Transdermal B12 oils

[garyfritz]

@Johnmac, I'm still feeling great on the oils. I haven't tried reducing my dosage in a while, but the last time I tried, maybe six months ago, it didn't work. It seems like I don't store excess, or I'm using the full triple dose, or something. I'm still using the ado/methyl oil 3X/day, but based on Freddd's advice I plan to try backing off to one adenosyl and two methyl per day. If that works well, I'll try reducing further.

I already asked Greg about the possibility of transdermal methylfolate. He said it doesn't work, for reasons I don't remember.

Sue hasn't been active on PR for quite a few months, and she hasn't used the oils for quite a while. She says she has completely healed herself using something called Reverse Therapy. I just discovered she has a blog about it at https://mychronicfatiguerecovery.wordpress.com.

 

[Johnmac]

Thanks @garyfritz.

I asked Greg about it today. His reply was:

Theoretically methyl folate would work in the oils, but folate is not very soluble and I am not sure about whether there would be a bad reaction to large doses of methyl folate.
It may be possible though.
Maybe later in the year.

The only person I know who has tried TD folate is @ahmo, in footbaths - she says successfully.

I'm began my first TD methylfolate about 3 hours ago: no effect yet. I crushed 4 Solgar tabs & mixed them with alcohol & hand lotion, then put the mix under a bandage on the inside of my arm.

What does 'using the full triple dose' mean?

Be interested to hear if separating the Ado & the methyl B12, a la Fred, has any different result.

Reverse Therapy looks interesting, from a scan of Sue's blog. I'll read the whole thing when I'm not so tired. (-:

Thanks for the feedback...

@Johnmac, I'm still feeling great on the oils. I haven't tried reducing my dosage in a while, but the last time I tried, maybe six months ago, it didn't work. It seems like I don't store excess, or I'm using the full triple dose, or something. I'm still using the ado/methyl oil 3X/day, but based on Freddd's advice I plan to try backing off to one adenosyl and two methyl per day. If that works well, I'll try reducing further.

I already asked Greg about the possibility of transdermal methylfolate. He said it doesn't work, for reasons I don't remember.

Sue hasn't been active on PR for quite a few months, and she hasn't used the oils for quite a while. She says she has completely healed herself using something called Reverse Therapy. I just discovered she has a blog about it at https://mychronicfatiguerecovery.wordpress.com.

 

[garyfritz]

Triple dose = 3 pumps per day, 1 in the morning, 2 at bedtime. Greg says I use more oil than any of his 800 other customers.

 

[winston]

I know these oils have been MUCH better for me than the sublinguals as they only take a few seconds whereas trying to get a sublingual remembered to be taken, let alone left in my mouth for any length of time left me feeling like it just wasn't working. I take more than recommended - switching between b12 methyl and b12 ice (adenosyl and other things). I've re-ordered once thinking that I was almost out - and got the order to the US long before I ran out ... I want to say I started using them shortly after finding this thread in early 2015 - so they seem to last me quite a while.

Hi Lynn, Gary, Little Bluestem, Pennyl, Greg said the problem when you are on SNRIs and you start to actually start making serotonin, dopamine, nor-epinephrine, epinephrine, etc and you start methyl B12 it will be like a massive overdose of the neurotransmitters. So it is a juggling act. We need to turn on the synthesis of these neurotransmitters and at least the same time wean you off the drug. This has already happened to me with three other Drs trying me on methyl B12 and resulted with severe depression and panic. I have been on the B group oil for a week and also a B2 supplement and am having some improvement. The Effexor I have been opening the capsule and withdrawing 4 extra beads each day and so far no withdrawal symptoms but it will take time. Happy to have found all of you who are finding improvement with there health by using B12 oils and supplements, I am hopeful.

Lena

 

[Johnmac]

Triple dose = 3 pumps per day, 1 in the morning, 2 at bedtime. Greg says I use more oil than any of his 800 other customers.

Hi Gary,

Have been emailing back & forth a lot with Greg myself. You did not lie about his customer service - amazing.

I'm going to get some oils when I get back to civilisation shortly - might meet him in Sydney & say hello.

In the meantime, I'm doing a DIY transdermal method (copied from @ahmo) - but including m-folate as well. Basically I grind up the mB12 (once a week it's Ado) & m-folate, mix the powder with alcohol & water, & apply that to my skin under a bandage. The effect is stronger than sublingual - I'd say about double - so I've been able to drop the dosage by 1/3.

Unless I have never had an effect from m-folate - & it's been a B12 effect all along, which I doubt - this suggests that methylfolate can work transdermally. Indeed a lot better than SL, which was anyway rotting my teeth.

There are still questions:

* Ado & mB12 together (Greg says fine - indeed necessary) or separate, the Freddd way?

* Cost. You're a high-user of B12: Let's say I need 2/3 of your dose. If I use two .25ml sprays a day from a 15ml bottle, that's 60 sprays per bottle divided by 2 = a bottle lasts me 30 days. At $40 a bottle, that's $1.33 a day. Country Life mB12 costs me 51 cents a day. So the oils are 2.6x the cost.

* I still can't work out how it works, penetration-wise. Any oil I put on my body without covering it (for example the present home-made mix) is dry within 30 minutes. That suggests that penetration has happened fairly quickly - which contradicts the idea that oils are slow-release. (Which they need to be to form a more gradual queue for the receptors, right?)

Anyway, thanks for getting me thinking on this TD business: it has paid dividends already.

BTW Greg might mix up a trial batch of m-folate oil for me to try.

Hope all is continuing well for you...

 

[garyfritz]

Good to hear that you're getting good results! I don't have any insights into the best methyl folate technique, but:

* I still can't work out how it works, penetration-wise. Any oil I put on my body without covering it (for example the present home-made mix) is dry within 30 minutes. That suggests that penetration has happened fairly quickly - which contradicts the idea that oils are slow-release. (Which they need to be to form a more gradual queue for the receptors, right?)

When you water a plant, the water soaks into the dirt right away. It takes much longer for the plant to draw it up into its roots and get it to the leaves. I think the same thing happens with the B12 oil. It soaks in between your skin cells quickly, but it takes hours for it to migrate into the bloodstream where your body can use it.

 

[Johnmac]

Oh, okay, thanks @garyfritz. That makes sense.

 

[skwag]

For those users who are making their own b12 oils or lotions, I wanted to bring this thread to your attention.

Methylcobalamin Group Buy

I imagine there are a lot of savings to be had using your own powder if you already have a workable lotion. You can also avoid any of the fillers used in the more commonly available b12 sources.

This powder is actually very good in my opinion, and worth looking into even if you are not interested in the group buy at present.

Hope this helps.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

@garyfritz I'm asking here as it seems the more appropriate thread. Over in the "group buy" discussion you recently said:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?members/20/
"... I know you're not a fan of constant AdoB12. I haven't tested it enough to be certain, but I can say with certainty that methyl-only oil didn't work well for me, and Ado/Methyl mixture (3:1) has worked well for over a year. (Though it may be losing some effectiveness in the last few months.)" [my bold]

I had been corresponding with the B12Oils guy this week (who, again, has been fantastically responsive and thorough) having just found this thread, and was ready to dive in based on your experience. However if the oils are no longer working for you very well after 1 year I am given pause.

Is it a matter of having to dose higher or more frequently (losing tolerance) or some other issue? Might you be willing to share more about your experience start to present, and what issues you may be having now with them? Thanking you in advance.

 

[garyfritz]

I don't think it indicates a problem with the oil product. I suspect it's a result of changes in my own biochemistry. I've had several other effective products stop working for no obvious reason. The oil is still helping me, but my sleep issues a starting to bother me again.

As for my own history, I've posted several versions. Try these:

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-a-high-need-for-b12.41503/page-2#post-679676
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/jarrow-did-it-change.18154/page-9#post-661850
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/transdermal-b12-oils.33172/page-12#post-656870

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I don't think it indicates a problem with the oil product. I suspect it's a result of changes in my own biochemistry. I've had several other effective products stop working for no obvious reason. The oil is still helping me, but my sleep issues a starting to bother me again.

As for my own history, I've posted several versions. ...

Thanks @garyfritz ! Very helpful background and additional context. May I ask what your favored methylfolate supplement might be? You mentioned needing 400-800mcg. Thanks again.

 

[garyfritz]

I don't really have a favorite. I've used several. I don't have nearly as direct of a cause/effect result from folate as I do from B12, so I haven't found one to work a lot better than another.

 

[Little Bluestem]

I don't think it indicates a problem with the oil product. I suspect it's a result of changes in my own biochemistry.

Meeting one deficiency can reveal another. Freddd has written about this.

 

[garyfritz]

Possible. But I haven't really changed anything significant. I've been on the same B12 regimen for over a year. Within the last month or two I've had a bit more trouble with sleep.

 

[winston]

Possible. But I haven't really changed anything significant. I've been on the same B12 regimen for over a year. Within the last month or two I've had a bit more trouble with sleep.

Hi Gary, how are you doing, has your sleep improved? Wanted to update my progress on the B12 oils. Started B2 150 mg supplements early part of January and started to titrate down the Effexor. January 20 received B Group oil and started with one squirt and the next week went to two squirts. Emailed Greg to let him know something is happening....feeling slightly better. Started Adeno/Methyl on February 15. My condition continued to slowly improve. Fatigue, energy and motivation improved. Racing heart - gone, depression - gone, tremors - gone, weakness in legs - gone, early morning breathing problems -gone and nausea is gone. I have been off the Effexor for 10 days and have no depression and not much withdrawal symptoms. Now I need to get off the Xanax for sleep. Excited about the progress, Greg says it takes about one year to build B12 reserve in your liver. Looking forward for more improvements.

Lena

 

[garyfritz]

Fantastic, Lena! Sounds like you've made **incredible** progress in a very short time! Hope it continues.

I've been on the oil for over a year, but I don't think I've built much of a reserve. I still sometimes have B12 symptoms in the evenings when my daily dose is wearing off. Apparently I have a messed up B12 metabolism. Greg has always been mystified why I burn through so much mB12.

Sleep still a bit messed up -- waking up at 4am with symptoms similar to my old B12 symptoms, but B12 doesn't touch it. It may be a potassium issue, since I woke with agitation this morning and then about 300mcg of potassium seemed to calm me down. I'll keep experimenting with it.

 

[Johnmac]

I have been ordering this B12 oil in 3-packs since last year. I love it and hope I never have to go back to sublinguals. I believe I definitely have been storing B12 in my liver because the other day I forgot to use the B12 with my morning 5mg of methylfolate...and had absolutely no negative effects! I didn't realize I'd skipped a day until it occurred to me the next morning. My B12 deficiency symptoms were never as severe as some on this board, but for the first few months of use if I didn't use it first thing in the morning my energy felt very shaky/unstable; then once I had applied the oil I would start getting an "ahhh..." relaxed/stable feeling. Much more potent than sublinguals (I already had receding gums before starting those anyway, don't need any more of that). I rub one pump of oil into my forearm, then alternate to the other arm every other day. For me it has been totally worth the cost and the ordering from Australia.

@tayaway, are you still benefiting from the oils?

Greg says we PR people overdo the methylfolate, & that you need much less if you are taking B2. (B2 is essential if you are taking B12.) Hve you tried the oils with B2 + less m-folate?

 

[garyfritz]

I've actually been experimenting with methyl folate lately. I had been taking 2000mcg or more per day, but I didn't have any clear symptoms that it seemed to help. So I decided to see what my minimum requirement was. I stepped down to 1000mcg, down to 400mcg, and for the last 2+ weeks (until last night) I have had **NO** folate except from food sources -- and I didn't notice any issues. Apparently I'm taking enough B2 so I don't need supplemental folate.

I do think, though, that folic acid can mess that up. I generally try to stay away from folic acid (like wheat products) but I'm not fanatical about it. Last night I took my son out for pizza and ate half a 14" deep-dish pizza, including most of the crust. At about 2am I woke with what seemed to be my classic B12 deficiency symptoms: agitation, muscle twitching, etc. I took more B12 and it didn't help. I took 1000mcg of folate -- first I've had in weeks -- and that helped a lot. But I still had some agitation & twitching. I took about 800mcg of potassium (chloride) and that finally settled me down.

This isn't the first time chowing down on pizza has caused a night like this. I've had the same problem with the same pizza place, and it took folate to snap me out of it that time too. Though last month I had even more pizza one night, with no problem. But that was more of a "natural" pizza place and they may have used non-enriched (no added folic acid) flour?

So anyway. I suspect Greg is right, and I don't normally need the folate I've been taking. But I will keep some on hand for situations like last night.

 

[Kathevans]

@garyfritz Your story about the folic acid in your pizza was interesting. And your overall Folate story as well. Since I started Freddd's methylation protocol I've always used Folate and MeB12 in tandem, raising one, then the other and so forth. So really, I have no idea just what the Folate alone does (other than give me massive folate deficiency symptoms--the increased inflammation, runny nose, tight trapezius muscles, headache, which come and go as the folate rises and falls in my system), and it's entirely possible that you and @Johnmac are right, that B2 would serve to deliver what folate we need from the food we eat--perhaps with minor supplementation (as Greg of B-12 Oils says) of 400-800mcg--and help us avoid some of the hyped feelings we (or I at any rate) get from increasing levels of Folate above 1200mcg/day.

That said, after increasing my Seeking Health B-Minus Complex yesterday to increase my B2 to 20mg, the higher folate it helped to deliver was definitely too much for me today. I felt very hyper and sort of tight-chested for about an hour after taking it each time. I'm going to lower it again tomorrow. And have ordered more B2, which I hope my body will work better with than the coenzymated form FMN, which made me feel weird over time. Strange...

 

[Johnmac]

I have not been tested, @caledonia (at least not recently). But I've taken lithium orotate before, and am taking it now -- I'm out of town but I think it's 5mg Pure Encapsulations -- and I didn't feel a thing from it.

I hair tested low lithium too, & also didn't feel a thing from supplementation. (Hair tests can be skewed by mercury, so I'm not sure how real the 'low' reading was in the first place.)

A friend tested similarly low, & supplemented Li orotate daily for a year. In his next hair test the Li was off-the-charts high. So I only take an Li pill now & again these days.