility is that your magnesium is being depleted. Low magnesium definitely will cause insomnia and can cause cardiac symptoms too. This thread talks about magnesium and methylation: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/magnesium-and-methylation.11521/

scroll down to the fourth post on the thread by Richvank (who very unfortunately died a few years ago), and he explains how methylation can deplete magnesium. It's a similar process to potassium getting depleted. Your insomnia is what is making me think of magnesium. Increasing my magnesium, cutting out calcium and taking magnesium at night has made a big difference in my sleep.

So you might need more potassium (or not), but I think you should also look into magnesium.

I don't know about folate and there are others here much more knowledgeable about folate than me - good luck!

I became aware of a histamine-reaction.
How did you know you had a histamine reaction? and how did bifido infantis help? A lot of people here have histamine problems and it's something I know next to nothing about.

One more thing - just a thought - magnesium citrate makes my insomnia worse. It's the citrate, it has to do with citric acid and somehow being connected to msg in its production I believe. So I'm wondering if potassium citrate would have the same effect. You might consider switching to potassium gluconate which I've had no problem with. And I would avoid magnesium citrate (and aspartate) when supplementing magnesium.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
Sometimes it's worthwhile to test something you think will make you feel worse, such as Mary's citrate issue. You may wonder if something is making you feel worse, but for the price of a bottle of pills, you can test it to be sure, and then know that you should avoid that component. I test such things at least three times to be sure, unless the reaction is really bad.

I thought I had a reaction to citrates in the early stage of my disorder, but testing proved negative.

@Sundancer, at one point B12 tablets gave me very strong suicidal moods. That passed, and recent tests of it showed no noticeable response. Maybe I had too much/little folate or magnesium or whatever at that time. B12 seems to be one of those things that doesn't always give the same effect. Tricky stuff.

With capsules, I use a sharp knife to split the upper part to unlock them, then pour out the amount I want to take. It's easier than splitting some tablets.
 

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
Now i thought, why not take another 2,5 mg after breakfast, at first it went great, more energy, I really try to not overdo it but felt 'not sick' sometimes for two hours. That kept for 3 days.

Now I sleep bad again, don't fall asleep and when I sleep it is very light, and much palps again, but no cramps.

( and now that I'm asking, I wonder what over-methylation feels like too...)

Those symptoms sound an awful lot like over-methylation to me. Have you tried cutting back on the dose of B-12 to see if your symptoms get better?

Under-methylation makes me feel tired and heavy. If I'm over-methylated, I get increased energy but I also get heart palps, insomnia and sometimes feel increased anxiety.

So the trick is to find the dose that's just right for you. The "Goldilocks" dose.:)

Jim
 

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
Another possibility is that your magnesium is being depleted. Low magnesium definitely will cause insomnia and can cause cardiac symptoms too. This thread talks about magnesium and methylation: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/magnesium-and-methylation.11521/

Thanks @Mary , that is a useful idea and a useful thread. I'm doing better with more potassium ( now every 4 hours instead of six) Palps have normalized to what I'm used to, I do take a liberal amount of magnesium, as both citrate ( which I need for toilet) and bisglycinate. together some 200% of advised daily intake. But I will use my magnesiumsolution tonight, or maybe a footbath, see whether that does help with sleep.

Sleep was better but not how it can be, i sort of wake up in the night (always) but now I float between sleep and wakefulness, aware of the thumping of my heart and the feeling sick but not awake enough to sit up and drink a mug of potassum. I'll really try that tonight, to shake myself out of that state..

How did you know you had a histamine reaction? and how did bifido infantis help? A lot of people here have histamine problems and it's something I know next to nothing about.


I get itchy and belly more bloated, more feeling sick in the night and when it's bad diarrhea. I can get it from food I don't tolerate, but also from stress, both psycho-social stress and added illnesses or just having a cold. I stumbled on the use of bifido infantis for that use some years ago and have been using it for that ever since.
At the time I had a diarrhea that wouldn't stop and thought, oh well, lets try this, and it did help. And only afterwards I realized that it was a sort of ongoing process that made me feel very bad overall, the itching and the bad sleep and such. It all became much more bearable.
So now when i try food and it goes wrong and my body does not recover by itself I take these lovelies and it helps.

magnesium citrate makes my insomnia worse. It's the citrate, it has to do with citric acid and somehow being connected to msg in its production I believe. So I'm wondering if potassium citrate would have the same effect. You might consider switching to potassium gluconate which I've had no problem with. And I would avoid magnesium citrate (and aspartate) when supplementing magnesium.

I've been using magnesiumcitrate for a long time and don't think it's bad for me really ( as long as don't take more then I do now) plus I really need it to go to the toilet....

but I suspect that now that I added potassiumcitrate, the the total is too much. The gluconate is already added to the shoppingcart on I herb. I think it makes me bloated, it makes the baddies in my gut happy...
 

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
at one point B12 tablets gave me very strong suicidal moods. That passed, and recent tests of it showed no noticeable response. Maybe I had too much/little folate or magnesium or whatever at that time. B12 seems to be one of those things that doesn't always give the same effect. Tricky stuff.

yes, thanks @Wishful , I do try things and citrate has not been a problem until now. the added potassiumcitrate may be to much though, so the gluconate will be tried out. ( and I bought potassium citrate, because I knew that I can handle the stuff in moderate amounts, but seems that I need a lot more...)

B12 is strange stuff indeed, but felt so good those 3 days, sort of...not sick yaknow...., body felt OK, mood was good... I felt pretty crushed when the whole shit came back, but doing some better now.
I almost never use tablets, prefer powders ( can encapsulate myself) or capsule. I simple wriggle off the cap and then split the contents in as much parts as I need.
 

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
Those symptoms sound an awful lot like over-methylation to me. Have you tried cutting back on the dose of B-12 to see if your symptoms get better?

Under-methylation makes me feel tired and heavy. If I'm over-methylated, I get increased energy but I also get heart palps, insomnia and sometimes feel increased anxiety.

So the trick is to find the dose that's just right for you. The "Goldilocks" dose.:)

Hi @ljimbo423 , thank you, this is useful for I will probably stumble on overmethylation some time in the near future, good to have some idea how it feels like.

symptoms started 3 days after I had given the methylcob a boost, so probably cutting back on the dose would help. But i want to titrate up that dose. i've got neuropathy and this seems to be the way to , at least, prevent it getting worse.

tired and heavy I've been for years :depressed:, but those three days I felt just plain good. More energy, nice mood, happy, not wired in any way and have slept real good too. until the third night that is :(.

heart-palps I get from anything that falls wrong, whether new food that I should not have tried, or a supplement ( tried 50mg of selenium, felt like a heart-attack, cut it back to 25 now, that goes well)
do you get increased muscletension from overmethylation?
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
@jason30 , just because commercial citric acid is produced by GMO mold doesn't mean it contains mold or other nasty evil stuff. It's refined afterwards. Depending on the supplier, it can be of higher purity than citric acid extracted from 'all natural, organic' sources. I worry more about poor quality control than the source (and possible genetic modification) of foods, drugs, etc.
 

ljimbo423

Senior Member
Messages
4,705
Location
United States, New Hampshire
heart-palps I get from anything that falls wrong, whether new food that I should not have tried, or a supplement ( tried 50mg of selenium, felt like a heart-attack, cut it back to 25 now, that goes well)
do you get increased muscletension from overmethylation?

I did get increased muscle tension from over-methylation. I also get heart palps and increased energy very often from many supplements, even at very low doses or low dose increases.

It could have been that you were just reacting to the supplement increase and it wasn't over-methylation.

The other thing that happens quite often I think. Is that methylcobalamin, because it increases detoxification, can cause many symptoms like the ones you experienced.

I had horrible detoxification symptoms when I first started treating methylation. Now I take about 4 mg a day of both methylfolate and methylcobalamin and only get good results from it.

Soooo much trial and error, every day is a new experiment!:)

Jim
 

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
I did get increased muscle tension from over-methylation. I also get heart palps and increased energy very often from many supplements, even at very low doses or low dose increases.

It could have been that you were just reacting to the supplement increase and it wasn't over-methylation.

yes, I think so

The other thing that happens quite often I think. Is that methylcobalamin, because it increases detoxification, can cause many symptoms like the ones you experienced.

yep,now that you mention it, the first 2 months everything awful seemed to come back

I had horrible detoxification symptoms when I first started treating methylation. Now I take about 4 mg a day of both methylfolate and methylcobalamin and only get good results from it.

I now use twice 2,5 mg methyl ( before and after breakfast) and 400mcg folate plus 2,5 adenosylcob

Soooo much trial and error, every day is a new experiment:)!

I'll go on experimenting, and grateful for all the help i get here:thumbsup:
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,335
Location
Southern California
Now that is very good advice, my shoppingcart is full and I'll order right away

Magnesium oxide unfortunately is one of the least bioavailable forms, but can be helpful. :rolleyes: Magnesium glycinate did raise my blood pressure though it helped with sleep,, magnesium citrate caused insomnia (who knew! I had no idea how complicated the issue of magnesium could get! :nervous:)

I'm going to be trying magnesium malate soon when my order comes in - it's supposed to be good for energy and I'm hoping it will also help with sleep, will see - crossing my fingers! :sluggish:

Oh, and I did buy some magnesium chloride, it seems to be okay but to get the high doses I seem to need it's pricey so I'm now taking a combo of mag glycinate with mag chloride, and BP is not going up as much ..... I'm hoping the mag malate will solve all these issues!
 

Sundancer

Senior Member
Messages
569
Location
Holland
well...no palps tonight, so the potassiumshortage was clear (when will I learn to find out these things for myself..., but the help here is so good. And when I fall backwards, my brain does not seem to work:grumpy:).

But not much sleep either, so the sleeplessness is not produced by the palps. I've been lying awake for about 5 hours :aghhh:, then I did fall asleep, so I had some 4 hours tonight. But not muscletension, or overthinking, or itching, not anything. Just not falling asleep...

Now trying to think logical: I've had fine sleep with 3 doses of potassium and the former dose of B12, the double dose of B12 triggered the not being able to fall asleep. ( it is a problem with falling into sleep, not with waking up in the night)

soo, I think I better not fiddle too much with new supplements, I've always done good on magnesiumcitrate, so I'll keep that up for now. But will change the potassiumcitrate to gluconate ( that is change enough, never do different things at the same time baby, you'll get yourself into a mess) then when i'm back into balance I'll change the Mg-citrate for Mg-oxide

Over the last months I've been tapering off my sleeping aids, from 150 mg of 5HTP to 50
and from 3 grams of glycine to 2 grams.

so tonight I'll get my full dose of sleeping aids again and see what happens. ( twiddling thumbs...)
if that does not work I'll try to take the higher dose of B12 one day on, one day off.

Problems falling asleep have always been one of the worst symptoms, so maybe it just needs time and a higher dose of sleeping-aids to get through it.

because, for the rest, in the daytime I feel real good with this dosage of B12, it really perks me up.:D

thanks all, for helping me think and adding information :thumbsup:
 

jason30

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Europe
@jason30 , just because commercial citric acid is produced by GMO mold doesn't mean it contains mold or other nasty evil stuff. It's refined afterwards. Depending on the supplier, it can be of higher purity than citric acid extracted from 'all natural, organic' sources. I worry more about poor quality control than the source (and possible genetic modification) of foods, drugs, etc.

The producing from GMO mold is enough reason for me to avoid it, refined or not.
 

Eastman

Senior Member
Messages
526
@Sundancer

Methylation boosts adrenaline. That could explain why some people get overstimulated on it and get sleep problems.

How is your vitamin B1/thiamine status? Thiamine deficiency has been linked to sleep disturbances and tachycardia (see here).

While potassium appears to have resolved your palpitations, there is evidence that thiamine deficiency may be involved with electrolyte imbalances (see here).

A few members who have tried methylation have subsequently reported needing thiamine. See here, here, here, here, here and here.

I am not sure how B12 supplementation leads to an increased need for thiamine, except for some speculation involving aldosterone (see here).
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
B12 supplementation would speed up the methionine cycle if you had all the other co factors.

The transsulfuration cycle, which uses thiamine and molybdenum would have stuff coming at it faster so it would need to go faster to and you would run out of B1 faster, and likely molybdenum. I take about 600mg of B1 and 1mg Thorne molybdenum (and 1mg more if I start emitting sulfur).
 

GreenMachineX

Senior Member
Messages
362
@Sundancer
Glad I listened to you with regard to not adding more mb12 yet! All of the histamine is gone and now on the verge of overmethylation (at least that’s what I think it is). Overstimulated, low body temperature (im freezing in what normally is fine), a few instances of shortness of breath or air hunger...sound about right?