Detailed Personal Supplements Report

I have gone on and off various health supplement regimens my entire life. I can say this with confidence because both my parents (especially before ’78) were into vitamins, minerals, and other dietary supplements. Swore by them! And indeed, as lifetime consumers of certain things, my mother, despite her age, looks and tests as remarkably healthier and younger than her age would suggest.

And… I am a researcher. I know most doctors only get between 2 to 20 hours total training on the importance of nutrition– mainly just for diseases caused by obvious malnutrition like scurvy or rickets. They are trained to diagnose and proscribe DRUGS, unless otherwise trained for certain physical techniques of healing like surgery. AND, though natural remedies make good profits, it is nothing next to those of brand new drugs, and so the push by money-makers is to create more and more new drugs.

I’m pretty open-minded. I will look into various claims and research (knowing how much of research is flawed due to monetary incentives) and check things out. I’m pretty much willing to try just about anything if it can promise me relief. I’ve been doing this since my late teens in the ’80s, so I’m packing some serious personal experience.

I keep records. I note changes, good or bad. I know some things take time to manifest a shift, and that others can be very subtle but powerful over the long term. I am also aware that people like to throw this or that trendy supplement around as a cure-all, and the placebo effect taints people against realizing what actually works and what doesn’t.

I’ve had a special incentive to pay attention: my physical and mental health have sucked shit for a very long time now! Any damned thing that can provide the slightest relief is pounced upon. But let me tell you– after years of not much by the way of relief, I am not exactly ringing the bells of any medication or natural supplement for the most part.

I also know that visiting a Naturopath who knows their stuff is really worth it, they can set you on a new path to explore that makes some very easily perceived positive changes in one’s life. But you have to do follow up and, again, pay attention to how you feel in all ways.

Natural remedies or supplements, like drugs, have different effects on different people. Everyone has different deficiencies or health stressors that require attention. So– one person’s medicine will be another’s poison or often have little to no effect at all.

So far, I’ve learned that for myself, most vitamin and mineral supplements have little noticeable effect. The exceptions:

~ Vitamin E supplements of 400 I.U. seem to help nails and hair (mine grow so fast that my nails curl and split in weird ways if I don’t take it) but
~ Vitamin E supplements of 1000 I.U. made me horny! (at least before menopause) Really energized my sex life for 20 years.
~ Vitamin C supplements of 500 mg or more curb my sometimes very powerful sugar cravings. I now recognize that I’m low on C when I start to crave fruit candy.
~ Vitamin D supplements of higher doses only make a difference during the long, dark rainy season of November to April here. Seasonal Affective Disorder seems linked to a lack of D. Once I get outside a lot, though? Its a waste of money!
~ Vitamin B complex make my pee very pretty. I feel a tiny bit better. A blood test showed my B6 was far too low– I’m not absorbing it obviously since I take a supplement, so I take extra B6 regularly now.
~ Magnesium is crucial to take daily, as so many things (including exercise, caffeine, and even cannabis) leach it out of the system. Even the stupid “Drink 8 glasses of water a day” bullshit suggestion washes it out of your body rapidly. If you have ANY muscle cramps, leg spasms, back spasms at ALL– TAKE AT LEAST A COUPLE A DAY! I’ve also learned that higher doses of magnesium completely and utterly cure uterine cramps during menstruation, so I’ve been an avid magnesium ingester for most of my adult life. Cat, who has leg cramps and debilitating period cramps, FINALLY listened to me on this one and she’s now a True Believer on the essential need for extra magnesium!

There are many other vitamins and minerals out there, and I’ve probably tried them ALL, alone, or in combinations, at some point. I honestly just don’t notice much difference. Due to expense and lack of difference, I’ve come to adopt a rotating schedule of most of them, making sure I get a multi and then just having a couple mega-doses a day of something else. Seems to help and doesn’t hurt. (I’ve also gone OFF things to make sure I wasn’t making a bad situation WORSE). I have some things, like chromium, that I only take maybe once or twice a month. All well and good, but nothing cures my long list of issues. There is only a couple of things (especially muscle cramps and magnesium) where obvious supplementation is absolutely and obviously needed.

Then there’s the other natural remedies out there, many of which help a little, some help a lot:

~ Glucosamine for joints (ligaments and tendons especially) I take regularly, and there is a little bit of flexibility/non-stiffness I like with it, yet it is not particularly good for controlling pain. I take it so I can dance better, as I love to move my body for the feel and joy of it.
~ 5-HTP seems promising (precursor for tryptophan, a natural sleep aid and several neurotransmitters) and I’ve been going on and off this for the last 15 years, give or take. Again, it helps, but not enough. Going without for longer periods definitely shows a small but notable difference in functioning. It works best paired with other supplements, and I’m always learning more about this, and it is one of the ones nearly all people with my condition are told to take by Nutritionists and Naturopaths.
~ Melatonin only works at 10mg (note– NOT 3mg which is what most OTC brands offer!) taken an hour before bedtime for several days in a row to re-set my sleep-wake clock after my various sleep disorders throw me way off (which they do regularly). They stop working after a couple of weeks, though, so I only take these short-term to re-set my sleep-wake cycle and then I’m good again until the next thing (flare, insomnia) throws me off, and I often can’t get back to bed on time until I use it again. Most months I take it for about 8 days out of 30. It gets rotated in and out of my supplement regimen.
~ SAM-e is one of the most obviously helpful of the supplements. We all make this in our bodies naturally, but we make less of it as we age. Those with CFIDS and other chronic illnesses often have significantly less of this than other people our own age, however. Taking it means the morning stiffness that plagues me diminishes slowly over the course of a couple of weeks, but it it subtle to start. If I miss more than 3 days in a row, however, the low-level pain and stiffness comes back quite obviously to the point of feeling injured. SAM-e paired with 5-HTP has been a winning combination that raises my overall functioning a couple of levels and is a normal part of my maintenance regimen.
~ St. John’s Wort is a natural anti-depressant that I don’t normally need. However, I’ve noticed that if I start to go anhedonic (or very mildly depressed) taking this 3 times a day for a couple of months seems to set me back on track. When life brightens or eases up, I can get back off St. John’s Wort quickly without a problem and resume my normal routine. Otherwise, it is a waste to take it when there are no issues. Also, for my once a decade Major Depressive Episode, it proves inadequate to the task and I require a full-strength anti-depressant (Prozac seems to work the best with least side effects for me– but everyone is different.)

Things like kelp, cranberry, fish oil and so forth I rotate in and out, often due to getting the more trendy supplements from friends for free as a “just want to help you out, try this” kind of thing. So I do. Stuff like Omega-3 (and 9 and whatever else) fatty acids are supposed to be beneficial, so again– rotated in and out regularly. Again, though– none of them seem to make much of a difference in my day to day. Down the road, I may have a better heart or something, so that’s cool, but they don’t help my chronic condition in any real way that I notice. Even the ones that are REALLY supposed to! Some, like licorice root (which is often recommended for chronic fatigue) actually make me physically ill. So I am leery and very careful with all such things, as well as aware that sometimes they interact with other drugs or supplements in unexpected ways.

Other than these things, I regularly take over-the-counter decongestant, Tylenol, Aleve, and Allegra when needed. They don’t work as well if taken too often, so they get used as needed carefully.  Ibuprofen and many other OTC meds cause problems or side effects in my personal system, so I have to avoid most things.
~ Allegra (the non-drowsy allergy medication) has an interesting side-effect of lowering my appetite, so that’s nice! Also not surprising since is it one half of the “fen-phen” diet drug that was used to lower appetite until the combo was shown to damage the heart.

Since last May, my normal regimen was disrupted as I had to drop many supplements while taking one medication after another to try to replace the Lyrica that Medicaid refused to pay for. Though some are inert to such things, others would either mask the effect of the new med I was taking or could have an issue with it. So– I was off my normal things. This did not help my pain and fatigue and sleep issues, as you may well imagine!

Before I got the Lyrica prescription, and only after the generic Cymbalta was way down in my body, did I return to my previous ‘normal’. I felt a little better as expected. Then I finally tried the L-tyrosine that my first pain doc, Joan, wrote down as a suggestion for me, to that mix.

And there was a shift.

It was really noticeable by Day 2 of taking it, too! Remarkable!

Then the Lyrica came sooner than expected, and I needed it and decided to take 50mg standard when I got up in the morning.

And there was a SHIFT!

I’ve been able to take Lyrica several days in a row before, to bust a stubborn pain flare, but this was different…

More tomorrow!