What pills have you quit taking, looking for alternatives?

[Britesea]

Right now I'm working with my doctor to get off the statin drugs. If my cholesterol levels are in the normal range on my next blood tests, she agreed to my trying no statins for 6 months. If the cholesterol levels are still normal at 6 months, then I am off of them for good! After that, we will work on the blood pressure. That will require careful monitoring because I am on meds for that and it's dangerous to go off of them cold turkey. We will have to work on a way to ease into the hawthorn supplement. The only reason she's willing to consider it is that I'm on a very low dose, so it won't be as big a change.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hope you can get off of those statins....

 

[wyoDreamer]

Yeh, I understand about the medications. I am trying the Hawthorne so I don't end up with the Drugs. My hope is that losing the weight will also help with the high blood pressure.
So far so good, I was never very good with taking pills so the tincture is working well for me as far as taking it.

I almost purchased a Hawthorne seedling a couple of days ago to plant in our fencerow. But they only had one and I would want at least two for fruit production. I need to research a little bit and make sure that the Hawthorne I buy is the right species of tree, so many plants have the same common name for different plants depending on region.

 

[Britesea]

That's true- the ones that are being investigated specifically for their cardiac effect are Crataegus monogyna and Crataegus laevigata I believe. C monogyna is the common hedgerow hawthorn- when the shoots were interwoven, they grew into an impenetrable thorny barrier (DH tells me it even stopped tanks in WWII!)- that's the one I need; my new dog likes to wander.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Thanks for the information.
Crataegus oxyacantha L. is the one that I have found listed, but I need to do some more research. It sounds like most species in the family are effective. More Research needed by me.

 

[Britesea]

Most of them are used medicinally, but not all of them have a cardio effect. I also love the fact that pollinators of all types adore Hawthorn. We used to have an old (probably 50 years) tree in the side yard of our house in CA; I think it was C monogyna. Every spring, for two weeks when it bloomed, you could hear the buzzing clear out in the street! It was kind of spooky, but those bees were so busy that I could walk around under the tree and they totally ignored me. Then in the winter, the cedar waxwings would arrive in droves, wipe out the berries on the tree over a couple of days, and disappear again. We never saw them any other time or place.

 

[wyoDreamer]

The Hawthorn tincture seems to be doing its thing. My blood pressure is down to the fair range, so hopefully with weightloss and eating right it will remain acceptable.
I am not hoping to get it down to perfect levels. Even when I was in my early 20's, active and fit, my blood pressure was on the high end of what is considered normal.

 

[Britesea]

Then that is probably what your body wants and needs. I'm really getting tired of doctors trying to turn us all into cookie cutter patients for their own convenience.

 

[ephemeralcas]

I am only 23 but had a gout flare up recently (yes super fricking rare for a young woman to get gout but my dad does have it really bad) but anyway they gave me these inflammatory meds - indomethacin i think. they made me hella nauceous so I was not loving them. my friend gave me a big batch of nettle tea because of it's inflammatory benefits and it worked like a charm!

 

[epoch]

I've had muscle pain and excruciating headaches for years. I used to take a LOT of NSAIDS. At some point I found out about magnesium oil for muscle pain and when I started applying it to affected muscles it improved headaches enough to reduce reliance on NSAIDS and when I still needed NSAIDS a half dose became effective. I then found out I have pyroluria and with taking zinc and b6 have found my need for any type of pain medication further reduced.