All my life I have needed to get up in the night to go to the toilet once or twice between 2am and 4am. Maybe one night in every six months I would sleep through - oh bliss!

However in the last ten nights I have slept through completely on seven nights. The first night was the night I started to take the B12 1,000mgs. Also about one month before I started the B12, I started to take some Betaine HCL (Hydrochloric acid) to aid digestion as indications were that I had hypochlorrhydria.

Is there likely to be any connection or relevance to taking either Betaine HCL or Vit B12 and this most dramatic nocturnal change? I admit it is a most unexpected but welcome 'outcome' - which hopefully will continue!

Any thoughts/hypothesis most welcome!!

Getting up in the night when no late time fluid intake is done, can reflect
peripheral edema during the day. It can also signal a urinary tract infection, or heavy consumption of vit C supplements which acidify the urine and make urgency occur.

As people age they tend to start to get up in the night. Once is considered
fairly typical.

If the heart cannot manage the fluid during the day, the kidneys clamp down and release when you lie down. So you have to get up in the night.

Hypertension, beginning congestive heart failure, hypothyroidism, all can lead to edema in the periphery.

So if your new supplement additions are improving your metabolism, and you see this improvement that is good news. The Betaine improves stomach acidity which improves protein digestion and other nutrient absorption. When the GI tract is impaired your whole body becomes impaired because of it.
Zinc, iron, calcium, folic acid, and B12 all need an acidic stomach to be absorbed properly.

I have ALWAYS needed to get up at night ever since I was a child - so this change is very unusual for me. I certainly won't complain if it continues!!

I know exactly what you mean. I have never been able to sleep through the night AT ALL!!! in my entire life. I just didn't. And once I became a mother, forget it. The mind does all sorts of tricks. It had nothing to do with going to the bathroom, but I'm the type, once I'm up, I'll go to the bathroom, (just to go to the bathroom).

As I got older, and I matured, (and even I became a diabetic, and they say you get up every hour to pee), well, I never changed my eating habits.

Then one day, years ago, my previous primary care doctor said "melody, you need to sleep, take an ambien". Well, it was like a gift from heaven. Now I am not advocating sleeping pills for anybody. It's great if you can be like my husband (before his neuropathy), and he could put his head on any pillow and say "I'm going to bed". I don't know anyone else who can do that. I most certainly could never do that. I'm too wired for that.

But when I took that ambien, well it was like a gift. I went to bed at 11 p.m. and woke up at 7:30 am. Do you have any idea what it's like, when you have never slept throught the night in your entire life, to sleep all night long?? It was a gift. I told the doctor. I began to take Ambien. I slept. Then for some reason, I said to myself 'you should not become dependant on pills for the rest of your life". So I weaned myself off of them. Then a few years later, I took Lunesta. Did absolutely nothing for me.

Then (and all this time, I was having bad problems with my son), which affected my health and my mind, so who on earth can sleep when this is going on?? I started taking a bit of xanax before bedtime. Did the trick. Relaxes my whole body so I get to sleep.

Now Alan takes this to sleep also because of his neuropathy between his toes, and even with the cotton balls between his toes, well he needs something so he takes a bit of Xanax and he sleeps completely through the night. Sometimes he wakes up to use the bathroom but it's only once.

I take the 5000 of the Methyl B-12 each morning. I have no idea if that makes me sleep better but it does give me energy all day so I can go about my chores, clean the house, go shopping, cook and do stuff. I also take care of Alan. At age 60, I can honestly say that I have more energy now than when I weighed 300 lbs and I was age 40. I had no energy at 40.

So if I need a bit of something to sleep at night, at least I sleep. I can't imagine going back to the days when I would just lay in bed, my mind going over all the problems with my son. I would be up till 4 a.m. No, a person has to rest and get a good night's sleep.

Like I often say, "throw anything you want at me during the day", but let me get a good night's sleep.

Take care,
Melody

Speaking of supplements, I have just added Fish Oil (1000 mg) with Green tea leaf extract (100mg) and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (200 mg). Also, B-1 (100 mg). Has anyone ever known one of these to cause nausea or sweats or diarrhea?

Mrs D

You say B12 needs an acidic stomach to be absorbed, on the other hand I have been made to understand that when taking drugs for acid reflux - which by definition destroy stomach acid - B12 is required to help restore acid.
Can you please explain this seeming contradiction.

Tony

When you rely on only food to get your B12, you need acid in the stomach
to help break the protein down to get to the B12. (there is typically very little there).

When you use a supplement you are taking way in excess of what you would typically get in food, so that passive absorption has to be how it gets in, (without instrisic factor etc)...so 1000mcg may yield 4-5micrograms.

You will absorb from the supplement without acid being needed.

Thanks all for your input - we certainly are a well supplemented lot!

Mel - I have never taken sedatives (except a couple of times in hospital) as I have been lucky and (nearly) always fallen straight back to sleep afer my 'loo' visits. Having to get up for any reason though is still an interruption to a lovely continuous sleep. Glad to hear that you found a satisfactory solution for yourself.

I also know what you mean by lying in bed worrying about your child. Once my son got his car and would be out all night it was so easy to worry. I ended up thinking this is not doing my health any good so I would pray for him and commit him into bigger hands than mine could ever be - and I would feel total peace...and fall asleep. I have been doing a lot of that again this past week as my son broke up with his girlfriend of 4 years, one week ago. I have been devastated and very sad. She was so good for him and a very happy girl - I miss her so much!

Hi Megan,

From what my gastroenterologist has told me, pernicious anemia and hypochloridia occuro together. I have both, and am taking methyl B-12, but it was never suggested to me that I take the betaine HCl. And my digestion is not good. Did you notice a difference when you started taking it?

Bogsinger

Megan:

Take a nice warm bath, a cup of tea (and thank god, you don't need anything to get to sleep), and tell yourself this. "My son will meet a nice girl someday, Nothing I can do about this until he does, so I'm going to take care of myself".

I say this to myself all the time. And my son's a compulsive gambler with dual diagnoses of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Aspergers. I only wish the only problem he had was that he broke up with a girl. I always envisioned being a grandma and serving brownies to little kids in my kitchen.

Not going to happen. So I just bake my muffins and feed the neighbors. lol

So you go to bed and have sweet dreams.

Melody