4 months ago I described my success curing my hypothyroidism by gargling liquid iodine, when iodine pills had failed. The good news is that the cure has held– my thyroid numbers continue to be in the desirable range.
The bad news is I’ve failed to replicate this success with a multivitamin. Shortly after the thyroid post I was handed a perfect opportunity to put sublingual vitamins to the test when my doctor took me off all my oral vitamins to give my gut a rest. I had already started on EZMelt Multivitamin + Iron (2x standard dosing every other day, because I absorb iron better that way), but now we’d removed all potential assistance (“except food, right?” no. My gut has never been good at extracting vitamins from food except right after I discovered Boswelia. Mold Winter rolled back those gains).
I recently got my nutrition test results back and they suck. I can’t prove I wouldn’t have been even worse off without these vitamins, but there’s a profound absence of positive evidence. However the issue could just be these particular vitamins; after a break I’m now trying Feroglobin, which is a thick liquid iron supplement with a smattering of other vitamins. It’s not intended to be taken sublingually but I don’t live by their rules, man.
Between getting the results and publishing this post I made a market on Manifold, asking whether the EZMelts would work. The market was trading just under 50% “no, not helpful” for most of the week, but in the final hours fluctuated between 30-40% “no”. Seems like a very mild victory for prediction markets.
I’ve created a similar market for Feroglobin here. This run is not going to be quite as clean- my doctor put me back on oral vitamins, plus I finally found a place that does IV nutrition. So this will be more of a best guess, probably resolved as a probability rather than flat Yes/No.
Aceso Under Glass 
Hi, I’m not a regular reader here but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen.
There are several areas that can trip us up when trying this kind of self study with nutrition. Dose size, dose frequency, nutrient type, nutrient interaction, testing accuracy.
Dose size – if you’re seriously depleted then just taking the rda won’t touch the sides. It’s like a thimbleful of water for someone who’s been lost in the desert for days. Also the rdas themselves are contested. For example, Dr Mildred Seelig did a lot to argue the rda for magnesium should 2-3x the current recommendation, and double that for people who are deficient. Or there are some interesting videos by Dr Jorge Flechas on youtube arguing that our boron and silica intake should be much higher. As for taking supplements sublingually, there’s a lot of interesting discussion on phoenixrising.me about it’s efficacy with b12, often centered around a user called Freddd. Theoretically many argue it shouldn’t work, but plenty of users observe powerful effects that never arose from regular tablets.
Dose frequency – we can only absorb limited amounts of some nutrients. Not all – eg, electrolytes as salts are absorbed incredibly easy. But zinc is limited to about 6mg at a time, and I think b2/riboflavin is limited to around 25mg. So if you’re trying to take more than that, you need to space our your doses.
Nutrient type – nutrients come in many forms (eg, b6 as pyridoxine hcl vs p-5-p, zinc glycinate vs zinc oxide, etc). Not only the bioavailability, but also the benefits can vary a lot from this. For example, magnesium oxide is much more poorly absorbed the magnesium chloride, or b6 as pyridoxine hcl is more likely to cause overdose issues than p5p.
Nutrient interaction – some nutrients, particularly minerals, can interfere with each others absorptions.
Testing accuracy – blood tests are better than nothing, but can vary a lot. Your body tries very hard to maintain electrolytes equilibrium in your blood – if it fails, you need emergency care pretty rapidly. It can do this by deprioritising electrolytes elsewhere, so the blood test shows “healthy range” of calcium even as your bones are weakening.
When these factors combine with testing so many nutrients at once, it’s not surprising that there aren’t any clear results to pick up.
It’s obvious from your blog that you’re serious about testing and improving your health this way. Really wish you good luck with it.