When i was trying to get b12 Methl in the first place, i looked every were, believe me, i don't know what's going with customs theses days but back about 4 years ago i did read that if the Methyl was addressed to a medical person or place it was allowed through, no problems, but later on some of our members in OZ were saying they were getting it in by iHerb company no problems, so i don't know what is happening these days, but it can work out to be a lot of money if customs decides to charge import taxes on it too as well, which i have heard has happened, well its just not feasible unless your very rich.

Its defiantly not worth it when we have Cynocobalamin supplements easily available, and we can get Hydroxocobalamin in injection form from any chemist with or without a doctors script.

I hope Rose will correct me if i am wrong but i think if you use SamE as the methyl donor with cyno b12, it will convert it to methylcobalamin anyway, but most people should be able to convert it in their own system anyway, SamE is pretty expensive as well and i think it can't be used if your on anti depressants.
I had a b12 blood test using 2 or 3 mg daily of Cynnocobalmin supplements for 12 weeks prior to the test, the test showed 750 approx, so i must have been running on empty for a long time before i started taken the cynno.supplements.

This is from Australian Customs - http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=5549
I checked iHerb's website and they say about 5 % of their Australian customers have trouble with customs.

all the best
Brian

Many thanks to you all for your replies. Apologies for posting a similar question in Monica's thread - I thought that post attempt failed.

I don't think our customs have anything against Iherb, they just think we are too dumb to look after ourselves, so they have to look after us by preventing us from importing nasty vitamins from overseas.

I am taking 2000 micrograms of B12 per day - 1000 of methyl and 1000 of cyano (Nature's Own) - to hedge my bets and keep the costs down.

I am now also trying 1000 microgram cynao B12 sublingual lozenges made by Herbs of Gold (available from Mr Vitamins).

Regards

Martin

Hi Brian,

I was very interested to read that you can get the hydroxy form from your chemist.

I had tried to get it here in Santa Fe a few years ago, and met with no success.

Are you using the hydroxy form?

If so, how much do you use, and what have you noticed in terms of your symptoms after you have a shot?

******

That's also interesting about the SAMe. I purchased a lot of it, then had a quite bad reaction... so I never used it. Fred on the old BT forum had liked it and appreciated its results...

Fred thought that since I was using the cyano I should use the SAMe. Recently he wrote me that I could have had the severe reaction because of how much cyano I've had and continue to have...

Don't know...

When there's a little less stress, I can try it again... maybe I need to get rid of toxins that the Milk Thistle is missing... then again, I think I took the SAMe before I started on the Milk Thistle.

Just was directed to your topic here and it was of interest to me.

South East Queenslander here.

I take a 1mg cyanocobalamine sublingual which I purchase from a health food store. I'm very happy with that, but I was just chatting with the naturapath there yesterday and asked her about the availability of the methyl just because I was curious. She looked at me as if I had rocks in my head. lol. Suggested I look into Sports supplements. OK, so I did and there's apparently a shop in Everton Park, Brisbane that sells it.

Hi Lara,

That's interesting about it being a "sports supplement" --

I forget what I was trying to find out, but I posted on an athletic forum of some kind at one point, and I noticed they were all talking about Methycobalamin as if it was very familiar to them as a sports supplement.

But that forum was in the U.S.

I think they said it enhanced performance...

Karen, when i had the shots of hydroxo, i don't notice anything as far as symptoms go, i have been very fortunate to have healed most of my nerve damage, healing was a rough and bumpy road over all, i only have a very slight burn every now and again, which a lot of my success is due to Rose's great advise about b12.
I would confidently say that B12 Cynno daily and b12 Hydroxo shots occasionaly
has played a major part in repairing the nerves both my large and small fibres, and of course correcting my prediabetic state as well with diet has to be included.

My peripheral neuropathy started as hot/tingling feet the day after cycling for about 2 hours. The neurologists I saw all claimed that that cycling does not cause PN. After lots of literature searching I found studies from a German group showing that strenuous exercise causes homocysteine and methylmalonic acid levels to rise substantially (in some athletes HCY went up by almost a factor of 3) and in people who are B12 deficient homocysteine levels are still elevated after 24 hours. In another study the same group showed that blood levels of B12 are even worse at indicating functional B12 status in athletes than in sedentary people, and that B12 metabolism is altered in people who exercise regularly. Unfortunately it took me a few months to find this info, and my PN deteriorated all that time. My PN definitely started to improve when I started taking B12 supplements, it is still improving and I am cycling again. My neurologists scoffed at me when I told them all this and they are now very surprised that my PN is improving. They had told me it would probably remain the same. If only they would read their own literature and were a little less full of themselves!! The absolutely huge paintings of academic neurologists in their academic finery hanging on the walls in the waiting room of the neuromuscular clinic tells it all. One young neurology registrar seem to believe me so perhaps there is hope.

Anyway, (ranting over), that might be why B12 is thought of as a sports supplement.

Martin

Hi Martin,...

Oh, that's very interesting..

Thought I'm not sure I really get it...

Are you saying that exercise of a pretty strenuous nature uses B12 up?

I was concentrating on the homocysteine part of your post and may have not entirely gotten it.



I did "get" your take on the neurologists. lol

I haven't been any place as grand as you describe... but in a small way I've seen the same thing...

And yes, I was told that I couldn't expect any improvement, either...

chuckle, that's certainly not been the case.

*******

Boy, I am really excited the more I think about your post...
That's because when I was having regular B12 tests and keeping notes, I saw that under extreme stress my B12 level would drop as much as 300 points...

But I've never seen any research on such short term experience.

I wonder if strenuous exercise is somewhat similar to extreme stress... ????

Did you see anything like that in the material you read?

Do you have links for the material at all? I'd love to read it!

This may sound like a stupid question, but if a person lives in Australia and cannot have access to Methyl B-12, and that person knows someone who lives in the United States, can't the person in the United States mail the person in Australia, as much Methyl B-12 as that person needs??

Or is it illegal to mail vitamins to Australia??

Just curious.

Thanks

Melody

My BF works for the FDA in the US so I know on the US end if you were to send a supplement or Rx that is banned from import from person to person it would be confiscated from the mail. I'm not positive but I would assume it works similarly in Oz. If you have a doctor's prescription that says you need THAT specific compound, there is a way to appeal and get a medical waiver each time you order but it's not easy to do. Again - don't know about Oz.