Overmethylated, yet inspired! What next?

[Johnmac]

Snap. My mB12 pills turn to red sludge when I'm working in Southeast Asia.

 

[mermaid]

I noticed that too re the B12 - I have now taken to adding in some extra little dessication packs from other pots of supplements and that seems to work well.

 

[mermaid]

I see a lot mixing of methylation and thyroid considerations. I want to point out one very important difference, rate of response. MeCbl and AdoCbl used through mucosal absorption can start responding in 5 minutes and has typically peaked by 2 hours. Methylfolate taken orally can start affecting a person in an hour or less and peaks in 2 or 3 hours and fades after that, very serum level related. L-carnitine can take effect in an hour and can take up to 36 hours or so to return to previous condition.

Changes in TSH from hormone dose levels takes days to start responding and longer to fully adjust. The exact times aren't the point. It is this difference in rate that is important. If one tries to adjust thyroid each day based on how they feel each day things are going to mess up. B12 and folate have basically immediate effects. It takes weeks or months for equilibrium to be reached with MeCbl, a few doses for some people with AdoCbl but not everybody. So one needs to learn the dynamics of their own body. But B12 and folate and be changed every day knowing what is helping and what symptoms are being affected. There is no such fast connection with thyroid hormone and TSH.

Be careful. Good Health.

@Freddd thank you for this. I have a mix of hypothyroidism and ME symptoms and it's v hard to know what's what and how to treat best. Also if using all T3/liothyronine as I am then the symptoms are bumpier anyway so it's even harder to know what is happening, though I take BP/temp/pulse if I am unsure of which way to go, and these of course can react quickly to the T3.

Could I ask a related question please @Fredd re Carnitine on here or on the thread I raised it on, as no one yet has replied who knows apart from ahmo who is using it in footbath.....http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...l-would-this-method-work-transdermally.34983/

Just want to know really from a scientific point of view how much this is helping please?
I can tolerate well so far all the methylation supps apart from Carnitine which I cannot take orally due to the acidity which affects my chronic gastritis(?ulcer) badly. I am now trying Drs Best L-Carnitine Fumarate contents (up to 2 a day now) mixed with magnesium oil spray that also contains DMSO. How well is this likely to work for me please? Would I likely to need much more than orally? I am putting it on soles of feet and thin skin elsewhere.

 

[SwanRonson]

Isn't that a great feeling, that brainfog liftoff?

Yes sir. I agree with @sregan , it's like the sun coming out. It's wonderful when it happens, which it does every now and then. Sometimes the fog lifts in response to something I've taken which produces something like acetylcholine or adrenaline. But, other times I feel the fog lift for no apparent reason that I can nail down.

So, since it happened in response to the 5 star mb12, I'm wondering if those times that it has lifted in the past was due to all of the stars aligning with my diet and digestion (which is usually poor) to produce a brief period of methylation start-up which wasn't sustainable because I wasn't aware of what was happening and what I ate to produce it. Maybe I hit just the right timing of chicken liver followed a while later by some veggie folates, followed by some other co-factor containing food, combined with the minerals/vitamins I take, etc, etc.

I thought about this because when I took the 5 star the other day, i had just had a kale smoothie (kale, pineapple, aloe, strawberries) and a salad with spinach. Since I seem to do ok with veggie folate that may have been the support the mb12 needed.

 

[SwanRonson]

my chronic gastritis

Do you have any idea why you have chronic gastritis? Has it responded to any treatments you've tried?

I take zinc-carnosine, which really helped my stomach calm down after my recent bout with gastritis. It's a prescription med in Japan for treating ulcers and gastritis, but it's OTC here. I take it with every meal.

 

[mermaid]

@SwanRonson - no it's a bit of a mystery to me in terms of it being chronic, as I do not drink, smoke or take any drugs. I do have autoimmune hypothyroidism and there is some research regarding these kinds of issues, and so it could be that. I have worked on the stomach acid being low issue, but have stopped the acid capsules now as was going in the other direction.

I have tried very hard over the past 5 yrs to cut things from my diet and add in the good things, but every now and then I make a bad error re what will inflame it e.g. just recently the Carnitine, and also I now have to be careful re roast dinners not to cook the root veg in with the joint, or the quantity of fat can upset the apple cart. I do have fat (coconut oil) but maybe there are degrees of how much I can take.

I do have Zinc Carnosine, too, though have not found it has helpful as some. I am using herbal things like liquorice, (via a medical herbalist) and also healing foods such as banana and papaya now, which seem to help more. I have it nicely calmed down this week! Hooray!

Incidentally I really agreed with your paragraph above about 'the sun coming out' and was in this place before Christmas, but sadly I think my adrenals crashed for various reasons (maybe my thyroid meds) so it's all gone a tad pear shaped. The gut issues had also healed during the good time too, so I am sure that was part of the puzzle. Sooo hard to get the balancing act right it seems.

 

[Freddd]

Could I ask a related question please @Fredd re Carnitine on here or on the thread I raised it on, as no one yet has replied who knows apart from ahmo who is using it in footbath.....http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...l-would-this-method-work-transdermally.34983/

Just want to know really from a scientific point of view how much this is helping please?
I can tolerate well so far all the methylation supps apart from Carnitine which I cannot take orally due to the acidity which affects my chronic gastritis(?ulcer) badly. I am now trying Drs Best L-Carnitine Fumarate contents (up to 2 a day now) mixed with magnesium oil spray that also contains DMSO. How well is this likely to work for me please? Would I likely to need much more than orally? I am putting it on soles of feet and thin skin elsewhere.

Hi Mermaid,

I don't know. I can't even guess what the absorption rate might be. Can you titrate by effect? If carnitine is helping you will feel it but the threshold may be some hundreds of MCGs to hundreds of MGs. Dermal absorption is often a small percentage. Good luck.

 

[SwanRonson]

I do have fat (coconut oil) but maybe there are degrees of how much I can take.

Just a heads up in case you weren't aware. Coconut (and all the MCT oils) actually begin absorbing in the stomach lining and can be a cause of gastritis if too much is consumed, or if it's consumed for a long time. My own gastritis (break in the stomach lining confirmed by endoscopy) was caused by taking supplemental MCT oil with my breakfast each morning for a period of a few weeks.

Reference study is here.

With the relevant section being: "Preduodenal lipases (Hamosh 1990) also hydrolyze MCT preferentially, and the resulting MCFA [medium chain fatty acids] can be absorbed in part through the stomach mucosa."

 

[mermaid]

@SwanRonson Thank you. I did not know that there had been research on this. I am not v good at science but I kind of got the gist of that, though didn't follow what the Carnitine reference was saying in there....

Interesting to hear of your own experience too.......in my own experience my gastritis issues started long before I had ever used coconut oil (11 yrs ago). I began with coconut oil though around 3 or 4 yrs ago, so it could have contributed this time. More recently I have read articles re ulcers and gastritis that they suggest fats could make things worse though they did not specify which fats.

I have only noticed problems with roast dinners where I had been cooking the roast potatoes with the oil from joint PLUS a little coconut oil. This week I cooked the potatoes separately in a little coconut oil, and drained off most of the oil from the joint before making gravy and had no problems.

The other issue I had was not with the coconut oil itself, but with coconut products such as very high fat milk (there is a variety called Grace) which gave me a lot of gastric pain.

I am now just putting in a teaspoonful of the coconut oil rather than a larger amount and so far all is well. Were you taking in a large amount e.g. a tablespoonful or more?

 

[mermaid]

Hi Mermaid,

I don't know. I can't even guess what the absorption rate might be. Can you titrate by effect? If carnitine is helping you will feel it but the threshold may be some hundreds of MCGs to hundreds of MGs. Dermal absorption is often a small percentage. Good luck.

@Freddd Yes, I am trying to titrate, but it's not always easy to know what is causing what of course when with ME there are so many variables going on. However, yesterday things were reasonable so we will see. I don't have severe muscle pain symptoms normally, but have had a bit of a relapse, so am noticing things more at the moment and any changes. People seem to think that the transdermal magnesium oil is good so I thought this would be a reasonable carrier as it has DMSO in it.

I have just noticed there is a separate thread where people on here are trying some transdermal B12 oil, and some seeming to find it better than sublingual so I wondered about that too as I have been using sublingual (5mg Methyl) thinking it must be fantastic! It didn't occur to me that maybe it isn't......

 

[SwanRonson]

Were you taking in a large amount e.g. a tablespoonful or more?

Yes, I was taking 2 TBSP each morning in my coffee. The break in my stomach lining was right below the LES, so it looks like the oil was clinging to the side of my stomach as it entered. I still suspect that the NOW brand MCT oil that I got was tainted somehow as well, since it actually made my throat tingle after I drank it. It did the same thing to my wife, whereas the previous batch (same brand) never did that. We actually threw the bottle out because it was such an uncomfortable feeling after just 2 or 3 tablespoons.

 

[mermaid]

Goodness Swan how unpleasant!

I don't think we have this brand in the UK. I do make a point of having the Virgin kind, (ie unrefined) and I see on an advert for the NOW brand that it doesn't call it that.

I don't know if that would make a difference though re the issue you had. Says on the pot that it's for skin and hair.....

 

[Tannukchhina]

What happened:

• I gradually worked up to 400mcg methylfolate w/ mB12.
  
  
• With each step up I got big improvements in energy, mood, and my need for thyroid and ribose dropped off. But at the 400mcg mark I developed severe insomnia - COULD. NOT. SLEEP. Similar effect to taking 400mg SAMe.
  
  
• I dropped back down to 267mcg methylfolate, but still had powerful insomnia.
  
  
• I went off methylfolate for 4 days. Took Nicotionic acid as needed. The insomnia gradually decreased each night I was off. I could sleep again.
  
  
• On Monday I started over again with just 67mcg methylfolate, thinking that wold be more gentle. The insomnia came right back. But my energy / PEM threshold has risen.

What I surmise from my reactions:

1. It appears that my methylation cycle was previously disrupted or broken.
2. It appears that taking methylfolate with B12 restarted my methylation cycle successfully, keeping it going even after I stopped methylation supplements.
3. It appears I am very sensitive to methylfolate. (I'm more like @Avalon or @caledonia, less like @Freddd )
4. It appears I am mostly tolerant to mB12 - it feels good, doesn't seem to bother me.
5. I don't know my SNPs: I was rejected by 23andMe.
6. I may need some sort of very low dose methylation support - preferably some kind of support that lets my body control its own rate of methylation. Hydroxycobalmin? Folinic acid? ???

Since Monday I have been off almost all supplements (except fish oil, NT Factor energy lipids, Vitamin C, thyroid and magnesium). I have depended on daily supplements for years.

To my surprise, I seem to have PLENTY of energy... I don't feel like a "CFS sufferer"... I am active all day and wait for PEM to come and it just doesn't really hit me like it did pre-Methylation experiment.

But I still feel a little bit "off balance".. sometimes "undermethylated" and sometimes "overmethylated" and have some insomnia. I am not cured, but definitely inspired.

I am considering going on Yasko's All-in-One multivitamin which boasts "VERY LOW dose methylation support" - 25mcg folate per pill.

How long should I wait before starting up methylfolate again?

Do some people require short-term methylation support only, and then they are back up and running for a long time?

Can you see any kind of pattern or offer insights / cofactors that may be important?


thank you.

Was your insomnia severe??? Could you sleep at all???! How long did it take for nicotinic acid to work??

 

[Freddd]

Was your insomnia severe??? Could you sleep at all???! How long did it take for nicotinic acid to work??

So far of me and a friend who had severe insomnia, both of us turned out to have low hormone (vit D is part of hormone system) and low D becasue not enough was getting made. It's lack could stop methylation in at least 5 discrete steps from start of methylation problem to total blocking of methylation. I was down to 2 lousy hours of sleep. hen I restarted testosterone it took 3-4 weeks to get back to good healing. The severe depression was gone in 3 hours after the injection of testosterone.