MrsD, do you know much about vitamin B3 (niacin)?

I have been feeling very ill recently and discovered that if I take niacinamide (not the flushing kind of Niacin), I feel MUCH better.

I had been living in a moldy environment in 2012 and moved out last year, and have been trying to detox. I thought my symptoms were getting worse as of late (and who knows, maybe they are), and somehow I stumbled upon niacinamide posing strong antifungal properties. I got so sick with strange neurological and psychiatric symptoms such as brain fog, very disorganized thinking, suicidal thoughts/depression, vertigo, dizziness, balance problems, nerve pains in peripheral nerves with joint crackings and muscle weakness, severe weight loss. I took a 500mg capusle of Niacinamide one night out of curiosity and desperation and about 95% of my symptoms went away within one hour.

The problem is that I started on a roller-coaster effect of these symptoms by taking just one 500mg capsule a day. The hours after taking the niacinamide I felt what I called "normal" - better than I had felt in a long time, perhaps even years, because I could think and I wasn't depressed and I could eat, etc. Then after it wore off I crashed into a suicidal depression with all the symptoms again. I later read that people who take niacinamide take smaller doses (100-200mg) throughout the day, like every three hours. I of course went to a doctor to discuss all this, and all these horrific symptoms I'd been having. His recommendation? Take Lexapro (?!) and the "reaction" I had been having to taking Niacin are just placebo (WTH?!) and that I wasn't actually low. I don't understand this at all. He is fine with me taking so much niacinamide, but doesn't think I "need" It (and of course, thinks I need something my body and brain DON'T need and cannot tolerate - an SSRI - which I told him all about my horrid history on those, etc.) Why don't doctors LISTEN to their patients? Good lord. I shouldn't know what to do if this niacin doesn't work and I get worse and worse. I guess if I die dead in their office they may think it's not all just anxiety or in my head???

I guess my question is - what do you know about niacin and niacinamide? Antifungal properties? brain enhancing/nerve enhancing properties? Why do I need so much and crash if I go so long before taking it? How can someone in 2014 be niacin deficient??? if I even was? I read that some people cannot properly absorb tryptophan, and therefore have a hard time with B3 and serotonin levels in the brain, causing depression, psychosis, etc. Given my history, maybe this explains things for me once and for all. That and I had taken all those years of PPI prilosec, destroying stomach acid, led to my B12 deficiency and could it lead to a niacin/tryptophan malabsorption issue in some?

Sorry for all this - just seeing what you think. You're a very smart lady!

PS - sorry for posting this in the B12 Periph Neruo thread... but i couldn't find one for B3! I know you have one for B6, B12, and somewhere I believe you have one for vitamin D!