25Apr 2013 by Marjorie No Comments

Look up and report Rx drug side effects online

health reference and research tools
In the past few years several consumer-driven databases have sprung up that allow you to look up and report side effects to prescription drugs. The FDA's method of collecting and reporting side effects is slow and inefficient and relies mostly on doctors' reports of patient complaints. Apparently doctors tend to report only "medically serious" complaints like nausea or abdominal pain, and consider things like sexual dysfunction to be not worth mentioning. On top of that, many people don't even bother sharing side effects with their doctors, probably because they know the exchange will go like this: Doctor: Any problem with the flurextrothimstim? Patient: Yeah, my eyelashes started to fall out. Doctor: Really? I've never heard of that! Give me a call in a few months and tell me if it's…
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17Jul 2012 by Marjorie No Comments

50,000 IU doses of vitamin D might not be such a great idea

supplements
A commenter (Blake) on a recent post directed my attention to Dr. Stasha Gominak's series of videos on her work treating sleep disorders with vitamin D. The videos run more than an hour, but here's a summary of some of her points. One of her points -- of course, not covered on the summary -- is that those whopping 50,000 IU vitamin D pills that some doctors give to their patients to take once a week are not as effective as taking it daily in smaller amounts. I'm not sure if she was referring to the fact that the majority of those 50,000 pills used to be in the D2 form, which is not as effective, or to a claim I've read elsewhere that past a certain dose, the larger…
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15May 2011 by Marjorie 4 Comments

Three strange and unexpected effects of correcting a vitamin or mineral deficiency

nutritional therapy
1. Vivid dreams. This effect of vitamin B6 is fairly well-known. Some members of Yahoo's pyroluria group (pyroluria is a condition in which vitamin B6 is chronically deficient) say that you're at the right dose when your remembered dreams are pleasant, and that you're on too much if they are too vivid or jittery-making, but I've never come to any conclusion myself. 2. Random, pointless memories. I've occasionally experienced this when repleting with big doses of calcium, magnesium, iron, or B12, all closely associated with memory. At the same time I realized I could recall long-forgotten Photoshop commands or go to the grocery store without a shopping list, I would also be visited by utterly insignificant memories floating across my brain: the brickwork around the entrance to a store in…
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