Re: Egg Whites/Biotin (was: Protein packed breakfast smoothie?)

[Guest guest]

Dinah wrote:"Please tell me what you took to remedy your deficiency, and how much"Jodi wrote:"How does one check a Biotin deficiency?"--------Hi Dinah,I took 10,000mg legal Biotin daily, in addition to legal multivites and probiotics (which I tolerated AFTER I was past the intro phase of the diet and had made some progress addressing my bacterial overgrowth and yeast overgrowth.) I also stopped the egg white smoothies as an experiment and amazingly the hair loss corrected itself within a couple weeks after doing so.I did a fair amount of reading at that time about B-vitamins and learned that some of them are actually synthesized from healthy gut flora, meaning that if your flora are a mess then you *may* run into deficiency. As most articles say, biotin deficiency is

pretty rare, since it's so readily available in so many foods. But when one has a digestive disorder and can't absorb or synthesize nutrients fully or properly, the risk for deficiency is higher.Hi Jodi,Honestly, I do not know how one tests for a biotin deficiency. I know that some macro-nutrients and minerals are tested via the blood, and I had some of those tests (B12, magnesium, calcium, etc.) but it was only through symptoms AND THEN relief of symptoms following supplementation that I confirmed my biotin deficiency. The massive hair loss and repeat fungal infections clued my doctors in. And I was highly motivated to figure out why I was losing my hair. You know, looking back, I probably had symptoms of deficiency before the hair loss started, but it was really the hair that got my attention. FWIW, the B-vitamins are pretty safe to supplement, since they're supposedly water-soluable (and flush out if you get too

much.)There's more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BiotinHealth to all!-Nina in MA