Supplemental Vitamin B2 - Experiences?

[Giraffe]

Has anyone had good or bad results with supplemental vitamin B2? Like to share your experiences?

@haidut, do you know how R5P compares to regular riboflavin as to dosage?

 

[haidut]

Has anyone had good or bad results with supplemental vitamin B2? Like to share your experiences?

@haidut, do you know how R5P compares to regular riboflavin as to dosage?

Similar to P5P and regular B6 - 10:1 conversion for most people. So, taking 10mg R5P should have the same effectveness as takign 100mg regular riboflavin. The exact ratio is different for every person depending on age and health. Some people convert regular riboflavin just fine while others need even R5P in high doses to see an effect.

 

[lindsay]

Not my experience personally, but a friend's experience - she took Riboflavin because she read that it helps keep mosquitos away. She said it caused massive migraines and nausea. I'm guessing it was too high of a dose, since most supplements come in really high doses. I've taken smaller amounts and done OK with it. Didn't notice much of anything though.

 

[DaveFoster]

I've kept my R5P dose >10 mg for safety concerns.

Not to say it isn't safe, but I've heard negative testimonials of higher doses, and I don't think there's any reason to go higher for general supplementation.

 

[Tarmander]

I bought a bag of riboflavin at the end of march and started supplementing with it at 400mg per day. I know that is a bit of a high dose but I wanted to load up for eye health and clearing estrogen. I had done doses around 100-200mg previously with very little issue.

Everything went really well for awhile. It helped tremendously with leveling out blood sugar levels and lowering estrogen. My muscles had better tone and it did not seem to really do much in the way of side effects or anything.

About a month ago though I started to have trouble sleeping. I would lay down around 9:30 and not fall asleep until 1ish, sometimes later. It was really tortuous. I used to be in this meditation group, and part of the practices they teach you were these rapid breathing cycles. After doing these for a few years, I started having issues sleeping, always feeling stressed unless I was doing the exercises, and what I later found out were signs of too high oxygenation and respiratory alkalosis.

Flash back to about a week and a half ago and I had an almost sleepless night. I had backed off on the B2, but that morning I had taken a regular 400mg dose. I connected the dots with the sleepless nights and the too high oxygenation.

Anyways, point is that using it at too high of a dose for too long will flood your system with too much oxygen, or something like that. It is very hard to tell this is happening until it kind of sneaks up on you, and you are all stimulated and stressed out.

 

[Giraffe]

Thank you all.

Officially there are no known adverse effects to riboflavin supplementation, but there is not that much research on it, it seems [RDI]. Peat wrote that some B-vitamins tend to be allergenic as supplements, vitamin B2 being one of the problematic ones, but...

... I have symptoms that are suggestive of vitamin B2 deficiency despite dietary intake 2-3 times RDI, therefore I plan to try supplemental vitamin B2 as R5P.

@Tarmander, what you describe is the sort of side effect I am fearing. Thank you for reminding me to really take it easy. I need to figure out how to dose < 10 mg. I ordered a powder.

What sort of eye health issue did you have in mind? Did it help?

 

[lindsay]

@Giraffe - which brand did you end up buying? I have used Pure Bulk and I think the quality is good, but I need to experiment with it more. Unfortunately, I am at risk for everything going wrong when I don't get adequate thyroid - it's really frustrating. A tiny pinch of the Pure Bulk powder is just about the right dosage - but you can probably buy a tiny scoop if you want to be super accurate.

 

[tara]

I've tried fairly high doses of B2 (not tried R5P). Up to 400mg for a while. No obvious bad reactions, but didn't have the effect I was hoping for either, for me. There are a couple of studies with high B2 reducing frequency and severity of migraine - that's what I was hoping for. Since then I've reduced it a lot, but still taking some. I cut it down to a much lower dose, and missed it, so went back up a bit but not so extreme. I use purebulk powder. My recent batches of B-vit mix I aimed for ~50 - 100mg/day B2/day (split into two doses).

I need to figure out how to dose < 10 mg. I ordered a powder.

I use a low dose B6 - 1/64 tsp ~44mg. I include that in to my 8 -day B-vit water mix (5ooml water), and take 30ml morning and night. I figure that way I'm getting ~3mg B6 wice a day.

 

[Tarmander]

Thank you all.

Officially there are no known adverse effects to riboflavin supplementation, but there is not that much research on it, it seems [RDI]. Peat wrote that some B-vitamins tend to be allergenic as supplements, vitamin B2 being one of the problematic ones, but...

... I have symptoms that are suggestive of vitamin B2 deficiency despite dietary intake 2-3 times RDI, therefore I plan to try supplemental vitamin B2 as R5P.

@Tarmander, what you describe is the sort of side effect I am fearing. Thank you for reminding me to really take it easy. I need to figure out how to dose < 10 mg. I ordered a powder.

What sort of eye health issue did you have in mind? Did it help?

I had floaters and I have been trying to correct myopia with certain exercises. It has been working slowly, according to my last eye exam where one eye was about a diopter better then previously. I thought b2 may accelerate it. I don't know if I noticed much of a difference.

As far as being careful, you definitely have to be, but you have more wiggle room then you think. I took 100mg for a long time with very little side effect. It wasn't until I stacked 400mg with MB(another oxygenator), lysine, and casein that I noticed problems from pushing too hard on the accelerator. Unless you stack it with other things like that you should be okay

 

[Giraffe]

@lindsay , I also bought PureBulk. Glad you did not experience adverse effects from it. I have a scoop for 200 mg. It's quite tiny. I guess I need to eyeball it if I want doses < 10 mg. Or maybe dilute it? Make my own Energin minus the other B vitamins?

@Tarmander, I am not sure if my concerns are justified. It's the B6 -B2 connection that makes me suspect that I should be cautious. A couple of substances seem to make restless legs and similar issues worse for me, even if they are beneficial in other ways. Vitamin B6 gives me weird and very vivid dreams, but no benefits. Will abstain from MB experiments while experimenting with R5P. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

[Bluebell]

I'm OK with most of the other B vitamins, but if I take too much B2 I get nausea and aching within a few days. I use standard riboflavin and if I feel I need some, I cut up a 100mg tablet and take about 5mg. Small doses like this, taken every now and then, work best for me.

 

[lindsay]

@lindsay , I also bought PureBulk. Glad you did not experience adverse effects from it. I have a scoop for 200 mg. It's quite tiny. I guess I need to eyeball it if I want doses < 10 mg. Or maybe dilute it? Make my own Energin minus the other B vitamins?

B2 is water soluble, no? If so, I would just mix it with liquid in a 30 ml. glass dropper container and then dose it out accordingly. There are about 600 drops in each of these little bottles (I just bought a pack of 12 for like $8 on Amazon). So if you make a concentrated solution, you can figure out how many drops this is per day and easy dose the correct amount. Actually, I think I might do this today! Plus, then you know it is definitely food grade.

 

[lindsay]

Update on what I wrote above. So I just looked and I am not sure I have pure bulk brand - I actually got mine on Amazon, but it is one of the Riboflavins listed on Toxinless and one with no additives.

So I just mixed 1/2 a teaspoon of the powder in a 30 ml. glass dropper bottle and figured out the math. 1/2 tsp. is approximately 800 mg. of Riboflavin (it's actually less than that - 776 mg to be exact). Divide that by 600 drops per bottle and each drop will be approximately 1.33 mg. So three drops will be about 4 mg, 6 drops will be about 8 mg. and that is less than 10 mg. Voila. Super easy to make at home and it looks like mustard water - would make a great natural food coloring agent if you didn't have to worry about poisoning people with too much Riboflavin!

 

[chispas]

My girlfriend used B2 daily for a couple of years in approx 400mg quantities, hoping to prevent migraine. After a while, she also developed the restless insomniac sort of condition that others in this thread experienced.

She also lost a lot of weight. A combination of muscle and fat. She eventually was referred to an endocrinologist as her TSH had dropped so low she was considered hyperthyroid.

Now she's on hyperthyroid drugs, and I wonder if B2 didn't contribute to the speeding up of her metabolism. There's not enough literature on riboflavin unfortunately.

 

[Spondive]

I take R5P at 100 mg dose and have had no problems and it seems to get water off me

 

[blob69]

What do you think of the below (part about riboflavin supplements being seriously dangerous)?

"Over the next 20 years, my own increased sensitivity to synthetic ascorbate led me to look for such reactions in others. The same people who reacted to it often reacted similarly to riboflavin and rutin, which were also made from cornstarch by oxidation. I ascribed the reaction to some industrial contaminant that they had in common, possibly the heavy metals introduced with the sulfuric acid. The heavy metal contamination of synthetic ascorbate is so great that one 500 mg tablet dissolved in a liter of water produces free radicals at a rate that would require a killing dose of x-rays to equal. The only clean and safe vitamin C now available is that in fresh fruits, meats, etc. The commercial stuff is seriously dangerous." - RP

 

[Luann]

Yikes! Good to know blob69.

 

[Pet Peeve]

I wonder if it's only riboflavin that's contaminated or if it's the same for r5p?

 

[Integra]

I stopped taking most of the B-vits except occasionally because it's a bit hard to control for effects and side-effects, but I noticed that I would sometimes crave riboflavin. It's as if I'm suffocating (not literally, but I feel stuck and airless, even if I'm breathing normally), but when I take about 50mg of riboflavin within half an hour I get this pleasant sensation in my body, like my skin begins to breathe, perhaps the pores open up because of better blood flow but it's really, really wonderful. I also get that 'humming' feeling, like when you're outside in the sun or making art.

 

[Rich M]

I've tried 800mg doses of B2. Basically no effect when healthy. I read some study that large doses like this(above 600mg), improve the effectiveness of White Blood Cells. So when I get the flu(virus), this is how I treat it, with mega-b2.