Hello Moon(s): What your nails can tell you about B vitamins (and Celiac)

Some decades ago I read a book about a very proper woman, who maintained that each nail on a well-groomed hand should have a perfect half moon at the base. Not to have them indicated you were some sort of cultural slacker.

I thought ‘is this some crazy habit like having your purse match your shoes?’– or perhaps a genetic anomaly, like twinsets, duck boots, pearls and Lilly Pulitzer?

But then I thought I’d try to achieve those half moons. Continue reading Hello Moon(s): What your nails can tell you about B vitamins (and Celiac)

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Med-making day

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Today, I made a custom mix of supplements, some Ceylon cinnamon capsules, and the usual biotin test tubes. Here’s a slideshow about making capsules. I get my supplies at bulksupplements.com; I get the cinnamon from Penzey’s.

Yes, my medicine tray is a masala dhaba, a traditional stainless-steel Indian spice tray with seven cups and a lid. (Pfft to those “day-of-the-week” ones from the drugstore.)

A new look for biotin, or, “Breaking Even”

 

OK, folks. I’ve got the white powder. I’ve got the lab equipment. I’ve got the “I’m pissed off and I’m not going to take it anymore” attitude.

I got my OWN sack of pure pharmaceutical-grade biotin, and the tools to use it.

So, no longer stuck in this situation. Continue reading A new look for biotin, or, “Breaking Even”

Compounded medicine and insurance

Oh, crap. There’s a quiz today. Answer key below.

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Pharmacy benefits managers. Commonly called PBMs.

They sound like such nice people, right? They manage your benefits to shepherd you to optimal health. They do their very best to save you money and improve the quality of your care. Through drugs.

No matter how effed-up your condition. Or despite what your OWN doctor (who by the way, spent about a decade in med school) thinks you need to help you. Continue reading Compounded medicine and insurance

Biotin, MS, and the “H” factor

blurry picture of a woman with long hair

Biotin, or vitamin B7, is also known as vitamin H, because of its benefits to skin and hair (in German, Haar (hair) and Haut (skin)–biotin was discovered by a German researcher). It is often included in beauty products intended for hair, skin and nails.

A much talked-about recent study, published in early 2015 by a group of French researchers, seems to show that there is some relationship between very high doses of biotin and relief from symptoms among patients with Primary and Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Continue reading Biotin, MS, and the “H” factor