Collagen Deficiency

[antimatter]

Here's the other part of my lost message...

Thank you Fiona-Jane for distilling the information into a closer-to-understandable format. I am amazed that you have managed to retain so much of what you learned in university. I had spent so much of my sitting-in-lecture time thinking "pain, pain, pain" that I don't remember much of the actual lectures (okay, I remember good friends and profs too ). But I never found cold classrooms, chairs designed to grind bones and hold regular proportioned people, and aching fingers to be conducive to learning.

It is useful to have someone with expertise filter information when their interest in the topic is similar (i.e. uncovering all the secrets of hypermobility). It's much better than letting someone with expertise and no common interest (like a reasonable doctor) or someone who does not believe you need the information (like an unreasonable doctor) do the filtering.

I want to stuff all of the information on my various problems/weirdnesses into my brain and let it process for a while and see if I can figure anything out. But there is soooo much to learn first... I think that the collective brain of this group of people with their varied experiences and expertises has a better shot, at least for the portion where all of our problems intersect.

...antimatter

p.s. I hope that you are not offended, but from the little picture at the side of you postings, I would have never guessed that you were the sort to study medical-type-stuff...now if wonder if you are one of those weird sorts who is a bit into everything and goes on to the next specialization when one isn't satisfying enough, or when an adequate amount has been learned.

[Fiona-Jane]

thats just me!

from school i went to uni to study a degree in animal science then i worked as a microbiologist for a while, then i worked for marks and spensers while i leant how to drive (micro work didnt allow time for driving lessons, and i'd never done shop work before!), then i did tons of very different temp and permanent office jobs via office angels (still temp with them!), then joined the circus.... now im considering doing something more animal orientated.

and i think the stuff about collagen interested me because i think my brain subconciously understood it as the cause of my aches. at that point in my life i wasnt really having too many physical problems, just the aching! and im lucky that i find those plastic seats (that all schools/uni's etc seem to have!) rather comfortable! an dive always found biology really interesting, and its amazing how much pain you can tolerate when you are engrossed in a lecture!!! (one 'friend' stabbed me with a maths compass (i was ignoring him!) and i didnt even flinch! hehehe! )

but the funny thing is - at school i was one of the few students who knew exactly what they wanted to do when they 'grew up' (it was a large animal vet, but arms too short!! )....... and now all the others have been in the same boring jobs for years and years and im still drifting!!!

fi xx

[Retro]

All Allergy related posts moved to a new topic created in Related conditions - Site Admin

[Shadowlady]

Hey hey Weiza,

I've not tried it, but taking collagen supplements should not make things go wrong. Your body can't just assimilate the collagen whole, it breaks it down, then uses it as ingredients to make it's own collagen, which in us, will always be 'wrong' because the genetic blueprint that our bodies use to make our collagen is 'wrong'. It will be helpful to take if you don't have enough 'ingredients' in your diet for your body to make it's own collagen, though as I understand it, your diet would have to be pretty terrible for you to not have enough. It certainly won't do you any harm, well, unless you have some odd reaction to it for some reason, can't think why, but it's a possibility with anything and everything!

I take fish oil for the omega 3 (oils joints and helps mood), glucosamine (just in case I don't quite have enough in my diet. Helps maintain healthy cartilidge and may help collagen production), high dose, sustained release vitamin C (it really helps me feel better! Helps produce collagen, healing, and the immune system), and multi-vitamins with minerals about 3 times a week (my diet is good, I don't want more vitamins than my body can deal with! It helps me stay feeling healthy tho). I don't take any collagen supplements, as I eat plenty of meat and have a balanced diet, so I don't think it would make a difference for me.

I think, the biggest favour you can do yourself, is to try and stick to a healthy diet, it really makes a world of difference to me. Especially cutting right down on processed food.

I would be really interested to hear how it goes if you decide to try it, especially the MSM, which I think can help detox if I remember rightly, there's a thread floating about somewhere. If my brain is working right, I think I read that MSM supplements can give you headaches for the first few days due to the detoxing effect, but they soon pass. Do you have any kind of shell fish allergy? I think that can be a problem as they get the MSM from some sort of shellfish. Hmm. I'll find that thread and bump it for you.

I guess it comes down to how much they cost really? Unless you have a shellfish allergy, they shouldn't cause any problems.

Hope you find some helpful stuff soon hon, you're due a good dose of good luck I reckon.

Best wishes,
S

[bendytwistything]

Would it really benefit if one was to take Vitamin C suppliments? I am intregued, i had a quick look on the world wide interweb and most sites with eds info says to take vitamin c but doesn't say why

[cocol]

You should eat foods rich in Vitamin C and B...12 or B6 one of those two, the one that comes with greens (sorry, brain is not working), because those two vitamins are the ones involved in collagen formation in the body.

hope it helps

[bendytwistything]

Will keep that in mind cocol, ta very much

[ombili]

I had never heard this about Vitamin C. And you say it really helps? Wow, that is interesting.

I used to take glucosamine, but I didn't feel like it really made a difference for me, and I'm a vegetarian and felt badly about taking it since it was made from shellfish. Lately we've been experimenting with fish oil supplements for my husband's arthritis, and I guess the jury's still out on that one. He has his days like we do.

I also used to take some other supplements, but they were for the wrong thing, now, I realize (it was back when my doc thought I had RA.) I do find that rubbing Capsacin on the affected area helps.

[Shadowlady]

Thanks Cocol, I forgot about B6!

Yes, the Vitamin C definitely helps me! I feel much better in myself when I've been getting plenty. I found this link about How Vitamin C Works, which looks good to me. I take half the max dose they recommend every day.

Anybody about who hasn't taken it before and is going to try it? I'd be ever so curious to know if you found it helped you lots too!

I've been wondering about dietary requirements of nutrients for peeps with HMS. We have to recover and heal from lots of little mini-injuries all the time (as well as the bigger ones!), so do we need more vit c, protein and B6 than the average adult? It seems logical that we would do?

Anybody know a dietician?!

Fat soluble vitamins that we need to be careful with are vitamins A, D, E and K. It's fairly easy for our body to get rid of excess water soluble vitamins, we just pee it out, but excess fat soluble vitamins are stored in the bodies fat stores.

The only one I worry about in the slightest is Vitamin A, because it's present in high concentrations in Cod Liver Oil, so having a decent dose of that as well as multi-vitamins and Vitamin A in the diet from pate and liver particularly, can mean it's pretty easy to get too much.

I've started taking 'fish oil' instead of cod liver oil because of this, it's a bit lower in the omega 3 that I'm after, and much lower in vit A. I also don't take multi-vitamins every day, my diet is good so I shouldn't desperately need them, and take them every other day. This way I reckon I'm not having SO much vit A that I can't enjoy the odd bit of pate.

MsMay, I don't notice the difference from taking glucosamine either, I just take it in the hope that it's helping protect my joints for the future! I was vegetarian for about 7 years, it was one of the things 'people' said if I said anything about joint pain, "Well what do you expect being vegetarian? You're not getting enough nutrients". Humph. Stubbornly, I must admit, that I don't think I was getting that fabulous a diet back then, not enough nuts, seeds, pulses etc. which are so important, I did eat lots of beans tho! I did think I noticed a reduction in my achiness when I started eating meat again, but that may well have been because, at that stage, I wanted any excuse not to be vegetarian anymore! (I'd gone to Uni, my flat mate just k e p t o n eating sausages and I wanted them!!!)

Best wishes,
S

[bendytwistything]

Apparently Kiwis have more vitaminC than oranges

[sarahh]

Vitamin C is very good when other people around you have colds as it helps to try and stop you from getting them. Wow ShadowGirl thanks for the info I think I may try taking Vitamin C everyday. My diet isn't that good and I tend to eat everything thats not very good for me it's my own fault really I should try eating more fruit daily.

Sarah x

[Sandy L]

This recommends Vitamins C and K for EDS.
A novel therapeutic strategy for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome based on nutritional supplements. Mantle D, Wilkins RM, Preedy V. Med Hypotheses;64(2):279-83. AD: Pharma Nord (UK), Telford Court, Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 2DB, UK. pharma.nord4

This suggests vitamin C, but note that it applies to EDS type VI.
Ehler-Danlos syndrome type VI variant presenting with recurrent respiratory infections and responding to high dose vitamin C. Shashikiran U, Rastogi A, Gupta RP, Sabir M. J Assoc Physicians India. 1999 May;47(5):554-5. Dept. of Medicine, SP Medical College, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.

The abstract is not terribly informative on this one.
[Efficacy of prolonged therapy with vitamins C and A and radiologic changes in the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome]. Milkovska-Dimitrova T, Katérinov E. Int J Clin Pharmacol Biopharm. 1976 Jan;13(1):48-54.

[naama]

I remember when I went to see Dr Child to get tested for Marfans (which I didn't have) that she said it makes sense to make sure that the body is producing as much collagen as possible, even though it would always be dodgy collagen. I can't remember exactly what combination she suggested - I think I tried it for a year and decided that it didn't seem to make much difference. I think it was something like zinc, magnesium and something else - maybe calcium.
Anyway, thanks to all you scientific peeps who have explained collagen to non scientific peeps like me. I understand now why I and my colleague's sons all have collagen deficiencies but I have EDS and they have a completely different set of health problems.
Ginny

[naama]

Thank you for confirming that. Given that you are thinking of trying it again, what benefit do you feel you get from it? It may be that I stopped taking it at a time when things weren't that bad, so I didn't notice any difference between when I was taking it and when I wasn't.
Ginny

[turls]

Has anyone invistaged this at all? I know a few "elite" athkletes who swear by certain collegen supplements for helping recover from training/injuries.

I know a lot of collegen supplements do not work as they dont get digested into the system very well but I've found one that claimes to have worked around this problem due to the complex they use...

Thanks

Ian