My B5+B6 Log

Hi All:

I am starting a new thread here to track my results specifically for the B5/B6 vitamins - I started these yesterday... Thank you again Bennyhill for bringing this to the forum.

Some interesting stuff I came across this week in my wife's Nutrition Almanac, 2nd Edition, 1984 - a text book she has retained since from her college days:

I am paraphrasing here:

"An adequate dose of the B vitamins has been found to control migraine headaches and attacks of Meniere's syndrome..."

These are exact quotes taken from the Vitamin B section:
"Vitamin B6, helps maintain the balance of sodium and potassium..."
"Pantothenic Acid plays a vital role in cellular metabolism."

The text goes on in some detail about how important B6 is, and how too much or too little can really cause a variety of issues.

My dosage:
125 mg B5 taken with 100 mg B6 after breakfast - which is low in sodium and always eaten with at least 24 oz. of cold clear water.

Some further background info:

Each of our experiences and levels of success are going to be different, I know, because each of us has a different and unique genetic background and physical condition to start with - tall, short, skinny, fat, older, younger, whatever. We all have a different diet. We all metabolize and assimilate foods, supplements, and liquids differently, and we all live under varying levels of stress while each of us has unique weather changes and environmental circumstances to contend with daily. So, a scientific approach with a control group is not likely to happen...

All that taken into consideration, I am 63 and in generally good health - aside from the Meniere's. I exercise 3-5 times weekly for 30+ minutes each time, unless I am in the throws of or recovering from an episode.

I am just now coming off an episode which began Feb. 19th. My tinnitus is back to where it is mostly background noise, constant and aggravating, but not aggressively so. On a 10-point scale, I will say 5 for today. During an episode, it will be screaming in both ears...and at least 15 on the 10-point scale.

I maintain a low-sodium diet - almost never going above 2,400 mg a day or 750 in any single meal. Some days I will slip up if I am feeling good.. I use the MyFitnessPal app to track my sodium and water intake mostly, it also tracks other useful data.

I live in Houston where the temperature can range from 30 and brisk to 80 and humid over the course of 24 hours. Generally it stays hot and humid from April through October, with July and August being almost unbearably so.

My stress level is generally higher than average. Has been my whole life. I try not to worry about it though... haha! It will go up and down with daily circumstances, and usually peaks around April 15th every year...

I am self-employed as an independent IT consultant, a pedal steel and 6 string guitar player, and I own and operate 2 food trucks here in Houston along with my wife. We work probably 60 hours a week average - and take 1 full day a week off to wind down and chill out. Our trucks specialize in coffee and locally prepared foods - I love good coffee - making the caffeine reduction a steep challenge for me, since I need to make sure my product is the very best it can possibly be every single day - I taste some from every bag of beans we open. I try not to take more than 2 12oz cups daily. During an episode I will not take more than 1/2 cup daily, and during the worst of it I will not take any.

Since the onset of my Meniere's in 2007/08 I have tracked my symptoms, my hearing, all incidents, any prescribed meds, OTC supplements, my food, alcohol, and caffeine intake, stress levels and daily conditions carefully. There are some gaps in my log, but most of the time, not always, I can associate the major Meniere's incidents with lapses in attention to the details - not getting enough rest, not being careful of what I am eating or drinking, missing my supplements, or big shifts in my daily circumstances - the life events that bring stress to everyone and cause us to reevaluate how we are living.

I'm on my 4th ENT. They have all said there is no cure, I must learn to live with it and try to make the best of it. They will wave off and dismiss any discussion of the JOH regimen - don't even want to hear about it. They do not believe AVs will help, because if it is a virus it is an intra-cellular virus, and the AVs are circulated in the blood stream - not the cells of the inner ear. Not a single one of them has ever said anything about nutrition or diet - except to "avoid caffeine and alcohol"

I've done the JOH regimen since I first learned of it, with apparent success. When I went off the rails again last July, it was 3 months after I had cut back on the daily JOH routine. I went back on it immediately. Although I have maintained the JOH steadfastly from September through now, this latest episode has been one of the more severe since the early days.

I take triamterene 1x a day. It is so humid here I don't need more than that to get the water out of my system - I just need to walk around the block.

So, all that to say - I am feeling pretty good today so far... on day 2 of the B5/B6

Will post updates here as they come in...! Thanks for your support and encouragement, I am really excited about this.

JMC

 

Not exactly. It is more of a general guideline for all aspects of nutrition, what nutrients we need and how we normally get them, what foods, etc. they come in through, and what sorts of things can throw a big wrench into all that. They discuss diet in quite some detail, and the different things that can go wrong when the diet is not properly maintained.

It all boils down to the same stuff my mom and grandma told me all the time I was growing up "Eat your spinach, beets, carrots, and turnips ... they're good for you..!!"

Another quote in the text I ran across today:
"Meniere's patients have been found to be chronically deficient of the B vitamins, possibly due to defective utilization of the vitamins."

This turns out to have been the finding of a cellular level analysis of the nutrient levels in my blood that I had done maybe 7 years ago? Apparently I do not metabolize B-12 properly, so everything else was out of whack. I took a very expensive B-12 complex for 6 months, with no relief whatsoever. I discontinued after the 6 months and focused back on the JOH, getting enough sleep, exercise, and a healthy diet instead - this brought relief to me for a long time, and continues to help to this day.

It does give this bit of info here:

"Nutrients that may be beneficial in treatment of Meniere's Syndrome:"

B1 10-25 mg 4x daily for 2 weeks
B2 10-25 mg 4x daily for 2 weeks
B6 no dosage indicated
Niacin 100-250 mg 4x daily for 2 weeks
Vitamin E no dosage indicated
Calcium no dosage indicated
Unsaturated fatty acids - no details given here.

All that said - remember: the edition we have here was published 35 years ago - it has likely been updated since then. A quick search on Amazon shows 2 more recent publications with the same title.

Nonetheless, it is very enlightening and encouraging to me to be re-discovering this basic info after 12 years of struggling through the onset of the disease and going through all the same b.s. over and over that we all have done while it essentially derailed my entire life. Trudging to the ENT appointments, hearing test after hearing test, missing work, hyper sensitivity to any sort of clinking noise but not being able to hear and understand words... It has all driven me right up to the edge more than once.

Just on day 3 today … so nothing useful to report yet. Except, all supplements and what-not aside - even the hope that something good may come of this has lifted my spirits dramatically, an re-energized me to pay absolutely the closest possible attention to all nutritional elements... At 63, that's probably long overdue for me...

Cheers to all - will post results as they happen!

 

One week in:

I do not want to jinx the final outcome ... I fully expect 3-4 weeks before I could state with certainty that this has made any difference at all - but...

Today I feel better than I have all year. I have had less fogginess, more energy, and what seems to me to be better hearing and focus all the way around since early Saturday morning - even after 2 higher-than-average sodium days in the last 7.

Keep in mind - I am just coming off an episode that started late January with hearing problems and raging tinnitus getting out of hand, then 3 multi-hour vertigo attacks in mid-February, and then a couple of weeks of slowly coming back up to about half speed. So, I would expect to be feeling better by now in any case - a severe episode will always force me to re-focus my attention to diet, proper rest, and hydration much more carefully.

I've learned not to get my hopes up too high - but it is difficult NOT to be really excited about this …

The vitamins themselves were not expensive on Amazon:

Nature's Bounty Vitamin B6 Supplement, 100mg, 100 Tablets
and
Source Naturals Pantothenic Acid, 250mg, 250 Tablets - these are easy to cut in half

I will post updates as they come in.

Best wishes to all -
JMC

 

Quick update - all non-scientific metrics that I track daily on a 10-point scale have been upgraded by 1 point - which is a big improvement ..!!!

Also, and much more important to me specifically - I can hear bass notes in my left ear again. Before I knew they were there, but I could not hear them clearly. Today for the first time since early December, I can hear them and the tone is clear and pleasant sounding... A huge, huge improvement.

2 weeks update to follow on Monday... And I am going back to the ENT on Wednesday, I cannot wait to tell them what has transpired here in the last 2 weeks...!

Cheers to all !!
JMC

 

no side effects whatsoever from adding the B5/B6 to my daily routine - all indications at this point are positive !! Tinnitus is down to tolerable background sort of noise that I only notice when nothing else is going on. If it subsides further it will be the most significant improvement I've seen in 10 years....

I expect an updated earing test Wednesday to also confirm my non-scientific measurements, i.e., left ear back to about normal. Considering I am just 2 weeks in today on the B5/B6... this is a remarkable turn around from early Feb.

 

Well... my visit to the ENT today confirms what I measure with my own non-scientific methods - hearing test on the left side shows hearing back to approximately the same levels as before this last attack. So... the ENT's conclusion is that the 10-day course of prednisone got administered in time to fend off the inflammation and prevent any further damage.

SO... there's that. If my appointment had been 10 days ago, they would've found that my left ear was still down … because it was.

Also improved on this test was my comprehension and understanding of words spoken into my right ear - the ear that went bad in 2007/08. I got them all right today - 100%. I have never hit 100% in this test over the last 8 years. Usually I miss at least 20% of the words at the lower volumes.

But the hearing tests are usually administered when I am in the middle of or just coming off an attack - so, it could be that I just never got the test at the right time?

I am still cautiously optimistic - and paying careful attention to what I am eating and drinking, and making sure I get enough rest.

All in all - this is the best visit and the best results I've had since going bi-lateral. They want me to report back in a month.

I'm on day 17 of the b5/b6 - and still on full JOH and triamterene pill daily.

Cheers to all,
JMC