Supplements for PD - what's worked for me... and what hasn't

First of all, many supplements can interact with drugs that you're taking.  Just because something is "natural" doesn't mean that it's safe.  Ask your pharmacist or Google it.  Discuss it with your doctor.

There are many supplements that I don't even consider because they interact with my thyroid medication.  Getting to the right dose of thyroid (actually hypothyroid) medication is already hard - don't need something else messing with it.   The thyroid is the master gland - you mess with that, then you mess with your entire metabolism.  'nuf said.

So what have I tried?

I take these:

Vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid.  I wrote about this here at length.  One thing to remember with Vitamin C, with doses of 500 mg and up, especially, Vitamin C can make it a bit harder for your blood to clot.  This might be an issue if you have surgery or an accident, and might influence how any blood thinning medications work - see what I mean about drug interactions?

Vitamin D2 - why not D3?  It gives me horrible cramps, so I take D2 which my body converts to D3.  Many people with PD have low Vitamin D, which we need for strong bones (kind of important if you fall a lot).  I have a prescription for this and as long as I take it once a week, my Vitamin D level is fine.

Vitamins B1 and B2 - these levels are low so I take supplements on my doctor's advice, but I learned the hard way to only take USP supplements because the B2 I thought I was taking had B6 in it (which I didn't need) and I ended up with scary symptoms from way too much B6 that fortunately reversed themselves when I stopped taking it.  You can about this adventure here.

Calcium - I have osteoporosis and osteopenia.  The research on calcium is mixed, but my endocrinologist likes it and between the exercise, the calcium, the Vitamin D, and the Actonel (similar to Fosamax), my bones are in better shape.  I take Tums, which are chewable and cheap.

I don't take these any more and here's why:

Glutathione - gave me unpleasant intestinal cramps and diarrhea.  No thanks.

NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) - made me feel that my balance was way off.  I think this was because it made my orthostatic hypotension worse (that's really low blood pressure when you stand).  My major problem is balance, so I sure don't want to make it worse.

CoQ10 - tried it for a month with absolutely no effect. The jury is out on this one, so it's not clear there's any real benefit, plus it's expensive (I was taking a dissolvable pill instead of the normal enormous pill), so no thanks.

Will I try other supplements?  Probably -

if I can find clinical research that demonstrates this supplement has been helpful and safe for pwp (not rats that have been given drugs so they act as if they have PD, and not cells in a petri dish),

and if it doesn't interact unpleasantly with any medications I'm already taking. 

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