some help please . . . too much or not enough folate / potassium

[wendyh]

I started Fredds protocol 10 days ago with 1 x 1mg Enzymatic Therapy B12 and 200mg folate 4 times per day. The first few days were great with lots more energy.

Then on day 3 I started to get pain in my jaw where I had root canal treatment about 2 years ago. I thought this might be that startup had occurred and this was inflammation so perhaps needed to increase my folate. I also felt lightheaded and fatigued again.

Thinking the fatigue could be low potassium, I upped my intake by 270mg a day. I'm now at 1600mg but still feeling fatigued. Do I need to up my potassium more?

Along with the light headedness, I also got slight edema in my feet so again thought I needed to increase my folate. I've increased this a bit each day and was up to 400mg x 4 times per day.

However, I'm still lightheaded and fatigued, similar to before I started the B12 and folate, and not sure what I need to do next?

I tried increasing my dose of folate at lunchtime today to 800mg but that left me feeling a bit agitated (not a feeling I normally get) It did seem to increase my need for potassium, so I took some extra.

I'm not sure now whether my levels of potassium and folate are too high or too low?

I thought I'd read that the ratio of folate to B12 should be about 1:1 so that doesn't fit that I need to increase folate?

I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts on what I should do next?

Thanks

 

[sregan]

@wendyh 200mcg (mot mg) of folate (what type?) I was getting dental pain also. Do you know your genetics? I'm guessing you might need more MB12. I don't think it will hurt to try that. If you are MTR and/or MTRR ++,+/- you may need more MB12 than folate. I need 2x as much mb12 as mfolate I've found.

 

[wendyh]

@wendyh 200mcg (mot mg) of folate (what type?) I was getting dental pain also. Do you know your genetics? I'm guessing you might need more MB12. I don't think it will hurt to try that. If you are MTR and/or MTRR ++,+/- you may need more MB12 than folate. I need 2x as much mb12 as mfolate I've found.

Thanks

Whoops, yes that should have been 200mcg and it's Solgar metafolin.

Did your dental pain go and how?

No I don't know my genetics. I did wonder if I needed more MB12 but was trying to take things slowly but perhaps that's not going to work if I need more MB12 than the folate.

 

[sregan]

Thanks

Whoops, yes that should have been 200mcg and it's Solgar metafolin.

And that seems to be the most potent from what I've read. So maybe you just need more mb12

Did your dental pain go and how?

No I don't know my genetics. I did wonder if I needed more MB12 but was trying to take things slowly but perhaps that's not going to work if I need more MB12 than the folate.

It's gone now, but seemed to be a startup thing for me but when I started increasing my mb12 in relation to mfolate things have been much better overall.

 

[wendyh]

And that seems to be the most potent from what I've read. So maybe you just need more mb12

It's gone now, but seemed to be a startup thing for me but when I started increasing my mb12 in relation to mfolate things have been much better overall.

Thank you, that's really helpful. I'll try increasing the mb12 then.

 

[Critterina]

@wendyh , @sregan ,

Some people say that you need 3x-5x more mB12 than folate. Myself, I can easily tolerate 15x, but I'm MTHFR C677T -/- and MTRR A66G +/+. We are all so unique! LOL

 

[wendyh]

Thank you @Critterina hopefully increasing the mb12 will help me!

 

[Critterina]

Thank you @Critterina hopefully increasing the mb12 will help me!

It's something to try. Good luck with it!

 

[wendyh]

The dental pain got worse and became an infection under a root canal treatment so the tooth was taken out. This solved the dental pain problem.

I cut back on the folate and just took the 10mg that was in the Thorne multivitamin. I kept the mb12 at 1mg per day.

Although overall I feel as if I'm improving, the past week I've had a terrible headache and insomnia (seem to struggle switching my brain off even though I feel really tired.) which I can't seem to get rid of.

I wondered if I needed more potassium so increased this from 1g to 2g per day. This hasn't made any difference. I wonder if I need more potassium? But 2g 'seems' a lot to me.

I wondered if I was over methylating so 3 days ago I stopped the 1g mb12 but still get 200mg mb12 in the multivitamin. This hasn't helped the headaches and insomnia.

Today I haven't taken any multivitamin so that I'd stopped all the mb12 and folate. But still no improvements with the headaches.

Any ideas what I need to do now? Do I need more potassium?

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

[caledonia]

In general, you're starting at way too high of a dose.

Please read the document "Roadblocks to Successful Methylation" in my signature links.

 

[wendyh]

In general, you're starting at way too high of a dose.

Please read the document "Roadblocks to Successful Methylation" in my signature links.

Thank you., I think you're right. I thought I was starting low but guess that my version of low is still far too high.

Aside from stopping the mb12 and folate until the headache and insomnia clears, is there anything else you can suggest I do to help?

I really appreciate your thoughts.

 

[aturtles]

With great, great respect to @caledonia , not all of us start low and slow, and there is more than one way up this mountain.

I started at 15mg L-MTHF and rapidly went to 10mg MeCbl and AdoCbl. Why? I had already incurred the cost of a rocky startup by the time I found out about the methylation cycle because of my deplin-15 prescription -- I was on only L-MTHF for 2 weeks and it was, yes, rough. It evened out tremendously when I added in the active B12s and the rest of the Deadlock Quartet. Even so, healing the methylation cycle can be rocky even when it's going well.

And it is going very very well for me. It's working. Wow, is it working.

We are all quite different, @wendyh, in our needs and our solutions, which is why you read so much variances here. And this model - the methylation model - is SO incredibly new to the medical establishment-- only the last 10 years at most -- that we here doing this work are very much on the cutting edge, clinically speaking. That means that each of us, while we can (if we're lucky) find a doctor who knows ANYTHING about this stuff (good luck, but it IS possible), must be responsible for taking on ourselves as our own experiments. That means for each of us, what risks we are willing to take to get where we need to go. I was in bad enough shape that I was willing to risk a lot.

That said, I have spoken to a few very knowledgeable medical doctors who have assured me that this protocol is pretty damned safe; you can't overdose on B12s, though yes, the road may be uncomfortable, for sure.

I went through rockier times before the B12s with my high dose of L-MTHF than I ever did with the B12s, for what that's worth.

As for potassium, Wendy, I advocate you listen to your body and see if you can learn its signals for wanting more. Don't worry about too much potassium -- there's a lot of unnecessary fear around potassium. As long as your kidneys are healthy, it's "almost impossible to overdose" -- the kidney specialist I talked to. I take 4-5 grams (yes, GRAMS) a day, in water, of potassium gluconate powder. (He didnt' even blink at this amount.) I drink that when I feel a particular kind of foggy headed -- which it clears up quickly -- or when I feel my heartbeat go heavy. It was hard for me to learn this signaling, to pay attention to a body that was always foggy-headed, but it worked for me.

Oh boy did it work. My life has changed. My focus, my energy, my body. Life-changing stuff for many of us, mehtylation.

 

[caledonia]

With great, great respect to @caledonia , not all of us start low and slow, and there is more than one way up this mountain.

From Ben Lynch:
http://mthfr.net/methylfolate-side-effects/2012/03/01/

There appear to be three types of responses to methylfolate:

FIRST: A person who can jump on methylfolate and feel absolutely wonderful. The only down side they experience is why didn’t they know about methylfolate before?!

SECOND: A person starts methylfolate has an amazingly incredible week where they are happy, interacting and alert. Then the second week comes and they switch to wanting to hide in a room by themselves or literally throw dishes across the room out of anger. Or they may become bed ridden from muscle aches, intense headaches or joint pain.

THIRD: A person takes a small amount of methylfolate and feels all the methylfolate side effects right out the gate.

You're very lucky if you fit into category #1. Not everyone can be that lucky. The safest and most responsible thing is to suggest that people start low and slow. They can always ramp up to much higher doses if they're doing well with no bad side effects.

 

[aturtles]

From Ben Lynch:
http://mthfr.net/methylfolate-side-effects/2012/03/01/

You're very lucky if you fit into category #1. Not everyone can be that lucky. The safest and most responsible thing is to suggest that people start low and slow. They can always ramp up to much higher doses if they're doing well with no bad side effects.

@caledonia, I don't fit into any of those categories. I read that quote early on, too, and I'm here to tell you that not everyone has such clearly delineated responses. I'm glad for Lynch's work, but he doesn't know everything, and he sure doesn't know me.

My first week was some fabulous moments sunk into long expanses of various forms of hell. My second was only slightly better. The third week, starting active B12s, things started to improve. After that, a lot of roller-coastering, up and down, as I adjusted DQ and co-factors. I worked hard to find what worked for me in that time, with a LOT of uncertainty and fear and risk before finding what is so far a three-week steady state.

I'm not lucky, not at all -- I spent four decades in various forms of suffering. I only began to figure out my methylation issues recently, and I am still figuring it out. Every single day is an experiment for me.

But every day that I can think clearly, not hurt, and sleep well is nothing short of a miracle.

It might be biochemistry and experimentation, but I assure you it isn't luck.

 

[caledonia]

@caledonia, I don't fit into any of those categories.

Originally it sounded like you were describing a #1 situation, so that's why I said you were lucky.

But actually, based on further description, I would guess you're a #2 or #3, or some combination of both.

There are various roadblocks that can cause the various forms of hell you describe, depending on genetics + functional issues. It sounds like you've managed to debug them so far. Congratulations, and good luck on your continued journey to health.

Stop back and let us know how you're doing, ok?

 

[aturtles]

Stop back and let us know how you're doing, ok?

I will. It's the least I can do for the help I've gotten here.