Personally, I eat oatmeal every day.
Oatmeal with
▪ Raisins (or blueberries or stewed apples)
▪ Flaxseed (about 1 teaspoon)
▪ Pumpkin seeds (1-2 tablespoons)
▪ Pecans
▪ Soymilk (or milk)
It might not sound like much, but I haven't gotten bored of it after more than a year. On occasion, I have used peaches, strawberries, or mixed berries instead of raisins. On rare occasions (when I have a sweet-tooth), I will add a bit of jam or honey.
If you've found a good low-B6 breakfast, please leave a comment below and let everyone know what it is! If enough people answer, then eventually we should have a long list of meal ideas.
I’m so glad I found this blog! I found out two months ago that I have B6 toxicity after months of burning and throbbing feet, hands, back pain and nerve twitching. Doctors did every test on me to rule out autoimmune, etc. I think the hardest part has been the anxiety because I was so terrified it was something else. I notice when I get nervous/anxious my symptoms get worse. My doctor has never seen patients with B6 toxicity so she hasn’t been able to tell me what to expect or when she think I will feel better. I ate avacado last night and I can tell my muscles are twitching which always scares me. I didn’t realize food would make symptoms worse. This morning I ate egg whites with chopped asparagus and it was good! No B6 in either. Thank you for the information. How are you feeling?
ReplyDeleteHi Meg! I'm glad to hear the blog has been useful for you, and that you've discovered the link between your symptoms and food.
DeleteMy symptoms are much better than they were two years ago. I still have some dizziness, which never seems to go away, but I haven't had any significant neuropathy or muscle spasms since last year. At one time, I had planned to slowly re-introduce medium/high-B6 foods into my diet, but after too many relapses, I decided to put that off for the time being. I'm not in any hurry anyways, because I enjoy the foods that I eat.
I’m so glad to hear you are feeling better. Do you have any other tips? Avoid foods with B6, drink plenty of water, and you also found that exercise helps? So it took you 1-2 years to start feeling better? I know everyone is different, but it helps my anxiety to know I’m not the only one that has experienced this crazy toxicity! Thanks again. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, exercise helped me a lot. I tried to target the areas where the muscle spasms or neuropathy were the worst. If my legs hurt, then I would go jogging. If the pain was in my arms, then I would lift weights. That always seemed to help.
DeleteOther than that, drink plenty of water and try not to eat too much B6. I think the Facebook group actually recommends eating the Recommended Daily Allowance (about 1.3mg), but that might be too much to handle at first. Just listen to your body and do what works for you. If you're eating too much B6, you will know!
Hope that helps.
hello! hope everyone is doing well. i just wondering how you were feeling after b6 toxicity? i also was wondering if anyone had heaviness in the legs and arms? i became b6 toxic off of 12 mg bc i have a gene mutation. the fear of not knowing what symptoms will go and what will stay is really upsetting. muscle pain has gotten a lot better, the neuropathy is what i am really concerned about. has anyone tried a detox plan that they liked?
Deletethank you!
tiffany
Hi Tiffany! I'm still on a restricted diet, and I still have dizziness. The last time I had neuropathy was about 3-4 months ago when I overdid the B6 a little (I ate avocado, corn, etc., all within the space of a few days).
DeleteI haven't come across a great detox plan, unfortunately, and I'm hesitant to try most treatments and supplements after what happened with the B vitamins, which doesn't leave many options. The only thing that helped me, besides eating less B6 and drinking water, was regular exercise.
Thomas
thank you so much for the response Thomas! i am very hesitant as well to try any detox treatments. i read Pedialyte was good to help balance electrolytes and my body couldnt even handle that! been staying hydrated and exercising and was feeling decent (for lack of better term) but then started experiencing blurred vision. trying to stay positive but hate new symptoms that keep on coming up! i just got to keep the faith and accept that what is done, is done and i can only move forward! best of luck to you and hope you have continued improvements!
Deletetiffany
Great post.
ReplyDeleteGabapentin 100mg capsules used to get relief from long lasting pain causes by nerves damage.
A study published in Clinical Chemistry titled "Coffee Consumption and Circulating B-Vitamins in Healthy Middle-Aged Men and Women" suggests that coffee may aid in lowering excess b6 levels. Would suggest having a cup or two a day to help with toxicity.
ReplyDeleteI don't react well to caffeine, unfortunately, so I don't have any experience with coffee and B6. It's worth a try, though, if you can tolerate caffeine.
DeleteThank you so much for creating this blog!! I’m so grateful. I’m only a week in to cutting out the b6 supplement. So far thankfully I’ve been able to go for walks and excercise. The pins and needles pain is so awful. At this point do you still keep to a low b6 diet? I am a self proclaimed foodie and sometimes the strictness of the diet feels overwhelming but am trying to stay upbeat and find small victories. I made some blueberry buckwheat pancakes the other day that were super yummy! Do you have any advice for someone just beginning this journey? We’re there things that helped with sleep? Things you’d do differently or felt like helped you? Sounds like drinking lots of water, keeping low b6 diet and exercise was key. Thanks so much for your help! And thanks again for taking the time to make this informative blog.
ReplyDeleteAna
Hi Ana! I'm sorry to hear you're going through B6-toxicity, but glad to hear that you've already made some good steps toward recovery. Food is indeed a tricky issue. For the first year, my diet was very bland. I think I lost 20 or 30 pounds in the first few months because the food was so boring that I couldn't bring myself to eat very much of it. But you've discovered at least one good meal, it sounds like -- pancakes. I made pancakes every day for about a year -- with blueberries, peanut (or almond) butter, maple syrup, and pumpkin seeds. The only reason I stopped making them was because I didn't think they were very healthy. That's why I switched to oatmeal (which I still eat every day for breakfast, nearly three years into my recovery).
DeleteBesides the three things you mention (diet, water, and exercise), the most helpful thing for me was actually starting this blog. By writing about my experiences, I felt like I was taking control of the situation. And that's a big part of the emotional recovery (which is probably just as important as the physical recovery).
Hope that helps!
Thomas
Dear Thomas,
ReplyDeleteLike many of your other commenters, I jus wanted to express first and foremost my gratitude to you for starting this blog. Like some others, I actually had to diagnose myself after my own research (ultimately confirmed by a b6 blood test result of 114, a full week after stopping my daily 100mg supplements - which are widely available in health food stores in Canada with ZERO warning of adverse health effects, but that’s another story.) This blog - in addition to some academic research - was a big part in validating my symptoms and pointing me in the right direction.
The thing that has been most frustrating to me is that my doctor wanted to attribute my symptoms to anxiety. It’s true, I had intense, nearly debilitating anxiety, but I’m quite sure now that it was BECAUSE of the B6 toxicity. I’m now 35 days into recovery, and my anxiety is for the first time in months at a near-normal level. (Other than what can be expected from someone who has just inadvertantly poisoned herself with vitamins.)
For anyone else who is reading this blog in an effort to do their own research, here’s my story:
- After becoming a vegetarian, I started taking daily 100mg b6 supplements, not knowing that this dose was insanely high and completely unnecessary
- First symptom was aggressive, borderline paranoid anxiety, which didn’t seem to have a root cause. I also began to experience insomnia. And sleeping had never previously been a problem for me. If anything, I had the opposite issue :)
- A few weeks after that came the painful tingling in my legs, although it was fairly periodic. Almost as if someone was intermittently pricking me with tiny needles. I noticed that I felt better after going on a weeks’ vacation where I didn’t bring any of my supplements with me, but I attributed that to the relaxing time I had.
- Within 2 weeks of my return home and starting the supplements again, I began to experience extreme anxiety and sleeplessness, intense tingling in my arms and legs, feeling like my thighs and face had a sunburn on them, dizziness, poor balance, numbness in feet, stiff neck that felt like my brain stem was inflamed, and cognition problems. (For a couple of very frightening days at the end, I had a hard time processing what people were saying to me. It was this that finally provoked me to stop ALL supplements and had me finally make the connection after weeks of convincing myself it was all in my head, caused by an anxiety issue.
IT IS NOT IN YOUR HEAD. You know your body and mind; you know if there is something wrong. Don’t try to go rogue and self diagnose without proof or medial support, but don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself and do your own research.
What I find most disconcerting about medicine today is that there is a tendency to completely separate physical symptoms from psychological ones, when so often they are intertwined, if not directly related. This is a serious barrier to correctly diagnosing the root of many issues, including - in my case - underlying B6 toxicity.
Keep your head up, everyone. I am just beginning my journey but have seen lots of improvement over the last few weeks. You’re not alone. You’re not stupid for taking vitamins you had no idea could harm you. You will start to feel better.
omg, i have nearly all of your symptoms, especially the tingling, dizziness/light-headedness and severe anxiety. my b6 level is nearly 400! i would have never been tested if i wouldn't have researched and basically diagnosed myself. here's hoping for a quick recovery to all!!
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ReplyDeletei am fighting b6 toxicity right now (my level was nearly 400) and have a number of troubling symptoms. in addition to avoiding b6 in supplements, limiting it in food seems like a good but challenging idea. nonetheless, i just wanted to let you know that the more "toxic" form of b6 ((pyridoxINE) is found in plant founds with the less "toxic" form of b6 (pyridoxaAL) is found in animal foods....as stated here, "Plant foods lose the least during processing as they contain mostly pyridoxine, which is far more stable than the pyridoxal (or pyridoxamine) found in animal foods." here is the website for your reference. so in sum, if you are avoiding b6 containing foods, focus on limiting the high b6 plant foods based on this information.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Vitamin_B6
i also thought you might find the new-ish study useful, it appears that the FORM of the B6 vitamin in both supplement and food form is very important..... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28716455
ReplyDeletepyridoxINE is the form found in vitamin supplements that appears to be the culprit.
DeleteHow are you doing Jay. My level was over 500 and just started off the supplement.
DeleteJay is right that pyridoxine is a problem with B6 toxicity. The Vrolik et al paper he cites is half the puzzle. Pyridoxine can suppress the functioning of PLP, but I think the other half of the puzzle is that people who are susceptible to toxicity also have a genetic mutation that makes their PLP production from pyridoxine much less effective. See http://epilepsygenetics.net/2014/04/02/hidden-neurometabolic-disorders-the-expanding-spectrum-of-pnpo-deficiency/ .
ReplyDeleteThis year, my 8 year old suffered from serious neuropathy pain and a metabolic collapse from B6 toxicity after taking OTC gummy multivitamins for about 6 months. He was getting only 2mg of pyridoxine daily. No doctor would listen to me. I had to diagnose and treat him myself. He began to improve a lot after I started giving him PLP directly (2mg daily), but still has a lot of pain issues to resolve (he is 4 months since the worst point). Also have him on a low glutamate diet since it became apparent that the lack of PLP caused a serious problem with his glutamate/GABA cycle. It is very similar to a low B6 diet, so it is something to look at if you are not getting good control by targeting just B6.
I am currently getting my son tested for the genetic variant, but it will be months before I will know for sure. The fact that he is responding so well to the PLP has several doctors now sitting up and taking notice... finally.
Note: Started PLP at 0.5mg and gradually worked up to 2mg over several weeks. I bought Life Extensions P5P 25mg and a digital scale capable of measuring milligrams. I opened the capsule and figured out that the weight of the powder divided by 25 was the dosage for apx 1mg of PLP. The first three days after beginning treatment, my kiddo was cycling with a lot of neuropathy off and on. By the fourth day it started to subside and get slowly but progressively better each day.
Hope this helps someone else!
Anonymous mom again. Had to also follow-up with the previous anonymous poster who commented about Western medicine's propensity to separate physical and psych symptoms when diagnosing. The reason that doctors are now listening to me after starting my son on PLP is because I cured his severe ADHD. That's right... CURED. And his other psych issues like anxiety, tics and OCD are slowly resolving. Granted it only likely existed because his neurotransmitter production was suboptimal due to the genetic issue, but it shows that psych issues can have an underlying physical cause.
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