Remember I had concluded I had top-end of acceptable aceytlcholine levels (based on symptoms), and the fish oil pushed it over the top to the unhealthy levels, and going off fish oil cured it? For those of you not on my facebook, here's the comment I posted this discovery on:
What I learned this week:
"So far, digging through studies and anecdotal information, I've learned that people with fibro can have unbalanced (high-normal to high) acetylcholine levels. ACh is a neurotransmitter that deals with muscle and brain function.
"High-normal acetylcholine is associated (anecdotally) with being a good friend and attentive parent, having sensitive senses and a quick mind, and being highly creative.
"Fish oil, it is theorized, increases acetylcholine levels. This lifts depression and anxiety in people who have low ACh levels naturally or because of a disorder. This is the case for almost everyone who takes it--they have low or low-normal (or even middling) ACh levels, so fish oil makes them feel really good.
"But if you already have high levels, it can tip you over the edge into anxiety, dark intrusive thoughts, and increased myofascial pain. Symptoms of too high ACh include feeling anxious, having dark thoughts, blurry vision, upper respiratory gunk, headache, sleep disturbance (if you wake up, you can't get back to sleep), muscle and myofascial pain (feeling achy and bruised for no reason), decreased motivation, brain fog, mental fatigue and confusion, feeling sleepy all the time, stomach pain, nausea, tooth and jaw pain, muscle weakness, cough, cold hands, increased introversion, and vivid dreams, among other things. (All of these are symptoms I've had since starting fish oil).
"My suspicion: I have genetically high acetylcholine levels, possibly because of fibro or possibly part of the cause of fibro. Regardless, increasing those levels is apparently very bad for me.
So how to increase healthy cholesterol without fish oil?!"
What I learned this week:
Coenzyme-A is a little-recognized but vital part of the energy system in the body. In the presence of sugar, it breaks down carbs for energy. In the absence of sugar, it breaks down fats for energy. It's a carrier molecule that carries things out of the mitochondria. When there is a lack of fatty acids in the body, it makes them. Fatty acids are super important components of things like cell walls. Coenzyme-a is one of the few substances that easily crosses the barrier into the brain and is vital for energy for the brain. Coenzyme-a is also a significantly important part of building the myelin sheath on nerves (mostly made up of fatty acids), and if the myelin sheath is weak, the nerves don't send signals correctly. It's involved in the synthesis of hormones (out of balance in fibro), and co-Q10 (some people use to treat fibro), and Vitamin D. Many of the metabolic enzymes apparently rely on Coenzyme-A to function. It also helps in the cortisol processing systems in the body, and it triggers to Krebs Cycle, which produces energy for the body.
Also, coenzyme-a happens to be one of the main building blocks of acetylcholine, which is that neurotransmitter I had determined I'd boosted to the maximum healthy level somehow. I thought it was genetic, but it's not. I'm getting to that.
Coenzyme-a deficiency leads to fatigue and muscle soreness, they say. Other symptoms of low coenzyme-a include: "depression, anxiety, an impaired sense of balance, irritability, fatigue, an abnormal need for sleep and a deterioration of the immune system." (http://www.livestrong.com/article/111719-benefits-coenzyme/). Sound familiar?
So we need coenzyme-A. And a lot of the symptoms of fibromyalgia (the genetic kind, not the side effect of RA kind) are in body systems that break down without coenzyme-a: brain, nerves, and energy.
How does the body make coenzyme-a? Cysteine, Pantotheic Acid, and ATP.
Follow me here for a minute: A couple of years ago, my mom and sister bought me a bottle of ribose and said, "Try this; it helps with fibro." It was in my house so I tried it, and it does help with fibro. I did some research and concluded it works for fibro because it's an essential building block of ATP and with fibro, the ATP synthesis system is broken and doesn't recycle the pieces of used up ATP to make new ATP well. (http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2013/05/ribose-and-fibromyalgia.html and http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2014/01/fibro-theories-some-more.html)
Then around the end of last year, I concluded that I needed to lose weight, and I was drawn to anecdotal evidence that pantothenic acid helps people lose weight. Always wary of weight loss drugs, I prayed about it and felt strongly I should get some pantothenic acid, which is vitamin B-5. I added it to my vitamin regimen with the ribose, D, and potassium I take for unrelated issues. Significantly, at the time I started taking it, I had run out of calcium and was not taking that. (This is significant because when I bought calcium again later and added it back in, it negated the effects, even if I took it 12 hours offset from the B-5.). Anyway, started on a relatively low dose of 500 mg of B-5 twice a day, and it changed my life. I'm not exaggerating. I felt like an almost normal person again.
So where am I going with this? I unintentionally boosted the levels of two of the primary building blocks of coenzyme-a in my body, and my fibro is significantly better--better on the emotional side, the energy side, even the pain is less (but still there). It cured the energy issues of fibro, even if it didn't cure the overactive nerves/pain or the bad body temperature regulation parts. Still, I can live with those if the energy is cured.
Since coenzyme-a helps control acetylcholine levels, I also boosted those. That's why the fish oil gave me an overdose of acetylcholine. I'd already boosted that to the top that my body needed.
So I'm thinking that perhaps fibromyalgia is, at least in part, a result of a breakdown in the coenzyme-A system in the body. Boost that, and maybe we have a treatment? Or a cure? Especially given that we know that the neurotransmitter and hormone levels in people with fibro are "off" normal, and co-A works for that, too.
Also, coenzyme-a happens to be one of the main building blocks of acetylcholine, which is that neurotransmitter I had determined I'd boosted to the maximum healthy level somehow. I thought it was genetic, but it's not. I'm getting to that.
Coenzyme-a deficiency leads to fatigue and muscle soreness, they say. Other symptoms of low coenzyme-a include: "depression, anxiety, an impaired sense of balance, irritability, fatigue, an abnormal need for sleep and a deterioration of the immune system." (http://www.livestrong.com/article/111719-benefits-coenzyme/). Sound familiar?
So we need coenzyme-A. And a lot of the symptoms of fibromyalgia (the genetic kind, not the side effect of RA kind) are in body systems that break down without coenzyme-a: brain, nerves, and energy.
How does the body make coenzyme-a? Cysteine, Pantotheic Acid, and ATP.
Follow me here for a minute: A couple of years ago, my mom and sister bought me a bottle of ribose and said, "Try this; it helps with fibro." It was in my house so I tried it, and it does help with fibro. I did some research and concluded it works for fibro because it's an essential building block of ATP and with fibro, the ATP synthesis system is broken and doesn't recycle the pieces of used up ATP to make new ATP well. (http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2013/05/ribose-and-fibromyalgia.html and http://beccajones.blogspot.com/2014/01/fibro-theories-some-more.html)
Then around the end of last year, I concluded that I needed to lose weight, and I was drawn to anecdotal evidence that pantothenic acid helps people lose weight. Always wary of weight loss drugs, I prayed about it and felt strongly I should get some pantothenic acid, which is vitamin B-5. I added it to my vitamin regimen with the ribose, D, and potassium I take for unrelated issues. Significantly, at the time I started taking it, I had run out of calcium and was not taking that. (This is significant because when I bought calcium again later and added it back in, it negated the effects, even if I took it 12 hours offset from the B-5.). Anyway, started on a relatively low dose of 500 mg of B-5 twice a day, and it changed my life. I'm not exaggerating. I felt like an almost normal person again.
So where am I going with this? I unintentionally boosted the levels of two of the primary building blocks of coenzyme-a in my body, and my fibro is significantly better--better on the emotional side, the energy side, even the pain is less (but still there). It cured the energy issues of fibro, even if it didn't cure the overactive nerves/pain or the bad body temperature regulation parts. Still, I can live with those if the energy is cured.
Since coenzyme-a helps control acetylcholine levels, I also boosted those. That's why the fish oil gave me an overdose of acetylcholine. I'd already boosted that to the top that my body needed.
So I'm thinking that perhaps fibromyalgia is, at least in part, a result of a breakdown in the coenzyme-A system in the body. Boost that, and maybe we have a treatment? Or a cure? Especially given that we know that the neurotransmitter and hormone levels in people with fibro are "off" normal, and co-A works for that, too.
I can find no research on coenzyme-A and fibromyalgia. We need some. If you find some, please let me know where it is so I can read it.
Edit: There is a single company that makes coenzyme-A supplements. They claim you can't just take pantothenic acid (B-5) and have it work, but I beg to differ. You just have to take it with ribose. Anyway, the co-A people have co-A and a bunch of other stuff in their supplement that they say you have to have for co-A to work. What did they put in? All the stuff that people tell you to take if you have fibro, like magnesium, pantothenic acid, etc.
Also, I learned that some people take CoQ10 to treat fibro. Guess what's a precursor to CoQ10? Yup. Coenzyme-A.
So it seems to me that instead of taking magnesium, coQ10, etc etc etc, just take the B-5 and ribose and your body will take care of all those other things just fine. We should find a way to find out.
Edit: There is a single company that makes coenzyme-A supplements. They claim you can't just take pantothenic acid (B-5) and have it work, but I beg to differ. You just have to take it with ribose. Anyway, the co-A people have co-A and a bunch of other stuff in their supplement that they say you have to have for co-A to work. What did they put in? All the stuff that people tell you to take if you have fibro, like magnesium, pantothenic acid, etc.
Also, I learned that some people take CoQ10 to treat fibro. Guess what's a precursor to CoQ10? Yup. Coenzyme-A.
So it seems to me that instead of taking magnesium, coQ10, etc etc etc, just take the B-5 and ribose and your body will take care of all those other things just fine. We should find a way to find out.
