01Jun 2019 by Marjorie No Comments

Amusing effects of correcting nutritional deficiencies

self-experiment, side effects, symptoms and conditions
(This is a repeat of a 2011 post.) These "side effects" happened more than a few times following supplementation of some duration. 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,…
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23Apr 2019 by Marjorie No Comments

Another early nutritional therapy success: hypoglycemia

self-experiment, side effects, supplements, symptoms and conditions
I had this for years without knowing what it was. At its worst, I had to eat every 45 minutes or my brain would do that revving/screaming/wheels spinning thing (silently, I mean; I'm pretty sure no one else could hear it). If I drank fruit juice alone without food, I'd get woozy and almost pass out. Long periods without eating would leave me shaking and practically comatose. However, when my doctor tested me for it with blood tests and an oral glucose tolerance test, they came back negative. All this resolved after I started taking magnesium and biotin. I don't remember how much magnesium I had been on -- 500 mg/day? -- but when I added 2,000 mcg of biotin, after a few weeks I could go for eight hours…
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18Mar 2019 by Marjorie No Comments

Iron-induced cystic acne

side effects, supplements, symptoms and conditions
(This is an update of a 2011 post.) Except for several regrettable weeks in 1995 when I was drinking seven cans of Pepsi a day, I have rarely been bothered by anything but the occasional pimple despite heavy chocolate abuse, which I'm guessing is offset by my heavy water drinking. But then ten years ago, in a desperate attempt to get some energy, I started taking about 100 mg of iron a day. I had taken iron off and on, sometimes for years at a time, sometimes at 150 mgs at a time, but had never been able to get my ferritin levels past 26. Conventional doctors feel this number is fine, but... don't get me started on how stupid lab ranges are. Even though iron had done nothing for…
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15Dec 2018 by Marjorie No Comments

Fun with lymph cleansers

self-experiment, side effects, symptoms and conditions, treatments
  Except for a few half-hearted liver flushes, I did not bother with detox treatments in any of my health self-experiments until I suddenly switched my entire focus to mold avoidance. I immediately started taking two binders (bentonite clay and psyllium) and a lot of water, as well as sweating for hours in the sun, and quickly discovered that anything more than this, detox-treatment-wise, was too much for my digestion (full stop) or my skin (my heels would split open) or my noggin (jitteriness and listlessness would worsen). So I rolled with the binders-and-sweating approach for a few weeks until I started feeling, every once in a while, for a few minutes at a time, fantastically frickin awesome. As in, just this side of a religious experience. I mentioned this…
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05Sep 2018 by Marjorie 12 Comments

I tried to detox lead and all I got was this stupid vertigo

interactions, nutritional therapy, self-experiment, side effects, symptoms and conditions, treatments
I developed vertigo after my second dose of DMSA treatment for lead chelation. For the next four weeks I had trouble moving quickly, standing up, going down stairs, etc., with no signs of it abating. Eventually I happened upon a comment on a heavy metal detox forum (on Yahoo, where untold gazillabytes of valuable information are inaccessible due to craptastic design) indicating that some people can't process sulfur due to insufficient body stores of molybdenum. Most approaches to lead detox involve sulfur, and DMSA is a walloping dose of sulfur. In fact, one study I found says that eating a whole lotta garlic can chelate lead. So I took 2,000 mcgs (2 mgs) of Mo the next day and the vertigo was gone the following evening. More notes on molybdenum:…
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03Apr 2018 by Marjorie No Comments

Stopping sugar cravings with essential oils

essential oils, nutritional therapy, self-experiment, side effects, symptoms and conditions
As mentioned in this February 2013 post, my sugar cravings -- usually in the form of a particular ratio of chocolate, fat, and sugar, but occasionally reaching batshit levels where I'll eat a pint of ice cream while standing in front of the fridge -- have been extremely resistant to my nutritional-therapy tinkering. 5-HTP worked like a miracle for a week, then gave me splitting headaches and insomnia, and vitamin B6 got my cravings down from insanely bad to the usual infuriatingly bad, and that's about the extent of my success. Out of curiosity more than hope, I clicked on a Kindle link to Break Sugar Cravings or Addiction, Feel Full, Lose Weight: An Astonishing Essential Oil Method by Kathy Heshelow. The book took me all of 20 minutes to…
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