can vitamin B supplementation lead to MS symptoms?

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weather
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can vitamin B supplementation lead to MS symptoms?

Post by weather »

About 1.5 years ago, my friend had an MRI scan that the doctor felt was troubling and potentially indicative of MS. The doctor began giving her daily injections of milgamma (vitamin B) and cortexin. Within 3-4 days of receiving these injections, she had large areas of numbness (loss of sensitivity) on her legs and parts of her other body. Her doctor told her that these were her first symptoms of MS. She had never had such a symptom before. She stopped the injections, and the symptoms resolved after 5-8 weeks.

About 6 weeks ago, my friend started feeling dizzy about 4x per day lasting about 15 seconds each time. The doctor was worried about MS, and recommend she take more vitamin B. After some time of taking vitamin B (in pill format), she has developed a 7cm x 7cm spot of numbness on her head. She has stopped taking vitamin and hoping the numbness will resolve.

Regarding my friend’s dizziness, this seems to have resolved either due to 1) removal of coffee/tea from her diet, drinking more water or 2) receiving an i.v. drip (1hr/day) with (thiocitic acid and emoxypine).

Getting back to the numbness (loss of sensitivity), my friend has only had this numbness on 2 occasions, and both were associated when she took vitamin B. (The doctor did not check her vitamin B levels prior to supplementing her with vitamin B.)

Does anyone have thoughts on whether these may be symptoms of MS? Can MS be unmasked with vitamin B injections? Does the dizziness seem concerning given it seems to have resolved with diet change?

Thank you for any advice or suggestions.
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Scott1
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Re: can vitamin B supplementation lead to MS symptoms?

Post by Scott1 »

Hi,

Milgamma is the trade name for Benfotiamine, a derivative of vitamin B1. There are studies of its use in treating sciatica but they aren't quite mainstream and I'm scratching my head about why your friends doctor chose this as a frontline treatment for MS.
This link highlights the issues that may arise from using various B group vitamins. MS isn't one of them.
http://www.md-health.com/Vitamin-B-Comp ... fects.html

I cannot work out why Cortexin was used. It does not impress me at all. Is your friend seeing a real doctor?

The thiocitic acid becomes lipoic acid which is getting a bit of very recent interest.
Emoxypine is a nootropic made in Russia but I'm not sure if its licenced in either Europe or the U.S.

Either your friends doctor is the head of a major research centre or is an individual who operates well outside the conventional sphere. If it is the latter then go somewhere else. No one needs to be lab rat in an uncontrolled experiment.

Regards,
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NHE
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Re: can vitamin B supplementation lead to MS symptoms?

Post by NHE »

Depending on the form of Milgamma, it contains either 90 or 100 mg of pyridoxine which is vitamin B6. http://www.naturalelixir.com/milgamma.html This is a fairly large dose. High doses of vitamin B6 can cause loss of proprioception which is the body's awareness of itself, e.g., movement and position as well as muscle tension. The RDA for B6 is about 1.5-2.0 mg/day. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Vitam ... fessional/

To answer your question, yes, the Milgamma with its high dose of B6, ~ 50-67X the RDA, could very well be causing problems.

Here's more about proprioception. http://www.physio-pedia.com/Proprioception

Here's a PubMed reference.

Elevated B6 levels and peripheral neuropathies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18754531

Polyneuropathy related to decreased levels of Vitamin B6 are well known. In contrast, the association between elevated levels of pyridoxine and neuropathy is not well described. This study is a retrospective review of patients in our neuromuscular clinic that were found to have elevated B6 levels. Twenty-six patients were found to have elevated serum B6 levels. The mean B6 level was 68.8 ng/ml. Twenty patients (76.9%) reported daily vitamin use. Twenty-one patients (80.8%) reported only sensory complaints. The most common symptoms reported were numbness (96%), burning pain (49.9%), tingling (57.7%), balance difficulties (30.7%), and weakness (7.8%). Nine (out of 26) had an abnormal EMG/NCS. Eight patients had an abnormal quantitative sensory study. We conclude that elevated pyridoxine levels should be considered in the differential diagnosis of any sensory or sensorimotor polyneuropathy.
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