askyermom

I guess we all need evidence that we are not immortal geniuses. We can crane our necks and imagine that we are immortal geniuses much of the time and with practice, I suspect we can get so good at it that we won’t even notice the delusional quagmire we are actually living in.

This is the story of learning, once again, that I am not an immortal genius.

I am usually unusually healthy. Despite the drinking and smoking and skydiving and birthing too many people–all things that are in the rearview now–I have only one very common prescription to keep on hand and that’s it.

When I rebooted my life a few years ago, I stopped taking supplements. I was spending about $2 per day on things that were supposed to support my guts, cognition and general idea of health. I noticed no change when I stopped, which is pretty good evidence that I was setting a couple of dollar bills on fire every day.

Slowly, though, I have been adding back some supplements. I take good fish oil because it does seem to benefit my drying carcass and I’m told to take calcium, so I do. Several months ago, I found a supplement that included magnesium with the calcium because I had heard that it was a benign way to ease constipation and all that. I shopped for it at a trusted place, as I feel curation is important when one is acquiring a dodgy substance to put in one’s mouth.

As I slowly began to repeat my old pattern of snatching up supplements every time I read something and verified that there was a possible effect, I stopped myself. I stuck with my simple regimen and paid attention to what I ate and over the holidays, I watched a lot of added sugar go right into my mouth.

I didn’t panic when my bowels became unstable. A lot was going on. I developed the worst chapped lips of my life and concluded it was a new gift of aging. The fatigue was worrisome, and seemed a bit outsized for the sleeplessness I was having. For the first time in years, I took an iron supplement because the familiar sense of anemia was accompanied by the paleness I had not forgotten.

On two occasions, I had bouts of belly pain that were first bad enough to lose sleep and then bad enough to go to the Emergency Room. I could not convince myself it was just a passing symptom, because it wasn’t going away. The pain was so severe, I nearly passed out before I could get help. My hero daughter drove me to the hospital where they declared I was dehydrated. This was odd, since I had been hydrating like a fiend as part of my routine. Then again, hospital people always declared me dehydrated, so I concluded I didn’t know what I was doing in drinking water, either.

I improved under observation, so they released me. The self-diagnosis progressed from stomach bug to deadly tumor. I became convinced something was in my guts causing all this drama.

It was something in my guts, but it wasn’t some alien cellular army, it was the supplements.

When I calmed down and thought about it, I realized that my most recent magnesium-calcium purchase had been of a new brand and strength. On further investigation I found that I had been taking well over the daily magnesium for a large man. Furthermore, magnesium in is a lot of foods and we generally don’t have a deficiency unless we are very ill from some other problem. I am still not a large man, also.

I dropped the supplements like a hot potato and watched my symptoms fall away one by one, like french fries.

The relief is wonderful. I was really coming to terms with my imaginary cancer, so it’s nice that it’s imaginary, again. All this went on outside any discussions with my overworked doctor.

She does ask about supplements these days. Pros know that these things can get out of hand, even if we don’t, and they probably know what form of whatever is likely to be harmful.

There are endless varieties of pseudo poison on the shelves. My particular poison was labeled in such a way to encourage daily overdose. This is irresponsible at best. I reported the whole thing to the store, the manufacturer and the Feds. It seemed noteworthy that the label recommended a dangerous daily dose and I had developed all the adverse symptoms other than irregular heartbeat and death.

Anyhoo, don’t be like me. My penchant for taking random pills could have killed me any number of times and the tendency is not going away on its own.

If you can get your nutrients from food, just do that and skip all the falderol of the supplement aisle.

Love,
yermom

You know what has four and a half stars? My book! The parenting guide has to come out this summer. It just has to.