Assisted conception after recurrent miscarriage part 6

[Arianrhod]

Part 5 here : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/infertility/a1852840-Assisted-conception-after-recurrent-miscarriage-part-5

brown Yes it does get tested for under Mr S, along with the other common blood clotting problems like Factor V Leiden. It's just he doesn't believe it causes any real problems, so he doesn't believe in doing anything about it other than baby aspirin and 5mg folic acid (which of course in itself is very wrong!). He dismissed it out of hand when I suggested to him that I should really be taking l-methylfolate instead of folic acid, so I didn't bother mentioning anything else about it to him.

pebbles I wouldn't worry too much - I take Pregnazon which has folic acid in, as well as my l-methylfolate supplements, and clearly it isn't doing any harm. Progynova made me grumpy too, along with other side effects!

nanny I buy my l-methylfolate and methylcobalamin (methylated B12) separately; the l-methylfolate I take is the Swanson Ultra Folate (from Healthmonthly.co.uk), and the methylcobalamin is the Jarrow 5000mcg
sublingual ones, think I got these from Amazon last time. The B6 I take is Health Plus Super B6 plus Zinc, as zinc levels are also important.

I know a lot of ladies get on well with ICs but personally I never trusted them, I stuck to FRERs after trying various types long ago.

brown I'd be very interested to hear more on the melatonin thing; I understood you couldn't take it in pregnancy because it messes around with your hormones, but if this isn't the case I'd like to know! Still desperate to get some halfway decent sleep :(

ari I'm reading all this with great interest. I'm heterozygous for MTHFR C677T. I take L-methylfolate 1000mcg and Methylcobalamin 1000mcg, plus B6 50mg and zinc 30mg (all self-prescribed). Should I be upping the folate and methylated B!2 to 5000mcg? And how much B6 do you take?

Oh and ari I'm assuming that the methyltetrahydrofolic acid in the Swanson Ultra brand is the same as methylfolate, is that right? Do you take the 400mcg or 800mcg?

village I wouldn't say you need to up your folate by that much, certainly. I found it extremely hard to find anyone who would tell me exactly what equivalent methylfolate dose was to 5mg folic acid (and I emailed chemists working for all the major manufacturers of l-methylfolate!), but eventually discovered that 3 x 800mcg should be roughly equivalent, so that's what I take. The Swanson formula uses the newer quatrefolic which is supposedly slightly more readily absorbable than the standard l-methylfolate - but I wouldn't like to say how much of a difference that makes. Ditto with the methylcobalamin - I started out on 1000mcg but after reading around extensively (as you do) I upped it to 5000mcg about a year or so ago. It's possible 1000mcg was ok, but I didn't want to take any chances and as it's a water-soluble vitamin if you take too much it just comes out in your urine, you can't OD on it. The Prof was happy that my B12 levels were very high, so I'm guessing it's ok to carry on with it ... but of course everyone metabolises things differenly!

Bear in mind village that you have one good copy of the MTHFR gene, so you will be able to metabolise at least some folic acid. It's only when you get to have two faulty copies that things can start going a bit pear-shaped. It absolutely won't do any harm to be taking the methylated vitamins, but you won't need as much as if you were homozygous, I would think.

ari thanks so much for replying. That's what I was thinking too - that since I'm heterozygous I might be ok on a lower dose of both. How much B6 do you take if you don't mind me asking?

B6 is 82mg in the 'Super B6 + Zinc' supplement. I think that's probably enough ;)

Thanks for thinking of me anyway Village

Thanks for all the info Ari I am wondering now if I should really be taking the extra b6 & b12 as well?!

Also can somebody remind me how much vitamin d Mr S recommends as I haven't been taking it for quite a while and now worrying?!

Not necessarily pebbles ... bear in mind I'm not only MTHFR homo but hypothyroid as well, and the combination of the three B vits are recommended in both these conditions. You may be just fine on what you're on. :) D3 I don't remember what Mr S says to take - if indeed he suggests a dose? - but I take one 5000iu mini-capsule a day.

I just found Mr S's protocol sheet - it says this:

• Vitamin D3 2000 IU (equivalent to 50 mcg of D3) once a day

Thank you so much Ari that's really helpful and best stock up on vitamin D'

Ari, Dr Ramsey replied and in her opinion melatonin wouldn't do anyone, including a foetus, any harm. But I agree with you; I think the hormone-messing aspect is something she seemed not to be taking on board. And since it controls rhythms, how do we know one of them isn't the onset of labour, for instance? Also, the doses she was using in her clinic were far larger than I take (0.5mg). She used between 3mg and 90g for adults (with various problems). She is a naturopath and I must say I don't regard that in the same light as a doctor.
Having said that, I have found lots of anecdotal evidence of women who did take it in pregnancy, since it's an OTC medication in the US, and their babies were fine. Some were even recommended to take it by their doctors for insomnia (usually 3mg); others were told not to. One woman said it made her baby move less, and wouldn't recommend it. Which would be enough to put me off, I must say.
I did find some research done in cows which showed that melatonin increased blood supply through the umbilical cord and may prevent intrauterine growth retardation.
All in all, I would think infrequent low-dose use may be okay, but then if you were going to worry about it, it would probably counteract its soporific effects!
Have you tried Sominex? You could also try the glamorous cooling gel cap, which I've used in the past. Cooling the brain may be all you need. I did find the effect wore off after a few days though, and I would have to leave it again for a while. It was like my head managed to bypass the cooling effect and get hot anyway.
... Cheryl told me she didn't have any MTHFR results for me. Not sure if that means I've never had it tested.

(Does anyone else remember the order of the letters in MTHFR using the charming expression 'mother f*er'? ... No, just me then.)

Interesting brown, thank you. And that really hadn't occurred to me ... but now you mention it, I'll never look at MTHFR in the same way again!

brown ha ha, yes indeed. I ALWAYS read it as shorthand for precisely that!!

brown Where do you get your melatonin from, if you don't mind me asking? There's a lady on the FF 'twins' board pregnant with twins whose smallest twin is in a very bad way due to poor bloodflow through the umbilical cord, and I pasted your comment about the cow research to her, in case this might help. She's asked where she can get them from in the UK; I don't remember where I got mine from (that I never used), can you say where you get yours please?

15DPO, various evap and neg on IC but no AF. So off I went, bought superdrug test, and of course BFN. An hour later my AF showed up...
So a new cycle for me. Will see what difference intralipids bring.
Made a promise to myself never to use IC though. Fine as ovulation tests but not pregnancy ones.

Really sorry to hear that, Nanny, but then as you say a new cycle with hopefully the right treatment. And I totally agree about the ICs. I can categorically say that none of the 10miu worked before the 25mius for me this pregnancy.
Ari, annoyingly I now can't find the original article about melatonin and cows but I get mine from Vitasunn. They are based here but the supplements come from the US so will take 2 weeks unfortunately. I can send her some if she's desperate but I would certainly want an expert opinion before trying it in those circumstances. The other thing to think about is l-arginine, as that's meant to improve blood flow and has been looked at as a treatment for pre-eclampsia. I must confess I haven't exactly stopped mine yet .... even though Mr S told me to during my last pregnancy. The way I think of l-arginine is that there must be high meat consumers who are getting loads of it through diet anyway.

omicsgroup.org/journals/the-potential-effect-of-larginine-on-mice-placenta-2167-1052.1000150.php?aid=27264
Not the umbilicial cord as such - in fact in this mouse study the umbilical cord was shortened - but having a good effect on other parameters of pregnancy.

I did find this though. Although all these animal experiments are really quite vile!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-079X.2008.00586.x/abstract;jsessionid=5068E3488FFBDCDFF9C98A6F0EE3898A.f04t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

And one for you personally, Ari.
doctormurray.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/VitaminRetailer6-13.pdf

And one last one and then i'll stop hogging the thread with links.
toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/2/271.full.pdf

brown the Pregnacare Max formula actually contains 100mg L-Arginine (as well as 50mg N-Acetyl Cysteine). So its benefits must be filtering through to the mainstream to some extent.

nanny hope your next cycle, with intralipids, is the charm!

That's very interesting, thank you, Village. I might bring that up with Mr S next week. I have been taking 1500mg though!

Thank you brown and village
Village how are you doing? Still doing the SO?