Thiamine almost fixed my chronic symptoms.
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I have some chronic symptoms lasting over 2+ years. I was walking the other day and decided to take only thiamine for 2-3 days and observe. My chronic pain at my shoulders %80 gone. Bowel movements are back to normal and I feel mentally superior. What was happening before? Any ideas?
How much thiamine is safe to consume?
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After seeing @mostlylurking ’s post on thiamine HCL I’m about to give it a go and see what happens. He has a lot of info in regards to how and why thiamine is so beneficial.
I’ve looked into the link that mostly lurking posted about Dr. Constantini’s dosing protocol and it seems to really emphasize on people with Parkinson’s, and he used 2 grams a day divided into 2 doses before and after lunch, or 3 if someone weighs over 145 lbs.
What about people who may be dealing with other afflictions but not as severe as Parkinson’s? I’ve got 10 grams of thiamine hcl at my disposal that I picked up at my local food store and wondering how I should best take it. What’s your dosing strategy?
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@Runenight201 said in Thiamine almost fixed my chronic symptoms.:
I’ve looked into the link that mostly lurking posted about Dr. Constantini’s dosing protocol and it seems to really emphasize on people with Parkinson’s, and he used 2 grams a day divided into 2 doses before and after lunch, or 3 if someone weighs over 145 lbs.
What about people who may be dealing with other afflictions but not as severe as Parkinson’s? I’ve got 10 grams of thiamine hcl at my disposal that I picked up at my local food store and wondering how I should best take it. What’s your dosing strategy?
(Actually, I'm a 74 year old female.)
According to my weight, I was supposed to need 2.5 grams of thiamine hcl. I experienced massive improvement on the 2 grams/day. However, when I tried to take 2.5 grams in one day, I experienced shooting electrical zapping pains in my thighs when I went to bed that night. I interpreted that to mean I took too much so I lowered my daily amount back down to 2 grams. Prior to packing on 25 pounds in 25 days when I got my thiamine function blocked by taking Bactrim antibiotic (6 months earlier), my pre-Bactrim weight would have pointed to my optimum dose being 2 grams/day.
I spent 4 months slowly increasing my dose of thiamine hcl from 300mg, 2Xday to 1 gram, 2Xday. I didn't have a doctor helping me; I was relying on my symptoms and response to the thiamine hcl. I had not yet found Dr. Costantini's website.
I experienced very noticeable improvements from that first 300mg dose, taken with water only, away from food consumption. Within 45 minutes, my temperature increased a full degree to normal (98.6), my brain fog cleared, and all my inflammation disappeared. This is how I knew that my problems were related to thiamine deficiency/functional blockage.
I used that 300mg, 2Xday dose of thiamine hcl for about a week. Then the response to it lessened so I increased the dose maybe 100mg. That dose helped more for a week or two but then I felt I needed more so I increased it again. And so on. I got a little concerned when I had worked my way up to 1500 mgs/day and felt the need to increase it again because Ray Peat had advised me to keep the dose below 1500mg/day. He did not say why. But then I found Dr. Costantini's website and I watched the patient videos and I learned that according to Dr. Costantini's protocol, my optimum dose should probably be 2 grams to 2.5 grams/day.
So I tried the 1 gram, 2Xday dose of thiamine hcl. Within 2 days at that dose, my entire digestive tract normalized. I had suffered with multiple problems for decades: SIBO, leaky gut, almost universally reactive to foods, very low stomach acid, very poor esophageal peristalsis. I had been pooping little squiggles for 6 months (post Bactrim). All those very long term problems just went away and I wanted to eat a steak (or 3). It was like somebody had flipped a switch and my vagus nerve and my autonomic nervous system started working properly again.
I did have issues with magnesium deficiency symptoms so I increased my magnesium glycinate. I also ran into some symptoms of deficient electrolytes so I increased my salt intake. I relied on orange juice for my potassium. I was already taking some niacinamide and some riboflavin; I changed how I take them, each now 100mg, 4Xday.
Please note that it is pretty common for people to have gastrointestinal symptoms for years before getting diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. I was never diagnosed with Parkinson's but I'd sworn off doctors because of some pretty bad prior experiences with them so I did not seek out medical help.
I hope you find this history helpful.
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@mostlylurking
Yes that was very useful. I wish there were a way to definitely test for a deficiency, and then supplement accordingly. I see going by symptoms worked for you, but for others, including myself, may have a hard time knowing what exactly is doing what when there are so many things going on. I can easily get overwhelmed or distracted and not know whether it was the supplement, the food, the stress, etc… which may be causing the disease.
I do resonate with your gastrointestinal problems, as I have them as well, and it gives me hope that I can clear them up as well with focusing on thiamine. I also am eating more peas which are high in thiamine. I used to eat pork which is the high thiamine meat but I am worried about its fat profile and it’s propensity for parasites that I consume beef now. Perhaps if i found a trusted clean pig source then I would switch over worry free.
I am going to start with 300mg twice a day like you did and see what happens. I am younger at 29 and age definitely plays a role since metabolic dysfunction accumulates with age, so I may not need as much as you to find a good homeostasis.
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@Runenight201 said in Thiamine almost fixed my chronic symptoms.:
Yes that was very useful. I wish there were a way to definitely test for a deficiency, and then supplement accordingly. I see going by symptoms worked for you, but for others, including myself, may have a hard time knowing what exactly is doing what when there are so many things going on. I can easily get overwhelmed or distracted and not know whether it was the supplement, the food, the stress, etc… which may be causing the disease.
I do resonate with your gastrointestinal problems, as I have them as well, and it gives me hope that I can clear them up as well with focusing on thiamine. I also am eating more peas which are high in thiamine. I used to eat pork which is the high thiamine meat but I am worried about its fat profile and it’s propensity for parasites that I consume beef now. Perhaps if i found a trusted clean pig source then I would switch over worry free.
I am going to start with 300mg twice a day like you did and see what happens. I am younger at 29 and age definitely plays a role since metabolic dysfunction accumulates with age, so I may not need as much as you to find a good homeostasis.
I think that it's a reasonable plan to start with 300mg of thiamine hcl, 2Xday. Make sure that you take it with water only and at least 30 minutes from consuming food. If you take it with juice, the sugar in the juice cancels out the thiamine.
Accurate testing for thiamine function is very hard to find. My doctor researched it and could not find a lab in the US that offers the right test. The alternative is to take some and evaluate your response. My response was very noticeable, but yours may not be so pronounced.
Trying to get enough thiamine via food is impossible if you have a thiamine deficiency/functional blockage.
Here's some links for your consideration:
Elliot Overton article: Mega-Dose Thiamine: Beyond Addressing “Deficiency”
Elliot Overton video: Mega-Dose Thiamine: Benefits Beyond Addressing Deficiency
Elliot Overton's collection of thiamine videos
Dr. Lonsdale's articles
Start with this one. -
@mostlylurking I’m having a hard time understand how sugar “cancels out” thiamine. Doesn’t just this mean thiamine will be used to metabolize the sugar? Same with caffeine.
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@sphenoid Interested in knowing more about this too. I've been taking it with food to avoid stomach upset.
Also, Haidut used to talk about how people down his product Energin with a glass of juice.
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@sphenoid said in Thiamine almost fixed my chronic symptoms.:
I’m having a hard time understand how sugar “cancels out” thiamine. Doesn’t just this mean thiamine will be used to metabolize the sugar? Same with caffeine.
I got that info from the FAQs on Dr. Costantini's website. But from my own experience, I believe it to be true. I think the problem happens when the sugar and the thiamine are in the stomach at the same time.
About Dr. Costantini (from the link above):
"He is a neurologist in Viterbo, Italy with his own practice and 2,700 + patients that he is treating with thiamine as an adjunctive treatment to their standard PD meds. He has been treating his patients with PD for over 5 years now during which time no apparent disease progression has been observed while symptom improvement has been significant for most patients."As far as thiamine, he has been working with it since 2010/2011.
"He said that even if they couldn’t come to his clinic, he could still try to treat them via email. He said he needed a copy of their medical records and short videos of a Pull Test, of them talking, writing and a short video of them walking."
-end paste-Unfortunately, he died in 2020. I believe that he had more experience actually treating people using high dose thiamine hcl than anyone else. His research papers are here. I take thiamine hcl since I was unable to tolerate TTFD thiamine (the favorite of Dr. Lonsdale and Elliot Overton) because my glutathione level was very low. So I've relied on Dr. Costantini's clinical experience that is shared on his website. I value Dr. Lonsdale's and Elliot Overton's articles and videos as the information is pertinent to supplementing with high dose thiamine hcl too.
I should also say that Dr. Lonsdale and Elliot Overton and Dr. Chandler Marrs all talk about TTFD's "paradoxical" reaction which is negative side effects from taking TTFD that some patients "have to work through". In contrast, Dr. Costantini said that there should not be any negative symptoms from taking thiamine hcl and if that happened (rarely), he would take the patient off the treatment for a week and then resume with a dose half the amount as what caused the problem.
My husband takes 200mg of TTFD/day and has never had any problem from taking it.
