Panic attacks

[samsmom]

Has anyone else here started B12 shots and seen a worsening of behaviors, esp. anxiety? We started our son on B12 shots 3 times a week after finding that he had a gene defect (MTHFR - I understood it at the time but can't explain what it is to anyone now..) He's been on the shots for 3 weeks now and his anxiety is getting worse and worse. He's had 2 panic attacks in the last 3 days. He started to have more anxiety over the summer so I can't put it all down to the B12 but I'm wondering if the B12 is making things worse by beginning to get toxins moving or something? Any ideas from anyone?

Thanks.

[NancyD]

My DD15 also has a MTHFR defect and reacted badly to B12 shots years ago. I can't say it increased her anxiety, because back then her anxiety was not as big an issue as it is now, but the B12 did activate her and made her moods more dysregulated so we had to stop the shots. She has been taking high doses of methyfolate for the past few months and it is not bothering her in the same way. PANDAS treatment cleared her tics and violent rages but not her anxiety/OCD. In fact, as the other symptoms got better her anxiety/OCD got worse. But since being treated for Bartonella her anxiety/OCD is much more manageable. .

[MomWithOCDSon]

We haven't used the shots, but for a while we were using some potent B12 sublingual lozenges; the original goal was to lessen DS's anxiety because the B12 is supposed to absorb excess brain glutamate. I do think that, in his case, it actually lowered his anxiety level for a short period, but that could've been psychosymatic, both on his part and mine.

 

What we found, though, was that it increased his histamine levels, so it made his eczema especially considerably worse! I know that Dr. T.'s work indicates that some PANDAS kids tend to have atypically high histamine levels, so perhaps that's the reaction you're seeing? There are a couple of other threads here on the forum that a search for "histamine" should reveal, and there were some papers and links attached about the link between histamine and various behavioral impacts and disorders.

[SSS]

We are on a b-12 nasal spray, my dd6 has 1 defective gene in the MTHR pathway--

my understanding is there needs to be a balance between folate/folic acid B vitamin when giving B-12...

When we started the spray, I hated it, I saw hyper. But it seems to be leveling out, although we are doing other things, too. With the B-12, we are giving a B-complex vitamin 2x a day, and an extra folic acid vitamin.

[samsmom]

Thank you to those of you who replied. Just wanted to update that DH and I took Sam to the doctor this morning and found that we are both positive for strep, although he is not. We have never knowingly had strep before and don't feel like we have it so we were blown away. The doctor believes that we are carriers. Hopefully, with all 3 of us on abx, Sam's panic attacks will stop. If they do, I will become a firm believer in PANDAS. Until now, I have never seen a clear enough connection.

Thanks again for your input.