what’s the rundown on high dose thiamine?

[Kadar]

How do you know this?

I experience symptoms of deficiency of these two and after taking them I don't have these symptoms anymore.

Btw, seems I'm wrong about my theory of overdose on benfotiamine (except for manganese and vitamin A really help to rise b1 in the body). I took b-complex and additional b5 and later vitamin A and I didn't experience b6 drop. I think it must be b5 or inositol or biotin deficiency because I tried using other b vitamins for this situation without success

Or maybe these b vitamins just dropped b1..

 

[Tor2812]

Oh, Mary! So sorry for your non-vacation! I hope to get to do something enjoyable soon And can at least catch up with your family through Zoom...

I would be very careful about megadosing thiamine, particularly the type that EO is pushing and makes a profit off of. It's best to test and see if one is short of thiamine first.

I did well on 750ng benfotiamine for three or four years, and then reading all that stuff about mega dosing thiamine, and all the stuff about allithiamine, TTFD, And that's supposedly it gets through the BBB when benfo doesn't (which I don't think is correct) I started asking those folks what the dosing equivalent would be, and nobody could give me a straight answer, just "Try it, Great stuff!!!"

So, against my better judgment, I decided to try 300 mg a day of Thiamax. Within a week, I got neuropathy down the front of my legs, complete with painful nerve zaps. Unfortunately it took me another couple weeks to figure out what had done this, with daily pain and nerve zaps, until I finally realized it and stopped. I took no thiamine for a few days, then gradually built my way back up to my 750 mg dose of benfotiamine, which I think actually does get through the blood brain barrier, and eventually most of the neuropathy went away, and the nerve zaps stopped pretty quickly.

I've heard since, but I'm not totally sure, but it could be that this happened because of the oxidative stress I have and problems with keeping enough glutathione around. But none of this was any of the literature from the people who are pushing the high dose thiamine and the Thiamax.

So, just as with too much vitamin C, too much of other nutrients can backfire, particularly if one is just taking them and doesn't know what ones needs are...

Lesson learned the hard way.

Thanks for posting this, very good to be thoughtful of. I actually had just ordered TTFD and switched over to 2 x 50mg a day from all the other things I had read by Dr Lonsdale, etc; so I'll keep that top of mind. So far at this amount it doesn't seem to feel too different from the 2 x 150mg Benfotiamine I was taking, but it does seem to be pushing things a bit more even though it's a lower dose.

Previously as I had said the B1 had dropped my B6, but I'm taking more of that now (P5P) and it seems to be managed. I was really finding the next nutrients I was dropping in were Selenium and Niacin, it really increased my need for them. I was taking a Selenium complex multiple times per day but that just wasn't giving me what was needed apparently, I'm really finding that methylselenocysteine is doing a great job though. Today I'm finding my zinc is being used up a lot so have been taking larger doses.

All in all, it's really seeming as though the ceiling I've been at for a lot of months was road-blocked by not enough B1, so while the ride of re-feeding symptoms isn't fun, it's quite heartening to be seeing some sort of changes/progress again.

Also Learner1, I wanted to say thank you for when you posted about your current stack previously in another thread. I was feeling frustrated with my lack of progress and that post helped me reconsider my stack, especially B1. I find every few months or years I'll hit ceiling and then can get a bit frustrated, but then come across something that makes me re-think things and gain optimism once more; that helped me regain that.

 

[2Cor.12:19]

MODERATOR NOTE: Six posts were moved from this thread: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/my-summer-vacation.84715/ to this one in an attempt to keep the former thread on topic. Apologies for any small pockets of unrelated information migrated here.


@2Cor.12:19 - I've just been reading an article about mega-dosing thiamine and how it purportedly can help so many different things, including energy, sleep, SIBO etc too - I saw your other thread about high dose thiamine. I just read this article which was extremely interesting: Mega-Dose Thiamine: Beyond Addressing “Deficiency” (eonutrition.co.uk) I'm currently taking 400 mg thiamine but am going to start increasing it.

@Mary Thanks for the article - Yes, I’ve been following Elliot Overton too and he’s also got some great videos and podcasts on thiamine as well.

I’ve been taking 600 mg of benfotiamine for 6 weeks now - started with 300 for a couple weeks before that. My husband has been doing the same. He’s very healthy but we both have insomnia. Since starting 600 mg of B1 both of us have experienced a marked improvement in our sleep. He’s been able to cut his Trazadone way down. I started taking a low dose of Trazodone .25 mg) Now we’re both averaging 7-8 hrs of sleep - whereas before we were averaging 4-6.

Albeit there were also other factors that probably contributed to our long standing insomnia relating to our business that have been eliminated. Plus I was treated with Rifaximin for SIBO which helped my overall health immensely.

The change in my general health and energy level the past 2 months has been absolutely amazing! I’m doing things around the house and yard I haven’t been able to do for years, plus going out almost every day shopping. Before most of my day was spent in bed.

I have no way of knowing how much can be attributed to the SIBO treatment with rifaximin and Iberogast and how much can be attached to the B1. I think the rifaximin played the bigger part. But I do believe that my insomnia has been greatly improved due to the B1 because I know it’s helped my husband.

Bumping up from 300 to 600 was easy. No problem at all. There are studies out there affirming 300-600 of benfotaiamine is safe for healthy subjects. (eg; WebMD, Dovepress) I Best wishes to you with that.

 

[2Cor.12:19]

I would be very careful about megadosing thiamine, particularly the type that EO is pushing and makes a profit off of. It's best to test and see if one is short of thiamine first.

I did well on 750ng benfotiamine for three or four years, and then reading all that stuff about mega dosing thiamine, and all the stuff about allithiamine, TTFD, And that's supposedly it gets through the BBB when benfo doesn't (which I don't think is correct) I started asking those folks what the dosing equivalent would be, and nobody could give me a straight answer, just "Try it, Great stuff!!!"

So, against my better judgment, I decided to try 300 mg a day of Thiamax. Within a week, I got neuropathy down the front of my legs, complete with painful nerve zaps. Unfortunately it took me another couple weeks to figure out what had done this, with daily pain and nerve zaps, until I finally realized it and stopped. I took no thiamine for a few days, then gradually built my way back up to my 750 mg dose of benfotiamine, which I think actually does get through the blood brain barrier, and eventually most of the neuropathy went away, and the nerve zaps stopped pretty quickly.

.

@Learner1 So glad you posted this! I'm doing great with Doctor's Choice Benfotiamine from Amazon, but had wondered if Thiamax would be better, per EO. The last thing I need is for my already severe polyneuropathy to get worse! Yikes. I'm always very leary of medical experts who hawk their own products. What I have works well so if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

 

[2Cor.12:19]

@Learner1 Do you know what half-life benfotiamine has? I can't find in internet, only abstract answers. I wonder how you tolerate 750 mg of benfotiamine everyday for so long period. I guess it's genetics, malabsorption or.. I used to take 150-250mg a day when I felt almost diabetic due to hard manganese deficiency I created using lots of vitamin D, E(and K). Now with vitamin A and manganese I feel that they activating all taken b1 and it looks like overdose because my zinc and b6 drops very fast 
And will molybdenum help to drop b1?

@Kadar Here's one study about that:

"Healthy subjects were sequentially enrolled into one of five SAD (150– 1200 mg) or three MAD (150, 300 or 600 mg) cohorts.
Results: In the SAD study, the median time to reach maximum concentration (Tmax) arrived 1.0 to 2.0 h for thiamine (TM), 3.5 to 8.0 h for thiamine monophosphate (TMP), and 8.0 to 24.0 h for thiamine diphosphate (TDP) after administration of benfotiamine.
Conclusion: Both SAD and MAD studies of benfotiamine in healthy subjects were safe and well tolerated. "
https://www.dovepress.com/safety-to...le-ascend-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-DDDT

 

[Mary]

Since starting 600 mg of B1 both of us have experienced a marked improvement in our sleep. He’s been able to cut his Trazadone way down. I started taking a low dose of Trazodone .25 mg) Now we’re both averaging 7-8 hrs of sleep - whereas before we were averaging 4-6.

Wow - that is amazing! Who wouldathunk? I've cautiously increased my thiamine up to 500 mg. and plan to be at 600 mg probably tomorrow. Unfortunately I've been dealing with severe insomnia - I thought I had it sorted out before with excess vitamin C but something else is at play, I don't think it's the thiamine (it may be hormones), I'm not really sure, so want to get it sorted out before I go any higher. And 500 mg. hasn't helped my insomnia, though it's possible a higher dose may.

The change in my general health and energy level the past 2 months has been absolutely amazing! I’m doing things around the house and yard I haven’t been able to do for years, plus going out almost every day shopping. Before most of my day was spent in bed.

This is beyond great - I'm really happy for you!!! That truly is amazing - I remember how I felt the first time I tried thiamine 5 or 6 years ago (100 mg) and the boost in energy was mind-blowing. Then it got complicated with phosphorous and refeeding syndrome which took me too long to figure out (I didn't try it again for 1 or 2 years). Anyways, I have had more energy the last several days though my sleep is in the toilet! It's a weird sensation! I really really hope to get my sleep sorted soon, so I can increase the thiamine! I'm just a little nervous if the insomnia IS related to the thiamine, and then if it got worse - tbh, it would be hard to get worse but I have no doubt it can!

btw, my need for phosphorous has increased a little since I increased my B1. It's totally manageable because I know the symptoms of low phosphorous. For me it manifests as not being able to swallow pills easily (the small muscles in the throat don't have the energy they need, also double vision at night (same with eye muscles) but if it got severe, then severe fatigue hits, but I don't get that bad any more, am able to nip it in the bud)

I hope you continue to do as well as you are!

 

[Learner1]

@Mary As you increase thiamine it might be helpful to watch your molybdenum level as well. B1 and molybdenum are used together in the transsulfuration pathway.

 

[2Cor.12:19]

And 500 mg. hasn't helped my insomnia, though it's possible a higher dose may.


This is beyond great - I'm really happy for you!!! That truly is amazing - I remember how I felt the first time I tried thiamine 5 or 6 years ago (100 mg) and the boost in energy was mind-blowing. Then it got complicated

Thank you @Mary Sorting out causes of insomnia seems nearly impossible doesn't it? To be honest, I'm still not sure if it's the B1, the SIBO treatment, or the elimination of business stress that improved my sleep - not that I was conciously losing sleep over any of it. But I truly believe the SIBO treatment was mostly responsible for my overall improvement. It enabled me to get off Nexium and replace it with herbal bitters for acid reflux. Perhaps ditching the PPI helped me to start absorbing nutrients properly - thus increasing energy. But then I also reluctantly added low dose Trazodone - which I know helps me to fall asleep. Or maybe it's just a combo of all of the above? Who knows?

Thinking about your 500 mg of B1 not helping your insomnia, makes me wonder if your insomnia is caused by something else altogether? Just seems like 300-600 mg should do the trick. I'm not crazy about the idea of ultra- (meaning more than 600 mg) megadosing even though it's purported by thiamine experts like EO and Dr. Lonsdale. I've run down too many of those kinds of rabbit trails before. But what do i know? LOL! And like you say, too much of one vitamin can cause an imbalance of other nutrients. Sometimes I feel l people like us are so desparate for improvement that we become like guinea pigs.

Here's another thought. I've always had periodic insomnia episodes when I was keyed up about something, but I've never had problems with months-on-end insomnia until the last couple of years. I've read articles about the huge increase in sleep disorders since the pandemic. This has been an extremely stressful time on a global scale, on several levels, and though it didn't really affect my lifestyle much personally, I was still keenly aware of everything going on, and found it all pretty upsetting. Do you think that could that factor into your situation too? Just a thought.

Another thing for me is that my age, 70 in a couple months, is notorious for sleep problems. Pretty much everyone my age I know has difficulty falling or staying asleep. My husband runs 30 miles a week and lifts weights, but still struggles with it. Sigh.

Holding good thoughts for you Mary -

 

[5vforest]

I'm on Day 4 of 1000mg Benfotiamine/day, no noticeable effect so far...

 

[Mary]

@Mary As you increase thiamine it might be helpful to watch your molybdenum level as well. B1 and molybdenum are used together in the transsulfuration pathway.

@Learner1 - how do you stay on top of molybdenum levels - is blood work the only way? I get 50 mcg. of molylbdenum a day in my Doctor's Best NAC supplement.

 

[Learner1]

@Learner1 - how do you stay on top of molybdenum levels - is blood work the only way? I get 50 mcg. of molylbdenum a day in my Doctor's Best NAC supplement.

I take 1-2mg to stay sufficient, 20-40x your dose, and test every 9-12 months.

 

[Kadar]

@2Cor.12:19 thank you!

 

[Sophiedw]

Why might thiamine and coq10 both leave me feeling very fatigued and increase my breathlessness, which is my worst symptom atm? Is there some shared pathway where I may be deficient in a cofactor that jumps out at anyone? Thanks

I just started taking some cysteine and it cleared up my epileptic sleep phenomena but has uncovered breathlessness and weakness... some other thing I’m low in no doubt.

Thanks

 

[Kadar]

@Sophiedw I have breathlessness feeling using b1 if I'm low in potassium or b2

 

[Sophiedw]

That’s amazing thanks so much @Kadar. (Amazing that you had such a direct answer not that you also have these issues). Salut

 

[Sophiedw]

So far today the breathlessness for me seems to be made better by molybdenum. You sound like me @Kadar where there is often a single nutrient deficiency behind a singular symptom and it’s always the same and is a marker of when I need that particular nutrient. Maybe we should compare notes on deficiency -> nutrient relationships.

 

[Kadar]

@Sophiedw maybe that means you have heavy metals in your body that were eliminated by b1 and molybdenum (they work together in eliminating them, as @Learner1 mentioned)?
Btw, you can find my post in another thread where I describe relationships between nutrients based on my and other people experience (symptoms). Maybe it will be helpful too

 

[Mary]

Why might thiamine and coq10 both leave me feeling very fatigued and increase my breathlessness,

@Sophiedw - thiamine caused my phosphorous to drop, which caused severe fatigue. I explain it in this thread: Low energy, low mood? Phosphorous might be key (hypophosphotemia may be triggered by thiamine - refeeding syndrome) | Phoenix Rising ME/CFS Forums

B12 and methylfolate caused my potassium to tank and I talk about that too in that thread.

 

[Tor2812]

I take 1-2mg to stay sufficient, 20-40x your dose, and test every 9-12 months.

In case it helps anyone else, I'd like to add that I find I have the same requirement. I've tried all sorts of brands at all sorts of doses, and seem to do best when I take 1mg of Thorne Molbydenum Glycinate twice a day. If I take more I find my joints start to get a bit sore.

Sidenote around molybdenum and sulphur metabolism. Through my life I absolutely HATED raw onions, and also disliked other raw sulphur based vegetables like garlic in excess. Whenever I had raw onions my mouth would feel like it was coated in onion oil for about a full day, I thought this was normal until I shared that with a friend and they looked at my like I was crazy haha. Since I began taking higher doses of molybdenum I no longer get that feeling.

 

[Tor2812]

So far today the breathlessness for me seems to be made better by molybdenum. You sound like me @Kadar where there is often a single nutrient deficiency behind a singular symptom and it’s always the same and is a marker of when I need that particular nutrient. Maybe we should compare notes on deficiency -> nutrient relationships.

I'm not sure if it's ok to post this (admins please remove if not ok). But Chris Masterjohn came out with a Vitamins and Minerals cliff notes that's decent and only $3. I know he's working towards a more comprehensive guidebook too.
https://chris-masterjohn-phd.myshopify.com/products/the-vitamins-and-minerals-101-cliff-notes

I also came across this when searching before (but don't know how established/trustworthy the author is):
https://www.deannaminich.com/vitami...-complex-relationship-of-essential-nutrients/