Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5) and weight loss

Spectracell Labs posted a very informative blog post regarding vitamins and weight management here that flipped on the light bulb for me today.

I was so thrilled I almost cried.

So let me start from the beginning with a bit of background.

I have expressed in prior posts how I had been overweight, went thru the hcg diet a few times, got down to my ideal weight, and then I gained weight like no other in the next year, unable to control my weight gain with my strict immense willpower when it comes to food. I gained some 90lbs and would have kept going if I hadn't found my Celiac at the end of 2011. Went gluten free and weight gain stopped... but no weight loss ever happened on its own.

Found out last September that I had a severe vitamin B5 deficiency after being tested by Spectracell Labs. Come to find out, this is normal for celiacs, as I think I mentioned in my post back then.

So... I started supplementing B5 after finishing yet another round of hcg dieting that was absolutely fruitless. (No weight loss at all)

Got pregnant in November... and I actually lost a size while pregnant. No crazy food issues either. No major morning sickness that prevented me from eating or anything.

Lost the baby in January... and ran out of my huge bottles of pantothenic acid then. Thinking I didn't need it anymore, I didn't bother to replace them.

I gained 10lbs in the following two months... realized I felt like crap again so I started up the b5 again at half the dose, and realized I'll probably have to supplement for the rest of my life... I just don't absorb it properly.

Ok so now that you have the short and sweet story... the reason for this whole post.

Spectracell mentioned in their blog that B5 is the precursor to the enzyme lipase, which is the FAT BURNING ENZYME.

Holy mother of god... I found the reason why I gained so much weight uncontrollably and now I know how to reverse it.

I've been all about the enzymes lately... I knew I was lacking in lipase but I couldn't figure out why nor how to fix it, other than to supplement with digestive enzymes.

If I look back at my history it all makes sense.

Fasted with the hcg diet a number of times in 2009, likely depleting cellularly stored pantothenic acid. Since I don't absorb it properly, I wasn't able to replenish it. With each hcg round, my ability to lose weight decreased and the weight loss would slow. I notoriously lost less weight than others doing the same diet and even with them cheating on it and me being very strict.

So I gained after I was done with those. A lot. No lipase available to burn fat as energy.

Fast forward to October last year... didn't lose at all... my stores were empty, as referenced by my nutrition report.

November thru January supplementing 1g a day and lost a pant size (didn't lose scale weight, but didn't gain either).

Bottle ends and I gain weight back.

I get a new bottle and flip from taking 500mg to 1g a day... mostly 500mg a day. I fluctuate in size... I don't know my smaller days are related to the 1g or not.

SO... I took 2g today of pantothenic acid. My normal 500 this morning and 1500mg this evening.

I so can't wait to see if this is going to work for me.

I will check in with this later.

As of this morning, I am 225.2 lbs.

In the meantime, check out this wonderfully written article about pantothenic acid:

http://www.coryholly.com/articles/article.cfm?id=172

The Importance of Micro-Nutrient Testing in Unexplained Infertility

Unexplained infertility is when the standard infertility testing in western (allopathic) medicine has failed to find the cause for the infertility.  By this point, the male partner has gone through sperm analysis with a clean bill of health, as well as the female partner having been checked for ovulation patterns, ovarian issues, endometriosis, hormonal issues, pelvic scarring, sometimes chromosomal DNA compatibility and sometimes a laparoscopy is done to make sure everything is clear and not blocked by scarring.

This means that the couple trying to conceive get the news from their doctor that their infertility is "unexplained" which means that with those means they have utilized up to that point, they haven't found anything.

A lot of couples I'm aware of are then consequently told they will never conceive unless they go through in-vitro or intra-uterine insemination.

This is ridiculous and absolutely not true.

Let's go back to the understanding of how the human body works.

The human body is a machine. If something major is out of balance, it can throw the rest of the body out of whack as well.  Compare this to your car: if it doesn't have gas, it's not going to move forward, is it?

Well, neither is your body.  Your body knows innately when it has enough nutrients to handle a pregnancy.  If it doesn't have enough of what it needs to create life, it won't let you... and western medicine won't be able to tell you why.

But micro-nutrient testing CAN.  Testing to see where someone is at nutritionally should be one of the first things that should be done, not only in the case of infertility, but also in the case of disease.  See this study which showed that vitamin B6 helped create pregnancies, and how vitamin C supplementation helped those with a luteal phase insufficiency.

Let's take a look at some of the micro nutrients that are tested in one major test that is done in the US.

In Spectra Cell Laboratory's Comprehensive Nutrient Panel, they test for the history (not just a static number of what it was at that moment) of where each vitamin is at.

See SpectraCell Lab's Site

Yeah, that's a lot of vitamins and fatty acids to be checking for.

With today's average American diet, the majority of us have some sort of vitamin deficiency.  One of the largest deficiencies today in the population is vitamin D.  While a vitamin D deficiency does not create infertility, a vitamin D deficiency can be a signal that there are other problems as well.

Therefore, this micro-nutrient panel should be run.  A lot of insurance companies will cover at least part of it. The way I look at it, it's WAY cheaper than paying for in-vitro or intra-uterine insemination... and you don't have to go through the hormonal crap those ladies have to go through for those procedures, where you don't even get a 100% guarantee that you will get a baby out of it.

If you get tested and you start supplementing properly (properly is key... you should see a nutritionist if you have a number of deficiencies so that you don't throw your body out of whack even more) you could get pregnant on your own, without all those procedures.

I have a friend who has been trying for a baby for 6 years now.  She writes in her own blog about her frustrations with TTC and just life in general. She has some pretty heavy duty stories.

Serenitysomedayttc.com

I met Mandy on the Babycenter Message board Actively Trying: The Next Level, which she moderates.

Ever since I got my nutrients tested, I have been trying to convince her and her hubby to get tested.  They have a serious case of unexplained infertility... everything comes out clean for them.

Yet she's not pregnant.

So I threw the information for the SpectraCell labs at her the other day, hoping to plant a seed, and hoping that they might try it before moving into IVF or IUI and spending tens of thousands for a possibility of a baby that she could still miscarry because of her lack of good nutritional status.

If she ever does and she ends up pregnant, I promise to come back because if she can get pregnant from this, ANYBODY can.

Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid) and Celiac Disease

I recently went to the doctor, explaining to them that I'm still not pregnant, after almost 2 years now of actively trying, and that I wanted a vitamin panel done.  I was also concerned about my adrenals, stating that it must be the cortisol (the stress hormone) issue that's preventing me from losing weight and fully calming down.

So they ran a million tests... and ran a micro-nutrient test with SpectraCell Laboratory.

I fully expected to have some deficiencies, but I knew I would generally be okay, considering I do supplement.

Since I am Celiac, I'm not surprised to find deficiencies, although your average person could always have vitamin deficiencies, like vitamin D3.

I was really blown away to find out I am very deficient in vitamin B5, also known as pantothenic acid.

Pantothenic acid is found in EVERYTHING that mammals (including humans) eat. It is a very very important  vitamin that helps the co-enzyme A function properly, the adrenals keep up to their best, and help your brain function a bit better.  If your adrenals don't function properly, you don't function properly and your body goes into distress mode.  My TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) was sky high, after decreasing after going gluten free, shocking the hell out of me.  My DHEA-S and testosterone levels were well above where they should be, indicating there's a heavy duty adrenal issue happening.  Not to mention my infertility... which is directly related to B5 deficiency as well.

But here's the problem and why I never even CONSIDERED that I could have a deficiency:

Pantothenic acid is literally found in EVERYTHING, like I mentioned earlier.  To find someone with a B5 deficiency means they have either been literally starving, or they are an alcoholic. (which I am neither)

But.

Back in the day, they used to treat Celiac Disease with pantothenic acid, to help the patient feel better.  Because of the drastic gastrointestinal issues and malabsorption that is so common among Celiacs, those B vitamins are up for rejection in the Celiac system, which does include B5.  It is also noted, in that article I linked to, that a vitamin B5 deficiency does cause atrophy of the villi in the intestines. If a subject does not feel completely better, nor return to complete normalcy, or only half way responds to a gluten free diet, try B5.

After 5 days of having taken at least 1000mg a day of pantothenic acid, I can truly say that I have experienced an upswing in my mood and most importantly, my ability to focus.  My intelligence is huge to me, and to lose that in the last couple years because I was unable to focus properly was very hard on my self esteem.

Yet... I continue on... hopefully in a few months I can get pregnant as my body regulates.

Celiac and Infertility - How It All Came About

Celiac affects so many people (they estimate 1 in 133 people and even more are just gluten intolerant, not Celiac) yet it's almost never diagnosed, so I'm happy to spread the word.

I'm going to give you a couple links, otherwise I'll end up typing out a whole book for you to read. lol

www.celiaccentral.org/Celiac-Diseas...

www.livestrong.com/article/420766-m...

These are good starters.

Basically what causes the infertility is not the Celiac disease itself, it's the malnutrition. Celiac damages your intestinal lining, making it so that you don't absorb the proper vitamins to be able to carry a child. 

I did not always know I had Celiac... all I knew is that when I was young, I was put in the hospital due to a huge lymph node infection in my neck (it was huge enough where you couldn't see my jaw line, and I have a square face with a strong jaw) and after that hospital visit, I started getting these random rashes. Doctors could never figure out what the rash was, and it would come and go throughout my life. I didn't have the major digestive issues until I was about 28... when I started drinking beer. Before that, I had been a rum drinker, if I drank, which is gluten free, and I also tended to avoid wheat products because of how I just generally felt yucky after eating them and they made me gain weight very quickly. My rash reappeared as I drank beer and ate wheat things I shouldn't be eating... I ended up gaining some 70lbs within a year. It was RIDICULOUS. 

So, about 6 months after my first miscarriage in 2010, I started feeling terrible. I had been suffering from depression since 2009, and my health started failing, even though I had normally been very healthy and rarely got sick. I went to the doc, and they found my TSH levels were elevated, so they checked my thyroid, checked me for PCOS.... and everything came out normal and healthy except my very high TSH. I kept thinking "NO WAY am I healthy! I feel like crap!" My cycles were all over the place, I was skipping, and they were getting lighter suddenly.

I have a friend who has Celiacs... so she educated me on it a bit, because I was curious. 

One day I put it together that I had my digestive issues after having beer ALWAYS. My skin issue flared up massively after having beer and I had never put it together.

So... I did my research and got tested... I have something called Dermatitis Herpetiformis (not herpes, even though the name looks like it. lol Trust me, I freaked when I saw that) which is directly related to Celiacs. Because I have that, I have Celiacs. 

I went gluten free in December 2011, and my skin issue has since disappeared and never come back. My digestive functions are all normal now... and truly, with a little bit of humor here... I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to race to the bathroom. haha

ANYWAYS. Since going gluten free... I have found I have some major issues. Systemic Candida (yeast) tore me up considerably, and I'm still fighting it with enzymes and heavy duty probiotics. That same Candida is likely why I still haven't been able to hold a pregnancy because 9 months gluten free, I should be able to get pregnant. I have read other women are likely to get pregnant within 6 months of going gluten free, assuming there are no other issues. My cycles have finally "somewhat" regulated... but I have a theory that my lining is no good and won't hold the embryo so I believe I miscarry within a couple days.

So... for you, this is what I would suggest from all my research I have done with malnutrition and hormonal issues created from it:

Have your vitamin D checked. Mine was insanely low and I have discovered in my research that the majority of the American population is very low in vitamin D. Take a daily supplement of 10,000iu for 3 months, and it'll bring you back up. You may feel even better... just then maintain it at 5000iu. See this link for you... www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-cond...

Take your vitamin E and Vitamin A. 

Have your B vitamin levels checked. Once I went gluten free, my B vitamins leveled out on their own. I don't even have to supplement. 

Also, if you can, have Zinc levels checked, or you can check if you have these symptoms of a deficiency: (this link is great... has a ton of symptoms in there that a lot of women I know have...) www.womenshairlossproject.com/hair-...
If you decide to start supplementing with zinc, take no more than 100mg a day, otherwise it may make you nauseous. I take a 50mg supplement with my multivitamin.

I also am an advocate for magnesium supplementing as well. Even as little as 100mg supplement can help your adrenals handle your stress and cortisol levels. Cortisol signals your body is in a stressful situation, and won't get pregnant if you are that stressed, in order for nature to survive. :)

I have also very recently found out that vitamin C helps with estrogen levels so you can help make good lining. :)

And... last, but likely the most important: probiotics ESPECIALLY if you have ever been on antibiotics before. Your internal bacterial flora is important to your health, and antibiotics kill the good and the bad. Get a probiotic that as many cultures and as many strains of bacteria as possible. A normal healthy person has 100 trillion bacteria colonies within their system. I take a probiotic right now that has 35billion cultures in each pill with 33 different strains of bacteria, twice a day. If you take a probiotic and it causes a general "flu-like" feeling or diarrhea, it's working. That feeling will go away in 1-3 weeks as your body resets itself. If it's too uncomfortable, skip a day of probiotic dose to give your body a break and ease into them slowly.

Well, I still wrote you a book... hahaha

My infertility hasn't resolved itself yet... but I'm working on it. If I can figure it out, I hope I can share the knowledge with others. Allopathic (what we practice here in America with our regular doctors) medicine doesn't recognize the power of nutrition a lot, so my doctor hasn't been much help. lol But I have been told that since my Celiac was likely activated when I had that major lymph node infection when I was 7, there is probably a lot of damage to reverse and it may take my body years to get to normal. But that is just my own situation.

If you have any questions... any, no matter how TMI (I am a self proclaimed "poop" expert... because truly, your poop says a lot about a person's health)... please feel free to ask. I love it when people ask so I can share what I have learned.

Best of luck... Jess

HCG Diet and Cycle Time

I now have proof that the HCG diet can regulate your menstrual cycle.

A little (okay, a lot) of my cycle recent history...

After 2 years of menstrual issues, likely due to my pending Celiac diagnosis and the related malabsorption, my cycles were anywhere between 45 and 70 days.  Even after going gluten free in December 2011, my cycle continued to be wonky.

Since my husband and I are trying to conceive and have been since December 2010, I have been really paying attention to my cycles and what is creating my infertility.

I have a Fertile Focus Microscope which only uses your saliva to check the hormone levels that are in your saliva to see if you could consider yourself fertile.  If your saliva shows a fern pattern (which is the crystalization of whatever hormone it looks for) then you are likely fertile.

Image from getting-pregnant-tips.com

 
Ferning = Fertile = should get preggers easily... easy enough, right?

Wrong, in my case.

So in my ridiculously long cycles, I started checking the 'scope daily to see when it actually said I was fertile.

Funny enough... I was ALWAYS fertile on right around cycle day 14... which is when I'm SUPPOSED to be.  Of course, my flow doesn't show up 14 days later like it should, so I continued checking the 'scope daily to see what it did.

I have the blessing to be able to tell when I actually ovulate; it causes me pain.  It's a brief pain, but definitely different than any other pain I have ever had, so I can tell.  I've learned over the years that it means I'm ovulating.  Exactly 14 days after that pain occurs, my flow shows up.

On those days that I know I'm ovulating, I checked the 'scope... and nothing.  Doesn't say I'm fertile at all. Yet I'm ovulating??? That doesn't make any sense.

So of course, my theory came forth that my hormones and body goes through the motions of my cycle on the proper days, but my ovaries are late to the party... by like a month.  By the time I actually do ovulate, my hormones are not in the right spot, likely my uterine lining is no longer hospitable for a bouncing baby to start, therefore anything that actually does connect with the ovum, falls right through.

So... the key was to get my ovaries to show up at the right time to the party.

My HCG diet did that for me.  My last cycle date was May 13.  I got my cycle yesterday.  A 30 day cycle!!! I almost flipped.  I had started the HCG Rx Injections on May 27, which is the day I was supposed to ovulate, but I just ovulated 2 days later! I am just so thrilled with it... when I did my past rounds of the HCG injections for weight loss, my cycle always stayed at 35 days.  This is, of course, before I was diagnosed with Celiac. Ever since I have been old enough to bleed, my cycles were at 35 days if I wasn't on the pill.

So this is the first time that my body did it by itself! (kinda)

I'm just so thrilled with it, I can't wait to see what happens for next month.

You Are What You Eat

I'll have to remind myself to see a nutritionist, after this diet, regarding what I should avoid eating to keep my body from blowing up like a whale whenever I have a meal from inflammation.

Speaking of nutritionists... the past few months I have been trying to determine what vitamins I am missing. There is a reason why I gained all this weight in a short amount of time... and yes, that's Celiac, but Celiac creates a vitamin insufficiency, but sometimes the blood tests don't tell you which vitamin it is.

For me, it's not Folate or B12... the blood tests indicated a really low level of vitamin D, which may be due to my age and also because of my weight, so I don't solely blame Celiac on that.  The doc didn't run any other tests, so I'm just testing items that just can't hurt if I take a little extra.

So in my research... Zinc is a huge player in metabolism and the immune system.  See this article by Dr. Barbara that I ran across a couple months ago... Celiac Brain: When you are gluten sensitive, you may be zinc deficient!  She explains in her article that zinc is the most popular mineral that is used by our enzymes, which if you are not absorbing it properly, you're basically going to have some serious issues.

Also, in my obsessive search for an answer, I found magnesium tends to be an issue with EVERYBODY... not just Celiacs or gluten sensitive people.  Magnesium has a major effect on weight loss and also inhibits inflammation.  See this for the full article: Magnesium Can Help Fight Obesity

When I read those items, I started taking 50mg a day zinc supplements as well as 400mg of magnesium along with my normal supplements of 5000iu of D3 (for my low D levels), 400iu of Vitamin E, and my food based multivitamin, and I don't know if this was just the placebo effect, but seriously, I started feeling better.  I had more energy... I just felt brighter.

I know that since I went gluten free 6 months ago, my hair started growing properly and my skin cleared up, but I still had some thinning hair issues (and I'm only 30... so I'm going to avoid that as much as possible!!) but since adding the zinc component to my supplements, I can't help but notice that my hair "behaves". Note that zinc is a major ingredient in shampoos like Head and Shoulders and Selsun Blue.

For the rest of my life I'm just going to keep in mind that I am what I eat... so if I eat crap... I'm going to feel like crap.

HCG Diet Journey... with a discovery of Celiac Disease

Let me tell you about the HCG Diet.

Me before the HCG Diet at around 190 taken December 2008:

I have completed 6 rounds of this diet... all in all, I lost a total of some 70lbs.  I went from 190 down to 140lbs in 3 rounds.

Me after the initial rounds at 140lbs taken December 2009:

Huge change right??? I felt so great after it too... I started exercising, P90X, playing volleyball, and Ultimate Frisbee... because I felt awesome.

I then gained 20lbs within 4 months, did another round and lost 10, gained another 20in 4 months, did another round and lost another 15.  I waited 5 months this time and had gained some 30 lbs, which I lost 25, then I gained it all back in 2 months. 

I was like... WHAT THE HELL.

I'm not a ridiculous eater.  I am very very strict with my diet as I have always struggled with my weight. This diet was perfect for me because I hated eating... it just made me fat.  Didn't matter what I ate it seemed.  I was exercising at the time when I gained the 20lbs, but the last round where I gained 30, I had gotten so heavy that exercise was difficult and I was exhausted.

This is what I looked like at the end of the last round, which was April 2011. I was at 186lbs here. I still look better than my original photo where I was about the same weight... you can see where the HCG had readjusted where my fat deposits were.

Not bad right?  You can see my abdomen isn't swollen... from my lack of taking in anything that caused it to inflame.

So... here I am today... at 225 lbs... a year later.

The above photo was taken in February 2012, Super Bowl. HUGE change from just the year before.  After the round in April 2011, I was thinking there was something wrong... so I went to the doctor.  They had found issues with my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone and that my testosterone levels were on the edge of being high, but other than that, I was perfectly healthy.  I couldn't figure out what was going on... I didn't feel good.  I suffered from depression and had a miscarriage in December 2010. 

Finally... December 2011... I figured it out. I got tested... and BAM. I have Celiac Disease.  This is a genetically inherited disease where basically your body reacts to gluten as if it were poison.  In the process, it kills your intestinal lining... yeah, the part that helps you actually gain nutrients.  So basically, I was malnourished, yet the rest of me was healthy, so it was taking in as much as it could get and storing it because it was starving for nutrients.

So... I went gluten free in December 2011 and haven't gone back.  I haven't struggled with it either... I have tended to avoid gluten anyway, knowing that it creates a weight gain for me, but there were other items that I loved (like beer) that brought the Celiac symptoms right to the forefront.  My weight has decreased to about 220 (in the last month) after a brief increase in weight (likely due to actually getting nutrients) but it has started to slowly drop off.

My goal now is to do another 3 rounds of HCG to bring myself back to where I was at... 140lbs.  I should be able to stay there since gluten is no longer welcome in my life.

So... I got my HCG in today... I am doing injections... and doing it purely Dr. Simeon's style.

I'll be tracking my weight and measurements on here... I will start with my measurements tomorrow... when I do my first injection.

I have 3 things of HCG to go.  I am hoping, since my diet is so limited anyway and I don't really care about eating, that I can go with the full 40 day cycles on each one.  My goal for this round is to lose 40lbs.  Not sure if I'll make it that far, but at least 30 and I'll be happy.