[redthread]

Okay, I googled, and found ya'll and have been lurking and reading. The Vitamin C serum sounds brilliant.

I have sort of an odd question that I can't get an answer to, but I think ya'll might know. I've asked doctors, and pharmacists and healthfood store people, and supplement store people...

About a year ago, after a round of flu that left me grey and drawn, I started a supplement regimen. It was 2 or 3 ( or more, honestly) fish oil capsules taken during the day, along with a couple of multivitamins- one regular, one prenatal- one or two magnesium tablets, and a Vitamin C tablet nearly every hour. I felt FANTASTIC! Arthritis plagues me- but it went away. I had scars shrink. I went to bed with wrinkles- and woke up with smooth, glowing, dewy peachy skin. No wrinkles- not even the deep wrinkles between my eyebrows. Scars and wrinkles- gone, gone, gone.

From Friday, when I started, until Monday, when I picked my kids up at school- the change was so drastic and noticeable that the teachers asked what I'd done. One of the teachers started on the cocktail two weeks later. Her arthritis cleared up from the following Friday to the next Monday- another weekend turnaround. She has kept it up- and looks ten years younger than ever, and lost twenty pounds to boot.

Now, I would still be doing this- except two weeks into it, all my hair started falling out. I'd take a shower- and it would look like a yeti had bathed. It looked like male pattern baldness. I could see my scalp. About 1/3 of all my hair fell out.

I stopped taking everything. My hair quit falling out. Wrinkles returned. Tiredness and pain returned. My weight even went up.

What happened? Something chemically drastic happened, and every time I ask a doctor, they tell me- "no, that can't happen with what you were taking- They deny both the good things, and the bad. I was there- my wrinkles went away. Gone- shboom. And my hair fell out.

Ya'll take supplements, right?

Do you know what happened?

ari

 

[Melly]

Did the same thing happen to the teacher? (the hair loss)

 

[redthread]

I don't think she was taking as much as I was. She still follows whatever amount she takes. She has pink, lovely skin. She even started wearing eye makeup, and getting nice haircuts. She's recommending the fish oil to the parents of her more challenging children, too. So, whatever she's doing, it's really, really working for her.

I'll take a fish oil capsule occasionally, now. If I go to a few, I'll notice more hair falling out. I took two this month, around ovulation day. I was feeling really crummy, and I wanted to feel somewhat okay- we're trying to conceive- and I think it brought on ovulation- all the signs of a healthy ovulation- mucus, and a positive on a ov pee stick. I think it's doing something hormonally, I just don't know what.

And, really, if I knew- I'd fix it- so I could go back to the high dose marvelous all the time feeling.


I also wonder if the skin serum c+e+ferulic- could you drink it? Would it work? Not just for drinking- but so that the effects would be twice as fast.

ari

 

[fawnie]

Hi redthread and welcome!

Check to make sure but it sounds like you overdosed on Vitamin A/betacarotene. One of the side effects is hair loss. After it gets out of your system (it's fat soluble so it might take a while) your hair should grow back.

I've seen it happen.

Hope this helps a little



Skin | care | talk

 

[gymrat]

I don't see any over load on Vit A? Other than taking a multi-that prob has Vit A, that should not make your hair fall out. Now the Vit C every hour.....thats insane!!! You should not take more than 1000mgs a day.

Yes, Vit A can make your hair fall out, I took the highest dose possible, (Accutane) but I didn't loose any hair for the 5 months I was on it. But it is a side effect. If you were loosing hair because of an overload on Vit A, you would have also damaged your kidneys along with your liver. Taking too much Vit A, is NOT a good thing, it can actually be deadly. But really, a mulit with Vit A, should be fine. The Vit C every hour......that I wouldn't think would be a good thing. Not to mention, it probably gave you an upset stomach. Too much acidity.

And as far as drinking the Vit C serum......I don't think I would try that!!

 

[mireckca]

I agree with Gymrat - taking vitamin C every hour is senseless. Your body can only take in so much and the rest is getting flushed out of your system. I suppose that this is a good thing - unlike the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) the water soluble ones do not build up and cause toxicities. But it is wasteful. Vitamin C (and the B's, for example) are water soluble and so are eliminated. But I have seen horrible cases of folks who burned their GI tracks from too much oral vitamin C - ascorbic acid.

And the vitamin C serum is for topical use only. If you are already taking the maximum amount of oral C, you really should supplement it with topical as well.

 

[mkgirly]

Awesome, I'm gonna try the multi and Vit. C...sounds like you helped your body heal alot!

 

[redthread]

Well, be careful! I still don't know why I lost my hair.

Um, if you want to try something similar: the books I based the wonkiness on are the first Dr Perricone book, and the magazine review by Valerie Frankl of a book called the Orgasmic Diet. I haven't read or seen the book, and the reviews are all kind of creepy, but Valerie Frankl- I like her and trust her- not as a health writer, but as a fun and fluffy writer. Dr Perricone was at the library, and I'd heard good things about him.

The huge Vitamin C thing is from googling Vitamin C and pregnancy. There is a type of doctor- naturopath- I haven't any idea if a naturopath is a real doctor, or some sort of PhD, or an honorific. But there was an article saying take Vitamin C to bowel tolerance. If you aren't up to snuff, then your body will absorb a great deal more. One woman was up to every fifteen minutes trying to calm down a herpes infection. Mirecka has seen burned GI tracts, so I don't know----I was taking a lot. Maybe try every other hour?

The magnesium- cells go into triage mode and don't metabolize or function well in a low mg situation. The b vits use the magnesium- so it's like taking a hammer and the nails- you'll build stuff. It stabilizes nerves- the main reason I take it. It makes it very hard for a migraine to start- which is more than half the battle. That's how I started taking it- to stop them. I used to take it in amounts that scared pharmacists- it can stop your breathing at high doses. It's a macro-nutrient, and even with a balanced, healthy diet you won't get enough.

The fish oil- neural re-development. The skin stuff was a huge bonus. This is from Perricone and the other book. To do this right, limit other fats and oils- they get competitively absorbed and metabolized- your body will use the easiest to get to grease. So the big weekend- I ate tinned fish, or fish sticks- the book has more elegant fish- but I'm a stay at home mom- and that's what I had on hand. And, let's see- berries, and salad things, but not dressing, particularly. It was very healthy, and fibrous, and with Vit C and the fish oil- not the best weekend to go out of the house on errands. Just saying. Five minute oatmeal. with cinnamon. and minimal milk. anti- inflammatory.

The regular vitamin and then a prenate- the regular vitamin had 100% of everything. When you start taking extra of the micronutrients- things get weird- as in overdose weird. The prenate had B vits, and not much else. B vits wash out- that's why I alternated the two, but spaced out over 12 hours. An overdose of one BVit can fry part of your brain-literally kill all the cells, and nobody wants that, right? This is from a book by a neurologist who had to treat someone who survived the first round of problems. Overdoses and imbalances of Bvitamins do really strange things, so I don't take single, individual types.

Nor single amino acids, either. Strange effects.

good luck if you try. and, goodness, tell us if you kept your hair.

ari

 

[fawnie]

I'm still concerned that you are taking a regular vitamin AND a prenatal. You can overdose on fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, & E!



Skin | care | talk

 

[redthread]

I don't still take that amount of anything. I don't know how all the vitamins and minerals handle. The one nutrition class I took in college had a slideshow of various, quite memorable, overdose situations. Plus, running into others since then. Like, the B vitamins? overdosing on one can kill the "proprioception" cells in your brain- you wake up, but you cannot ever feel your body. It's like you are an ambulatory paraplegic. You can move, but you can't feel. "Pithed Frog" was the description. Manganese overdoses can bring on a form of Parkinson's.Selenium at high doses malforms infants. This is from a Dick Francis novel- the villain poisoned pregnant mares, to cast doubts on the fitness of a stallion. Magnesium can stop your breathing. That's if you take a great deal all at once. That's one that I'm carefu with, obviously. When I was first using it to step down migraines I had some slowed breathing times I would not care to repeat.

The weekend was a one weekend trying to repair a flu damaged body. I stretched lower doses over the next two weeks, and then my hair started falling out. Then I quit entirely, until I had questions answered, which hasn't really happened yet. I am thinking that you are right about the Vitamin A. I was careful to only have carotenes, and I know it metabolizes slowly, so my guess was that having all the other anti-oxidants meant it wasn't used up as fast, and was able to build up.

The valerie Frankl article- her husband could not take what she was taking- it would interfere with his medications.

thank you for stepping in and answering questions.

I think I get to order supplies to make serum in June ( sahm budget) It looks safe and effective.

 

[Lexi2009]

OK--I find this really odd to be honest. Sorry as I know it may well be 100% true but if this cocktail works where is the info? I would love to go to sleep and wake up with skin that is 10 years younger. Please do post any information you have on this cocktail!

As for the vitamin c thing, I do not agree with everyone else as I have heard of high dose Vitamin C titration as it is called in which you continue to take a lot of vitamin c until you get loose bowel movements. It is common in some natural cures and has even been studied at major medical institutions such as Harvard Medical School for curing cancer and other degenerative diseases. They would use intravenous vitami C though but others in alternative medicine do recommend this and whenever I get sick I will take enough to get loose bowel movements and in 24 hours a week long flu will be gone and unlike everyone around me I only am sick the first 24 hours so there is something to it.

As for Vitamin A overload--interestingly my gut reaction was that you had liver damage and vitamin A is known to damage the liver so yes I can see this clearly. I know alcoholics, those with cirrhosis or liver damage, and those who suffer fulminant hepatic failure (liver failure) often loose their hair. I would like to see a full list of everything you were taking. One other cause if you were taking excessive fish oils is the source? If they were foreign made I would actually worry about mercury contamination! Supplements are not regulated and if a foreign company with little worry of being caught made the supplements they may not be too pure and if they have excessive mercury levels as many fish do, they could well be the cause but you really need to list everything you were taking and amounts.

 

[fawnie]

The high doses of Vit C can crystallize in your kidneys!
Betacarotenes are still able to make your hair fall out in high doses!
It's also possible that a high fever made you shed. Or protein deprivation.

Bottom line: Be careful megadosing unless you have the supervision of a nutritionist or professional of some sort!



Skin | care | talk

 

[Lexi2009]

Fawnie--I have heard that too about the C vitamin but also have been told that it depends on what TYPE of C you use. I regularly take 6 or 7K mg a day! Most alternative medicine practitioners will tell you that unless you have loose stools you can up your C dose. I never really know what to believe though because everyone seems to have opinions on these things and they all have credentials. It is not easy to traverse the world of alternative medicine!

 

[redthread]

HI:

I was taking fish oil and multis from Costco. The magnesium was the generic grocery store brand. The vitamin C- generic store brand. Nothing special, nothing expensive. If the fish oil capsules hadn't been on sale we wouldn't have purchased them.

Again- my hair fell out. Like, post- pregnancy fall out. I really wouldn't recommend this, until the best guesses are in. I would take a shower and the walls would be coated with a layer of hair. I would run my hands through my hair, ---eww---just a lot of hair.

Somehow, the combo of those four worked really well together. It's the best I could figure out,from reading. I'd take two of whatever I hadn't taken last time, every few hours.

It was a lot of vitamins, and the change was really drastic. I am not doing it again, since I don't know what happened. Little lines are coming back, and I'm curious, though.

Lots of water, too...it's a lot of stuff to filter. I've spent a few years having sore kidneys during pregnancy. The one thing that helped was NOT taking the prenatal vitamins. I was trying to avoid that.

Reallly, this is not advice. This is me asking much wiser and more careful people for their advice.

ari

 

[gymrat]

HI:

I was taking fish oil and multis from Costco. The magnesium was the generic grocery store brand. The vitamin C- generic store brand. Nothing special, nothing expensive. If the fish oil capsules hadn't been on sale we wouldn't have purchased them.

Again- my hair fell out. Like, post- pregnancy fall out. I really wouldn't recommend this, until the best guesses are in. I would take a shower and the walls would be coated with a layer of hair. I would run my hands through my hair, ---eww---just a lot of hair.

Somehow, the combo of those four worked really well together. It's the best I could figure out,from reading. I'd take two of whatever I hadn't taken last time, every few hours.

It was a lot of vitamins, and the change was really drastic. I am not doing it again, since I don't know what happened. Little lines are coming back, and I'm curious, though.

Lots of water, too...it's a lot of stuff to filter. I've spent a few years having sore kidneys during pregnancy. The one thing that helped was NOT taking the prenatal vitamins. I was trying to avoid that.

Reallly, this is not advice. This is me asking much wiser and more careful people for their advice.

ari

Wow, really? That is too bad. I take both a multi and a fish oil. The only thing I know about Magnesium is you should take it with Calcium and not just on it's own. For females they should take 600-800mg of Mag, and 1200mg for Calcium.

When I started loosing my hair, I know it wasn't from a Vitamin I take, because I have taken them for years. My doctor put me on Iron and that is helping so far.

It is easy to overload on Vitamins, so just be careful. I loaded all of mine up and took them to the Dr with me, just so he could tell me if they were all ok to take.

 

[SydneyJohnston]

Here's another possibility ... fish oil can be extremely dangerous. Lots of fish oil is harvested from fish that have mercury and other heavy metals in them. You mentioned Costco as a source - that probably isn't a good idea. You have to be very careful with fish oil and know the source and generally the cheaper brands aren't safe. Mercury and other metals could definitely make your hair fall out. There is no reason for the other supplements you mentioned to cause those kinds of problems. If you bought a really high quality fish oil you might be able to resume some of your regime, The really good stuff isn't cheap, though.

 

[redthread]

So I have to find a what kind of doctor? My regular doctor said " That's not possible," but that was in a 15 minute checkup situation. What sort does hair analysis, I guess- to see what was deposited in excess? Does hair analysis work? I remember having to do that as a kid, and coming up short on a really exotic, long list of things. And then a weird diet for a few months. I pity my poor grandmother. She had to learn to cook peculiar foods from scratch. I still like some of them, though.

Oh, you can take magnesium separately from Calcium. And you should, if you want it to absorb fully. They are nearly the same size and atomic weight. Your body puts them in the same holes. Magnesium plugs up calcium channels. Calcium is an excitor, while magnesium is a despressor. It's, quite literally, a "Calcium channel blocker," which is an heart disease medication class. It insulates nerves and muscles- there are pores requiring four calcium atoms to open. If they get plugged up with magnesium, they don't open. The cell can't turn on. This is huge, if you're trying to keep the cells calm. Like, with a migraine, or a seizure, or even after you hit your head in a car accident. I was hit by a car while I was walking across the street. It took about nine months to come up with an approximate diagnosis and a doctor to give me some helpful medication. I was the stock manager at a college bookstore, so I started reading up head injuries, medications, and so on. I'd start at the community college textbook, and work my way up to the nursing school textbook. So there are a few, tiny things I know really well. Just enough to be dangerous.

I was having two episodes a day that looked like seizures, but weren't. They were intense, atypical migraines. So, in the nine months of no medication- specialist/specialist/specialist-dance, I started self- medicating. This meant 'Cell Protector" by GNC, learning to cook so I didn't use things having "excitotoxins" changing my cleaning routine- no harsh aerosol chemicals, and really sky high doses of Magnesium. Like, high enough that I could have killed myself.

I've quit the "cell protector" mostly b/c it's expensive. I really liked it.

Excitotoxins are things like "autolyzed yeast extract" and msg and aspartame. Mostly, skipping canned food will get rid of most of it.

Chemicals- that's, like, every green cleaning article that has come out in the last year. Dr Bronners in a spray bottle with water, and extra lavendar, and sometimes tea tree. Plus, baking soda and vinegar. It's not as effective and Lysol and clorox, but I'm not slurring my speech, either. So, in me vs house, I win.

magnesium. can be taken by itself. the pills are 2/3 of your daily dosage. magnesium is sparingly soluble. it excretes in the feces. the green part of plants? that's a magnesium molecule held in a ring similar to the ring holding iron in the blood. magnesium is a part of the replication spindle of cells. most people don't get enough. even if you were eating a typical vegetarian diet you would not be getting enough. not enough magnesium is suspected to be why people have "metabolic syndrome". it helps with pre-eclampsia, and seizures during labor. epsom salts are a form of magnesium. too much, all at once can kill you. as can too much potassium.

magnesium is the mineral part of the chemical enzyme formed by a B vitamin.which one, I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to the Bvits when I was looking this stuff up, trying to make something work for me.

aspirin affects both calcium and magnesium serum levels. if you take a magnesium tablet at the same time you take a pill for pain, it doubles the effect of the pain relief.

hth, it's a ridiculous information dump.

ari

 

[IluvNY]

Thanks for all the info redthread, however i must say i have always been told to take calcium and magnesium together so this is what i have always done, um might check this one out again though!

 

[mariepop]

I found this ad http://www.hair-alive.com/products.html it explains about hair loss but their products are full of chemicals TEA-Laureth Sulfate, Stinging Nettle, Cocoamide DEA, Cocoamide Betaine, Capsicum, PEG 3350,

 

[kdon08]

I can't believe this... I would be so upset if I lost my hair! Has your hair grown back yet?