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Should we supplement manganese?

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Posted 11/10/2021 4:37 PM (GMT -5)
I know when I first got sick and my body was using up all of its stores the fight infection I began having aside from the physical symptoms a lot of psychiatric involvement as well so with the time I stopped supplementing manganese because I knew from reading that it can give you emotional problems if you take too much and at the time I didn't have money for testing my levels but I did know that it's a specific food for Lyme. Since then several of the folks in my local Lyme support group had been going to the jemsec clinic in DC and I often look at the labs to see what they're interested in and manganese levels are always tested each visit so clearly and their opinion it's an important marker.
My question is do people supplement with it regardless of whether they know what their levels are or not. Point blank if you're broke and can't afford a lyme literate doctor do you still supplement with some of the things that statistical probability most people are going to be low in or do you just chance it and hope that you are absorbing it from foods in an already limited digestion process thank you
Posted 11/10/2021 9:20 PM (GMT -5)
“ Since then several of the folks in my local Lyme support group had been going to the jemsec clinic in DC and I often look at the labs to see what they're interested in and manganese levels are always tested each visit so clearly and their opinion it's an important marker.“

That caught my attention - as I am a patient of DrJ himself and while I did do a TON of labs as a new patient - and I’m pretty sure manganese was one of them - I no longer get tested for it.
Posted 11/10/2021 9:26 PM (GMT -5)
There may be manganese in one of my supplements, but I never supplemented it specifically. If you feel like you need it, try getting some from food. Pumpkin seeds have a lot of manganese.
Posted 11/10/2021 10:57 PM (GMT -5)
I agree 100% with WalkingbyFaith, regarding getting manganese (and, really, all vitamins and minerals) from food, as much as possible. There are numerous websites that can tell you which foods are especially rich in various vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.

Previously, you were following an elimination diet and inadvertently ended up losing weight. Were you able to find some suitable carbohydrate foods to help you regain a bit of weight without flaring any fungal infections?
Posted 11/10/2021 11:22 PM (GMT -5)
I see dr J and I think they still run manganese on me. I honestly don’t remember clearly but I think it’s level is possibly supposed to be a marker of a certain inflammation? I have a number of those they test but then dr J never actually prescribes anything specific for me if they end up at a weird level. To be fair I think most of my mineral levels are normal.

I do remember my local Lyme group debating whether it was good to supplement minerals your low in or try to starve the Lyme. I don’t think consensus was reached.

I do know they almost always recommend supplementing magnesium. I think dr j told me everyone is basically always low on it and the ratios of magnesium vs zinc and here’s one other one which I’ve forgotten are always off and need more magnesium. My neuro opthamologist also says he recommends magnesium to all his Lyme patients because it raises the threshold for getting a migraine headache.
Posted 11/10/2021 11:33 PM (GMT -5)
Getting nutrients from food is a difficult thing when absorption is poor, pancreatic enzymes are low, liver is clogged, low stomach's acid and low bile concentration.
Posted 11/10/2021 11:40 PM (GMT -5)
“ do remember my local Lyme group debating whether it was good to supplement minerals your low in or try to starve the Lyme. I don’t think consensus was reached. “

I don’t think that is valid - if you’re low in several minerals - it wouidnt be healthy to “starve “ the Lyme.
Posted 11/11/2021 12:46 AM (GMT -5)

Brandiwine said...
Getting nutrients from food is a difficult thing when absorption is poor, pancreatic enzymes are low, liver is clogged, low stomach's acid and low bile concentration.

If all of those are true, then I can understand your concern.

With poor absorption, wouldn't that affect supplements, too? Or, is the idea just to take larger doses to possibly increase absorption? I'd be worried about taking too much of certain things and knocking other things out of balance. Of course, follow whatever your qualified medical team suggests. I'm just skeptical of many things, based on my own years of experience, lackluster results, and tens of thousands of dollars spent. I'm sure you can relate.

I've read that pancreatic enzymes decrease as we age, so taking digestive/pancreatic enzymes may be warranted. I spent several hundred dollars to test my stomach acid, via pH Gastrogram, at an "alternative" medicine doctor and was told my stomach acid was low. Supplementing with HCl w/Pepsin, as suggested, did not result in any noticeable difference in my digestive health. Of course, we're not all the same. If you're using HCl w/Pepsin, I hope it's helping.

As for your clogged liver, what did they find was clogging it? Fat? Or, is there something else? This is something I know very little about. Did they do an Ultrasound, CT, or MRI?
Posted 11/11/2021 1:43 PM (GMT -5)

Girlie said...
“ do remember my local Lyme group debating whether it was good to supplement minerals your low in or try to starve the Lyme. I don’t think consensus was reached. “

I don’t think that is valid - if you’re low in several minerals - it wouidnt be healthy to “starve “ the Lyme.

Yeah I’m not attached to either side, but I think the discussion started after one of the members started supplementing something they thought was low and experienced persistent flares in symptoms. I don’t remember details clearly.
Posted 11/12/2021 9:49 AM (GMT -5)
I think Buhner said something along the lines of not starving collagen, even though Lyme uses up collagen.
He had good reasoning for it.
Posted 11/12/2021 10:53 AM (GMT -5)
I have seen this discussed before also.

I think there was a member here a while back who was adamant that by avoiding all dietary manganese they were able to progress towards recovery.

Borrelia are known to use it in their main redux control enzyme. Similar to how we use glutathione - so i guess thats what the above theory would stem from.

But as mentioned. In all other cases where infectious organisms have a predilection for a particular nutrient ( eg zinc etc in mycoplasma, tryptophan in borrelia) the rule of thumb Seems to be - the bugs will take what they want from your tissues anyway so you had better put some extra in if you dont want to be deficient.

Ultimately i dont think we know enough to be sure.

If i tested low i might target foods with it or maybe supplement.

If i didnt know i think i might steer clear of supplementing to err on the side of caution.
Posted 11/13/2021 8:50 AM (GMT -5)
I have been seeing Dr. J for years and he has never tested for maganese. RBC magnesium is tested but never maganese.
Posted 11/13/2021 8:58 AM (GMT -5)
Interesting I've definitely noticed a lot of different levels of treatment from that clinic.
Some folks are tested for everything under the sun and some people are not I suppose it's based on symptoms.
I know most of them have had their manganese tested though probably seven people at least.
Posted 11/13/2021 12:46 PM (GMT -5)
I checked my info and manganese was on my labs shortly after my initial appt. with many many more.

I didn’t continue with all the labs as there were way too many.
My “regular” dr had to rewrite all the lab work as the labs here in Canada don’t accept an US lab req.
It was difficult justifying all of the labs every single month.
So I just continued with rbc, wbc, and some liver and kidney function tests.

At one point they called to ask why I wasn’t getting all labs done - so the next month I asked my reg dr to add them for the next month to check everything. And then went back to a pared down list.
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