Phlebotomy anyone?

A forum to discuss Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency and its relationship to Multiple Sclerosis.
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lyndacarol
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by lyndacarol »

Welcome to ThisIsMS, chenman.
chenman wrote:I became a blood donor again (I had been one as a student) and donated 75 times in about 15 years, then was rejected permanently because I had had lung embolism.
I am curious… Since I know that vitamin B12 deficiency (among other conditions) can cause pulmonary embolisms, I wonder if you were screened for a possible B12 problem.
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by chenman »

lyndacarol wrote:Welcome to ThisIsMS, chenman.
chenman wrote:I became a blood donor again (I had been one as a student) and donated 75 times in about 15 years, then was rejected permanently because I had had lung embolism.
I am curious… Since I know that vitamin B12 deficiency (among other conditions) can cause pulmonary embolisms, I wonder if you were screened for a possible B12 problem.
This is unbelievable, Lyndacarol!
When I had recovered an angiologist did about a dozen tests for LE risk factors. The only one outside the normal range was homocycsteine, but he did not follow up on that. (And another angiologist did not either.)
Later I did some searching myself and decided to ask my GP to do tests - and it turned out that I was very low on B12. He thought that 1 mg i.v. every 6 weeks would be ok, so I had to find other ways to speed up substitution, i.e. 5mg tablets...
Unfortunately no discernible effect within 10 month as far as paresthesias in my feet (numbness, tingeling...) is concerned. (?Funicular myelosis? I have no idea how long this B12 deficiency was going on - possible for 15 years or more, when those paresthesias started. (I am not a vegan, eat little meat, but eggs, and milk producs, so should have sufficient supply... No helicobacter, no gastritis...)

I was really impressed by the frequency of LE, which quite often is deadly: we read about myocardial infarctions, strokes all the time, but LE seems to be not on the radar. In medical school and training long ago it was not an issue, so I never got it "into my head".
Meanwhile it becomes clear that B12 deficiency is frequent, without clear cause. In a book on this topic it is speculated that doctors do not screen for this deficiency because the consequences make people chronically ill and that is what keeps them searching for help, stimulates business, the disease industry...
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lyndacarol
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by lyndacarol »

chenman wrote:When I had recovered an angiologist did about a dozen tests for LE risk factors. The only one outside the normal range was homocycsteine, but he did not follow up on that. (And another angiologist did not either.)
Later I did some searching myself and decided to ask my GP to do tests - and it turned out that I was very low on B12. He thought that 1 mg i.v. every 6 weeks would be ok, so I had to find other ways to speed up substitution, i.e. 5mg tablets...
Unfortunately no discernible effect within 10 month as far as paresthesias in my feet (numbness, tingeling...) is concerned. (?Funicular myelosis? I have no idea how long this B12 deficiency was going on - possible for 15 years or more, when those paresthesias started. (I am not a vegan, eat little meat, but eggs, and milk producs, so should have sufficient supply... No helicobacter, no gastritis...)

I was really impressed by the frequency of LE, which quite often is deadly: we read about myocardial infarctions, strokes all the time, but LE seems to be not on the radar. In medical school and training long ago it was not an issue, so I never got it "into my head".
Meanwhile it becomes clear that B12 deficiency is frequent, without clear cause. In a book on this topic it is speculated that doctors do not screen for this deficiency because the consequences make people chronically ill and that is what keeps them searching for help, stimulates business, the disease industry...
With your very low B12 level, possible MS symptoms (paresthesias, fatigue, "brain fog") in the early 1990s, and high ferritin level, vitamin B12 deficiency may have been a factor for a long time. As you know, the metabolism pathway of B12 is complicated and can be interrupted for many reasons – even more than those you list. (By the way, I have read that B12 is absorbed more quickly with IV injections than tablets; many experts recommend sublingual tablets; my understanding is that methylcobalamin is preferred over cyanocobalamin.)

I know that the symptoms of MS and the symptoms of B12 deficiency are the same. The two conditions can only be distinguished by testing; there is no definitive test for MS, but there are tests to indicate B12 deficiency (serum homocysteine test, which you had; methylmalonic acid test; serum B12 test – or the newer, more reliable HoloTranscobalamin, a.k.a. HoloTc, test; RBC folate test is also useful to distinguish B12 from folate deficiency).

Since B12 is necessary for red blood cell formation, it seems possible to me that low B12 might be involved in your high ferritin level. Hemochromatosis (for which phlebotomies are often done) often appears with B12 deficiency.

I also know that B12 deficiency can run in families. Your two older brothers?

In my opinion (I have no medical background), screening for B12 deficiency should be routinely performed, especially on patients presenting with neurological symptoms, since neurological manifestations appear first.
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by PointsNorth »

I thought this was a good paper on iron and B12: Iron and the folate-vitamin B12-methylation pathway in multiple sclerosis

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lyndacarol
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by lyndacarol »

I have discovered the thread, "iron and folate-vitamin B12-methylation pathway," posted in the General Discussion forum on August 4, 2006: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... c2764.html

I'm going to try to get the full text from the medical school library near me.

(By the way, FYI, the herbicide Roundup/glyphosate is widely used in South Africa – origin of this paper. As you will recall, glyphosate strongly binds up MANY nutrients including iron and cobalt, which is the foundation for vitamin B12 – making those nutrients unavailable to the body.)
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lyndacarol
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by lyndacarol »

http://www.researchgate.net/publication ... _sclerosis

Metabolic Brain Disease
September 2006, Volume 21, Issue 2, pp 117-133

Iron and the folate-vitamin B12-methylation pathway in multiple sclerosis

S.J. van Rensburg, M.J. Kotze, D. Hon, P. Haug, J. Kuyler, M. Hendricks, J. Botha, F.C.V. Potocnik, T. Matsha, R.T. Erasmus

Received: 31 July 2005 / Accepted: 18 November 2005
© Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Abstract

Some subjects with multiples sclerosis (MS) present with low blood iron parameters. Anecdotal reports and a single patient study suggest that iron supplementation may be beneficial in these subjects. Myelin is regenerated continually, but prerequisites for this process are iron and a functional folate-vitamin B12-methylation pathway. The aim of this study was to determine iron status, folate and homocysteine in MS subjects, and to evaluate the effect on MS symptoms if deficiencies were addressed. Results: In relapsing-remitting MS subjects, serum iron concentration correlated significant weight with age at diagnosis (r = 0.49; p = 0.008). In Caucasian female MS subjects, serum iron and ferritin concentrations were significantly lower than in matched controls. In a 6-month pilot study, 12 subjects taking a regimen of nutritional supplements designed to promote myelin regeneration, improved significantly neurologically as measured by the Kurtzke EDSS (Total Score means 3.50 to 2.45, 29.9%; p = 0.021). These were significantly improved (p = 0.002) compared to 6 control group patients taking multivitamins (Kurtzke Score increased by 13.9% from 4.83 to 5.50). Both groups had significantly reduced homocysteine concentrations at 6 months, suggesting that methylation is necessary but not sufficient for myelin regeneration.

Introduction

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disorder in which autoreactive immune responses are involved in the attack on myelinated axons, thereby interfering with the conduction of signals to the periphery (Steinman, 1993). The disease process is often progressive, leading to chronic disability. The diagnosis of MS is extremely stressful for patients and care-givers alike because at diagnosis neurologists cannot deduce from the severity of the symptoms what the disease outcome will be. After an initial remission, some subjects experience few symptoms for long periods of time, while others deteriorate rapidly. The diagnosis of MS is mainly clinical (Poser and Brinar, 2004), assisted by cerebrospinal fluid analysis (Friedman et al., 2005), while magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is gaining importance in diagnosis and follow-up (McDonald et al., 2001).

The aetiology of MS is complex and multi-factorial, involving genetic and environmental factors, while a viral component is also implicated (De Villiers et al., 2006). Furthermore, a combination of different factors may cause disease in different patients. Metals have previously been implicated in the aetiology of MS (Clausen, 1993). The role of excess iron has been investigated, but three clinical trials attempting to remove excess iron by chelation with desferrioxamine have been inconclusive (LeVine and Chakrabarty, 2004). A study by Grant et al. (2003) showed that low iron concentrations in food protected mice against developing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a mouse model for studying autoimmunity in MS. Contrary to these findings, a single patient study demonstrated stabilisation of the MS disease process with no further degeneration when a patient took iron supplements daily together with other nutrients (Rooney et al., 1999). The role of iron in the aetiology and pathology of MS has thus not been elucidated.

Since myelin regeneration is a prerequisite for remission, it is important to note that iron is indispensable for myelin synthesis. Iron deficiency during early postnatal life as well as in later life, results in a reduced amount of myelin in the spinal cord and white matter of rat pups (Yu et al., 1986; Beard et al., 2003). In mice, the disruption of iron availability, either by limiting dietary iron intake or by altering iron storage capacity, resulted in decreased myelin proteins and lipids (Ortiz et al., 2004). Proteolipid protein was most consistently affected, suggesting that limiting iron to oligodendrocytes results not only in hypomyelination but also in a decrease in myelin compaction, i.e. in the structure of the myelin. Electron microscopic studies have revealed high concentrations of iron in the cytoplasm of oligodendrocytes and within myelin (Connor and Menzies, 1996). Many of the enzymes involved in the biosynthetic pathways that produce myelin utilize iron as part of their catalytic center (LeVine and Chakrabarty, 2004). Myelinogenesis is a highly energy-intensive process resulting in a high metabolic demand for iron. Hulet et al. (1999) found ferritin receptors on oligodendrocytes and suggested that the significance of a cellular ferritin receptor was that ferritin was capable of delivering 2,000 times more iron per mole of protein than transferrin to the oligodendrocytes.

Iron enrichment within both oligodendrocytes and myelin raises the possibility that an imbalance in the management of iron during the disease process could lead to the production of iron-catalyzed free radicals that would cause oxidative damage. Toshniwal and Zarling (1992) found that the inflammation during an acute exacerbation causes so much lipid peroxidation that pentane can be measured in the breath of the patients, but during remission exhaled pentane was similar to values recorded for control subjects.

Vascular damage in MS is implicated in the finding of higher homocysteine levels in MS subjects (Vrethem et al., 2003). Interestingly, iron deficiency may also be linked to increased homocysteine levels. Prolonged iron deficiency anaemia is associated with gastritis and atrophy of glands producing intrinsic factor in the stomach (Davidson and Markson, 1955, 1959). Optimal functioning of the folate-vitamin B12-methyl transfer cycle continuously providing activated methyl groups, is a prerequisite for myelin production and maintenance, and long-term deficiencies of this pathway cause demyelinating diseases of the brain and spinal cord (Selzer et al., 2003). Inborn errors of metabolism involving the genes of the methyl transfer pathway are known to cause inadequate myelination and serious disability from childhood, but supplementation with the chemical metabolite following each metabolic block was found to restore the myelin as well as some of the functional deficiencies (Surtees et al., 1991).

Polymorphisms in the genes of the methyl transfer pathway may occur without having an effect on the phenotype under normal circumstances, but when the substrates or co-factors of this pathway are depleted, demyelination may follow (Selzer et al., 2003). The latter case study illustrates this principle. The authors describe extensive demyelination of the brain and subsequent death of a child after anesthesia with nitrous oxide, which irreversibly oxidizes the cobalt in cobalamine (vitamin B12). The activity of methionine synthase (the enzyme which utilizes cobalamine) is reduced to zero after 2 h of anaesthesia (Selzer et al., 2003). This adverse effect was amplified in the patient by the fact that he had two polymorphisms in 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) which reduced the activity of this enzyme as well, effectively blocking the production of active methyl groups. Importantly, in the deceased patient normal vitamin B12 levels were measured (403 pg/mL) even though the activity of the enzyme was zero, i.e. in this study the vitamin B12 assay did not distinguish between active and inactive (oxidized) vitamin B12. This may explain the results of Vrethem et al. (2003) who found increased homocysteine levels in MS subjects, but without decreased vitamin B12. Other researchers have found decreased levels of vitamin B12 and folic acid in serum and CSF of MS subjects (Reynolds et al., 1992; Frequin et al., 1993; Kolesar, 2000).

The aims of the present open-label pilot study were to determine iron parameters, as well as folate and homocysteine concentrations in a group of MS subjects, and to correct deficiencies while observing possible effects on MS symptoms.
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Re: Phlebotomy anyone?

Post by gristy56 »

I think in the same way. I am having regular phleb. and it helps much. Have requested a transfusion. MS is in the blood. It is magnetite vibrating with stray magnetic fields at 50 Hz because of electricity. Blood is thick and dark and sticks to the needle because it is magnetic.....
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