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What about zinc?

AntonioBR wrote:- Fish Oil is DHA-500, Double Strength (not the standard fish oil): http://www.iherb.com/Now-Foods-DHA-500- ... gels/10713

This one is much cheaper per capsule, also has 500mg DHA with more EPA as a bonus.
http://www.iherb.com/Life-Extension-Sup ... gels/40289

shadowfax wrote:What about zinc?

Hi shadowfax,

The Vitamins & Minerals Complex (made by a pharmacy) that was recommended for my brother has in each capsule:


- Zinc: 5mg
- Coline: 120mg
- Magnesium Aspartate: 100mg
- Riboflavine: 60mg
- Folic Acid: 3mg
- Vitamin B12: 5mcg
- Chromium Picolinate: 250mcg
- Selenium: 100mcg


He has to take 3 capsules every day. One capsule after a meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

And 4 capsule of DHA 500 Now Foods. They prefer Now Foods brand because: 1- each softgel has 500mg DHA and 2-quality. So, he has to take 2000mg of DHA per day.

DHA is very important because it helps the Vitamin D in the process to reconstruct the Myelin.





Check below the brain lesions vanishing after only 2 years following the Coimbra's protocol.


These MRI are the exams of a friend of mine.

You should read them from left to right.

- Number 7 in all images are the first MRI exam made in 08/27/2013
- Number 5 in all images are the second MRI exam made in 04/05/2014
- Number 4 in all images are the third MRI exam made in 11/05/2014

Each image (1,2,3 and 4) represents a MRI made in different angles.

1


2



3


4

Antonio, where can we find the latest protocol? I thought K2 will help us deal with the high doses of vitamin D? @V There needs to be more doctors in northern Europe e.g. UK and Germany supporting the Coimbra protocol.

Thanks much, PN

Hi,
How does the level of Parathyroid hormone (PTH) affect the dosing?
I have been doing high dose vitamin d for about 2 months, but feel that I probably need a slightly higher dose than what I am doing right now.
Should PTH still be in the normal range, but on the low side?

What was your brother's diagnosis?

Relapsing remitting? Secondary progressive? Primary progressive?

Thanks

For an interesting insight into MS lesions, you should check out Harvard's "The Whole Brain Atlas" here: http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/home.html

If you scroll down to Multiple Sclerosis, you can actually take a Tour of an MS brain and watch lesions come and go in a very short time through a "Cine" -- with or without bombarding it with Vitamin D. You can click on various "slices" throughout the course of a single year and watch how fast the MS brain actually changes. Fascinating.

It also shows how different neurological conditions show different appearances in the brain.

PointsNorth wrote:Antonio, where can we find the latest protocol? I thought K2 will help us deal with the high doses of vitamin D? @V There needs to be more doctors in northern Europe e.g. UK and Germany supporting the Coimbra protocol.

Thanks much, PN

Hi PointsNorth,

Yes I agree. Northern Europe needs more doctors following this approach. The majority of European doctors are from: Portugal, Spain and Italy. In this case the language helps a lot because the similarity with portuguese. Although, Coimbra is fluent in english. And he made his Phd in Sweden.

K2 has dozens of good health effects and when the protocol was designed for the first time he was using it to maintain the calcium in the bones.

However, second him, it showed an irrelevant result to preserve the calcium. Vitamin K2 was doing it very inefficiently. It can be used as a good source of vitamin but not for the task to preserve the calcium in the bones. So, he give up from K2.

And now he is prescribing aerobic exercises 5x per week (if possible) for 30 minutes. Because it helps to release a substance from thyroid that protects the calcium in the bones much better than vitamin K2. Moreover, it also helps to create new brain cells.

The Complex of Vitamins & Minerals contain a good dose of Magnesium. It is an antagonist of Calcium. Thus, magnesium also helps to protect the bones.

And for people that can't do aerobic exercises he is prescribing a drug called bisphosphonates (I don't know anything about it). The only thing that I know is that drug is used for people with osteoporosis. Despite Dr.Coimbra avoid use drugs with patients, on this particular case he didn't have choice.

Unfortunately the K2 wasn't helping people as he thought.

NOTE: I know many people that don't follow any recommendation above: K2, exercise and bisphosphonates. However, they still have good results. But always is better follows the recommendation.

Fortunately, until now I didn't know anyone that have kidney stones or other problems with calcium.

Maybe I will post all the protocol that the doctors prescribed for my brother. It's the new protocol. My brother was following it for only 4 months and a half. I don't know yet because I don't want see anyone self-prescribing it without a doctor.

jeppe777 wrote:Hi,
How does the level of Parathyroid hormone (PTH) affect the dosing?
I have been doing high dose vitamin d for about 2 months, but feel that I probably need a slightly higher dose than what I am doing right now.
Should PTH still be in the normal range, but on the low side?

Hi jeppe777,

What you asked is very very important.

They measure the levels of PTH, 25(OH)D3, Calciuria, and other exams only after 3 months following the protocol.

All the results with less than 3 months are irrelevant because PTH levels changes very often. So, each 3 months is good to check your levels of PTH. Vitamin D3 inhibit the production of PTH. So, if PTH is high you need to increase your levels of vitamin D3.

Remember that PTH can't be suppressed because it is an important hormone.

The laboratories use diverse ranges of PTH. So the best levels is next to the minimum value for people with autoimmune diseases.

For example: the laboratory that my brother check his PTH has references of 11.0 to 65.0 pg/mL. Thus, he has to maintain his levels of PTH next to 11.0 pg/mL to maximise the action of vitamin D but at the same time don't inhibit the PTH production.

It's important to maintain only one laboratory or the same ranges as reference. If you change the references it will be very difficult to measure your improvements.

Check this part of the interview 53min34s until 1h2min he explain about it (there is english subtitles): https://youtu.be/hOfO29rL-gI?t=53m34s

PJM26 wrote:What was your brother's diagnosis?

Relapsing remitting? Secondary progressive? Primary progressive?

Thanks

Hi PJM26,

My brother has Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS).

But, the treatment works for all types of MS.

The 3 most enemies of High doses of vitamin D3 are: stress, fat cells and some drugs.

All of them steal or destroy vitamin D3. Specially stress.

euphoniaa wrote:For an interesting insight into MS lesions, you should check out Harvard's "The Whole Brain Atlas" here: http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/home.html

If you scroll down to Multiple Sclerosis, you can actually take a Tour of an MS brain and watch lesions come and go in a very short time through a "Cine" -- with or without bombarding it with Vitamin D. You can click on various "slices" throughout the course of a single year and watch how fast the MS brain actually changes. Fascinating.

It also shows how different neurological conditions show different appearances in the brain.

Hi euphoniaa,

Thank you for this website. I didn't know about it.

I agree with you about diet. It has a very important part in the treatment of MS. Unfortunately only a few doctors talk about diet.

And you are right some lesions can real without any drug or vitamin. I already saw it specially in the beginning of MS.

However in this case she improved her MRI exams, her vision improved almost 100% and the left leg is much better. And more important she achieve remission of the disease. So, new brain lesions doesn't occur until now neither an outbreak.

There are people that follows this protocol for 5, 7 or 10 years without any outbreak or new brain lesions. Then, the doctors claim that he/she achieved remission.

Hi Antonio,
Just wanted to thank you so much for your answer. It was very clear and perfectly explained. I will keep all this in mind.

I have not yet taken the recommended supps, vitamin b2 and magnesium, so I probably have not gotten the full benefit of my dose.
I live in the tropics, so I try to get as much natural sun as possible most days too.

I agree with the importance of diet, and I seem to do best on a diet high in raw foods, seafood, vegetables, berries and fruit.

I have one question, is there a risk that by following this protocol you will become deficient in calcium? Could this be dangerous after a long period of time with very limited calcium?
Jeppe

jeppe777 wrote:Hi Antonio,
Just wanted to thank you so much for your answer. It was very clear and perfectly explained. I will keep all this in mind.

I have not yet taken the recommended supps, vitamin b2 and magnesium, so I probably have not gotten the full benefit of my dose.
I live in the tropics, so I try to get as much natural sun as possible most days too.

I agree with the importance of diet, and I seem to do best on a diet high in raw foods, seafood, vegetables, berries and fruit.

I have one question, is there a risk that by following this protocol you will become deficient in calcium? Could this be dangerous after a long period of time with very limited calcium?
Jeppe

Hi jeppe777,

Until now nobody had problems with deficient of calcium. At least on the community with 10,500 followers - I didn't see anyone.

It's important to remember that you must eat foods with calcium - because it's an important mineral - but try to avoid foods super rich in calcium like dairy. And drink 3 liters of water/day

Moreover, to prevent that anything happen they ask to each patient do some exams periodically (maybe each 3 months). Some of them are: Calciuria (to measure the presence of calcium in the urine) and Phosphaturia (to measure the excessive discharge of phosphates in the urine).

Furthermore, If you follow some good diet as Whals Protocol or Dr. George Jelinek diet rarely you will have problems with calcium.

My brother is following Whals protocol and he is felling very well.

AntonioBR wrote:Moreover, to prevent that anything happen they ask to each patient do some exams periodically (maybe each 3 months). Some of them are: Calciuria (to measure the presence of calcium in the urine) and Phosphaturia (to measure the excessive discharge of phosphates in the urine).

A bone DEXA scan would also seem prudent to check the actual density of your bones.

euphoniaa wrote:For an interesting insight into MS lesions, you should check out Harvard's "The Whole Brain Atlas" here: http://www.med.harvard.edu/AANLIB/home.html

If you scroll down to Multiple Sclerosis, you can actually take a Tour of an MS brain and watch lesions come and go in a very short time through a "Cine" -- with or without bombarding it with Vitamin D. You can click on various "slices" throughout the course of a single year and watch how fast the MS brain actually changes. Fascinating.

It also shows how different neurological conditions show different appearances in the brain.

You are right euphoniaa, lesions come and go. But this applies only to a new lesions (not enhancing ones). However, there is one difference and this difference is huge. Seems vitamin D is able to heal enhancing lesions and we know that enhancing lesion has a big chance to become a black hole in the brain :/ So vitamin D heals enhancing lesions and also ensures that MS will be stopped. That means no new lesions! Note: I don't have medical background, so please correct if I'm totally wrong about lesions.
Anyway, I don't think that MRI tells the whole story and this understanding came up to me during last 6 months reading about MS. This is why I'm skeptical about most drugs, which targets only lesions. And vitamin D effect is visible not only in MRI. It regulates immune system, TH17 response and etc. The beauty of vitamin D, that it works not only in theory. It works in practice! I feel that. If my MS will progress further and high vitamin D doses won't help, I'm lifting up my hands in the air and I will have to accept the fact that MS cannot be stopped Still .. I'm very confident that I will not progress further, I don't feel any MS symptom right now ;)

vilnietis wrote:You are right euphoniaa, lesions come and go. But this applies only to a new lesions (not enhancing ones). However, there is one difference and this difference is huge. Seems vitamin D is able to heal enhancing lesions and we know that enhancing lesion has a big chance to become a black hole in the brain :/ So vitamin D heals enhancing lesions and also ensures that MS will be stopped.
...
Note: I don't have medical background, so please correct if I'm totally wrong about lesions.

My understanding is that enhancing lesions are sites of current inflammation, and are associated with the relapsing part of RRMS. They are normally the "new" points of damage and are associated with RRMS. Black spots would possibly be more associated with the other form(s) of MS (namely PPMS), which also would generally show no sites of enhancing lesions. Enhancing lesions can be turned "off" very quickly and effectively with a dose of steroids, and hence an MRI with enhancement is normally performed before steroids are used.

Enhancing lesions have 40% of chance becoming black holes in the end. Numbers are not optimistic. I do agree that steroids are effective. But we can't take it all the time, can we? And we need a better alternative in the long run. Good news is we have such alternative.
The beginning of 2015 was a nightmare to me, however the end of 2015 I can say it now was one of the best years to me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I look forward to upcoming years to see my progress. My first 10 months with MS was with ups and downs, but I reached the point where I want to go to top of the hill and just scream out loudly "I beaten my MS". And this all is thanks to internet and people, who share the message about magical pill called "D".

vilnietis wrote:Enhancing lesions have 40% of chance becoming black holes in the end

I searched for this number, and had no luck. Could you please direct me to where this statistic was taken from?

vilnietis wrote:I do agree that steroids are effective. But we can't take it all the time, can we?

I was simply stating a fact to elucidate their usage with RRMS during a relapse. I was not suggesting a treatment.