Views on B12--Greg (B12 oils) view vs Rich Van's view--Thoughts?

Pyrrhus

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As for the cobalamin losing its groups when entering the cell, what benefit is there of taking both methyl and adenosyl forms?

I'm not sure. I just take hydroxo-B12, since that seems to be the primary transport form of B12 in the blood.
(along with methyl-folate and other B vitamins, of course)

But I also support my body's supply of methyl donors by taking choline and creatine. Most of the body's natural production of methyl donors are used up in the body's synthesis of choline and creatine, so by supplementing a little choline and creatine, I free up most of my body's natural supply of methyl donors for other purposes.[1]

Does it perhaps maintain the availability of the two groups within the cell?

Probably, it would stand to reason. But I don't think the cell needs a whole lot of adenosyl- groups hanging around. I could see how taking methyl-B12 instead of hydroxo-B12 might ensure that the cells that need B12 have sufficient methyl groups available. So maybe.

Also, @Pyrrhus, would you say you're cured?

Not at all. I went from severe to moderate, give or take. Before, I could not concentrate long enough to read and comprehend a full paragraph, or to even compose a simple email. I spent 6 years lurking here on Phoenix Rising before I became well enough to make my first post.

Hope this helps.

Reference
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16400042/
 
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@Athene* Thanks for clarifying that. What I'm puzzled about is how can people miss out on that; selenium, iodine, molybdenum and B2 are fairly common supps for 'us' sufferers, you'd think this isn't overlooked.

I'm still reading through the thread, rather convinced to try the oils and I wish I had done that sooner, will definitely report.
 

Athene*

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Having been on Greg's oils for about three days I can say that it's knocking me out too. I've had increased fatigue, weird and horrible spinal/back pain and heart rate has gone very high.

However, I'm only taking a fraction of a squirt. I put it in an opaque tub, dip my finger in every day and rub it into my skin. I'm going to keep at it because I'm a masochist and have been a very naughty boy Greg says there can be startup effects (why does everything have startup effects?!).

I'm baffled as to how oral methylfolate can improve my condition but the oil can worsen it. Either it's Greg's theory playing out and I've never had B12 anywhere near this quantity, or it's the adenosyl.

Interestingly, I read a paper that says that all forms of cobalamin are stripped of their methyl/adenosyl/hydroxyl groups in the cytosol and these are added back later when needed, although it's not the same molecule that was taken off that gets added back. Kind of goes against a lot of my thinking.

As well as the AdoCbl being too much for me, I remember getting hydroxocobalamin side effects from the oils sometimes, which for me is scalp and face acne. I get that from a lot of sublingual MeCbl brands too, and am still searching for a pure one to use in between injections. Enzymatic Therapy used to work for me, but not anymore.

Hydroxocobalamin wouldn't bother a lot people but I really need a pure methylcobalamin.

Fred was going to experiment with taking hydroxocobalamin now that he's achieved homeostasis and can use and recycle b12 so much more easily. He decided not to risk it in the end. With me, for now, it has to be MeCbl only and it's difficult to get hold of a good brand of injection too.

It took me years to increase AdoCbl past 1/4 of a 10mg sublingual tablet and even that knocked me out when I forced myself to continue with it. Now I tolerate 50mg CNS dose, just about, every fortnight, and 10mg in the other weeks is no problem.

For me, getting replete with vitamin D, magnesium and copper allowed me to ramp up the AdoCbl easily. I guess I had limiting factors at different times, especially the D.

I took TMG daily from the beginning also as Fred advised it can take the edge off AdoCbl, though I never noticed it helping. Maybe I'd have been worse without it.

Good luck. You're obviously heading in the right direction anyhow because people who aren't deficient wouldn't notice anything if they took tons of the stuff.
 
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Have any of you guys who have been exchanging emails with Greg asked him whether he suggests mercury chelation before supplementing with his oils or it's something that can be done at the same time?
@Kathevans did you open a pill of DMSA and mixed it in a liquid and took sips of it at intervals to ingest the desired amount of DMSA?
edit: I've found Living Supplements has all sorts of dosages.
I just read it normalizes RBC gluthiatone too.
 
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Kathevans

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Boston, Massachusetts
What I'm puzzled about is how can people miss out on that; selenium, iodine, molybdenum and B2 are fairly common supps for 'us' sufferers, you'd think this isn't overlooked.
Note that in earlier posts I talk about the forms of these minerals and how they are taken. This is essential - at least it has been for me--a person with gut issues and an oral infection I've had for as long as I've had Fibro/chronic fatigue. No citric acid (including taking at the same time as Vit C), or taking with lemon juice. In fact, best taken on an empty stomach a.m. and p.m. The forms that work best--or at all--are SELENITE (I took selenATE for years to no avail; this was after I ate 3 Brazil Nuts /day, recommended by Greg back in 2015 or 16); MOLYBDATE (again, make sure if you titrate up drops as I did, that they don't have citric acid as a preservative!); and IODIDE.

This last has been tricky for me because I had been using BodyBio's Potassium Iodide for YEARS, and was taking up to 450 mcg/day. But my TSH was still over 3, and Greg has said it must be somewhere between .5 and 1.5. Adding the correct form of SELENITE made inroads to my thryroid number over a 6 month period last year when the TSH dropped below 2 for the first time in a decade or more. But I still wasn't making enough T4-- Greg says T4 under 7 means you probably need more iodide. So, I switched from bodyBio to Genestra and had much stronger start-up reactions (the Genestra is a natural form of IODIDE made from Kelp). I am still on my way up to 300mcg, after which I will wait another 4 weeks or so and re-do my thyroid tests. With each quarter drop increase, I find my sleep improves a bit and becomes more consolidated, though whether this will last, I have no idea. My view is that all of this, for me, is in service to ultimately activating B2 (which btw, is not so easy to utilize, no matter how much you take!) into FMN and FAD, the levels for which I have been 'HIGH NEED' on NutrEval since the first time I took the test back in 2014. If you cannot activate B2 into FMN and FAD, you are just flushing it down the toilet...

Another thing. Back in December I began to exhibit re-feeding symptoms that only Selenite would quench. Though Greg recommends taking no more than 200mcg of Selenite, I tried raising it with success, or an alleviation of the symptoms, then followed the symptoms till they resolved at 300mcg/day of selenite. I am hoping that with a hair-mineral analysis - which Greg has ideal numbers for apparently--I can then lower the selenite. Concerned over taking too much, I also got on PR and searched the threads and found that there was at least one person--I think it was @Hip who took higher doses without negative affect.

Have any of you guys who have been exchanging emails with Greg asked him whether he suggests mercury chelation before supplementing with his oils or it's something that can be done at the same time?
@Kathevans did you open a pill of DMSA and mixed it in a liquid and took sips of it at intervals to ingest the desired amount of DMSA?

Greg will never recommend chelation! He does say, however, that if methylation is working you won't have problems with mercury. Well...of course, many of us have basic issues with methylation! If you ask Greg about chelation he will tell you not to waste your money. That said, most of my physiological and mental issues (serious anxiety disorders) have followed issues with my teeth: nitric oxide as a child to cavity filling with amalgam, and later, in my twenties, for wisdom tooth removal, the removal of amalgam at 19 in failing teeth, replaced by crowns.

As much as I believe in Greg and appreciate the work he does and the product he supplies, he can be snarky about things if you mention something he doesn't believe. When I said I was going to go to a biological dentist to have all my amalgam removed and my crowns lifted, he said to save my money. But I am growing old, even as I continue to have these chronic health issues and I don't have the time to wait and see if one thing works before I give up on it and try another. I am amalgam free as of 2018, went through a horrible dump of exhaustion and depression and complete listlessness for 18 months before beginning to emerge. I could not take DMSA because it caused infection fungal/bacterial flare-up, and I had a difficult time increasing ALA until I began to address the thyroid issues--the more Molybdate, Selenite and Iodide I get onboard, the higher I've been able to raise the ALA --now at my 83rd Round, currently at 25mg ALA. So, little by little.

As to opening up pill capsules, I am a complete PRO! Give me a capsule and I can easily divide it into quarters at the very least.

I have struggled too, with burnout--over the constant focus on supps for the past five years. My Excell charts follow my 5 year Odyssey. It's wearying. Currently I feel very unbalanced in my life--the thing that is missing completely, unfortunately, is the thing I love most of all--to write. But I am too tired and lack the focus to do much beyond reading the newspaper, or, if I'm lucky, a poem.

On the up side, as the day progresses, I get grocery shopping done--remotely, of course--I often go for a walk, and I make a nice dinner. I have had my first Covid vaccine--a sore arm for three days was not bad at all--and I am looking forward to warmer weather and putting the picnic table back outside, hanging the hammock between the trees and walking barefoot in the grass. Maybe these will restore my soul.
 
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Thanks @Kathevans very informative! I suspected you were into writing)
Reading through I realized I'm hardly having the bright yellowish/greenish urine that I used to have taking moly (yes it's molybdate form) as opposed to when I began supplementing with B2 a couple of months ago. The moly arrived much later as it was from an outside amazon seller, there's citiric acid in it tho.
Yes I also don't want to take any chances and proceed with chelation, JohnMac and others had good benefits from that.
 

Kathevans

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Reading through I realized I'm hardly having the bright yellowish/greenish urine that I used to have taking moly (yes it's molybdate form) as opposed to when I began supplementing with B2 a couple of months ago. The moly arrived much later as it was from an outside amazon seller, there's citiric acid in it tho.
Yes I also don't want to take any chances and proceed with chelation, JohnMac and others had good benefits from that.

I am currently taking 300mcg of Riboflavin/day, and as I could find only 100mg caps, I divide them in half and take 50mg 6x/day. That seems to keep my urine bright yellow for now. I use theBodyBio molybdate drops and they don't have citric acid. There are certainly other products listed in Greg's RnBProtocol:
https://b12oils.com/rnb.htm And for more in-depth discussions, check out the "Understanding B-12 Deficiency" group on Facebook.

I follow Andy Cutler's chelation protocol--safety first, I feel, and this seems pretty temperate/cautious in its approach. I'm pretty sure this is what JohnMac followed as well, and I recall him saying he'd completed at least 100 rounds. Another person here--and sometimes on the Cutler site is @stridor, Brad McBain, one of two brothers who healed from all sorts of deficiencies and an underlying mercury toxicity worse than anything I've experienced. He has a blog he's shared somewhere on here which I have the info for if you're interested:
http://brad.mcblain.com/

It's very heartening to hear/read that he no longer needs more than a bit of B-12 each week, and perhaps a basic multi vitamin! This is my goal!!
 

Kathevans

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Location
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Thanks, that RnB link was somehow hidden from regular home page!!
Yes, that and many other pages are intentionally hidden from the B-12 oils page because they are meant for people who are actually following the protocol, which Greg has developed. That said, so much of the information is on this thread, I think it’s something that you, or anyone interested, should have all the pertinent information about—mostly what to start with and how fast to go. I think also included on the site is information about start-up symptoms and the necessity of eating plenty of high potassium foods and having potassium on hand, etc, something you no doubt are familiar with if you’ve started B-12. Again, more comprehensive support comes from Greg, himself, and he’s happy to follow symptoms and testing results if you send him your thyroid numbers, and your Oat Test (his preference) or NutrEval, which he also looks at.
 
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I am currently taking 300mcg of Riboflavin/day, and as I could find only 100mg caps, I divide them in half and take 50mg 6x/day. That seems to keep my urine bright yellow for now. I use theBodyBio molybdate drops and they don't have citric acid. There are certainly other products listed in Greg's RnBProtocol:
https://b12oils.com/rnb.htm And for more in-depth discussions, check out the "Understanding B-12 Deficiency" group on Facebook.

I follow Andy Cutler's chelation protocol--safety first, I feel, and this seems pretty temperate/cautious in its approach. I'm pretty sure this is what JohnMac followed as well, and I recall him saying he'd completed at least 100 rounds. Another person here--and sometimes on the Cutler site is @stridor, Brad McBain, one of two brothers who healed from all sorts of deficiencies and an underlying mercury toxicity worse than anything I've experienced. He has a blog he's shared somewhere on here which I have the info for if you're interested:
http://brad.mcblain.com/

It's very heartening to hear/read that he no longer needs more than a bit of B-12 each week, and perhaps a basic multi vitamin! This is my goal!!


Hello, i'm a new member of this forum. I was just wondering if the BodyBio Molybdate you were using was effective. I see that on B12oils website, it's listed as one of the supplements that don't work. I messaged Greg and he said it didn't work and suggested it might be the water it's in. So i messaged BodyBio and they replied back to me saying that the water is carbon purified. I ordered this supplement and should be getting it in the mail soon, was worried it might not work.

Appreciate any comment on this
 

Kathevans

Senior Member
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689
Location
Boston, Massachusetts
I was just wondering if the BodyBio Molybdate you were using was effective. I see that on B12oils website, it's listed as one of the supplements that don't work. I messaged Greg and he said it didn't work and suggested it might be the water it's in. So i messaged BodyBio and they replied back to me saying that the water is carbon purified. I ordered this

I cannot say, I’m afraid, as only your results can reveal this. In the RnB Protocol, Greg uses Iodide to reduce TSH, Selenite to convert T4 to T3 and Molybdate to convert the T3 to either FAD or FMN (I forget which!). But both are the active forms of B2, the basis for healing on the protocol. For years, both my T4 and T3 have shown up as very low on thyroid tests, as tested by Total T3 and Total T4 (Greg’s recommended testing). I will say that BodyBio’s Iodide has been effective in lowering my TSH levels, though, and that Nutricology’s Selenite has helped raise my T4.

I have had issues with co-infections, which have contributed to my issues, and the iodide and selenite have helped with these. That said, I have used Greg’s Molybdate oil, as well as the BodyBio Molybdate, and neither have increased my T3 levels much…

I’m hoping that dealing with co-infections (under the care of a doc of Oral Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) with a focus on both repleting deficiencies, and reducing inflammation with ALA using CUTLER’s approach (in the last 6 months I’ve returned more seriously to chelation…whether it’s mercury or infection, etc, and have hopes that over time it will help. It seems that a lot/most of T3 is made in your gut and liver.

Best of luck!
 
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