After I reluctantly dismount the platform every morning I go downstairs and pour a cup of coffee, and take my blood pressure pill and a multivitamin.
The vitamin is roughly the size of a tennis shoe, and tastes like vomit. I put it on the back of my tongue, and immediately blast it down with a slug o’ coffee. If it sits there for more than a split second, I’m left retching and gasping for air because of the August-ass, raw sewage nature of what I’d just willingly put in my mouth.
Plus, they’re really expensive. It’s one of those things I know, and wish I didn’t. It would be better if I was under the impression a bottle costs something like three bucks. Sometimes too much reality and accurate information bleeds into my world. Ya know?
And I wonder, every single day, if they’re doing me any good. I mean, how would I know? I take them religiously, hoping they’re providing some benefit. But, what do I know about it? I suspect 5 percent gets soaked into my heft, and 95 percent is taking a log flume ride straight into the toilet. I bet our water supply is loaded with vitamins and antibiotics. Blecch!
Do you have any info on this? Do multivitamins do any good? Or am I just pissing away good money? Help me out, won’t you?
Also, do you take any supplements, or anything along those lines? What has worked for you? Not imagined results, but real ones. Please tell us about it.
I listen to George Noory every night while I’m driving home from work, and he sometimes interviews a guest who promotes some off-the-wall thing. Like almonds. Some dude on there said that if you eat three almonds every day, you’ll never get cancer. So, I made a mental note to start eating almonds, and (of course) never followed through. This happens every time he has one of those people on his show.
Do you take any kind of supplements, or participate in an almond regimen, or anything like that? I’d like to know about it. Use the comments link below.
Also: What things do you wish you didn’t know?
And I know this one’s a little brief, but I forgot to set the alarm last night. I was clear-cutting timber until almost noon today. Crazy.
But I’ll give it another shot tomorrow.
Have a great day, my friends!
Now playing in the bunker
Use the Surf Report’s webhost: HostGator!
I lived with a doctor of internal medicine and his family while in college. He referred to supplements as “an expensive bowel movement”. Heh. Oh yeah, First?
as a pharmacist, i can assure you that you are producing expensive urine.
My doctor told me to take a multivitamin daily but I can’t stomach the taste of them so I usually forget.
Every once in a while I’ll eat a hand full of Flinstone vitamins.
Them bitches is delicious.
Did vitamins for a while, but the neon yellow second pee of the day clued me in. I still take a baby aspirin daily for the ol’ ticker. Can’t hurt, I figure.
I worked at GNC for many years. To this day I take their multivitamin. I know they put a lot into their vitamins and they do a lot of testing to make sure they are abosrbed. It’s worth the money to me.
Most of the multi is water soluble so no matter who makes it; you’ll piss the access away.
What’s funny is that I had many customers who only buy the expensive stuff because “you get what you pay for” and all that other stuff is crap. So they would buy the same thing with a different label and I’d go about my day.
As long as they didn’t say “It’s all natural so it’s safe” I never commented.
That’s why I take a daily dose of lead and poison ivy.
Immunotherapy!
I think multivitamins are a waste of money, and can actually be harmful.
If you have a vitamin deficiency, that would be a good reason to take a specific vitamin. Other than that, I wouldn’t take them.
The vitamin companies make a fortune, and they’re not regulated by the FDA. They could be made of anything.
If you are eating a regular diet, most or all of the nutrients are in your food, so you don’t really need to take vitamins. I used to take a multi-vitamin, but then asked my doctor and he said, only take them if you don’t eat vegetables (which I do).
I’m not so sure Jeff eats a “regular” diet. Regular for him but for me. All of that fast food might leave some gaps in the nutrition spectrum. The multi might help and won’t really hurt.
Bill, my doc said the same thing. If you eat fairly decent meals, you don’t need to take vitamins. He also said there is such a thing as too much of a good thing…you can take too much of some vitamins. I don’t want vitamin toxicity, thank you very much. I, too, eat a lot of vegetables. In fact, right now I’m farting like a mule because of the fresh butter beans I had for dinner (along with fresh sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob and corn bread).
You can take a B-complex if you want to help in dealing with stress, but you might want to get your nutrients from your food rather than attempt to get them from a pill. Perhaps take one of those Emergen-C powders when you’re trying to get over a cold virus or when you’re just feeling a bit run down.
Sometimes all you need is a hand for the wheel or a day off.
I find bourbon is great for stress!
Beer is chock full of assorted B vitamins. And it’s completely vegan too, but I drink it anyway.
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Wellllll……Guiness isn’t vegan. Anything that uses isinglass isn’t.
I think you can say it is all organic, though.
….it’s just because daddy’s payday is not enough
Right, I did neglect that case. Some breweries do use isinglass for finings for some of their beers, but they are supposed to drop out and become part of the trub. Many use polycarbonate micropellets instead; I guess they’re cheaper. There are lots of other substances used, and some don’t bother at all.
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Sure, but the process is just as important as the ingredients. In this case, inevitably, a little rub-a-dub-dub is called for.
jtb
A “recipe” for beer is like a “recipe” for bread. The ingredients are all pretty much the same – it’s all about process control, baby. One word: plastics.
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I take gummy multi vitamins because I can’t swallow those canoe sized horse pills. I also found liquid vitamins that cost a fortune but I ended up giving them to my bed ridden mother. I doubt my sister (the caretaker) is giving them to her.
Beloved takes a wheel barrow full of supplements. But at the age of 65 he looks younger than most people in their 50s, takes no doctor prescribed meds and looks fantastic. Last winter the ring finger on his right hand would get “stuck” very painfully and he would have to grab it and snap it back to flex it. He started taking some supplement (the name escapes me) and so help me God, it really works. No problems at all and even his back (which is 30% disabled) hasn’t bothered him. I can’t be that dedicated plus I HATE swallowing pills.
Jeff, are you taking SOURCE OF LIFE Multi vitamins? They’re as long as a goddamn surf board and ver expensive.
I am probably the odd man out here. Every day, I take an aspirin, Niacin for cholesterol, fish oil for tryglycerides ( have been on 6 different cholesterol/tri meds and none worked), vitamin D,and B vitamins with isoflavones. I eat very clean and rarely eat things I shouldn’t. For me, I believe they work for what they are intended . I must be doing something right because at 50 years young, I can bench 400 pounds and I weigh just a tad over 200.
Shitcan the vitamins. As long as you’re eating vegetables (you know, besides the lettuce on your burgers) you’re good to go.
Supplements? Yeah, I take supplements. A glass of whiskey and a Marlboro Red everyday at 6:00PM
I feel freakin’ fantastic!
me too, and i’m closing in on 80.
I’ve been trying to supplement my potassium/vitamin intake with a daily can (11.5 oz) of low sodium V-8 lately in order to stave off the high blood pressure meds (I go for a check up in a month or so.) I kinda like the taste, too. It’s not as good as the Spicy V-8, but it’s okay. I’ve been at it for a about three weeks now and according to the free blood pressure machines in the pharmacy, it seems to be working. I haven’t dropped down to the high/normal range yet, but it’s down from where it was a few months ago (again, from a free machine at the pharmacy).
The internets told me more potassium and less sodium would do the trick, so it must be true.
As far as actual mulitvitamins go, I bought a big jar of them a few years ago when I was in my late 30’s. I’d heard the “high dollar pee” stories, but thought, “What could it hurt?”
A few weeks into them I went to the hospital with my first, and hopefully LAST, kidney stone. The local sanitation engineers picked up some high dollar garbage later that week.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
jtb
Growing up Catholic, you’d think my Latin would be better. Thanks google.
it means “after this therefore because of this”
basically it means if you sneeze and suddenly there’s a tornado, don’t assume your sneeze caused the tornado.
john the basket i think i love you!!!
One of the classic logical fallacies, usually abbreviated to “post hoc”. There is also the “straw man” and the “ad hominem” and a bunch more I can’t recall right now.
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I have Hep C, and ran low on potassium and had to have it through a IV one fine evening. Man, the stuff feels like fire in your veins. Fortunately had a great Nurse who diluted it into my Ringers IV.
I used to take multivitamin, plus a vitamin C supplement. Alonjg with a couple prescribed meds for blood pressure and cholesterol/triglicerides crap. I felt like shit every day.
I dumped them all and now don’t take ANYTHING. Discovered that if I refrain from drinking and eating fast food for a week before my blood tests, everything checks out fine.
I still feel like shit every day, but at least I have a few extra bucks to show for it!
Save your money Jeff. Only take a specific vitamin if you are diagnosed with a deficiency.
Testing… One Two Three
Since I’m now in the awaiting moderation cue (vs the last couple of days of comments disappearing without a trace).
I take a multivitamin, can’t hurt when my diet might not be all it should be.
Today I sprained my ankle before work, had an emergency come in by 7:15, had a serious supply problem, got hit on by a paraplegic, double amputee, transsexual crackhead and then had to restrain and sedate a patient when she clawed my boss, pulled a tube out of her nose that ran to her stomach and then tried to bite and spit on us.
I wish I had checked my horoscope or something today.
I guess a man of science and medicine should know, but I’d favor a PDR over your daily horoscope.
Also, if you have an ankle sprain (as opposed to a strain or other muscle or connective tissue insult) stay home, elevate the ankle and apply ice for 24 hours, then alternate heat and ice. You can’t walk.
You obviously have a tough job. Thanks for working the front lines.
jtb
Maybe you should consider a career change. 🙂
I am terrible at remembering to take meds. The bottle has to be right in front of me in plain sight. So my synthroid sits on the bathroom sink and I take it every morning. I don’t know why I’d forget it. I’ve only been taking it daily for the past 20 years. So I don’t even attempt to take vitamins. I know I won’t remember but also have been told they’re not really necessary if you eat a balanced diet. I love my veggies. And I do try to eat fairly clean.
I’ve heard people say that when they take fish oils, they burp a fishy taste all day. Yuck. No thanks.
They make “burpless” fish oil pills now. Try eating cucumbers and drinking beer. Now, that will get the smelly burps going.
What with soil depletion, gmo’s, agribusiness practices, environmental toxins, etc. our food does not supply the nutrients it did in the past. I eat a fairly healthy and decent diet but add supplements because we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Blood pressure meds expensive? I take Xifaxin for Hep C.
$16.000 for a 20 day supply (60 plls) Thank goodness for insurance!
I like the flintstones vitamins, but if you look at the bottle and compare it to the expensive vitamins it’s probably comparable.
Too much iron will bind you up. Too much vitamin C will just wash right out.
Not much out there I wish I didn’t know. I like to know everything, even to the point where I don’t care if you tell me how a movie or book ends. I wish I didn’t know I had a dollar in my pocket because now I’m going to buy chips.
I take no vitamins or other supplements. I do take blood pressure med, sort of a genetic thing since Dad did, brother and sister presently do also.
I get all mine through my meals. We eat raw vegetables every night for dinner. Only ones we cook are corn on the cob and lima beans.
Most vitamins are flushed through us lickety split. But some things, like iron for example can build up in our system. And that can cause problems. I won’t take anything unless my doctor tells me I need to. And then only that one vitamin, and not a multi-vitamin.
I take Propecia… not really a supplement, but it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
And I take a daily fiber supplement. It’s usually just the generic Publix or Rite-Aid pills… something that gives me about 20% of my daily intake of fiber. Based on its color, it’s probably just shredded cardboard in a pill.
However, it was recommended by my gastroenterologist. Yeah, I have one of those at 33 years of age… anyway, my gastro recommended the fiber supplements back when I was diagnosed with diverticula when I was 30. As long as I take the fiber supplements, I don’t end up developing diverticulitis.
It’s weird having a “specialist”. For instance: I don’t have a regular dentist, but I do have a regular oral surgeon. Hmm… maybe if I had a regular dentist I wouldn’t *need* a regular oral surgeon. Food for thought, but don’t chew on that side.
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Did you know that the Army, and the Department of Defense, has a special building code for flagpoles?
This building code defines the funding source, maintenance, and replacement procedures for flag poles. Not electric poles, not telephone poles, not light poles, not fire poles, and not stripper poles. Just flag poles.
My Uncle Matt has been a plumber for about 55 years. Still works full time at age 76.
He claims that the hard vitamin pills pass straight through you and he has shown me pictures of the inside of septic tanks littered with thousands of vitamin pills laying in there which look like they came right out of the bottle.
My doctor buddy claims that the gel-caplets dissolve in the stomach within a matter of minutes and are the best. If you take a hard multi-vitamin, chew it up before swallowing or it will likely pass straight through the gut undissolved most of the time.
Liquid vitamin supplements are absolutely the best, but cost the most and generally taste horrible.
I have found that the employees at GNC are fairly knowledgeable since they attend some fairly extensive training and can explain why certain vitamins work better in a particular form.
Since I smoke and drink like hell, I do take a good amount of vitamins. Evidently, they do help since my doctor tells me that all of my levels (blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.) are perfect. Maybe 10 to 12 beers per night plus several bottles of red wine per week is a good recipe for health. It is working for me. Drink up.
Of course, I may already be dead and nobody bothered to tell me yet, and based on my diet, it would not be a surprise at all.
Your Uncle Matt story is precisely why I became an electrician instead of a plumber. It’s also why they charge an insane amount of money for service calls.
I don’t think I know a Matt who is any older than 47.
I’m sure a lot of it is placebo, but since I don’t exactly eat a balanced diet.. I feel like the vitamins are important. Also take vitamin D when there’s no sun. Fish oils are really helpful and have been studied to address depression. Then I toss in some zinc and shit because the name sounds cool.
They say genetics is an important factor with regard to one’s health and longevity.
You want to be healthy and long-lived? You gotta get you a bottle of genetics pills to take on a daily basis.
Or just be a little more careful when choosing parents.
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I have done a bit of research on supplements and found arguments for the following to make sense to me.
Garlic is good for you.
Fish oils are good for you.
Soluble fiber is good.
I decided to make sure to include all of these 3 in my diet many days of the week, and my cholesterol shot down like a rocket after about 3 weeks.
The only thing I ever did with my diet that actually made me feel noticably better was to cut my starches in half (bread, tortillas, potatoes, pasta…..)
I’m not sure how it works, but I seem to have alot more energy. It has something to do with evening out you insulin production, or something….
The only supplement I take is Potassium, if I find myself having muscle cramps and don’t have any bananas
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The best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth is 5-hydroxytryptophan, or 5-HTP. It cleared up my depression within 24 hours, and I had it bad. It’s still a struggle some times, but I have made a lot of other progress in my life, too. If a friend hadn’t recommended that to me I don’t know where I would be now.
I take large doses of vitamin D because my levels are really low. I take iron because I’m really anemic. I wouldn’t take either without a lot of pressure from my doctors. I also take a crapload of prescription drugs, because I’m basically a trainwreck.
Tacoma Giants
Location: Tacoma, WA
League: Pacific Coast League 1960-1965
Affiliation: San Francisco Giants 1960-1965
Ballpark: Cheney Stadium
The Tacoma Giants began play in the Pacific Coast League in 1960 when the San Francisco Giants moved their AAA farm club from Phoenix to Tacoma. They played their home games in newly completed Cheney Stadium. The Giants won the league title in 1961. After the 1965 season, the team switched affiliation to the Chicago Cubs and became known as the Tacoma Cubs.
[edit] Year-by-Year Record
Year Record Finish Manager
1960 81-73 2nd Red Davis
1961 97-57 1st Red Davis PCL Champs (no playoffs)
1962 81-73 2nd Red Davis
1963 79-79 3rd Andy Gilbert
1964 73-82 5th Charlie Fox
1965 75-72 5th Bill Werle
All well and good, but where are my damn box scores?
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Obviously the team took a shit after they released the fiery Red Davis as team manager….
Red was terrific. He also coached 3rd base (welcome to AAA). He needed very little reason to get into it with the umpiring crew. He always had great teams and they always hustled. If they didn’t they heard from Red, which nobody wanted.
Of course, it helped that he had some talent. At one time or another over the three years he had all three Alou brothers, Juan Marichal, Jose Pagon, Bob and Gaylord Perry, Dusty Rhodes, Jose Cardenal, Tom Haller, Manny Mota, and Willie McCovey (on rehab).
Grandstand admission was fifty cents and hot dogs were a quarter. I attended many games. Cheney Stadium is a great, intimate ballpark. Great memories there.
jtb
It is a great place! Sick’s Stadium is where the Seattle Rainiers played their games, plus the first and only year the Pilots played…before going to Milwaukke. Oh, for trivia…Cuck Connors played in the AAA for Los Angeles before his “Rifleman” days.
FWIW I started using Coconut oil in May. It was the defacto cooking “oil” prior to WWII. Its benefits are on the internets but for me, 2 ounces a day [I sub oils & butter w/coconut oil) really helps cognition. Go figure.
Does the coconut oil taste coconut-y? I’d want it to be pretty much flavorless for use as a general-purpose cooking oil. Baking is a whole ‘nother issue.
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I wonder if Jeff is still with us. It’s been more than a week now and nothing.
Yes, hopefully all is well. Man, I might have to start talking to my girlfriend in the morning.