For the last few months I have been using the
methylcobalamin + adenosylcobalamin vitamin B12 transdermal oil developed by Dr Greg Russell-Jones in Australia, which he recommends for ME/CFS.
This transdermal B12 oil has made very noticeable improvements in my brain fog and cognitive clarity.
The cognitive clarity effects of this B12 oil kick in fast: I find within 2 or 3 hours of rubbing the B12 oil into my skin, I start to feel increased cognitive clarity; and this mental clarity lasts for around 3 days on just one transdermal dose of the B12 oil.
So you may only need to apply the B12 oil once every 2 or 3 days — though Greg recommends the B12 oil should be used daily if you are aiming for sustained improvements in your ME/CFS.
Greg has a PhD in biochemistry, and an in-depth knowledge of B12. Greg's website on which sells his various B12 oils is here:
www.b12oils.com
This is the first time I've obtained cognitive improvements from B12. Some years ago, I tried B12 hydroxocobalamin injections, but without noticing any benefits. And I did not get this type of cognitive boost from sublingual methylcobalamin (although I never tried methylcobalamin injections). However I found the methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin forms of B12 in Greg's product have a clearcut beneficial effect on my brain fog.
Methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin are the 2 active forms of B12, whereas hydroxocobalamin is an inactive form that has to be converted to the active forms in the body.
I found it easy to notice the cognitive benefits of this B12 oil, because they kick in within hours. So I can be feeling pretty brain fogged at the beginning of the day, then apply the B12 oil, and within a few hours I am in a state of significantly increased cognitive clarity.
Greg I believe uses a microemulsion skin penetration enhancer technology in his B12 oils that allows B12 to efficiently penetrate across the skin and into the body (he authored a
paper on microemulsion transdermal delivery, and has expertise in such penetration enhancers).
Greg estimates that with this penetration enhancer, around 80% of the B12 in his oil is absorbed when rubbed into the skin, which means the B12 doses you get from this oil are comparable to B12 injections.
In fact Greg says B12 oil may be better than injections, because the B12 oil provides a slow release mechanism as it penetrates the skin, allowing the body to better utilize the B12, compared to the short-lived spike in B12 levels that you get from a B12 injection.
Greg's Adenosyl/Methyl B12 oil comes in a pump bottle, and the pump measures out a dose of 0.25 ml of oil, which contains adenosylcobalamin
1.8 mg and methylcobalamin
0.7 mg — a total of
2.5 mg (2500 mcg) of vitamin B12. You pump a dose of this oil into your hand, and then rub into your skin.
Remember, it's estimated around 80% of this B12 is absorbed, so you can see that you are getting high doses into your system: you are going get the equivalent of a 80% x 2.5 = 2 mg B12 injection from one dose of the B12 oil.
The cost is $50 for one bottle containing up to 60 x 2.5 mg B12 doses (or $40 a bottle if you buy 3 or more); it sounds a little expensive, but if you compare that to the cost of sixty B12 injections, it's quite good value.
The skin should not be wet or damp when you apply the B12 oil, because Greg says this will reduce absorption. With B12 oils containing methylcobalamin, it may be best to apply to skin areas that are covered by clothes and so not exposed to light (eg, your belly), as methylcobalamin breaks down under light exposure.
I noticed two side effects from the B12 oil, though (but both have solutions):
(1) Sometimes around 2 hours after applying the B12 oil, I would get hit with a
wave of increased tiredness and increased brain fog that would last for around 4 hours before clearing up. I think this may be due to a transient hypokalemia (low blood potassium), which high doses of B12 are known to sometimes cause.
But I found that if I take around 400 mg or so of oral potassium at the same time as applying the B12 oil, this prevents the wave of tiredness (you get around 400 mg of potassium in a banana). I contacted Greg about this, and he thinks the hypokalemia arises from B12's effect on aldosterone, a hormone which controls the blood sodium/potassium balance.
(2) Often this B12 oil containing methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin would cause an
overstimulation effect. My hunch was this might be due to over-methylation, so I started experimenting with taking oral niacinamide 500 mg at the same time as applying the B12 oil (niacinamide supposedly inhibits methylation, I've read), and it seems to counter the overstimulation.
