Vitamin B-6

[Vinero]

About a half year now. I was afraid in the beginning because of all the warnings about tingling in hands and feet but I never experienced any. Main benefit for me is increased energy/motivation, that I don't get from doses of 200 mg and lower. Seems like the prolactin inhibiting effect occurs at the higher dosages for me.

 

[charlie]

Yeh I find it better on high doses too, but frankly it concerns me. This is the response from Ray when when I asked him if he thought that there was any way that my body was using all this B6.

I don't think it's possible; there are probably other deficiencies involved.

Do you have any in mind?

High estrogen causes many nutritional problems, interference with vitamins B6 and A and E are usually the first, but the essential thing is to keep your liver and thyroid function high enough to keep the estrogen under control. A good diet and a thyroid supplement are the usual things for counteracting excess estrogen.

So I am at a loss on what to do. If I lower the dose of B6 my dermatitis will come back and it can get really bad, even painful.

 

[tinkerer]

I took 15mg of B6 (as P5P) before bed along with a meal, just for the sake of experimenting. I had pretty bad insomnia.

What brand of P5P is it?

RP has mentioned in KMUD interview that 10 mg of B6 is far beyond people's daily
requirement. He recommended one should start with 10 mg for therapeutic use.
Someone asked him about active and inactive form of B6.
He mentioned that people are more likely to over dose on active form.
I occasionally use 2-5 mg of regular B6 and i get head ache from 10 mg.

Do you know which KMUD interview it was?

 

[Vinero]

Charlie, I find it disturbing that you NEED high doses of b6 just for keeping dermatitis under control. There was a stressful period in my life in which I had eczema on my legs and that probably came as a result of high stress hormones. This was on a high-protein, low carb diet so it's safe to say I was basically running on cortisol and adrenalin all the time. When the stress ended and I started eating high carb again, the eczema went away after a while on it's own.
I don't know if your dermatitis is stress related or a result of a deficiency of some vitamin but you could try a b-complex or something?
Anyway if it's stress related like in my case it was, then you can take all the vitamin supplements in the world and it won't go away. Maybe you are eating too much protein in relation to carbs? This will cause high cortisol as well. See this thread: http://peatarian.com/30906/high-protein ... s-hormones

 

[charlie]

Peat asked me about my protein intake. Its normal. I get plenty of carbs. Peat is right, its from estrogen. It looks like from taking thryoid I am getting excess estrogen. If I add in lisuride, coffee, anything more metabolic boosting, the estrogen sky rockets from pushing metabolism so hard and dermatitis comes back along with other symptoms. I am literally at a loss on how to get the estrogen down. If I lower my thyroid, I run into bad digestion issues, exhaustion, etc.

 

[Sirkama]

I'm dealing with some of the same problems as you Charlie, so I have a few questions:
- What are your main high estrogen symptoms?
- How does an increase in metabolism cause a rise in estrogen? More testosterone -> estrogen?
- Is the high estrogen the reason why you need so much B6?

My seb derm has gotten a lot worse since starting Peating, and after starting Thiroyd a few weeks ago, I'm having edema (that can be from too much T4 from what I've read) and allergy-related problems. But on the other hand, a lot of my problems have improved...

 

[charlie]

Sirkama,

one of my high estrogen symptoms is the dermatitis, another is my voice. When estrogen is high my voice is really raspy, and weak.

Ok, another one is. I have figured out a medical mystery that is affecting a lot of guys. Red scrotum syndrome. When my estrogen is really high, that is when the scrotum is the reddest. Thank goodness I did not go to drs and let them start treating it, because the treatments make things really bad. So all I have to do with is the redness, not much else.

Another sign is being able to sleep through the night. If my estrogen is high, I will for sure be up at least once at night. A couple days ago I went ahead and took a small piece of lisuride, estrogen shot up, all symptoms came back strong.

Like you, a lot of symptoms have improved, but now I got new ones.

 

[Sirkama]

Woah, I have case of "red scrotum syndrome" as well, and after starting Thiroyd I'm having slight insomnia issues. Do you have any other emails from Peat that you could share?

Also, I find this thread over on Peatarian interesting:
http://peatarian.com/24197/estrogen-and-hyperthyroidism

 

[charlie]

No thats about it for emails. He says to take thyroid and have a solid diet. Well, I do that.

I am aware of the hyperthyroidism line of thinking. However, I am nowhere near hyperthyroidism. And if I lower my thyroid supplement, I will crash right into total exhaustion. Stuck between a rock a hard place.

 

[charlie]

I am fairly sure I have started experiencing B6 toxicity symptoms. I will be immediately stopping the B6. What I am going to do for the dermatits, I dunno.

 

[tinkerer]

I took 15mg of B6 (as P5P) before bed along with a meal, just for the sake of experimenting. I had pretty bad insomnia.

What brand of P5P is it?

RP has mentioned in KMUD interview that 10 mg of B6 is far beyond people's daily
requirement. He recommended one should start with 10 mg for therapeutic use.
Someone asked him about active and inactive form of B6.
He mentioned that people are more likely to over dose on active form.
I occasionally use 2-5 mg of regular B6 and i get head ache from 10 mg.

Do you know which KMUD interview it was?

What's puzzling about the side effect and "overdose" reports about the P5P form of B6 is that it's considered by scientists to be an anti-toxin (as I noted above), rather than a toxin. I searched in the past for any documented cases of harm from overdose and didn't find any. All I found was Internet rumors and self-diagnoses, with many of them involving confusing of P5P with the cheaper inactive forms like pyridoxine HCL.

Here is some more info on this:

"The use of supplemental P5P has not been associated with toxicity, although the inactive form, pyridoxine, has been associated with reports of peripheral neuropathy. (Thorne Research, http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/6/1/87.pdf)

The only theoretical concern with P5P I can think of is that chronic use might downregulate receptors, or it might compete with other nutrients, though I haven't seen reports of that specifically with the P5P form, just generically with B6. http://mdpoison.com/healthcareprofessio ... 0Facts.pdf

It's also puzzling that 10 mg of the pyridoxine form is being called a high dose when the most common supplement dose for that form is 100 mg and a study I reviewed before found that 10 mg had no effect, either postive or negative (although another study found a positive effect when combined with something else). I don't have a link handy for that one. Perhaps the standard dose is too high.

 

[SaltGirl]

In regards to those who are having estrogen problems I ask: Are you eating enough? I am not talking necessarily about enough protein, but are you getting enough calories so your body has the required energy to process things?

 

[SQu]

Charlie it concerns me that you do so much for others through this forum, yet you are stuck with a problem like this. Estrogen is a big one for me and recently, more salt has been helping. But you have probably already tried that. Wish I could be of more help.

 

[charlie]

SaltGirl, I eat a lot now a days. Cant imagine it not being enough calories.

sueq, thank you for your concern. I will try and up the salt and see if that helps. Willing to try anything at this point.

 

[Peata]

SaltGirl, I eat a lot now a days. Cant imagine it not being enough calories.

sueq, thank you for your concern. I will try and up the salt and see if that helps. Willing to try anything at this point.

Sorry to hear this, Charlie. I took extra B6 and/or P5P for 7 months or so, varying the dose everyday, sometimes 25 mg. sometimes 75 or more, but that doesn't count any extra B6 in foods or other supps I was getting. I stopped B6 and most other supplements over 2 weeks ago. Maybe I was lucky I didn't get toxicity.

Besides the other suggestions, magnesium is another idea. Not sure if you supplement it, but I've read low magnesium has similar symptoms as B6 toxicity and besides that, magnesium can help with B6 toxicity, but do look into it carefully just in case. When I take magnesium, I like magnesium glycinate the best. Otherwise, epsom salt baths seem like a way to get just what you need.

I would also avoid any extra B supplements, as you never know if they have traces of B6 that could aggravate things.

Finally, and this won't go over entirely well with all but I have to mention it anyway if I was desperate - -don't underestimate the B depleting effects of good ol' alcohol, even used in "moderation". But it can deplete other B vitamins and nutrients too, so I'd look out for the long term, plus dependency, so beware, I'm no doctor and not recommending anything. But in my life, with its B-depleting effects, it would have its place if I had B6 toxicity.

 

[charlie]

I started taking magnesium a couple days ago, so hopefully it will help. It happens to be the glycinate.

Yesterday I started a list of things to clear out B6. Alcohol is number 2 on the list. I will definitely be sipping a little bit of ethanol here and there to help the process along.

Here is the list I got so far of things to help detox it or just help the situation:

B-12 Methylcobalamin (I get a lot of milk so not sure if I need this)
Alcohol
B1
Salt
Magnesium

Appreciate the help.

 

[Peata]

B-12 Methylcobalamin (I get a lot of milk so not sure if I need this)

You probably saw it, but from an earlier thread about someone getting B6 toxicity by taking P5P, it was mentioned they had to take "massive" amounts of B12. Heres the thread.

The person said: I took MASSIVE amounts of methylcobalamin and the neuropathy resolved literally in hours...then returned slowly over the next day (perhaps when the B12 was fully utilized). I repeated this process a few times and the neuropathy is completely gone.

 

[tinkerer]

Good work, Peata, that reminds me that Paul Jaminet ("Boo! Hiss! He's not a Peatarian, dammit!" -- I know, sorry ) advises to take B12 and biotin with B6, and elsewhere I have seen that high doses of B6 can increase the need for folate. I do take methyl-folate now and then and just bought some methyl-B12 on sale, and occasionally take a B complex that has the active forms of the B vitamins (which is rare in a B complex), and I eat foods rich in B vitamins.

"B6 should be balanced by vitamin B12 and biotin" - Paul Jaminet, http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/10/ar ... r-vitamins

It's partly because of the possibility of throwing other nutrients out of whack with a supplement that my long-term goal is to find a way to fix things sufficiently that I eliminate the need for most or all supplements. Pipe dream, I know. And one of the things I like about Ray Peat is that he is one of the few gurus who seeks to address and fix the underlying causes of poor carb tolerance/metabolism instead of just telling carb intolerant folks like me to coddle our dysfunction by avoiding carbs in perpetuity and taking supplements or drugs to fill in the gaps.

 

[Peata]

Oh, I found the source of that quote in the thread I linked to. It's from the Longecity site. I didn't want to copy and paste their whole conversation but look here.

 

[Peata]

It's partly because of the possibility of throwing other nutrients out of whack with a supplement that my long-term goal is to find a way to fix things sufficiently that I eliminate the need for most or all supplements. Pipe dream, I know. And one of the things I like about Ray Peat is that he is one of the few gurus who seeks to address and fix the underlying causes of poor carb tolerance/metabolism instead of just telling carb intolerant folks like me to coddle our dysfunction by avoiding carbs in perpetuity and taking supplements or drugs to fill in the gaps.

I have been able to cut way back on the supplements I take. I think some of it was psychological thinking I needed them, but also I like to experiment.

For a while I was only taking raw thyroid and Progest E.

I've added back some aspirin, K, calcium as needed to balance phosphorus, and just taking taurine for a couple days. Oh and theanine to balance caffeine. And I almost forgot ginger as an experiment to see if it lowers serotonin and histamine. So that sounds like a lot but it's not as much as I was taking.

Hopefully you will be able to reduce all or most of your supplements. Don't give up the dream.

Adding: "And one of the things I like about Ray Peat is that he is one of the few gurus who seeks to address and fix the underlying causes of poor carb tolerance/metabolism instead of just telling carb intolerant folks like me to coddle our dysfunction by avoiding carbs in perpetuity and taking supplements or drugs to fill in the gaps."

Yes, with RP so many things seem possible or not the big scary deal we were led to believe (in my experience trying to figure out individual symptoms and what to do and feeling like my health was falling apart when simply honing in and fixing one or more of the big problems helps a lot or can possibly help the others too).