B6 Toxicity: What Helps

It's surprising how hard it is to find information on B6 toxicity and what to do about it. The medical consensus seems to be to stop taking B6 supplements and hope you recover. In other words, you're up a creek without a paddle. Fun, huh?

In my search, however, I have found a few good sites and recommendations. (First and foremost is to stop taking B6!) Here is a list of things that have worked for me:

(1) Drinking water. B6 is water-soluble, which means you can flush it out of your system. According to this article from LiveStrong: "Typically, it takes the body between 15 and 25 days to eliminate unused pyridoxine [i.e. B6]. Drink eight, 8-oz. glasses of water per day as part of a healthy diet." I plan to keep this up until I'm fully recovered.

(2) Exercising. Unlike some sufferers of B6 toxicity, I can manage moderate exercise. My symptoms are not so bad (yet?) that I'm completely bedridden. I've found that staying active helps with my neuropathy (and mood, and sleep, etc.). In general, exercise is very important for overall health, not just B6 toxicity, and because of this, I try to stay active throughout the day.

I've also found that one burst of exercise doesn't do the trick, even if it's the "recommended" 30 minutes a day. While I do try to do a 30-minute workout every day (right now I'm trying to do two), I also try to keep the blood moving throughout the day. Personally, I prefer walking, but I've also done trampoline and light weightlifting.

Oh, and another reason exercise is good is because (I've heard) that B6 is stored in the muscles, and working up a good sweat is one way of excreting it. If I find a reliable source for this, I'll link it.

(3) Getting good sleep. This was very difficult (i.e. impossible) on the first night due to severe anxiety (probably a combination of natural anxiety and B6 toxicity). I felt much better after the second night, when I was able to get a good night's sleep. There's no real trick to this, I've found; either you're anxious, or you're not.

(4) Avoiding foods high in B6. This is one of the recommendations from the same LiveStrong article mentioned above. I'm not sure this has helped me too much yet, but other people have reported that avoiding foods high in B6 has worked for them. (Presumably, eating B6 triggers toxicity symptoms).  You can find lists of foods that are high and low in B6 online. Some of it is conflicting, so I won't post any recommendations here until I get it all figured out for myself.

That's it for now. I will post new tips as I come across them.

Warning - Don't Take B6!

If you are thinking about taking a Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) supplement, READ THIS!

I began taking B6 to treat a medical condition in October of 2015. The pills were purchased over the counter at a local health-food store, and there was no warning on the bottle about the adverse effects of B6. The directions simply advised one to take one pill every day, with each pill containing 50mg of B6.

Unfortunately, 50mg is a dangerously high amount of B6. While some people can tolerate it, many people cannot. I am one of the latter group. After about 11 days, I began to experience burning and tingling in my limbs (i.e. neuropathy) and heightened anxiety. After searching the internet, I discovered many other people like myself. Some had taken less B6 (as little as 2mg a day), while others had taken more. In every case, the consequences were months or years of pain and illness.

So if you are considering taking a B6 supplement, keep this in mind: YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR HEALTH AT RISK. Unless you know what you're doing, DON'T DO IT.