Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a metabolic disorder

mostlylurking

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How many other drugs out there do things we don't know about, but their bad effects are blamed on other things?
I've learned (probably in one of the videos I included) that a LOT of antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals too block thiamine. Evidently, it is extremely common. And doctors never check for it because they think thiamine deficiency was solved by "enriching" refined carbohydrates.

I think I was borderline thiamine deficient before the Bactrim, caused by my Peaty diet. I eat very little meat, rely on dairy and gelatin for protein, don't eat nuts, seeds, legumes, grains because I'm strongly gluten sensitive with a pretty serious tendency to inflammation. I was supplementing with about 100mg thiamine a day before the Bactrim event but obviously that wasn't enough to protect me from it.
 
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Korven

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GABA agonists will eventually upregulate glutamate to counter it which increases energy. Glutamate will increase which increases activity of other excitatory neurotransmitters, thus will help CFS.


If you still deal with histadelic type symptoms, I suggest you try SAM-e. This will likely give you the relief you are looking for.

Thanks, appreciate the advice. Might be a good idea to try SAM-e and see whether my symptoms budge from lowering histamine. If it doesn't help then well, at least I know that histadelia isn't likely to be my main problem.

Recently experimented with a B-complex containing RDA of 5-MTHF which put me in a very unpleasant state of mind, intense "high inner tension", more OCD etc. So likely I am highly sensitive to anything that boosts histamine. Or it was just a bad reaction to this particular supplement. Or I'm just imagining things.

Taking straight methyl B12 should be safe for increasing methylation (without the histamine retention/boosting effects of folate)?
 

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mostlylurking

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Can you link to the B-complex you are taking?
Yes. Here: B-Complex Plus - 120 Capsules

I take additional thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacinamide, and biotin (all powders from bulksupplements.com. They have been out of the thiamine hcl for a while so I get it from here: Thiamine HCl (Vitamin B1). I got the Pure Encapsulations B-complex for the minuscule amount of B6 and and also for the folate. There's some B5 included but I haven't reacted badly to it like I had several years ago. I take one of these a day. It may be helping? I also eat liver 1Xweek.

Somewhere I learned that you should take a B-complex when you are mega-dosing a B vitamin. I remember that they said there's no need to take more than one a day (but which one was not provided and ingredients vary).

I'm so glad I went through my recovery from rheumatoid arthritis via Ray Peat's teachings before I slogged through the information about thiamine. The thiamine researchers are rabidly anti-sugar, especially fructose. But they never explain why. I chalked it up to a personal problem, and kept drinking the orange juice.

The main issue I've had with taking a lot of thiamine is that it will lower your blood sugar (since it is helping to burn it for energy). There were periods where I felt pretty crappy, but not hungry. I finally realized it was my blood sugar tanking so I increased the orange juice and now that doesn't happen anymore.

I started with a much lower dose of thiamine and magnesium and slowly increased the dose over about 2 weeks. The thiamine helps me take larger doses of magnesium, which I'm pretty sure I needed too. The higher the dose of thiamine, the greater effect on the blood sugar level. It's a balancing act.
 
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redsun

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Thanks, appreciate the advice. Might be a good idea to try SAM-e and see whether my symptoms budge from lowering histamine. If it doesn't help then well, at least I know that histadelia isn't likely to be my main problem.

Recently experimented with a B-complex containing RDA of 5-MTHF which put me in a very unpleasant state of mind, intense "high inner tension", more OCD etc. So likely I am highly sensitive to anything that boosts histamine. Or it was just a bad reaction to this particular supplement. Or I'm just imagining things.

Taking straight methyl B12 should be safe for increasing methylation (without the histamine retention/boosting effects of folate)?

Its typical to get worsening of histadelic symptoms from B-complex. Folate for sure does it, but B1, B3, can also do it. So trust me when I say you are not imagining it.

MethylB12 may help but it won't help that much. Really what its doing is providing some methyl groups because its the Methyl-B12 version. That's why it helps. Anything that provides methyl groups will help symptoms and tilt you the other way away from severe undermethylation. That's why I suggest SAM-e. It also is the needed cofactor for HNMT, which deactivates histamine in the nervous system which is what you want. Its actually quite safe for undermethylated, and if some negative side effects happen you can stop taking it but undermethylators always see improvement from SAM-e.
 

freyasam

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Compare to severe thiamine deficiency and you may have your answer. You searched for chronic fatigue syndrome - Hormones Matter

also this video:

I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Acquired Immune Deficiency in 1994. I was really sick. I didn't know why. The doctor I found did lots of blood work and determined I had suffered some kind of environmental poisoning. So he detoxed me. For 2 years. I was also hypothyroid but he didn't check to see if my Synthroid was working for me. I found out 6 months into the detox program I had been poisoned with Dursban, fire ant poison aka organophosphate insecticide.

I felt a lot better physically after about 6 months of treatments (chelation for heavy metal poisoning, hyperbaric oxygen treatments, ultra-violet light blood treatments, vitamins by the handful, you name it, they did it.) However, my brain was in pretty bad shape. I couldn't fill out a check at the grocery store. I couldn't remember my own address and phone number. I couldn't read and I couldn't follow a simple plot on TV. My brain recovered after about 4 years. I taught myself how to marble fabric during that time (new right brain creative learning created new wiring I think).

I found Ray Peat 6 years ago when I was 65. I was really sick. Again. This time I had rheumatoid arthritis and had become incapacitated to the point of considering going into assisted living because I couldn't dress myself, brush my hair, brush my teeth. Things were not looking good.

I found Ray Peat on line. I quit my doctor of 10 years, who was making me sicker. I put myself on a Peaty diet. I found a well aged (he's 84) endocrinologist who worked with me to optimize my natural desiccated thyroid medication. I recovered; the rheumatoid arthritis just went away.

I remained in pretty good shape until last fall. In August I was prescribed Bactrim for a UTI. I couldn't tolerate it and stopped the 10 day series on the 6th day. I went to a urologist who prescribed Augmentin, which did clear the infection. I spent September recovering and also falling and injuring my shoulder (stress). By October I was not functioning. The CFS was back with a vengeance. I know what that feels like because I've had it before.

I assumed that my thyroid medication had stopped working because I felt severely hypothyroid. So I had blood work done. My endocrinologist was seriously alarmed because my T3 was way high through the roof. He lowered the dosage by 30mg. It wasn't working anyway so the reduction didn't change how I felt.

I researched on line and discovered this article about Bactrim: Bactrim: An Anti-Folate, Anti-Thiamine, Potassium Altering Drug - Hormones Matter I learned that Bactrim blocks thiamine function and also biotin. I read up on thiamine deficiency. I found this video helpful:

and this one:

I emailed Ray Peat for advice and he advised me to eat cooked mushrooms daily. The antibiotics had damaged my ability to absorb thiamine (and lots of other things). The key was to heal my gut. I also started taking 1500mg of thiamine hcl last November along with 2000mg magnesium glycinate and a B-complex pill (Pur brand). I am taking the thiamine and magnesium in divided doses three times a day, always before 5:00pm, with 12 oz of orange juice each dose, for the potassium. I kept taking my usual regimen of supplements I had learned about from Ray Peat.

It has been about 2.5 months. I am almost back to normal now. I don't know how long I'll need to take this high dose of thiamine; I've read that things can improve after a few months and I will be able to lower the dose. I guess I'll find out. I do not believe that the damage I sustained from the Bactrim was ever going to just go away on its own. I had to aggressively address my thiamine issue.

I just wanted to share my story and this information about thiamine; I hope it might be helpful. My situation was complicated because my mitochondrial function was compromised in two ways; hypothyroidism AND severe thiamine deficiency. Both had to be addressed in order for me to get better.

Please note that I used plain old thiamine hcl. I tried taking the TTFD thiamine, but it gave me a screaming headache that lasted about 36 hours so I went back to the old fashioned thiamine hcl. My brain symptoms have resolved so I'm very happy with the results.

It's strange he's never suggested mushrooms to me for ME/CFS, just antibiotics! I've tried thiamin with lots of magnesium and it always caused horrible anxiety.
 

redsun

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It's strange he's never suggested mushrooms to me for ME/CFS, just antibiotics! I've tried thiamin with lots of magnesium and it always caused horrible anxiety.

Thiamine can raise acetylcholine like crazy so some people who already high in it are susceptible to the manifestations of excess acetylcholine like depression, despair, anxiety, etc.
 

mostlylurking

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It's strange he's never suggested mushrooms to me for ME/CFS, just antibiotics! I've tried thiamin with lots of magnesium and it always caused horrible anxiety.
I started with small doses of thiamine hcl and magnesium and worked my way up to larger doses over a 2-3 week period.

Did you also consume potassium rich orange juice? Potassium is key, orange juice (no pulp) is safe. Potassium gets depleted by thiamine. I wonder also if the horrible anxiety was caused by low blood sugar that was the result of the thiamine supplement. Thiamine facilitates burning glucose for fuel, which uses up the glucose which results in low blood sugar (which triggers adrenaline which causes anxiety). This happened to me; I didn't feel hungry, I just felt slammed; but when I drank a glass of orange juice I quickly recovered. It's possible my liver wasn't doing a very good job of storing sugar. I think my liver is working better now than it was a couple of months ago.

I didn't mention the CFS word to Ray. I talked about the three courses of antibiotics I had suffered through over the summer and my belief that I had a thiamine deficiency caused by the Bactrim. I think that he read those two items and thought "nutrient deficiency caused by absorption problem caused by gut damage caused by new fangled antibiotics; you need to heal your gut so eat mushrooms". Very reasonable and helpful advice.

If you search for carrot salad, or mushrooms, or bamboo shoots, you will find that Ray often recommends carrot salad or the other two for gut issues ranging from leaky gut through constipation and all inflammation issues. He talks about their mild antibiotic properties and he recommends these things more often than recommending pharmaceutical antibiotic use. Here's a link: Ray Peat, PhD on the Benefits of the Raw Carrot – Functional Performance Systems (FPS)

I've had a very long history of leaky gut so I picked up on the carrot salad idea early on back in January of 2015. I'm pretty good about eating one of the three daily, but sometimes I let it slide. I'm always sorry afterwards.

If you go to this site PeatSearch: a Ray Peat-specific search engine - Toxinless you can do a search for "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" in Ray's work. Use the cell on the left to exclude the forum. Then open an article. Click "Control" and "F" on your keyboard. Type "chronic fatigue" into the search bar that appears at the bottom of your screen and these words will be highlighted in the article. This makes it easier to find where he mentions what you are looking for. But it does not replace the education you get when you read the whole article.

One of the results from the search for "Chronic Fatigue" is this link: Prostate Cancer where I find this quote from Ray Peat:
"It rarely occurs to physicians to consider disturbances of water distribution in problems such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, sleep disturbances, frequent urination, slow bladder emptying, anxiety, paresthesia, movement disorders, the tunnel syndromes, or even slowed thinking, but "intracellular fatigue" leading to over-hydration is probably the central problem in these, and many other degenerative and inflammatory problems.

The improvements in cell functions and water distribution... are inversely related to oxygen pressure, and directly related to carbon dioxide...."

So Ray appears to be saying here that water distribution in the body's tissues should be considered in chronic fatigue, etc. and that this is directly related to carbon dioxide. Thiamine increases carbon dioxide by facilitating oxidative metabolism. Read through this thread: Thiamine Is A Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitor As Effective As Acetazolamide. You can also search for "Carbon Dioxide" in Ray Peat's articles using the search engine I provided above.

I hope you find this helpful.
 
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Korven

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Thiamine can raise acetylcholine like crazy so some people who already high in it are susceptible to the manifestations of excess acetylcholine like depression, despair, anxiety, etc.
This also happened to me lol.

Had been taking 300 mg allithiamine per day for several weeks. My mood got worse and worse to the point where I was having daily suicidal ideation, just got this overwhelming sense of hopelessness and despair. And massive saliva production. If B1 also can worsen histadelic symptoms then that probably compounded the issue...

These experiments just keep on backfiring on me. I should probably just stick with food and hope that god intervenes and fixes my problems. Whenever I try to fix things I only mess things up.

Edit: should add that things improved when I stopped the B1.
 

redsun

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This also happened to me lol.

Had been taking 300 mg allithiamine per day for several weeks. My mood got worse and worse to the point where I was having daily suicidal ideation, just got this overwhelming sense of hopelessness and despair. And massive saliva production. If B1 also can worsen histadelic symptoms then that probably compounded the issue...

These experiments just keep on backfiring on me. I should probably just stick with food and hope that god intervenes and fixes my problems. Whenever I try to fix things I only mess things up.

Edit: should add that things improved when I stopped the B1.

Yeh B1 will worsen histadelic symptoms because of acetylcholine which promotes a more parasympathetic state and histamine release. A surge in Ach also will lower dopamine. I experience very similar from thiamine if I take it even a few days at <100mg. It can cause all the things you mentioned in normal histamine individuals, but in a high histamine state its horrifyingly amplified. I made a post before on a B1 thread warning about this because unfortunately to the wrong person B1 or other Ach promoting substances can be very dangerous.

If you are histadelic so many experiments can backfire. Thats why you need to try something to raise methylation and this will change everything. In the end if you really want to you can always demethylate again with niacinamide if you don't like SAM-e effects.

Methylated B12 or the like put such a tiny (basically meaningless) dent into your high histamine levels. That's why you need SAM.
 
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mostlylurking

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Thiamine can raise acetylcholine like crazy so some people who already high in it are susceptible to the manifestations of excess acetylcholine like depression, despair, anxiety, etc.
article here: Impairment of acetylcholine synthesis in thiamine deficient rats developed by prolonged tea consumption
quote: "The synthesis of whole brain acetylcholine is reduced in thiamine deficient rats....".
quote: "Thiamine is necessary for the synthesis of acetylcholine and low levels produce an acetylcholine deficit, which leads to reduced vagal tone and impaired motility in the stomach and small intestine."

You are right that thiamine can raise acetylcholine, but if you are deficient in thiamine you will be low in acetylcholine and will benefit from supplementation of thiamine. I think that your comment is an excellent way to highlight why it is important to start low and carefully monitor your symptoms/reactions.

There are blood tests for thiamine status but they are not all reliable. An easy way to self test is to take some thiamine and check your response to it. When I started, I tested myself by taking about 300mg of thiamine hcl. Within 45 minutes, my temperature went up from 98 degrees to 99 degrees. I had not been able to get my temperature up to normal for weeks. It was a real eye opener for me. Then I was carefully methodical with my dosage, started low, increased over 2-3 weeks. I experienced bouts of low blood sugar which were resolved by drinking some orange juice.
 

LLight

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One of the results from the search for "Chronic Fatigue" is this link: Prostate Cancer where I find this quote from Ray Peat:
"It rarely occurs to physicians to consider disturbances of water distribution in problems such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, sleep disturbances, frequent urination, slow bladder emptying, anxiety, paresthesia, movement disorders, the tunnel syndromes, or even slowed thinking, but "intracellular fatigue" leading to over-hydration is probably the central problem in these, and many other degenerative and inflammatory problems.

The improvements in cell functions and water distribution... are inversely related to oxygen pressure, and directly related to carbon dioxide...."

So Ray appears to be saying here that water distribution in the body's tissues should be considered in chronic fatigue, etc. and that this is directly related to carbon dioxide. Thiamine increases carbon dioxide by facilitating oxidative metabolism. Read through this thread: Thiamine Is A Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitor As Effective As Acetazolamide. You can also search for "Carbon Dioxide" in Ray Peat's articles using the search engine I provided above.

Really cool quote, thank you :):

And another thing about potassium (thanks to a post of @Amazoniac ):

Pathology of structured water and associated cations in cells (the tissue damage syndrome) and its medical treatment (http://gerson-research.org/wp-content/uploads/Cope-FW-Path-Struct-Water-1977.pdf)

1610702551331.png


1610702701993.png


1610702333420.png
 
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Hugh Johnson

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Correct. There are no, none, zilch „psychological“ or psychosomatic pathologies. Everything happens due to manifest cellular and molecular proceedings.
What’s correct though from the pseudo-sciences of pschyology: the stressors are real. Bit they don’t hurt the „soul“ or the mind, but the cells.
This is obviously untrue. Stephen Parkhill had some 70% success rate curing terminal cancer patients using hypnosis. There are millions who have been cured of various apparently physical conditions using hypnosis and other psychological technology.

Also to claim that stressors do not harm the mind is plain insanity. It not only requires you to believe that the mind unaffected by what happens to the cells, it also dismisses psychological trauma. Not only does that require believing that the mind exist independent of the body, it also assumes that perception exists independent of the body.
 

PolishSun

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I agree, a stressed person lives on cortisol. He cannot be healthy. So it is psychological in the first place. But could also be bad living conditions, that ruin health.
 

LeeLemonoil

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This is obviously untrue. Stephen Parkhill had some 70% success rate curing terminal cancer patients using hypnosis. There are millions who have been cured of various apparently physical conditions using hypnosis and other psychological technology.

Also to claim that stressors do not harm the mind is plain insanity. It not only requires you to believe that the mind unaffected by what happens to the cells, it also dismisses psychological trauma. Not only does that require believing that the mind exist independent of the body, it also assumes that perception exists independent of the body.


I‘m not sure if my English is responsible for you not understanding what I wrote or tried to write.
Or if you’re not able.

What you wrote is absolutely in accordance with my explanation.
There is a psyche, a mind if you like. And there is Trauma, injury and healing by means dubbed „psychological“

But that’s not because these things really exist independent from cells and biological and other laws of nature. If I insult you, abuse you, you have trauma because of dysfunctional family or relations etcetera ... the insult happens in cells. Your mind, your consciousness are phenomenons of physiological functions.

If a therapist heals by hypnosis or soothing and wise words it’s because it affects cellular mechanisms.
 

Hugh Johnson

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I‘m not sure if my English is responsible for you not understanding what I wrote or tried to write.
Or if you’re not able.

What you wrote is absolutely in accordance with my explanation.
There is a psyche, a mind if you like. And there is Trauma, injury and healing by means dubbed „psychological“

But that’s not because these things really exist independent from cells and biological and other laws of nature. If I insult you, abuse you, you have trauma because of dysfunctional family or relations etcetera ... the insult happens in cells. Your mind, your consciousness are phenomenons of physiological functions.

If a therapist heals by hypnosis or soothing and wise words it’s because it affects cellular mechanisms.
True. However it takes a long time to cause physical effects. Anger often leads to cancer. However, first there is the feeling, and only if it is not used does it start to cause problems. First those problems tend to be behavioural and psychological. Only after a long period of time does it manifest in the body.

Hypnosis etc. affect the mind. They affect the body only when the problem has manifested in the body, which takes a while. Body follows the mind, although it is a two way street. Thought and feeling repeated long enough solidify into a belief, which then manifests physically.
 

Hgreen56

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Its typical to get worsening of histadelic symptoms from B-complex. Folate for sure does it, but B1, B3, can also do it. So trust me when I say you are not imagining it.

MethylB12 may help but it won't help that much. Really what its doing is providing some methyl groups because its the Methyl-B12 version. That's why it helps. Anything that provides methyl groups will help symptoms and tilt you the other way away from severe undermethylation. That's why I suggest SAM-e. It also is the needed cofactor for HNMT, which deactivates histamine in the nervous system which is what you want. Its actually quite safe for undermethylated, and if some negative side effects happen you can stop taking it but undermethylators always see improvement from SAM-e.
what dosage do you recommend?
 
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If I'm not mistaken Ron advises against ethyl pyruvate although it seems to work. Why ?
 

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