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to the original poster, i think after the events that took place after taking those pills. u should call your doctor immediately and explain the situation. ure body may not need to take so much and therefore it reacted the way it did. besides the seperate niacin, are u taking a muti vitamin? im asking because u may be getting more niacin intake with the multi.
sometimes if a multi vitamin has a little more niacin then others it can leave u a lil flushed but it goes away// your reaction was a bit more serious with your WHOLE body being red as a lobster. speak to a doctor.
good luck!!
Call the doctor immediately? It's a known reaction, that my wife discovered. Yes I take multi vitamins but it has less than 50mg in it. I believe in that last 25 yrs 11 people have died from taking vitamins or herbs. I like those odds since more than 100k/yr die from prescription drugs prescribe by their doctor.
I get blood work every year and next year I will see how my body is reacting to the vitamins.
im sorry its just that your reaction seemed more serious than the typical niacin flush. i said call the doctr immediatley because if your doctor wanted you tobe on a certain dosage amount of niacin and your body reacted that way, it may be better to ease your way into the appropriate dose. takinga little at atime till your body adjusts to it.
Call the doctor immediately? It's a known reaction, that my wife discovered. Yes I take multi vitamins but it has less than 50mg in it. I believe in that last 25 yrs 11 people have died from taking vitamins or herbs. I like those odds since more than 100k/yr die from prescription drugs prescribe by their doctor.
I get blood work every year and next year I will see how my body is reacting to the vitamins.
Deaths from supplements are far more common than you think:
"One-third of adverse events from supplement use were considered moderately severe or worse, including symptoms such as heart attack, seizures, coma, liver failure and death."
Adverse drug reactions are indeed important. The question is really how many are preventable. Does that 100K per year include seriously ill people who would have died anyway without the drug, for example?
"One-third of adverse events from supplement use were considered moderately severe or worse, including symptoms such as heart attack, seizures, coma, liver failure and death."
Adverse drug reactions are indeed important. The question is really how many are preventable. Does that 100K per year include seriously ill people who would have died anyway without the drug, for example?
Your article you posted is pretty vague. Does it include diet pills? I'm talking about vitamins. And do these include old people who would've had a heart attack without the unknown dietary supplements they're talking about it that vague atricle?
More people die from falling rocks than they do taking to many vitamins. I'm not talking about people taking other prescription medication with them, where there could be adverse side effects.
Quote:
An estimated 29,000 dietary supplements are available in the United States. These supplements include all ingested health products (botanical, nonbotanical, herbal or traditional cultural remedies in pill or other forms) and are usually intended for maintaining health, rather than treating existing conditions (as most pharmaceutical drugs do).
So Sunspirit, you're claiming that between you, people you know, and family, you all have every disease known to man, including several rare diseases that most people haven't ever heard of, let alone know people who suffer from.
And they're ALL cured by alternative medicine, and they were ALL not helped by conventional medicine.
My response:
You're making it all up, and might want to consider psychological therapy to help you weave your way back out of the fantasy world you've created for yourself.
Thanks for your diagnosis, doc ... and the blatant attempt to label me a liar ....
Perhaps there's an alternative outlook on this; ie, either I agree with your limited assessment of the medical industry that you pose as the be-all and end-all or maybe ...
You are the one with psychological problems.
FWIW, due to the nature of my business, a huge portion of my clientele is comprised of MD's in every discipline. Many of them have become personal friends through the decades, and I get to sit in on dinners at our homes (and our second homes when we're skiing or sailing) or camping out in the backcountry when we fly in to fish ...
and I get to listen to them discuss their cases, the problems they're having, the patients' progress (or lack of it) ....
One thing that has stood out among them in all these years is that they readily and candidly admit that they don't know it all in their business ... and several of them have been internationally recognized as being at the top of their profession, guest lecturers in teaching hospitals ....
I think that sets them apart from you in a way that you don't even recognize. The medical business is not written in stone ....
BTW, I'd mention that 8 of my close relatives are MD's ... with a couple of them rather well-known psychiatrists and pyschologists ... and none of them have suggested at any time that I'm a spinner of tales and need professional intervention. I'd suggest to you that they are far more capable of making a professional diagnosis in this regard than your ravings ...
And a hallmark of a professional is that they wouldn't make a diagnosis as you have in this thread without having at least had a consult. They're smarter than that.
Just for giggles ... you might want to read up a little bit about the industry that you slam so much from your ignorance. Try something as basic as D.C. Jarvis "Folk Medicine" to get an idea what it is you don't know about.
P.S.: Jarvis was an M.D. who appreciated the efficacy of alternative prevention and cures for a multitude of illnesses with stuff as simple as apple cider vinegar and honey, and Lugol's solution for iodine intake. He was pretty far ahead of his time for the practice of simple, efficacious, and inexpensive treatments ... But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you AnonChick?
Your article you posted is pretty vague. Does it include diet pills? I'm talking about vitamins. And do these include old people who would've had a heart attack without the unknown dietary supplements they're talking about it that vague atricle?
More people die from falling rocks than they do taking to many vitamins. I'm not talking about people taking other prescription medication with them, where there could be adverse side effects.
Just as a thought, this includes diet pills.
You said that only 11 people have died from vitamins and herbs in 25 years. Do you have a source for that information?
There were 11 reported just from ma huang from 1996 to 1997.
The lack of oversight of supplements in the US allows companies that make them to put anything in them and never have to prove the claims made for them.
The lack of oversight of supplements in the US allows companies that make them to put anything in them and never have to prove the claims made for them.
In the years that I've been following the pharmaceutical/prescription med industry ... with all the vaunted claims, testing, and research into the efficacy and safety of the drugs that make it through to approved use ...
I've seen everything from Thalidomide to drugs for athritis, pain meds, diabetes control, pyschotrophic drugs, weight loss drugs, blood pressure meds, cholesterol drugs, and numerous others that not only had to be recalled from the marketplace, but cost many billions of dollars in damages paid out to people that were harmed by their use in accordance with their prescriptions. One can't possibly be exposed to commercial media and not see the frequent ads from the ambulance chasing lawyers pressing class action suits against pharmaceutical companies for FDA approved drugs that caused widespread harm in their use.
There's a lot at stake throughout the industry, and as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the approval process for drugs is far from a perfected methodology. It's even more complicated when you realize how many prescription drugs have been approved for use in foreign countries, are prescribed there and have a track record of safe and effective use ... yet cannot gain approval here in the USA FDA.
Do I really have to start listing more of the drugs that have been removed from the USA marketplace in the last decades to prove this?
You make it sound like if the substances haven't been FDA approved, like supplements, can't possibly be safe or effective. Nothing is further from the truth. What presents is that prescription meds are patented, hence their market is protected and they are sold at a huge premium price over the substances that don't have patents on them.
With a PDR, it's not difficult to look up the cautions and documented side effects of FDA approved drugs.
Many drugs have listed side effects which need close monitoring in their use; for example, liver toxicity. It becomes a case of having to make a decision about reaching efficacious levels of a med vs the severity of the side effects ... a value judgement. But sometimes the adverse effects dominate the drug to the point where it's dangerous, if not deadly, to use it even under a doctor's close supervision.
PS: I'd refer you to but one of many publications that advise about the use and dangerous results associated with prescription drugs ..."Worst Pills, Best Pills News", published monthly by Public Citizen. The publishers are MD's who are documenting the dangers of a wide variety of FDA approved meds and the list of drugs that they advise not to take are substantial. As well, Dr. Donald Carrow (anasthesiologist, later the "medical maverick") published a lot of evidence about the widespread bad effects of many common drugs which he advised people not to accept from their doctors and it's worthwhile to dig up his old newsletters "Here's to Your Health". Of particular interest to me was Carrow's documented successful use of beta glucan (oh my! one of those undocumented unregulated substances without FDA approval!) in the treatment of cancer ... there's been hundreds of published documents, some peer-reviewed, which support the use of this substance. But it's not gonna' get big fame among the pharmaceutical industry as a breakthrough drug because it can't be patented ....
In the years that I've been following the pharmaceutical/prescription med industry ... with all the vaunted claims, testing, and research into the efficacy and safety of the drugs that make it through to approved use ...
I've seen everything from Thalidomide to drugs for athritis, pain meds, diabetes control, pyschotrophic drugs, and numerous others that not only had to be recalled from the marketplace, but cost billions of dollars in damages paid out to people that were harmed by the use in accordance with their prescriptions. One can't possibly be exposed to commercial media and not see the frequent ads from the ambulance chasing lawyers pressing class action suits against pharmaceutical companies for FDA approved drugs that caused widespread harm in their use.
There's a lot at stake throughout the industry, and as I have repeatedly pointed out in this thread, the approval process for drugs is far from a perfected methodology.
Do I really have to start listing more of the drugs that have been removed from the marketplace in the last decades to prove this?
You make it sound like if the substances haven't been FDA approved, like supplements, can't possibly be safe or effective. Nothing is further from the truth. What presents is that prescription meds are patented, hence their market is protected and they are sold at a huge premium price over the substances that don't have patents on them.
With a PDR, it's not difficult to look up the cautions and documented side effects of FDA approved drugs.
Many drugs have listed side effects which need close monitoring in their use; for example, liver toxicity. It becomes a case of having to make a decision about reaching efficacious levels of a med vs the severity of the side effects ... a value judgement. But sometimes the adverse effects dominate the drug to the point where it's dangerous, if not deadly, to use it even under a doctor's close supervision.
If supplements are safe and effective, why not make the supplement industry prove it?
Either they demonstrate safety and effectiveness (at which point the consumer should be willing to pay for the increased cost of the product for the company to pay for the testing) or they are unable to demonstrate either safety or effectiveness (at which point they stop selling a worthless product). Most would fail the effectiveness testing. In my opinion, selling people something that does no harm by misleading them that it will improve their health is actually doing harm. It's fraud.
When you buy an herbal supplement you really have no way of knowing whether you are getting what you think you are.
Vitamins and minerals are different. Choose them from USP tested lines and you are getting what you are paying for.
If supplements are safe and effective, why not make the supplement industry prove it?
The supplement industry does prove their products are safe and effective in many forums and in many published articles. Unfortunately, the way the rules work with the FDA and other regulations force them to have to make a choice between going the route of prescription drugs (at huge expense for a non-patentable result) or minimizing their claims to avoid the regulation expense and potential fines for not complying.
Either they demonstrate safety and effectiveness (at which point the consumer should be willing to pay for the increased cost of the product for the company to pay for the testing) or they are unable to demonstrate either safety or effectiveness (at which point they stop selling a worthless product). Most would fail the effectiveness testing. In my opinion, selling people something that does no harm by misleading them that it will improve their health is actually doing harm. It's fraud.
Couldn't agree with you more on this "fraud" issue. Unfortunately, it's well practiced by the mainstream pharmaceutical industry under the auspices of the FDA. Again, I refer you to the numerous FDA patented drugs that have been taken off the market after causing many ruined health issues among trusting patients. There's a whole bunch of class action suits right now to seeking damages from the enormous profits garned by the producers before their product was removed from the marketplace. That's FRAUD in your terms, because the people were sold something that was supposed to benefit their health without causing harm ... but it didn't, did it? I just saw a commercial this evening about some birth control meds that caused serious harm ....
When you buy an herbal supplement you really have no way of knowing whether you are getting what you think you are.
True to the extent that as a consumer you're better off to buy from the major producers in the industry who subscribe to standards of performance. You keep arguing that everybody in the business is, by definition, immoral, unethical, and flawed in their production quality control and don't know what they are doing. I'd disagree with you on that point; I've worked in a number of major producers in the Utah and Colorado area and they use no less stringent production and quality control methods and equipment than FDA approved manufacturers.
Vitamins and minerals are different. Choose them from USP tested lines and you are getting what you are paying for.
Again, it ain't necessarily so. USP tested lines (and supplement lines) can vary greatly in what is in the container. The only thing USP can assure you is that the product is in accordance with their guidelines, but those guidelines can miss many fine details of the product. A fundamental difference could be in the trace elements or components of a product due to the source of it's raw ingredients ... perhaps harvested organic plant derived vs synthesized product. Rose hips, for example, yield an entirely different Vitamin C than does a synthethic Vitamin C, or Valerenic Acid from the distallation of a valerian plant is different from a synthetic version of the active ingredient for this ... and so on, throughout the entire pharmaceutical industry and supplement industry.
A readily demonstrable difference exists here even in FDA approved drug manufacturing where some patients derive complete identical experience with a generic compared to the patented drug, but for other patients only the original manufacturer's patented drug yields the desired results.
To my thinking, this points out that the testing and formulations are good only up to a point; beyond that, there are unmeasured aspects of what's in a container that can yield vast differences in the finished product. Since each individual is unique, these differences can be minute ... or huge. Ask anybody who is trying to get their Thyroid med dose worked out to a favorable T-3 or 4 level .... some get by on the synthetics, some can only get effective results with animal derived products ... it's a real common problem in dealing with hypothyroidism. Similar issues present with the meds for Parkinson's disease. Those are but two examples I can think of off the top of my head because I know folk with these problems ... but these can't possibly be the only ones in the entire industry.
I know too many aging women dealing with menopause issues, Lupus diagnoses, and other auto immune ailments that are getting nothing but a run-around in the medical community with the approach of "try this, let's see if it works; if it doesn't, we'll change it to a different prescription and try that". All of the meds being prescribed are listed for treating their ailments but none provide a consistent result; they keep fishing around between patented drugs and generics trying to achieve beneficial results. So far, nobody has the answer for them .... not for lack of substantial expenses incurred with prescriptions to date. I've seen hundreds of dollars of meds dumped in the trash as women clean out the drug containers that didn't work ....
Again, it ain't necessarily so. USP tested lines (and supplement lines) can vary greatly in what is in the container. The only thing USP can assure you is that the product is in accordance with their guidelines, but those guidelines can miss many fine details of the product. A fundamental difference could be in the trace elements or components of a product due to the source of it's raw ingredients ... perhaps harvested organic plant derived vs synthesized product. Rose hips, for example, yield an entirely different Vitamin C than does a synthethic Vitamin C, or Valerenic Acid from the distallation of a valerian plant is different from a synthetic version of the active ingredient for this ... and so on, throughout the entire pharmaceutical industry and supplement industry.
A readily demonstrable difference exists here even in FDA approved drug manufacturing where some patients derive complete identical experience with a generic compared to the patented drug, but for other patients only the original manufacturer's patented drug yields the desired results.
To my thinking, this points out that the testing and formulations are good only up to a point; beyond that, there are unmeasured aspects of what's in a container that can yield vast differences in the finished product. Since each individual is unique, these differences can be minute ... or huge. Ask anybody who is trying to get their Thyroid med dose worked out to a favorable T-3 or 4 level .... some get by on the synthetics, some can only get effective results with animal derived products ... it's a real common problem in dealing with hypothyroidism. Similar issues present with the meds for Parkinson's disease. Those are but two examples I can think of off the top of my head because I know folk with these problems ... but these can't possibly be the only ones in the entire industry.
I know too many aging women dealing with menopause issues, Lupus diagnoses, and other auto immune ailments that are getting nothing but a run-around in the medical community with the approach of "try this, let's see if it works; if it doesn't, we'll change it to a different prescription and try that". All of the meds being prescribed are listed for treating their ailments but none provide a consistent result; they keep fishing around between patented drugs and generics trying to achieve beneficial results. So far, nobody has the answer for them .... not for lack of substantial expenses incurred with prescriptions to date. I've seen hundreds of dollars of meds dumped in the trash as women clean out the drug containers that didn't work ....
Actual research on herbal supplements is pretty much non-existent, and most of the hype is in the form of testimonials. There is no way to know whether people giving testimonials are real or whether they are paid or not, and testimonials do not provide any evidence of the efficacy of a supplement. No one is immune to the placebo effect.
Manufacturing problems with supplements appear to be common:
With a USP product, you do not have to worry that the product contains contaminants like heavy metals or pesticides, and the dose needs to be within standard guidelines.
You may get your vitamin C from rose hips if you wish, but you will pay for it. There is no way to standardize a product which is made from whole plants. For your rose hips, for example, the amount of vitamin C can vary tremendously:
Saying that a product derived from a plant is "different" from one that is commercially produced is meaningless. Ascorbic acid from a chemical factory is handled by the body the same way as ascorbic acid from rose hips.
If you had heart failure, you could chew on some foxglove or take digitalis from a chemical company. The difference is that with the latter, you would know the dose you're getting.
Your argument that supplements are better than "patent" drugs because some people have problems with prescription products fails. Supplement manufacturers do not publicize how many of their customers throw away their products, but plenty do.
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