Freckles & Doubt

Your concern is both noted and appreciated :>. But I think my slightly off-hand listing of the total is misleading, besides being exaggerated, as usual, for comic effect.

(4) and (5) are actually working, the tooth was pretty damned agonising until a day or so after I started the antibiotic, so I'm forced to conclude it's actually hitting an infection. The nice dentist can probably confirm that when I see him on Monday.

I know that vitamins are dodgy; all I can say is that in the specific case of PMT symptoms, which plague me enough that I'll consider hardline responses like actual contraceptives, if the B-vitamin/evening primrose oil thing is a placebo effect, it's a pretty damned effective one. Anecdotally, if I can remember to take the B-vitamin stuff it really does help. I am also vaguely reassured by the fact that vitamin supplements seem to be provenly effective only in cases of serious deficiency, e.g. wartime diets. The menstrual cycle gives rise to some very weird imbalances, particularly under modern conditions where our experience of it (extended lifspan/improved nutrition/decreased pregnancies) is really no longer natural. I'm more inclined to think there may be something in PMT supplements than in general supplements, is all I'm saying, and if it is a placebo effect, hell, it works for me.

Agnucaston is different. Agnucaston is a dopamine agonist, and there does seem to be evidence of its efficacy in actual clinical trials (http://www.agnucaston.co.za/treatment/trials.html). Besides, I haven't killed anyone since I started taking it, which has to count for something. (i.e. the PMT irritation/hysteria has been noticeably reduced from the ridiculously high levels of the last year or so).

You may well have a point re the trepiline, but there are also mitigating factors. One, it's a tiny dose, less than a quarter of the dose prescribed for actual anti-depressant purposes. Two, the nice doc talked about it as a routine and well-established prescription for migraine prevention: no real side effects if you take it at night, and there seems to be some evidence that it does actually help, as a result of some weird effect it has on blood vessels in the head. She did explain it, but my head was pounding enough at the time that I didn't really take it in. In this case I'm willing to give it a try because the migraine thing is enough of a total bugger that I will cheerfully contemplate learning to stand on my head if someone suggested it might help. A month of it does actually seem to have reduced the free-floating aura symptoms, if nothing else, which is a relief, as they're trippy.

I do see why you're concerned, and I thank you. But the reality is also that there's a fair amount wrong with me at the moment, sadly enough, and I'm no longer willing to simply endure it and hope it goes away. If it's any consolation I do have to declare all of the above maraca-contents on my Warfarin blood-test documents, so if there's any weird interaction, hopefully the nice pathologists would pick it up.

This was a very long response and probably TMI. But I feel strongly that Concerned!dicedcaret should be reassured. I shall place it on record that if I start mutating in weird ways as a result of vitamin interactions, you are perfectly entitled to point and laugh and say I told you so.