Question on b complex.

I would personally avoid anything containing folic acid - I say this only from personal experience mind you. My blood tests showed I was folate deficient and so I was told to take folic acid (in a B vit complex) and it made me worse. I just discovered via my genetic results that I am homozygeous for the MTHFR gene and so have to take folate, NOT folic acid.

I also have issues with which type of B12 I take, I hadn't realised there were different ones so I just took what I was told - again, big mistake, lol!

It is not that it made my Lyme worse per se, but that it caused a bunch of other problems which I was quite happily blaming Lyme for at the time. (Hell, if my leg fell off I would be going 'oh, right, that'll be the lyme, lol!). It was more the interaction of the Lyme and the wrong type of supplements.

Of course this may not be an issue for you, but I would look into taking B vitamins and folate (methyl folate) as seperate supplements and start all of them at low doses so that you can identify any benefits/problems.

I don't know if that helps at all...it's more a word of caution I guess. Like any supplement it is better to be aware of any potential problems/side effects before you take them especially if there are alternatives??

rowingmom - In your opinion - if someone has not been tested for the MTHFR mutation - would there be any harm in taking the methylated B's in low doses?
If you don't have the mutation...I wonder...how would it be harmful?
I thought the methylated B's were just easier for the body to use...or is it not that simple.

please be careful with B6. It is the only B vitamin that can really cause harm. The rest you can usually take mega-doses with few/no side effects. But B6 in large doses can damage your nerves.

I've tested my levels and were 5 times above normal, so im now very cautious about supplementing B vitamins because of this B6. Especially that B6 toxicity causes same symptoms as neuro lyme

www.livestrong.com/article/317889-vitamin-b6-toxicity-symptoms/

Girlie said...
rowingmom - In your opinion - if someone has not been tested for the MTHFR mutation - would there be any harm in taking the methylated B's in low doses?
If you don't have the mutation...I wonder...how would it be harmful?
I thought the methylated B's were just easier for the body to use...or is it not that simple.

I think it is just that simple. Methylation problems are not always genetic - chronic illness can cause a slowing of the methylation pathways as well.

I would not think there would be any harm in supplementing low doses and trying to get the rest from a good diet.

Higher doses can be a problem if you don't know exactly where the backup is in the pathway. We don't take high doses of anything. Even herbs.

As far as my reading goes, Girlie - if you have the mutation then methylated Bs is the way to go. Without the mutation you could handle unmethylated but chronic illness can be a factor, regardless of genetics. Or if you don't know whether or not you have said mutations then folks err on the side of caution and avoid unmethylated Bs.

Same goes for folic acid v's folate.

summer1 said...
Thank you for this post. I just ordered the b-complex suggested by rowingmom.

It was actually recommended to us by our LLMD when she realized that I wasn't happy with high dose folate/B12 shots. Who knows what they put in that stuff as preservative - and you are injecting it too!

Again, we dose only 1 capsule mon, wed, and fri. Over methylation can be as problematic as undermethylation. I prefer to err on the side of undersupplementation.