Greetings

[metabolic]

Hi all,
I've posted a couple of messages in another group, but I'd like to introduce myself properly here.
I'm a 36 year old male diagnosed 2 years ago with RRMS. When I was initially diagnosed, I ended up spending a week in hospital as I was not in a good way and they wanted to keep me in for observation. MRIs showed significant scarring both in brain and spinal area, with one large scar right in the middle of the brain. Another scan 6 months later showed more scarring. At this point I did some research and found the Paleo movement and Terry Wahls's ideas. The diets seemed to make physiological sense to my mind, and I proceeded to give up a lot of foods. I think at this point, I just don't think my body was being given what it needed - I started feeling a lot better as I lost weight, then I slowly started feeling worse again. Plodding along for another year, I ended up eating a criminal amount of kale, broccoli, cauliflower etc all raw with hands and feet getting colder and colder.
Next I bumped into an old friend who has become a personal trainer. He had suffered a couple of health issues and had found a couple of guys (Rob Turner and Matt Stone) that helped him out of the hole. I started training with him while he looked at my diet and suggested a few supplements: ALA, Magnesium chelates, Zinc, good multivitamin, methylation support etc. He told me to quit the tinned fish and raw veg, which I did. I didn't feel a lot better or stronger after that, and we discussed that I may just not be eating enough. So up went the sweet potato, rice and coconut oil. Since then I have got much much stronger, however I still get random tingles.
I looked up the guys that helped my PT and saw they were all in the Ray Peat camp. I read a few things by Ray Peat, Danny Roddy, Matt Stone, Andrew Kim and they seem to research independent of large corporations. Since then I have increased my salt, fruit and gelatine. This helped my cold hands slightly but they're still not great.

My hands have had minor numbness for the whole two years, this is not improving. I have urgency, but I'm not sure if that's to do with my broken metabolism or the MS. I have improved in some ways since diagnosis and have probably had a couple of minor relapses, but since I feel randomly tingly I can't tell for sure.

The next things I need to do in no order are:
Improve sleep - not good ATM
Reduce cortisol/adrenaline - not good ATM
Have some comprehensive bloods done
Have my DNA tested and analysed
Look into progesterone
Methylate my muscle meats
Figure out whether dairy is OK or not!

Would anyone be able to suggest what bloods I need to get done? I potentially need to go private here in the UK as GPs seem unwilling to test thing that are not on their checklist.
What DNA test by 23andme is the right one and who would be able to analyse the results?

My Routine is as follows:
Morning, wake have a smoothie with berry, sometimes cinnamon, coconut milk, orange juice, with acetyl-l-carnitine, taurine, creatine, collagen powder (great lakes), sometimes undentured rice protein, sometimes a little salt
Supplements: Poliquin Mutlivitamin, zinc glycinate, calcium citrate, R-lipoic acid, Thorne B vitamins, 5000iu D3

Morning snack
Well cooked kale with tumeric and omega-3 eggs

Lunch
Large bowl of salad, 300g mixed seafood, fruit, berries

Snack
Fruit

Dinner
Meat + usually starchy veg/rice + greens, gelatine + orange juice

Supplements:
Multivitamin, magnesium, R-lipoic acid, probiotic

Bed:
Magnesium, sometimes valerian

Thanks

[jimmylegs]

great info on timing of food and supplements - although the specific forms and doses of the various essential nutrient supplements would be even better

you might not be getting enough mag at the same time as you take your morning 5000 IU vit d3. if you were to move one of your magnesium pills to morning that could help. do you happen to know how much magnesium your diet provides daily? i'm curious about your total daily intake in mgs from food and pills. could be linked to more than one of your issues.

can you specify which thorne b vits product? if it has a lot of b12, you could try moving it to lunch time, to see if it did anything for your sleeping patterns. there's a certain amount of literature on b12 and circadian rhythm.

whenever i search for private testing in the UK the prices are outlandish.

if money were no object i would say serum zinc, serum magnesium, serum 25(OH)vit D3 and serum vit B12.
it can be helpful to also test serum copper and serum ferritin, to check them in relation to serum zinc.

this insane pricing though. ugh. ~80GBP
http://bloodtestslondon.com/epages/55f0 ... ducts/ZINC

compare to the US private pricing ~40USD
http://www.lef.org/vitamins-supplements ... Blood-Test

[ElliotB]

Welcome!

"Figure out whether dairy is OK or not!"

Many 'experts' say no to dairy and wheat. I gave up both immediately upon my diagnosis. Not everyone does or agrees. I current have small amounts of cheese made from cows that are 100% grass fed - Kerrigold brand from Ireland.

Is the meat you are consuming grass fed? Although Dr. Wahls' book includes organic meats as an acceptable source for meat, in all of her initial interviews, she only recommended grass fed meats.

I take a lot of supplements, and strongly recommend you consider taking D3, Omega 3, B-12 and CoQ10 at a minimum. Obviously there are many, many more.

[metabolic]

Hi Jimmylegs and ElliotB
My dosing is as follows:
630mg Calcium Citrate (Swanson)
3 Tablets in the morning of the Poliquin Iron Free multivitamin: http://main.poliquinstore.com/multi-intense-iron-free
3 In the evening
10mg MitoQ: http://www.mitoq.com/uk/our-science/ This seems to be an intense form of CoQ10
300mg Magnesium chelates: http://main.poliquinstore.com/ubermagpx
1 Tab Thorne #6 Complex: https://shop.thorne.com/products/vitami ... -complex-6
1 Tab Vitamin D3 (5000IU): http://www.swansonvitamins.com/swanson- ... -250-sgels
240mg one morning, one evening of R-Lipoic acid: http://www.lef.org/vitamins-supplements ... ipoic-Acid
22mg Zinc Bisglycinate: http://www.solgar.co.uk/SolgarProducts/ ... ablets.htm
600mg NAC every few days: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/swanson- ... g-100-caps
The carnitine, taurine, I take quarter to half a teaspoon
Vitamin C, creatine I take a whole teaspoon
Gelatin/collagen: loads

Wow the tests will cost me a fortune, but what price health?
I'm not too sure how much magnesium I get daily that isn't in tablet form, I suspect it's about 100-150mg...probably not enough? I was thinking about moving the magnesium to morning, but won't that antagonise the calcium? I have a suspicion that our soil in the world is severely magnesium deficient, and we are probably not getting the magnesium we think we are from food.
I just googled B12 and circadian rhythm - very interesting, will try!

My main red meat is lamb - and that is grass fed. Beef I have maybe once a week - organic (may have been grain finished). Fish (salmon) is wild alaskan, chicken is organic. I avoid pork as my first big flare was following a day of having pork meatballs!

[jimmylegs]

ok great info, thanks.

comments -
good that you are splitting up the multi tablets. could be even better if you take only one or two at a time over the course of the day. your body would probably get more out of them that way.

with the 300 mag chelate and the 187 in the multi, you are probably doing all right for mag from supplements for your body's purposes, but you will need an extra dose to help deal with the supplemental d3. don't worry about competition with calcium. if you left things as is you'd have a high calcium to magnesium ratio which is no good. 2:1 is the upper limit, not the objective. when you're talking ratios, you are not usually interested in maximizing one or minimizing the other. just balancing in an optimal way. this caution applies to many essential nutrient ratios.

in the supplement universe you often hear about competition but with whole food you get calcium and magnesium together all the time. your body knows how to deal with it. it doesn't handle pure this or pure that as well by any stretch. similar issues with zinc and iron. you supplement one, you deplete the other, supplement both and they do both come up, but more slowly (which is good). when eating foods that are rich in zinc and iron, you don't tend to see this negative correlation effect. whole food is more like the beneficial combination approach. apply that thinking to your supplemental balancing of calcium and magnesium, and make sure you DO know what your dietary fraction looks like, and you'll probably be in better shape

there's so much we don't know yet about the synergistic benefits of whole food, or about the risks of isolated nutrient supplementation, that we should always emphasize that first. and if you were to start with one essential nutrient, and you were going to try to maximize daily mg of magnesium inputs from food, you could potentially save a bit on the supplements over time and be providing yourself with a wider array of trace micronutrients in the process.

one of my favourite resources for tracking nutrients in diet is 'world's healthiest foods' you can put the term whfoods and any essential nutrient in google, and it should link you right up to a relevant page. once on a specific page, I always go to the nutrient chart first, and then read the rest. tons of valuable info on things like interactions with other nutrients etc. very important. magnesium example (dropping you in mid-page): http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... #foodchart
your being in the uk makes me wish i could find info on spring greens, but i haven't seen it to date. i think it must be fairly close to swiss chard or spinach, but can't be sure at this point. you never can tell - kale usually sits quite a way down the list of awesome nutrient dense veg, compared to spinach or chard.

choose organic whenever possible (maybe after you finish paying off your bloodwork! :S ) - (*after* writing the following, i noticed your thought about the soil. i agree with you!: ) the soil, and the plants coming from them, should have a more appropriate distribution of essential nutrients. conventional agriculture practices are associated with phosphorus excess and associated plant magnesium depletion (good old NPK emphasis - and meanwhile a usually visible mag deficit in plants can be masked by toxic cadmium uptake; toxic cadmium interferes with essential zinc absorption, etc etc etc).
have you seen 'rebecca's wild farm' or 'food inc'? lots of good content there

one of these days, i would like to get some info on the relative nutrient density of organic vs conventional produce, compare the nutrient density and cost of each, come up with a monthly cost difference, and see how it compares to the monthly expense of supplements, and beyond that to the monthly expense that individuals and governments/taxpayers pay for ongoing treatments for chronic illnesses. could be interesting and informative.

so that thorne #6 complex. how long have you been taking that? is there any product literature about it that could assure a user that the amount/form is not problematic long term? i had read about peripheral neuropathy resulting from long term daily intakes of 100mg B6 or more. that thorne B6 has 200mg and your multi and diet add more....

nothing else leaps out at me just now, and i have a lot of prep to get done for the week ahead so hopefully that keeps you busy for a while

[NHE]

so that thorne #6 complex. how long have you been taking that? is there any product literature about it that could assure a user that the amount/form is not problematic long term? i had read about peripheral neuropathy resulting from long term daily intakes of 100mg B6 or more. that thorne B6 has 200mg and your multi and diet add more....

High doses of B6 induce loss of proprioception.

www.physio-pedia.com/Proprioception

[jimmylegs]

yep
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.

[metabolic]

Wow - thanks for that! I've stopped taking them and am going to order these, if they look any better? Hope it hasn't fried my CNS any more!!

https://shop.thorne.com/products/vitami ... -guard-reg

[jimmylegs]

yep a much friendlier dose of b6 for sure healthy b6 food sources: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... #foodchart

[NHE]

The NIH has a good review of B6.

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Vitami ... fessional/