PEM busters for cognition???

[Sarah94]

Hi

@Hip has a great list of PEM busters for when you've physically overexerted, but what about for when you've mentally overexerted?

Usually anti inflammatories are my go-to for this - turmeric/curcumin and ibuprofen - but this is no help to me anymore, because I'm already every day taking the maximum safe dose of ibuprofen and the maximum dose of Turmeric/curcumin that I can (it has to be taken with food containing fat in order to be absorbed by the body, and I currently take a turmeric capsule with every single meal or snack that I have).

Is there anything else that can help?!

If I overexert myself too much cognitively, I don't seem to ever recover from it. Each time that ive screwed up my pacing, I've had to permanently increase my dose of curcumin in order to prevent my cognitive function from deteriorating. Now, I can't increase my dose of curcumin any further. So I'm terrified that now, if I ever accidentally overexert myself again, I'll just deteriorate permanently - and then keep deteriorating permanently, because the worse I get, the harder it is to avoid overexertion.

 

[taniaaust1]

For myself I found out through hair testing that I was deficient in molybdenum .. and then supplementing that helped my brain quite a bit (in it's working ability eg doing maths and things like that)

Many kinds of deficiencies will cause a person to have more brain problems so this is also an area you could look at and try to improve.

 

[Hip]

what about for when you've mentally overexerted?

I found the B12 oils pretty effective for improving brain fog and cognition.

 

[Sarah94]

I found the B12 oils pretty effective for improving brain fog and cognition.

I'm already taking max dose of transdermal B12

 

[Hip]

I'm already taking max dose of transdermal B12

Is that Greg's B12 oil from Australia you are using? If not, I doubt if you are actually absorbing much B12, as not much of this vitamin gets through the skin, unless you use the skin penetration enhancer technology devised by Greg and found in his oils.

 

[Sarah94]

Is that Greg's B12 oil from Australia you are using? If not, I doubt if you are actually absorbing much B12, as not much of this vitamin gets through the skin, unless you use the skin penetration enhancer technology devised by Greg and found in his oils.

I am using Dr Myhill's B12 spray which also has a penetration enhancer. I tried Greg's too and found no difference in effectiveness between the two.

 

[Hip]

I am using Dr Myhill's B12 spray which also has a penetration enhancer. I tried Greg's too and found no difference in effectiveness between the two.

Did you also take Greg's recommended cofactors, particular vitamin B2 which he thinks is very important for B12 to work.

Looks like Dr Myhill's B12 spray claims 6% will be absorbed transdermally; Greg estimates that about 80% of his spray gets absorbed.

 

[Sarah94]

Did you also take Greg's recommended cofactors, particular vitamin B2 which he thinks is very important for B12 to work.

Looks like Dr Myhill's B12 spray claims 6% will be absorbed transdermally; Greg estimates that about 80% of his spray gets absorbed.

Re absorption - yeah, but the recommended doses are different. Using the max dose of Dr Myhill's spray actually gives slightly more B12 than the recommended dose of Greg's.

No I'm not taking the cofactors, apart from the 1 mg of B2 that's in my multivitamin. There was a huge difference in my cognition between before I started B12 and after I reached the highest dose of it. (That improvement lasted for a few months but unfortunately I've deteriorated recently due to overexertion and am now almost back to how I was before ). I'm doing a Genova NutrEval soon-ish and that should tell me if I'm needing more of B2 or of the other cofactors. (Unfortunately I can't get the NutrEval test done until September sadly. Am scared that I won't be able to prevent myself from accidentally overexerting and thus making myself worse between now and then.)

 

[Hip]

I'm doing a Genova NutrEval soon-ish and that should tell me if I'm needing more of B2 or of the other cofactors.

People often think that a nutrient blood test can determine whether a vitamin or mineral might be beneficial. If you are deficient, then certainly the appropriate vitamin or mineral should help; but a nutrient test cannot tell you if high doses of a vitamin or mineral — doses beyond your nutritional needs — might be useful. That you can only know by trying.

 

[Sarah94]

People often think that a nutrient blood test can determine whether a vitamin or mineral might be beneficial. If you are deficient, then certainly the appropriate vitamin or mineral should help; but a nutrient test cannot tell you if high doses of a vitamin or mineral — doses beyond your nutritional needs — might be useful. That you can only know by trying.

Very true, good point!
I do worry though about whether a high dose of one nutrient would induce a functional deficiency in another. I see people on PR saying things like "taking thiamin gave me a high need for phosphorus", and this kinda stresses me out because I don't get how people can figure out stuff like that and I don't want to screw up my biochemistry.

 

[Hip]

My approach is always to start with low doses of any new supplement or drug I try. ME/CFS patients can be sensitive to medications, and get hit with side effects. It's only after the side effects hit you release that particular medication may not suit you. But if you start with low doses, then if some side effects do hit, at least they will be minimized because of the reduced dose.

 

[Sarah94]

My approach is always to start with low doses of any new supplement or drug I try. ME/CFS patients can be sensitive to medications, and get hit with side effects. It's only after the side effects hit you release that particular medication may not suit you. But if you start with low doses, then if some side effects do hit, at least they will be minimized because of the reduced dose.

Yep. It's a bummer when things can't be bought in low doses!
E.g. Thiamin - can either take 1mg or 50mg of it!

 

[Alvin2]

I don't think you can overdose on B12.
Though you might max out on how much it helps, you may find if you take more its not doing anything extra but afaik toxicity is not an issue.

 

[Hip]

Yep. It's a bummer when things can't be bought in low doses!

You can just cut the tablets into quarters with a sharp knife. Or if it is a capsule, open the capsule and divide the powder into quarters or eighths.

 

[Learner1]

I've found that glutathione, BCAAs, NAD+ and hydrocortisone each help my cognitive symptoms in diffetent ways.

People often think that a nutrient blood test can determine whether a vitamin or mineral might be beneficial. If you are deficient, then certainly the appropriate vitamin or mineral should help; but a nutrient test cannot tell you if high doses of a vitamin or mineral — doses beyond your nutritional needs — might be useful. That you can only know by trying.

What the NutrEval is excellent at is looking at entire pathways, and helping one identify cofactors that are needed to make a pathway work.

Over time, repeating the test has highlighted nutrients I have a particularly high need for, like B12, B6, and B2 that just guessing eoukd never have helped me figure out. For instance, my B6 was always deficient until I got up to a dose of 350mg of P5P - and if you look it up its used in over 100 different tasks in the body. You'll also find the recommended daily value is something like 1.5mg, which is ridiculously low for me, and that there have been reports of toxicity at 200mg, which is not the case for me - I wouldn't have dared to up my dose so high without the confidence of the test results.

I do worry though about whether a high dose of one nutrient would induce a functional deficiency in another. I see people on PR saying things like "taking thiamin gave me a high need for phosphorus", and this kinda stresses me out because I don't get how people can figure out stuff like that an

Taking a high dose of one thing without attending to the cofactors can very much produce functional deficiencies of others. Thats why its so important to look at entire pathways (and how the pathways interact) rather than focusing on on single nutrients. And be aware of the different pathways a single nutrient is used in. B6 is an often overlooked player in methylation, so upping other methylation nutrients (folate, B12) without looking at B6, might leave you short of B6 for heme production or B6 for sphingolipid production, both of which have been identified as area of interest in ME/CFS.

 

[Hip]

For instance, my B6 was always deficient until I got up to a dose of 350mg of P5P

That does not sound right, taking huge megadoses of the active form of vitamin B6 just to satisfy daily nutritional needs.

Are you sure the NutrEval test is reliable?

Taking a high dose of one thing without attending to the cofactors can very much produce functional deficiencies of others.

If the body were so sensitive to high doses of nutrients, we'd all become ill whenever we ate a foodstuff high in one particular nutrient, such Brazil nuts (very high in selenium) or bananas (high in potassium).

 

[Learner1]

That does not sound right, taking huge megadoses of the active form of vitamin B6 just to satisfy daily nutritional needs.

Are you sure the NutrEval test is reliable?

Yes, it is reliable. I've used it for 10 years and correlated it vs other tests in many occasions and found it to be accurate. It uses the better versions of tests, such as MMA for B12, rather than the fairly useless serum B12.

I am not only taking high amounts of B6, not do I recommend taking a high dose of any nutrient in isolation. I also take high amounts of other nutrients that it's a cofactors with. But my family seems to need more B6 thsn others, so I suspect there's a genetic factor we hsbent yet identified.

If the body were so sensitive to high doses of nutrients, we'd all become ill whenever we ate a foodstuff high in one particular nutrient, such Brazil nuts (very high in selenium) or bananas (high in potassium).

There was a House episode with a patient who had symptoms of radiation poisoning traced to his Brazil nut consumption.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatever_It_Takes_(House)

From: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Selenium-HealthProfessional/

"Brazil nuts contain very high amounts of selenium (68–91 mcg per nut) and could cause selenium toxicity if consumed regularly."

It depends on how dense the content of a particular nutrient is in a given foodstuff, how water or fat soluble the nutrient is, our need for that nutrient, and the threshold for toxicity. You'd have to consume more fiber than you care to to OD on the potassium in bananas.

And...even too much water is toxic
..