thiamin Archives • Avoiding Rx

27Feb 2012 by Marjorie 13 Comments

The needle and the damage done: three weeks on intravenous thiamine

treatments

After discovering that thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency might be a factor in my insomnia, fatigue, brain fog, and chocolate/sugar cravings, I began experimenting with different formulations of it. Starting with the usual drugstore stuff, I moved on to two Japanese concoctions and then for a grand finale I tried a series of IV treatments to the tune of $1,700, almost none of it covered by insurance, with promising if not miraculous results. Why thiamine? I initially tried thiamine after discovering it is involved in GABA production, an inhibitory neurotransmitter that's a big factor in sleep. Thiamine is also involved in carbohydrate metabolism -- converting food to energy -- and I figured out a long time ago that my infuriating chocolate/sugar cravings must be caused by my brain's inability to process…

19Nov 2011 by Marjorie 1 Comment

A list of supplements that don’t work very well in the versions sold in the US

nutritional therapy, supplements

Updated October 22, 2020. Originally posted November 19, 2011. Over the years I've learned that some of the nutrient supplements on the shelves in the US don't work very well, either because a significant part of the population can't process them, or because the version used is poorly absorbed by the body, or because they are so cheaply formulated that the filler would make you sick before you could get enough of the active ingredient to resolve your deficiency. Here's everything I know so far. Needless to say, the better versions are more expensive and harder to find. Folic acid Processing this synthetic vitamin into its active form requires methyl groups and those of us who are methyl-challenged (low methylators) need to use the methylfolate version. Some sources say that…

30Jun 2011 by Marjorie 17 Comments

Headaches and migraines

symptoms and conditions

Updated 03/12/13: P5P, a form of vitamin B6, seems to have solved a lot of this. See related link below. My two migraine episodes were the usual tennis-ball-filled-almost-but-not-quite-to-bursting-with-boiling-oil-behind-your-right-eye kind of thing, caused by the old cliché MSG. The first culprit was a Chinese restaurant. The second, after I "got healthy," was a package of sunflower seeds. All I'm saying is that never happened to me with Oreos. Later I developed headaches, but not full-fledged migraines, from the amino acid L-glutamine, which I used to heal my celiac-ravaged lower intestine. Apparently this is a common reaction for people who also react to monosodium glutamate (MSG). The body can convert glutamine into the amino acid glutamate. It was still very helpful but I had to be careful how much I used. As…

21Apr 2011 by Marjorie 5 Comments

A mystery that’s getting really old:
perpetual exhaustion that isn’t chronic fatigue

symptoms and conditions

Update July 2022: Mold avoidance, lots of sun exposure, and beef spleen supplements got me back to normal functioning, although not athletic-level functioning. Here's a very short description of what I did to recover from mold poisoning. The content below was last updated December 24, 2013. After reclaiming a huge chunk of my health with some major diet changes, I was so busy enjoying my new peaceful existence that it was two years before I started worrying about the disappearance of my energy. I had gone from sprinting up 50 stairs at a time and biking in snowstorms to being passed on a mountain trail by a pregnant woman in high heels. (I was too demoralized to ask her why she was wearing pumps in a national park.) If I…