[Y]esterday my activity and energy level were sky-high! It was the start of my ninth round and typically my most energetic day of the week because the DMSA is a stimulant for me. On top of that, I restarted dibencozide (aka adenosylcobalamin, adenosylb12, adb12, adob12, cobalamide, etc) at 1/8 tablet. It seems to be like a dash of rocket fuel for me and the end result – I spent hours in the workshop, made a trip to the hardware store, went for a walk, stretched, picked up my daughter at gymnastics and all without my usual nap and with my chelation headache (normal for the first day of an increase round).
When I lay down to sleep and closed my eyes I could feel my blood pressure higher than usual. It’s a sign I dread from when I used to use a lot of cortisol and had trouble with insomnia. The increased blood pressure makes my teeth bump against each other slightly when I’m trying to sleep and I noticed that was happening again last night. This time, I was prepared and had forgone my usual nap and taken 2 GABA Relaxers. I fell asleep right away and woke up three hours later – overjoyed even though my chelation alarm still had 30 minutes to go.
I should back up and mention that I took Country Life’s dibencozide, one every day for about five days after reading about it in my research on dizziness. It was the only form available locally and I used it while waiting for the Source Naturals to arrive. The Country Life did energize me somewhat but I also experienced some strange off-balance feelings that would last a second or two and happen every half hour or so. I had no trouble sleeping in spite of taking the entire 3 mg tablet every day.
When the Source Naturals arrived, I took one quarter tablet which seem to me approximately equivalent to the Country Life (in fact slightly less). But, I had much more energy, no off-balance feelings and then a terrible case of insomnia that night. So I gave myself a couple days to recover from the loss of sleep and then started back at half the dose.
I have continued through all this using 1/8 of the Jarrow 1 mg MeCbl. My lightheadedness has diminished quite a bit but I can’t say if that was a gradual effect of stopping Metafolin or related to dibencozide. Reading through the Phoenix Rising thread has convinced me to think of the lightheadedness as a sign of healing and nothing else.
I really got a kick out of Freddd’s explanation of startup effects where he says that for someone with longtime chronic fatigue, implementing active B12 therapy is like taking a car that hasn’t gone over 5 mph in 10 or 15 years, out on the freeway and driving at 70 miles an hour. Think of it as a shakedown cruise where you expect to find lots of shakes and rattles.
Also from reading in the Phoenix Rising thread, I came across the idea of putting my B12 crumbs under my upper lip and noticed that it lasts much longer than under the tongue. Hope I won’t have increased my dose too much…
Round 9 (2.5 days) – 75 mg DMSA, 25 mg ALA every 3 hours, total chelation days to date: 23.5
- Monday, May 13: added 1500 mg pantothenic acid. Have switched from country life to source naturals dibencozide and reduced to 1/8 tablet. Significant increase in energy today but headache all afternoon. Using GABA Relaxer for sleep in addition to 25 mg 5-HTP.
- Tuesday, May 14: some headache, sleep deprived, hard crash in afternoon, very warm in evening. Hard hard day.
- Wednesday, May 15: switched from dry-E to NOW gamma complex. Surprising amount of energy in afternoon.