Supplement Sabbatical Results & Advice Requested

[cmdshiftdel]

Recently, on a whim, I stopped all supplements. For years I've had daily ingestion of the following (and at times many more supplements I was experimenting with short term):

Morning
ProCaps Essential 1 MultiVitamin
Kirkland CoQ10 300 mg (Ubidicarenone)

Night
Pure Encapsulations Magnesium Glycinate (4 caps/day - 480 mg/day total)
Half a Zrytec for chronic allergies

Topical Progestelle oil @ days 12-26 of cycle

Now, you should know that I've suffered from "chronic fatigue" for decades. No matter what, I've always felt tired. I also had hair loss from a Wellbutrin prescription I was looking to fix but nothing really worked.

Anyhow, in the last 3 years several big changes occurred - I got pregnant, had a baby, breastfed for 19 months, and then stopped. When breastfeeding was over, I slowly looked to restart my "good olde" supplement routine. It started when I had a particularly sniffly day and took half a Zrytec and it knocked me out. I mean, OUT. I was shocked. Then, a few days later I had scheduled a restart to my progesterone schtick and same thing - a total struggle to keep my eyes open.

It dawned on my that my chronic fatigue had mostly resolved itself while I wasn't supplementing. And that by returning to just two of my previous supplements (Zrytec & progesterone) I was back to how I felt before - trying to function while half sedated. And then the dots connected and I realized I've been sedating myself for years and didn't even know it!

I've stopped all supplementation since and haven't died or fallen apart. I actually feel, great. But I still have this nagging sense that I *should* be taking supplements because its all I've known all my life.

So now what? Do I continue on this supplement free path? What about vitamin d? K? Aspirin? Covid?! Will I prematurely age? At 38 I have no wrinkles or age spots, but I've also supplemented all my life. Is this the calm before the storm - is my body just going through stored vitamins and once it runs out then I'm in trouble?

I do keep magnesium on hand and if I have heart palpitations (from mitral valve prolapse) I take one and it seems to work pretty much immediately. Briefly I went back on the multi and immediately saw massive amounts of hair shed. Massive.

For progesterone, I now can only tolerate <3 drops of progestelle under the tongue with vitamin e right before bed. I may or may not restart it. I immediately feel a heavy sedation effect, like within 5 minutes of under tongue application.

Even milk, which during breastfeeding I was drinking ridiculous amounts of, caused me serious and debilitating joint pain. I thought it was extra weight, but after stopping almost all milk consumption (also on a hunch) except for the occasional craved glass here and there, joint pain has dissipated to almost nothing.

What is this strange new paradigm? Is it possible to only marginally, if at all supplement? All the while maintaining good health, a youthful appearance, and energy? Any personal experiences?

 

[Waynish]

I doubt the coq10 or magnesium were causing that, which are the only supplements I see well recommended here.

 

[InChristAlone]

Supps are a double edged sword. You feel like they might be doing something protective or health boosting but in the long run they may not be. They aren't a panacea though if there is a documented vitamin deficiency they can be. If you feel great I wouldn't take anything.

 

[Makrosky]

So you stopped all supps and you almost cured your chronic fatigue. You didn't even remember about it. You reintroduce them and get symptoms. And you are wondering what to do? There is a famous Ray Peat quote that goes along the lines of "During the years I have seen more people improving their health by dropping all supplements than by introducing them". Or similar, I can't find the exact one.

 

[Kaur Singh]

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[tankasnowgod]

I don't think Zyrtec is a "supplement." It's an OTC drug. It's an anti-histamine, which are known to cause drowsiness, and specifically listed as a Zyrtec side effect. Magnesium and Progesterone are also known to cause drowsiness. So it could have been due to one of these things, or the combination itself.

So maybe it wasn't the broad category of "supplements" causing your fatigue, but an OTC drug that is well known to cause drowsiness. Maybe in combination with Progesterone and Magnesium.

I have never seen any sort of fatigue associated with multivitamins, nor CoQ10. If you stuck with supplements that don't cause fatigue (and OTC drugs like aspirin), you might not have this issue at all.

Would you consider mineral water to be a "supplement?" Gerolstiner, for example, has quite a bit of calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate. Most people probably wouldn't consider it a "supplement," but it might fit more in that category than an OTC drug like Zyrtec.

 

[cmdshiftdel]

Perhaps it is Supplement Stockholm. I fully admit and understand how stupid my post sounds. Yet, I have a nagging feeling I should be supplementing but every time I go near the vitamin cabinet I feel viscerally disgusted and don't want to take them anymore. A gut instinct if you will. It's odd. All my life its been the other way round (I thought I'd fall apart without vitamins).

Yes, I think I was sedating myself with a combination of Magnesium, Progesterone, and Zyrtec. Since I would take them during the day (and the sedating effects of Zyrtec take me now over 24 hours to go away), I was making a bad problem worse but didn't know it. I consider anything I take to improve quality of life a "supplement", even mineral water (which I actually take like a supplement to improve digestion after meals!). Anti-histamines, when I have bad allergies, really improve my QoL - but I have since tried Allegra with great results and only needed to take it a day or two and then the allergies were gone. Moving forward, I will just spot treat with Allegra or other second-gen antihistamine that is non drowsy as symptoms arise and become annoying enough to merit action.

I'm really glad I took the sabbatical because I never would have thought the effect these were having on me would be that severe. I just didn't put it together until taking these on a clean system, separately. IMO, there is at least 90% of my chronic fatigue woes figured out, if not all of it.

For experimentations sake, I am probably going to add, very very slowly and on a "clean" system (no other supplementation going on) low dose aspirin, then vitamin d & k. Progesterone (with E) and Magnesium I will only take at night literally right before bed and I'm cutting my dose until I don't wake up tired. If I have palpitations during the day, I will allow myself magnesium as needed to deal with the mitral valve prolapse annoyance. I am also considering reintroducing CoQ10 and possibly Ceramides for skin in similar fashion (which I tired awhile ago and was surprised to see a decent result but didn't want to continue on them while pregnant).

Does anyone know of a clean, very low dose multi vitamin / mineral that one can take once a week or every other day? I'm starting to think, and I know Ray Peat already beat me to it, that most supplements are probably not worth the trouble. But I still would like to try and find a weekly "insurance" pill or smoothie or what not to make sure I'm not depleting stores of vitamins and minerals.

 

[Waynish]

“Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food” - Hippocrates