My dad is a Nurse Anesthetist. When he saw that C contains mannitol, he had to tell me about all the uses for mannitol...something about it opening the blood brain barrier, and it also is used to lower intercranial pressures.

If they wanted me to read all that information, they could have done a better job of using larger print, maybe add a little white space to it (hit enter a few times so there's a break in the paragraphs more often)

I guess I'll be making an appointment to get my thyroid checked. Anyone else know of any other things I should have tested while I'm at it???

I wish they'd use larger print myself. They must be unaware of us MSers having trouble with fine print sometimes, no?

Other than thyroid, I'sure what else to get tested for as far as hair loss?

An ingredient in Copaxone opens the blood/brain barrier, Erin? Wow..Isn't that kind of the opposite of what we want?
Anyhoo..I have very long,thick hair, and was dx'd hypothyroid shortly before my MS dx. Earlier this year, I started pulling handfulls of hair off my head, almost on demand. I though this was odd, but then I remembered it was a symptom of hypothyroid. Since the fatigue from that and MS are so much the same, it took me awhile to even think of it, but that's what it was alright..Upped my med to 150 micrograms..

As far as C, I haven't been on it for about a year, but I remember saying that I was all for turning back the clock, but not so far back as teenage acne & oily skin..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannitol

Just including a wiki link about Mannitol...

{snip}Mannitol or hexan-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexol (C6H8(OH)6) is a polyol that is used as an osmotic diuretic agent and a weak renal vasodilator. It is a sorbitol stereoisomer.

...

Mannitol is used clinically to reduce acutely raised intracranial pressure, until more definitive treatment can be given, e.g. after head trauma (although significant controversy exists over this use), and to treat patients with oliguric renal failure. It is administered intravenously, and is filtered by the glomerulus of the kidney, but is incapable of being resorbed from the renal tubule, resulting in decreased water and Na+ reabsorption via its osmotic effect. Consequently, mannitol increases water and Na+ excretion, thereby decreasing extracellular fluid volume.

Mannitol can also be used to open the blood-brain barrier by temporarily shrinking the tightly coupled endothelial cells that make up the barrier. This makes mannitol indispensable for delivering various drugs directly to the brain (e.g. in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease).

Mannitol is also used as a sweetener for people with diabetes. Since mannitol has a negative heat of solution, it is used as a sweetener in "breath-freshening" candies, the cooling effect adding to the fresh feel. In oral doses larger than 20g, mannitol acts as an osmotic laxative, and is sometimes sold as a laxative for children.{end snip}

well, if you have a neurological condition, such as MS, and you want a drug that's supposed to affect the lesions in the brain somehow, you're going to need it to get past the blood brain barrier somehow.