Pantothenic Acid megadose - permanent side effects



Hello Everyone,

Reading through this post, I recognize many symptoms that I had after taking grams of B5 a day about 4 years ago such as hair thinning on the top of my head, low energy, cold hands/feet, having racing thoughts and being on edge/angry constantly. Like many of you, I had a very hard time figuring out what was going on. I had a blood test done and nothing out of the ordinary was found. I tried to just learned to live with it, but simple labor and schoolwork became very difficult.

Over the last few months I finally have had relief after finding a naturopathic doctor who found that my adrenals were pretty much burnt out. Ive been taking an adrenal supplement for the last few months and have found that energy levels are pretty much back to normal. I can work without hardly any stress and my mood and thoughts have significantly stabalized.

I hope this helps someone who is struggling.
 
Your taking excess B5 pantothenic acid leads to a biotin deficiencies since they compete for each other on absorption in the colonocytes.This is well known in medical research circles. That is why the hair thinning. But Coenzyme A also competes with other coenzymes such as CoQ10, glutathione, folic acid, and nicotinamide, and that lead to the body becoming deficient in these also, will notice your lowered energy from less CoQ10, but your body's ability to detox, with less glutathione leads to problem of general feelings of sickness despite normal organ functions of the liver. Basically you will take missing Coenyzmes so you won't become deficient, especially biotin, CoQ10, glutathione and B3.
 
Hey guys.. I have permanent bloating stomach and gas since I took vitamine b5 for acne a year ago.. Anyone who have seen threads with ppl who have the same problem or know anything about it please reply!
 
Quote: Originally Posted by geneoptimize .
Maybe you messed up your gut biota? You could try probiotics-- Jarro-dophilus is a good one that is widely used.

Could well be it. Is it possible to test this? To determine if that's the problem.
 
You may have a gluten allergy. That can results in feeling tired and fuzzy brain. Try modifying your diet and possibly seeing a nutritionist.
 
Sounds to me like a bunch of people who don't eat enough REAL food throughout the day.
 
Hello, I don't think you are wrong because I have been using B5 for a month now and have been noticing some similar symptoms... My hair has become lighter and brittle.. I have a bitter taste in the mouth and starting to get tummy issues.. Also I am noticing tummy bloating and yesterday my upper roof of mouth and tongue went numb.. I have noticed I am having sleeping issues... Also I have had the nausea and fatigue... I have been taking B5 with L carnitine three times a day for my acne.. Today I was thinking to reduce the dose because I was getting a bad feeling that my symptoms were coming from the supplement... I also got a bit of anxiety the other day and if I don't take the supplement I feel extremely flat and tired... So perhaps people get affected differently and no one can say its impossible for a vitamin to do you harm.... I don't think there has been enough research on the products that are suppose to do us good or bad.... And perhaps there are thousands of people in the world who may have illnesses from many different products that we believe are good for us and we wouldn't even know they are causing us to become very ill... And doctors these days are soooooo stupid and have no idea... I will definitely be lowering my dose today, and my advice to you is to drink plenty of water and take probiotics to put back some good bacteria in the stomach because that is were our immune system is and if the B5 acid has cause a problem in the stomach, it would definitely affect the immune so it will make you more tired and make you get anxiety And I believe thats what has happened to you and also starting to happen to me... I will be here for you if you want to talk or need a friend..

Regards
Trisha Barra
 
Well, bottom line is: Don't take the stuff every day for too long.


I have learned more in this thread about possible long-term effects of vitamin B5 in ridiculous amounts than I would have by visiting 50 doctors. If you know Internet, you know how to make perfect sense out of hundreds and thousands of contradictory bits and pieces of information people post online. Doctors are absolute idiots comparably, and they won't even spend 5 or 10 minutes to google your problem. All they rely on is the bare basics of medicine which they learned, just to get their MD and make some money, 10, 20, maybe even 40 years ago. Could be that they read some scientific newspaper for recreational purposes additionally (For Christs sake, I read pubmed on a daily basis for recreational purposes ... and I have a whole lot more spare time ). That plus a ton of experience with the everyday problems and illnesses, mostly of old and otherwise sick people who likely have nothing to do with your issue at all, is everything they really rely on. If your IQ is over 100 you are likely better off with google alone than a medical professional. If it isn't for prescription medication, they got a monopoly on that.

And hudreds of direct personal experiences > some 1000 rats rat study. Anyone claiming that the Internet is an inferior information source compared to professionals obviously lacks the intelligence to interpret it correctly. If you got a serious medical problem, first use google, then check if the doctor makes any sense. If he doesn't go to another one to get proper treatment. That's how you do it, not the other way around.

Thanks to all the people here for sparing me from your trial and error experiences.


Also: I have not really given it much thought why you still got issues despite withdrawing from B5. Sounds like you caused some mineral/vitamin deficit and consequently weakened your immune system and shifted the bacteria/yeast balance in your body or something. Try some virtually-zero-carbohydrates diet that borderlines ketosis and is mostly based on animal products like meat (but super-fresh high quality mammalian muscle meat or else: too much bacteria - also eat it half-raw because heat degrades everything in it) in combination with ingesting large amounts of acid (i.e. 1L lemon juice or more, whatever amount doesn't entirely take you down - beware that acid naturally corrodes your teeth .. that is like common sense .. use a straw ..) possibly in combination with fasting a few days entirely in between. Drink 5 Liters of water total a day (if you can't then eat more salt). If you don't care about your teeth, put the lemon juice inside of it (beware: lemon juice is the most evil destroyer of enamel). If your feces don't smell slightly like lemon, you are not doing enough of the stuff.

Your body can make a whole lot more sense of that than most bacteria and yeast can (because all of those love a constant pH and lots of sugar, or in other words: what's usually in your intestines). Do it for 2 weeks up to 6 or indefinitely (then with less acid, if you constantly ingest acid for too long you will rather get weird bacteria that like the low pH). Don't take any supplements or medication. Probiotics are nonsense. You want to dominate and destroy stuff. Like .. decimate your gut flora! Then, if your body is up to it, whatever makes most sense will magically spawn all by itself.
 
Does anyone have any idea what happened to the OP of this thread or any way to get in touch with them?

If you have any way to get in touch with them or if anyone reading this shared similar experiences please contact me via this email because I would love to talk about this if you could offer any help - [email protected] - it's the UK spelling of colour in case anyone skims over that quickly.

I have been suffering with the exact same symptoms for almost ten years now and still do not have a diagnosis of any way of really relieving my symptoms.

Fatigue
'Brain fog' which is worse after eating
Major exercise intolerance
Bloating of the stomach and face
A coated tongue not lessened with nystatin
Major food intolerances where each type of food seems to have a different affect (strangely, sugar does not seem to be the major issue, it is more a grain problem)
Muscle cramps and twitching after grains
Almost constant sinus, ear and urinary infection type symptoms
Some form of what I think is peripheral neuropathy - I have experienced month long episodes of numbness of the surface of my skin along my thighs, lower back and glutes I think is linked to stress or food intolerance
Vivid nightmares
Back at the start of this I would wake in the middle of the night feeling like I was being pumped full of adrenaline and would be wide awake until early morning
Hair loss and the hair that remains is very dry and kinky

The list is longer than my arm, there are so many symptoms. I have been to so many doctors who won't even entertain the b5 issue and choke it up to depression and anxiety, but I know this is not the case.

So many different blood tests have been performed any nothing particularly abnormal has come back. Like the OP we both had a low white cell count but no celiac, no anemia, no diabetes, b12 serum levels were normal as were vitamin D and iron. Stool test was all clear.

Trawling the internet brings up many possible explanations not so much accepted by the main stream medical community like candida and adrenal fatigue and although symptoms are very closely matched I feel as though all it is is just that, symptoms that overlap, I even tried oral nystatin for the candida hypothesis but nothing changed.

My thoughts are that this is something related to cortisol and or insulin and the roles they play in regulating the immune system and blood sugar, but this is purely speculation based on what I've learned online. Many of the symptoms seem to line up with insulin resistance and blood sugar control, I was told by an endocrinologist that the brain fog could be the blood sugar raising and falling to quickly even though it stays in the correct range not to be considered diabetes. Online you'll also find evidence that b5 is linked with insulin sensetivity and adrenal output which is what I base this on. I also considered the way cortisol regulates the immune system which is maybe causing some issues with digestion and the gut causing some of the other symptoms.

I am in the process of seeing an endocrinologist at the moment to which I hope to get some solid answers but if there is anyone out there with similar experiences after vitamin B5 megadose please get in touch.

Chris.
 
Alifestolen (Chris), how long did you take B5 and in what doses? When did you start to feel the symptoms?

I myself am a victim of B5. I took 9 doses of 500 mg and started getting depressed, irritable and extremely tired a few days after the first two pills. I took me some time to figure out the cause. At first I couldn't believe a water soluble vitamin can cause such reactions but when I googled "B5 makes me depressed" I found this forum and the puzzle was solved.

I did tons of research on the vitamin and it appears that it gets stored in liver. This organ is the main depot in animals and humans. If you look up the content of pantothenic acid in pork and chicken liver you will find out that the amount is several times bigger than in other foods.

My theory is that we've bombarded the body with this poisonous vitamin and a large amount is hiding in our livers, and a tiny bit gets released every day via the bile juice and enters our bloodstream. I think this is causing the problems. On top of that we ingest more B5 with the food we eat every day.

I've thought about the exact mechanism by wich B5 is screwing our systems and there may be several mechanisms.

Firstly, B5 increases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Higher ACTH lowers the feel good neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, which can cause depression, brain fog, lack of energy, mood swings, etc...

Secondly, B5 lowers cholesterol levels (and this has been documented in numerous studies). Cholesterol is the buidling block of all hormones + serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. One of the most common side effects of cholesterol lowering drugs (statins) is fatigue along with depression.

Thridly, excess B5 in the blood (or at least higher than what your body requires) can antogonize several different vitamins in the body, which can cause problems.

The question is how to put an end to this hell. I was searching the net but I couldn't find what the half life is this vitamin in the liver is... For example scientists have figured out the half life of active B12 (methylcobalamin) in the liver which is 400 days, noone has ever bothered to study the rate of excretion of pantothenic acid. The only thing I found was that half life in serum in approx. 28 hours...

How does the idea of cutting off a part of the liver sound? I know it's crazy. But the liver grows back in two months and you can save the life of someone who is on the transplant list.

I don't think I can live with all these symptoms for 10 years.
 
Hi thanks for getting in touch Dan. I also replied to your email if you would like to reply there or here I don't mind.

I just read your reply, some interesting thoughts for sure.

I am currently seeing an endocrinologist who thinks I may have something called reactive hypoglycaemia ... I don't think this is the full diagnoses but it could be one of the symptoms.

According to the wiki page ( which you have probably read ) pantothenic acid deficiency can cause, and to quote ..

"Symptoms of deficiency are similar to other vitamin B deficiencies. There is impaired energy production, due to low CoA levels, which could cause symptoms of irritability, fatigue, and apathy.[13] Acetylcholine synthesis is also impaired; therefore, neurological symptoms can also appear in deficiency;[21] they include numbness, paresthesia, and muscle cramps.[21]Deficiency in pantothenic acid can also cause hypoglycemia, or an increased sensitivity to insulin.[13] Insulin receptors are acylated with palmitic acid when they do not want to bind with insulin.[20] Therefore, more insulin will bind to receptors when acylation decreases, causing hypoglycemia.[12] Additional symptoms could include restlessness, malaise, sleep disturbances, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps.[21] In a few rare circumstances, more serious (but reversible) conditions have been seen, such as adrenal insufficiency and hepatic encephalopathy."

I have many symptoms where share similarities. Maybe we aren't deficient but if there is an over supply like you say in the liver or something else, since the vitamin interacts with all these things it stands to reason I think that we may have problems with these pathways also...

Do you have the brain fog?

This is by far the worse symptom for me.. it disappeared for a few years but now it is back after a very stress full period.. I can't understand the cause but I am trying relentlessly to figure it out.

If I do have reactive hypoglycaemia then perhaps this is causing the brain fog, that's what the endo thinks, although I think it may have something to do with the immune system actually and cortisol(apparently there are stores of b5 in the adrenal gland, and actually I know you mentioned the cholesterol, from what I understand cholesterol is a precursor to some adrenal hormones like cortisol! ) but nothing is concrete.

Have you seen any doctors and what are their opinions? What is your bloodwork saying?

Is your white cell count low? Both myself and the OP of that thread have a low WBC count.

What are your entire symptoms? Is brain fog one of them?

Interesting thought on the liver, that was my first thought when you mentioned the build up about having part of it removed all thought it's a big undertaking especially if it isn't the cause, it's so hard to know. I am not sure it would be easy finding a doctor willing to do such a thing or is it a possibility to just donate it? Then that might leave problems some open for someone else I guess though if that is the cause which wouldn't be good.



Look forward to the response.
 
Interesting thought about the liver actually I seem to get incredible bad hangovers if I drink alcohol, sometimes they last two full days. Before this I never used to get hangover at all so that might be another reason to think the liver is involved I suppose, although the liver enzymes are not at all raised in blood tests. Although perhaps if I have reactive hypoglycaemia this is just something to do with drinking and not staying hydrated and fed.
 
Is anyone here? I have the same symptoms. I sympathize with the hypotheses here. I had symptoms of microbial imbalance in the intestinal tract after I took phantotenic acid. There was also nervousness and a rash. My face usually swells well, so I think I have weak kidneys. Please share the treatment..

[email protected]
 
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