Ok
@Gondwanaland,
@Crux,
@JaimeS Right up front, I'm not the person who understands the chemistry behind all this, but I'm trying, mostly by trial and error and how my body feels to figure out a way out of where I've come to rest--so to speak, not in a great way!
The intersection of folate (neurtoxicity/inflammation), B2 and the rib soreness rings a gong for me.
I've been ramping up B2 fairly slowly (it was the only B vitamin I was actually deficient on last year when I had an OAT test) and trying to keep other things relatively low (not the B12 which is a steady 2,000mcg/day). Only when I stopped the folate for 6 days and tried yesterday to add 400 mcg back into my regimen did I feel just how much the B2 affected the relative strength of the folate. 400 mcg never felt so wild. Fun at first with more energy and light-heartedness and less pain. Then slowly the folate deficiency symptoms, the loose stool, IBS and at night when I couldn't sleep past an initial hour and a half, aching in the Dupytrens contracture in both hands.
Not pleasant.
I've had the rib sore spots for years. My gyn called the overall chest soreness costochondritis and I recall ppodjahski saying last year that taking FMN ultimately helped his costochondritis to go away--at least I thought he was referring to this symptom.
As to melatonin. Before I was sick it gave me wild dreams and I stayed away from it. Now, if I'm not wired, I can tolerate about 1/3 mg, a nibble really, and it does help (though at that amount I never noticed if it actually had an effect on pain levels) with sleep. If I take it and I'm wired, it gives me a very heavy chest feeling and slow breathing--sleep-like reactions, but with my mind still awake. Not particularly pleasant.
Now I'm staring at a bottle of Monolauren 600mg, given to me by my alternadoc for EBV and Herpes HHV6, among other stuff, probably, and wondering how much I ought to divide a cap into to see if I tolerate it. Years ago when I ramped up on coconut oil, I ended up with a pounding heart at night--though it's altogether possible that this had to do with what might have begun all my problems: folic acid...before I knew I needed to have B12 as a substrate, and probably the methyl form as well. I'd been on folic acid alone since I was 19 and the doctor who discovered my mother had taken DES when she was pregnant with me said I ought to be on 400-800mcg/day.
And then I think my inflammation began a slow creep...
I don't know if I'm joining any dots or not.
