Hi Chemar, Thanks, that's going to be good reading.

Is all bacteria that's good for our digestive system called "probiotics" ?

i love iherb i just bought som methyl there the other day and it came in like 2 days, i got some astralagus in my sobe drink the other day, i think its in nirvana and lizard fuel.

OMG, I just spent the longest time trying to find this thread.

I've been thinking about this since I first read it...

I went to the Astragulus iherb page and it was so hard for me to read, not "read" exactly, but "get". I just cannot remember things in boxes, it's as if when I go from the first box to the second everything from the first is wiped out by the line.

I don't understand why that is. But when I got an oil filled radiator some years ago it had the instructions in boxes and I just could not get it to work. It was really neat if you could get it to work because it would do different temperatures at different times. But the longer I couldn't set it the colder I got until finally I was shivering and crying and I had to take it back.

I think that's why I've written my site as I have... with everything running together like a story.

I can understand things in a story form much more easily.

I don't think I ever remember as much as I used to before I had the brain damage... but I can remember more when it's like a story and there's no stopping and starting...

Whew!

I am soooo glad I found this thread. I hope now that I've written this I can stop thinking about it...

(I suspect I'm going to start thinking about how I was listening to a court tape yesterday or this morning, I forget when I can't sleep, and the judge laughed when I talked about my disability. I was told he'd said there was "no way" I'd get my condo back. And that could well be true. Now that I have the court tape and the record proper I can see that the lawyer for Ocwen was lying. He was lying. It just amazes me that he would lie about things that are in the record proper and can be so easily checked by someone without brain damage.

I am so glad I am appealing. I sure hope the appeals court doesn't have the same attitude as the judge.)

My post on magnesium a few clicks back was directed towards Mrs D, hopefully a response i will get.

I haven't seen MrsD in quite a while. Hope she's all right. Oh, I just went to another forum and see her posting. Hi MrsD! *waving*. I'm sure you'll get a response fairly soon from her. I had also lost track of this thread some time ago.

I thought I'd respond with a few things that might have some value added info.:

Re: mood swings and supplements:

You have to be really careful about the source I believe. I have the same issues with selenium that is yeast-based. It really starts me on that downward slope. I couldn't figure it out for the longest time and stopped taking it but kept the bottle. Finally, I was looking at the bottle one day looking for some small print about gluten (which always gets my mood swinging downward, even the tiniest amount will do it) when I realized that it was a yeast product.

Great info. about the taurine. Thanks. I'll have to look into that some more.

Bananas need to be carefully used because many people react to them with an 'oral allergy' that can be sneaky. I have that. All it means is that my mouth feels 'funny' after I eat a raw banana. However, if I cook it, the chemistry changes enough that I don't get that effect.

You can increase your omega 3 balance by changing where you get your meat and eggs. Grass-fed, free-range animals have a healthy 3/6 balance. Grain fed animals are high in 6 and low in 3. Also, grain fed animal meat is acid, free-range/grass fed animals are not acid. Beware though, a farmer who 'finishes' (last 6 weeks before slaughter) their meat with grain, reduces the omega 3 and acid levels. Try and find a farmer who feeds grass all the way through. Eggs that are high in omega 3 are easier to identify than meat because their yolk looks very orange compared to a regular, grain-fed egg that looks yellow.

Re: dairy:

Dairy gets my chest to tighten. Though it doesn't work against me as fiercely as gluten for asthma, it contributes... and so I steer clear of dairy and take a 5-strain dopholous instead of using yoghurt. Dairy also makes me phlegmy... which I really don't care for.

I missed the part of your quote where you are talking about trying slowmag. I know that MrsD used to be a big advocate of it. I can't find it here in Canada though. Here's a quote from her in another forum:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...6&postcount=15

I am freshly back now, with a dependable computer!

Thanks for the ideas Kim. (as always)

And Beuegger--- it is nice to meet you. I assume you are a male, by your avatar? It helps me to know the gender of the poster writing.

I posted a link to a good calcium post on another thread here at the top of the list-- check that out. It will answer your calcium questions well.

I am not a fan of GNC--- their prices are too steep for me. But if you like them, then don't let me dissuade you. For supplements, using potassium is rather useless since the FDA only allows max of 99mg/tablet. Since we need at least 3.5 grams or more a day, it is a waste of money. 1/2 of a cantaloupe has 1400 mg in it for comparison. The aspartate salts of supplements may be bad for anyone with neuro issues. Aspartic acid (aspartate) is a neuro-excitatory amino acid like glutamate. Wiser choices would be gluconate, citrate etc as I listed earlier in this thread.

The blood pressure you list on your siggy line is not really high. It is a borderline reading reflecting perhaps nervousness in the doctor's office known as white coat hypertension, or an excess of salt in your diet. (this is especially true of younger patients). People with chronic pain also may have elevated readings. So age is a factor with that.

When you surf the net there are many sites with drug interactions available.
But many are either incomplete, don't address everything possible, or do not have current data yet. Some of the bigger sites use a company to do that for them. Many pharmacies pay a fee to an outside place to provide the data for them. My experience is that they also do not have "everything"... for example, one place I used to use did not have accurate serotonin data on interactions between SSRIs and triptans (used for migraine).

Absorption interactions like the mag/gabapentin can often be worked around by timing intakes of either so they do not occur.

It is nice to see you here (both of you) and thanks for posting!

well yes im a male, this site seems to be neurology talk for women, since they even hav a separate forum for women's health. so you said that magnesium gluconate or magnesium citrate would be better choices? i was thinking of trying the ionic fizz stuff that u were talking about earlier, or maybe even the slowmag-even though im kind of turned off by anything containing a chloride type thing, like magnesium chloride.

about calcium: I think americans get more than enough of calcium through their diet, cuz it is high in cheese/dairy, even things u wouldnt think had cheese in it actually do.

im not really worried about my blood pressure, my heart rate was what worried me, as it was 115-120 resting, and possibly even higher under stress/social interactions. I have a litte social anxiety so that affects it. i dont hav that white coat hypertension.

im assuming ur not gonna name any sites for drug interaction checking for fear of getting the boot here at neurotalk. u dont hafta post a link maybe just names possibly.

Hello Bruegger84

we dont mind legitimate links to relevant sites here and certainly dont give members "the boot" for posting those.



what we ask members to be respectful on when linking is that within the guidelines
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?t=1293

helpful links are always welcome, and if a member happens to post a link that isnt, it has a little edit, not a big boot

anyway, I know there are a number of links on the useful sites stickies to info on interactions

maybe the Natural Encyclopedia at iHerb can be of help in their section on Drug Interactions with Supplements

hope that helps
Cheri

ps Maybe a visit to our PD forum will also show you there's a lot more to us than "neurology talk for women" LOL

I have some good ones on a Sticky on our Medications forum.

Like Chemar I like iherb's encyclopedia and they even have the German Commission E data, which is hard to find on the net.

Univ. of Maryland has an excellent Alternative section too.
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/

Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State Univ. is also excellent.
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/

NIH..is also good and pretty new:
http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/

Ionic Fizz is magnesium citrate formulated to dissolve quickly and be absorbed quickly.

SlowMag is magnesium chloride. Because it is an inorganic salt, the size of the tablet is lower--64mg.

I am always open to new formulations of magnesium, since I find them very laxative (I have a GI congenital problem that causes that for me).

There are many males on these forums. I only like to know gender and age because females have hormone issues that complicate things that males do not.

I can't find slowmag in Canada, but after talking to MrsD (a fairly long time ago) I switched to magnesium citrate and though I don't really notice a difference when I take it, I really *do* notice if I'm off it for too long... esp. if I consume mag. depleters like coffee. So, because I drink coffee on the weekends, I take my magnesium over the weekend and then for the first couple of days of the week. I've found that keeps me in good spirits with improved energy and no shaking. I've not had issue with bowels because of the citrate at all.

As for dairy and calcium, dairy (or any other food to which you are reacting) can cause malabsorption. If you're malabsorbing, then you'll have a harder time feeling better.

Foods that will get my mood coming down fast is gluten (#1: even miniscule amounts can affect my mood) and coffee (if I drink it for more than four days in a row... and four days is kind of pushing it).

So, I don't do any gluten at all... am quite freakish about it really after a couple of small errors left me fatigued, with joint pain, a migraine and depressed. And I really enjoy my coffee (which is fair trade, organic beans that I grind in my kitchen) so I keep it for a weekend treat.

My dairy is fairly limited because it causes mucous production and I get a bit of tightness in my chest (I didn't feel any of these symptoms, by the way, until I removed the foods for a time and then ate them again). So, mostly just holidays or special events... and even then, I make sure to keep it quite limited.

For calcium, it seems far more effective to make bone broth soup using cabbage as the acid to pull the calcium (and probably the magnesium) out of the bones. Here is a bunch of information I've collected. Please excuse the fact that it's not been proofed yet and so is not finished. The only reason I've got it on the web already is because so many people were asking for the information and though it's not pretty, the information is still valid and readable. I do list my sources and urge people to ask if it looks like I've missed listing one: Pecking Apart Chicken Soup