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Learning Lessons The Hard Way


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Learning Lessons The Hard Way
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murbot
Hoonigan
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Canada
 
2014-03-13, 15:23

I thought this could be an interesting thread. I'll start with something I learned last week.

I am super sensitive to niacin.

I'm having a physical and blood test next month, figured I'd take some niacin and nudge the appropriate cholesterol figures in the right direction. It's supposed to a good job of that. Except there's the whole niacin flush thing, where people have a reaction and they get tingly and start turning red because I guess their bodies think they're being poisoned or something.

Except every single time I've read one of these warnings on the label I just think it's bullshit. The whole "oh you better take this on a full stomach or you'll be in big trouble" warning. I've always ignored them and never had a bad experience. Ha.

So I grab this $6 bottle at WalMart, sitting right there on the shelf, how bad can it be? I down a couple 500mg tabs. I read about people taking 3-6 g per day so I'll start low with just the 2 tabs. I also hadn't eaten yet that day. So I pop the 2 tabs, turn around, and take out a sheet of paper to write a note for my wife. Maybe 30 seconds pass before I start writing. By the time I hit sentence 4 my face is tingling. I'm getting hot. I wasn't even thinking about the flush. My back starts tingling. Then I'm thinking suddenly holy shit maybe it's the niacin?? Can't possibly be doing this in one minute. WTF. I'll just finish this note before I do anything.... ok fuck the note. Shirt is off and I'm chugging water. Food in stomach! I start pounding down whatever I can get my hands on in between gulps of water. I go to the bathroom and yell HOLY FUUUUUUUCCCKKKK. I am fucking RED. The whites of my eyes are fucking red. I AM ON FIRE. I start the bathtub and jump in. Shivering from cold water and boiling from the inside out.

I ended up going to the store to grab some benadryl, and felt like a weirdo keeping my dark shades on in the store. I was too embarassed to be in public looking like a lobster, I couldn't even make eye contact with anyone.

Within 2 hours I was back to normal. It was pretty crazy.

Oh, and a couple days later I tried it again, this time with some prep. Just after a large meal, about an hour after a good benadryl dose, and fully hydrated. Just wanted to see if that made a difference. The flush took about 10 minutes to hit me, and it was probably about 20% of the first one. That was enough for me to toss the fucking pills in the trash. I guess I'm a delicate flower with this shit.

So anyway, that's mine. Anyone else learn something the hard way? Join the misery and share your stories.
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drewprops
Space Pirate
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Atlanta
 
2014-03-13, 17:17

BEN GAY.

Do not put on your dong.


...
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Chinney
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
 
2014-03-13, 19:30

Cutting Habaneros.

Do not touch your dong.
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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2014-03-13, 19:32

Do not open pull top lids on cans with your dong.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2014-03-13, 20:41

murbot, take a baby aspirin before taking the niacin. This greatly reduces the flush. Not sure of what it will do to your dong though.
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2014-03-15, 21:57

True story time: When I used to frequent a certain bar a while ago we had lots of regulars, and some of them became bar-friends, as things like this go. One of them disappeared completely for a week, and then I found out he was in the hospital by a "get well" card that was being passed around to those of us that knew him well. I signed it, then put a little quip in like everyone else did, but mine said "I'll send you a case of Stout, it cures everything!"

He was in the hospital because (unknown to us, the extent of it anyways) his liver blew up because he was an alcoholic. 2 fifths just to get through the day, every day. None of us had even the slightest clue. He was a lawyer and always came into the bar after work. Never reeking of alcohol and always seemed stone-cold sober, but I guess when you're that deep into it your tolerance is just so far whacked you can play off that sort of thing.

I saw him a few weeks later when came into the bar and said his goodbyes. He had jaundice and looked like fucking death, if death is emaciated and has yellow/green skin and eyes. 2 weeks later he died.

Lesson learned: never fucking sign a get well card unless you know what they're "getting well" from. I felt like the biggest asshole ever.

So it goes.
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billybobsky
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Inner Swabia. If you have to ask twice, don't.
 
2014-03-15, 22:36

tl;dr: 709 stuck his dong in it.
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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2014-03-16, 04:53

But he was probably to drunk to notice...
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_Ω_
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Send a message via AIM to _Ω_  
2014-03-16, 05:18

Joked with a rep who always had long hair, who suddenly had short hair if she was joining the military. Close - she was undergoing chemo.
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Windswept
On Pacific time
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Moderator's Pub
 
2014-03-16, 18:41

I skimmed through the article below from the University of Maryland Medical Center, and apparently 50 mgs. is considered a high dose! So, if you took 1000 mgs, that is ...a lot. I realize that specific treatments for various medical purposes can involve high doses, but yikes... no wonder you had the reactions you did. And no, you're not all that much a "delicate flower," murbeau, but you took a massive dose, really. eek!

In the article, they talk about starting with small doses and gradually increasing over 4-6 weeks or so. So, you might actually be able to use niacin, but in a more careful way. (I realize that after what you went through, you probably won't risk it though. Can't say I would blame you. )

I normally take B-complex, and as I read through the article, I saw a few symptoms listed that I've wondered about for years. Symptoms I had starting when I was in high school and was having to study long hours at night to get my work done. I would get run-down, and now I know that I had become deficient in the B vitamins, particularly in niacin. I'm really glad to know about one particular symptom (an inflammation in my throat), because I've wondered about it since high school, and still get it when I've lost lots of sleep. So, thank you for posting what you did, otherwise I wouldn't have read up on B3.

Your reaction was amazing and pretty spectacular. Wow. I've been taking melatonin to help me sleep, and now I plan to read up on the dosage effects, after reading about your experience with niacin. I imagine you may have already read up on niacin, but if not, you might want to read this article, because it has lots in it of interest to anyone.

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed...amin-b3-niacin
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murbot
Hoonigan
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Canada
 
2014-03-17, 10:54

709 and _Ω_ - yeah, the foot in mouth thing can be bad. Yikes. I remember once seeing a big black gob on my sister's front tooth (hadn't seen her in a long time) and I decide to give her a hard time about the food I figured she had stuck on there - "oh god, you have something DISGUSTING on your tooth!" only to find out she actually was missing a small piece of her tooth and the black spot was where it was rotting a little and she didn't have the money to fix it. I can still taste my toes on that one. Ugh. What an asshole.

Windy, I've done some reading (not a lot) and sure didn't think of 50mg as a high dose. If it is, it's pretty crazy that the WalMart here only sells the one bottle and the caps are 500mg. They snap in half easy enough with the indent along the middle, but anything smaller is hard and would be more like crumbling. Anyway, I think I've just sworn off the shit.
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