BehcetsBoy
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2019
- Messages
- 31
I’m not kidding when I say if I didn’t discover Vitamin K2 MK4, I would not be here right now.
I have Behcets disease which involves inflammation of the blood vessels and I suffered with the symptoms for more than 15 years since I was 10 years old.
Imagine an emaciated 25 year old 5’ 10" man weighing 99 lb, looking like he just stepped out of Auschwitz, covered with at least 5 agonizing mouth ulcers at any given time, with horrible digestion to the point where even the tiniest piece of fruit would give him bloating, who was always constipated so that he would poop once every 10 days if he was lucky, who had arthritis that could rival an 80 year olds and couldn’t even bend his neck without pain, all the while dreaming every night that he would not wake up tomorrow.
And that is still not the worst of it. I can’t even bear to write down the really bad things (yes, all those symptoms I wrote were actually some of my better days).
Somewhere along the way, I started keeping a journal of my symptoms and every medication, supplement and food I ate.
I must have tried dozens and dozens of different medications prescribed by my specialist (almost all of them with bad side effects), vitamins and diets.
Almost nothing helped, until one day after keeping my daily journal for 5 years (I just noticed it’s been 5 years since I started writing in it every day, wow what a journey), I noticed I actually felt great. I didn’t get a canker sore for the first time in 15 freaking years. I noticed I could actually bend my fingers. My wrists and back and hips and pretty much every joint in my body wasn’t inflamed. I scoured my journal to see what it could be, and the only new thing I had tried was the vitamin K2/D3 supplement from Thorne research. I was sure it was the K2 because I had tried a standalone D3 supplement long before and it never helped.
That was about a year ago and I just have to say it blows my mind that this past year of mine is how normal people feel all the time. ie. Not in constant pain 24/7. I had no idea.
It hasn’t been 100% perfect and there have been some bumps along the way which is what made me start researching vitamin K2 more and discovering this forum last night. In the past 12 hours, I have probably read 50 different threads and tried to soak up as much knowledge as possible.
It’s interesting to note that a lot of you use K2 topically. I fell into this practice because my disease made it so I was literally allergic to everything and couldn’t ingest anything without digestion issues. I happened to try drops on my scrotum because for some reason it seemed like an ‘absorbent’ bit of skin and it worked great. I didn’t know anyone else that took any Vitamin trans dermally so it feels good to be validated on that.
Here are some of the issues I’ve had that’s made me want to research Vitamin K2 a lot more and really try to optimize it:
1) The biggest issue I’ve had is that it seems after I open a new bottle of Thorne D3/K2, it quickly loses effectiveness against my disease. When I open a new bottle within a couple of days all my symptoms go away, but exactly 3 weeks later, my symptoms start to come back. I have tested this multiple times and always exactly 3 weeks to the day I open a new bottle, my symptoms come back.
Because of this, I have to really make sure I am stocked up and counting the days so I can open a new bottle after 20 days.
This is an issue because this supplement is really not cheap, and because if there is an issue with getting a new bottle, like shipment delays then I am really screwed which has happened before.
What I am going to test to try to fix this is:
- Test to see if pills or pure powders are longer lasting after opening vs a liquid. For this reason I have ordered the Carlson brand K2 MK4 5g bottle that comes in a gelatin capsule. It should be arriving today.
- Test to see if it will last longer if I put it in the fridge after opening since I have been leaving it out at room temperature till now. I bought a mini counter top fridge for this purpose. I might also try vacuum sealing the pills with a counter top vacuum sealer immediately after first opening.
- Test to see if using it sublingually under the tongue makes the little K2 left in it after 3 weeks of oxidization more effective.
- Test to see if a higher dose lasts longer after opening. The Thorne brand I was taking only had 100 mcg of K2 per drop (and 2 drops a day was more than enough to stop my disease symptoms). Maybe the Carlson brand with 5 mg which is 25x more than what I need will have a decent amount of K2 still left after 3 weeks of oxidization.
2) I noticed that MK7 does absolutely nothing against my disease. I didn’t expect it to, I’ve realized over time that I feel best with nutrients from animal sources, that’s one of the reasons I’m on the carnivore diet right now. MK7 does seem to give me a bit of a high happy feeling but it also gives me a hard crash with terrible mood swings once the high is over.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that complexes with both MK7 and MK4 don’t help against my disease either. I took the AOR brand K2 softgels which has 60 mcg of MK4 and 60 mcg of MK7 in Coconut oil and it didn’t help against my disease symptoms but I still felt the high and happy feeling of MK7. I cut the Softgel open and applied the liquid inside on my scrotum.
My theories for this are:
- The MK4 in this brand or bottle was oxidized or otherwise useless.
- MK4 and MK7 don’t work together, possibly competing with each other to be absorbed.
- I read somewhere on this forum that someone had better results when they mixed their K2 MK4 in Vitamin E and applied it on their skin. I noticed Thorne liquid comes suspended in mixed tocopherols which is Vitamin E while the AOR brand says the Softgel is made of Vitamin E tocopherols. Which is confusing because I’m not sure if it means there is liquid Vitamin E tocopherols in the Softgel or if the Softgel itself is made of Vitamin E partly.
Regardless of the issue, I know that MK7 isn’t ideal for me so I am really hoping this Carlson MK4 brand will work just as well as the Thorne brand I was using.
3) One of the big reasons I want to switch away from the Thorne D3/K2 I have been using so far is because it contains Vitamin D3. I am pretty sure I might have a D3 toxicity right now after using it every day for the past year. I know what you might be thinking, that 2 drops wouldn’t be enough to give me toxicity since it’s only 1000 IUs after all. Well firstly, everyone is different and I know for sure that my body with this disease is really bad at getting rid of any excess material it doesn’t need. I have started to get bad appetite and hairloss which I am pretty sure is unrelated to my disease and is from the D3 overload. Lastly whenever I got a new bottle, I wanted to take advantage of this fresh new potent K2 so on those days I would take maybe 50 drops which is definitely too much Vitamin D3 for my body.
Actually, to clarify, I don’t think I necessarily have Vitamin D toxicity, what I think I have is actually an induced Vitamin A deficiency due to too much Vitamin D in my body without enough Vitamin A to balance it. All my symptoms from too much D3 seem to match the standard symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency like poor appetite, hairloss, dry skin, etc. However, I know I am getting a great amount of Vitamin A from all the eggs I eat and I shouldn’t have a Vitamin A deficiency if I wasn’t getting so much damn D3.
I could switch over to Thorne pure K2 but it’s $90 cad and I really can’t afford to get a new bottle every 3 weeks.
Honestly, I have learned so much about the importance of fat soluble vitamins in the past year, it’s crazy but this is already turning into an essay so I will leave it at this point. If anyone is interested in hearing more, I will be happy to expand.
I am curious to see what you think about the issues I’ve had with K2 supplementation and the things I am going to test to address them.
Thank you.
I have Behcets disease which involves inflammation of the blood vessels and I suffered with the symptoms for more than 15 years since I was 10 years old.
Imagine an emaciated 25 year old 5’ 10" man weighing 99 lb, looking like he just stepped out of Auschwitz, covered with at least 5 agonizing mouth ulcers at any given time, with horrible digestion to the point where even the tiniest piece of fruit would give him bloating, who was always constipated so that he would poop once every 10 days if he was lucky, who had arthritis that could rival an 80 year olds and couldn’t even bend his neck without pain, all the while dreaming every night that he would not wake up tomorrow.
And that is still not the worst of it. I can’t even bear to write down the really bad things (yes, all those symptoms I wrote were actually some of my better days).
Somewhere along the way, I started keeping a journal of my symptoms and every medication, supplement and food I ate.
I must have tried dozens and dozens of different medications prescribed by my specialist (almost all of them with bad side effects), vitamins and diets.
Almost nothing helped, until one day after keeping my daily journal for 5 years (I just noticed it’s been 5 years since I started writing in it every day, wow what a journey), I noticed I actually felt great. I didn’t get a canker sore for the first time in 15 freaking years. I noticed I could actually bend my fingers. My wrists and back and hips and pretty much every joint in my body wasn’t inflamed. I scoured my journal to see what it could be, and the only new thing I had tried was the vitamin K2/D3 supplement from Thorne research. I was sure it was the K2 because I had tried a standalone D3 supplement long before and it never helped.
That was about a year ago and I just have to say it blows my mind that this past year of mine is how normal people feel all the time. ie. Not in constant pain 24/7. I had no idea.
It hasn’t been 100% perfect and there have been some bumps along the way which is what made me start researching vitamin K2 more and discovering this forum last night. In the past 12 hours, I have probably read 50 different threads and tried to soak up as much knowledge as possible.
It’s interesting to note that a lot of you use K2 topically. I fell into this practice because my disease made it so I was literally allergic to everything and couldn’t ingest anything without digestion issues. I happened to try drops on my scrotum because for some reason it seemed like an ‘absorbent’ bit of skin and it worked great. I didn’t know anyone else that took any Vitamin trans dermally so it feels good to be validated on that.
Here are some of the issues I’ve had that’s made me want to research Vitamin K2 a lot more and really try to optimize it:
1) The biggest issue I’ve had is that it seems after I open a new bottle of Thorne D3/K2, it quickly loses effectiveness against my disease. When I open a new bottle within a couple of days all my symptoms go away, but exactly 3 weeks later, my symptoms start to come back. I have tested this multiple times and always exactly 3 weeks to the day I open a new bottle, my symptoms come back.
Because of this, I have to really make sure I am stocked up and counting the days so I can open a new bottle after 20 days.
This is an issue because this supplement is really not cheap, and because if there is an issue with getting a new bottle, like shipment delays then I am really screwed which has happened before.
What I am going to test to try to fix this is:
- Test to see if pills or pure powders are longer lasting after opening vs a liquid. For this reason I have ordered the Carlson brand K2 MK4 5g bottle that comes in a gelatin capsule. It should be arriving today.
- Test to see if it will last longer if I put it in the fridge after opening since I have been leaving it out at room temperature till now. I bought a mini counter top fridge for this purpose. I might also try vacuum sealing the pills with a counter top vacuum sealer immediately after first opening.
- Test to see if using it sublingually under the tongue makes the little K2 left in it after 3 weeks of oxidization more effective.
- Test to see if a higher dose lasts longer after opening. The Thorne brand I was taking only had 100 mcg of K2 per drop (and 2 drops a day was more than enough to stop my disease symptoms). Maybe the Carlson brand with 5 mg which is 25x more than what I need will have a decent amount of K2 still left after 3 weeks of oxidization.
2) I noticed that MK7 does absolutely nothing against my disease. I didn’t expect it to, I’ve realized over time that I feel best with nutrients from animal sources, that’s one of the reasons I’m on the carnivore diet right now. MK7 does seem to give me a bit of a high happy feeling but it also gives me a hard crash with terrible mood swings once the high is over.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that complexes with both MK7 and MK4 don’t help against my disease either. I took the AOR brand K2 softgels which has 60 mcg of MK4 and 60 mcg of MK7 in Coconut oil and it didn’t help against my disease symptoms but I still felt the high and happy feeling of MK7. I cut the Softgel open and applied the liquid inside on my scrotum.
My theories for this are:
- The MK4 in this brand or bottle was oxidized or otherwise useless.
- MK4 and MK7 don’t work together, possibly competing with each other to be absorbed.
- I read somewhere on this forum that someone had better results when they mixed their K2 MK4 in Vitamin E and applied it on their skin. I noticed Thorne liquid comes suspended in mixed tocopherols which is Vitamin E while the AOR brand says the Softgel is made of Vitamin E tocopherols. Which is confusing because I’m not sure if it means there is liquid Vitamin E tocopherols in the Softgel or if the Softgel itself is made of Vitamin E partly.
Regardless of the issue, I know that MK7 isn’t ideal for me so I am really hoping this Carlson MK4 brand will work just as well as the Thorne brand I was using.
3) One of the big reasons I want to switch away from the Thorne D3/K2 I have been using so far is because it contains Vitamin D3. I am pretty sure I might have a D3 toxicity right now after using it every day for the past year. I know what you might be thinking, that 2 drops wouldn’t be enough to give me toxicity since it’s only 1000 IUs after all. Well firstly, everyone is different and I know for sure that my body with this disease is really bad at getting rid of any excess material it doesn’t need. I have started to get bad appetite and hairloss which I am pretty sure is unrelated to my disease and is from the D3 overload. Lastly whenever I got a new bottle, I wanted to take advantage of this fresh new potent K2 so on those days I would take maybe 50 drops which is definitely too much Vitamin D3 for my body.
Actually, to clarify, I don’t think I necessarily have Vitamin D toxicity, what I think I have is actually an induced Vitamin A deficiency due to too much Vitamin D in my body without enough Vitamin A to balance it. All my symptoms from too much D3 seem to match the standard symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency like poor appetite, hairloss, dry skin, etc. However, I know I am getting a great amount of Vitamin A from all the eggs I eat and I shouldn’t have a Vitamin A deficiency if I wasn’t getting so much damn D3.
I could switch over to Thorne pure K2 but it’s $90 cad and I really can’t afford to get a new bottle every 3 weeks.
Honestly, I have learned so much about the importance of fat soluble vitamins in the past year, it’s crazy but this is already turning into an essay so I will leave it at this point. If anyone is interested in hearing more, I will be happy to expand.
I am curious to see what you think about the issues I’ve had with K2 supplementation and the things I am going to test to address them.
Thank you.
