Allison, I don't know if your doctor mentioned it, but make sure you get the slow or extended release niacin. My doctor told me this, and I remembered it for my first bottle, but for my refill, I accidentally bought the wrong one, I had a histamine reaction that nearly scared the beejeebees (whatever they are) out of me. I got very hot, turned bright red, and started itching everywhere. I popped 3 benedryl and had hubby rush me to the emergency room thinking I was having a severe allergic reaction.

Colleen, yes he did say to get the slow niacin. I'm not sure if I did, though--I'll have to look. He did say that if was having trouble with the "flashes" you get with niacin, that I can take a baby aspirin 1 hour beforehand and it helps with the hotness.

Ha! Wait til you're a little older and you'll get hot flashes with no added meds. :rofl: They are so not fun. I try to think of them as my own little private Hawaiian vacation.

Oh, Pat, I'm dangerously close to getting them naturally! :rofl:

If hot flashes are anything like the histamine reaction from the niacin, I'm gonna be begging for the hormone replacement. Calling it "flushing" made it seem so benign, like my cheeks might get a little pink and the room might feel a little warm -- I felt like my skin was on fire and crawling with biting ants! I was sure I was going into anaphylactic shock. During the ride to the ER, I was waiting for my throat to start closing up. I've never been in anaphylaxis, but I've seen it happen to other people a couple times, and it's very scary to see. I had a friend in junior high who took one bite of a cookie that had ground nuts in it (so it looked like it was nut free), and within 5 minutes he was bright red, he had to be guided to the nurse's office because his face was so swollen he couldn't breathe and his eyes were swollen shut.

I've always been paranoid of a severe allergic reaction, because I had an allergic reaction to a bee sting when I was a kid. The doctor told us it was very possible that if I were stung again I could have a worse reaction. He told us what to watch out for, but decided against prescribing an epipen unless that happened. So all of my life I've been terrified of bees, not knowing whether I was severely allergic or just mildly allergic, and knowing I would have to be stung to find out (and luckily never have been).

Well, I don't get the biting ants sensation. Just very hot and often I break out in sweat everywhere. My immediate reaction is to peel off my clothes and run naked outdoors - but most of the time I restrain myself. :rofl: I do remove sweaters/jackets whatever. It's the one time I love winter - I can just stand in an open doorway and get relief. :)

I was told the same thing as a child - carried an epipen for a long time, then didn't. I've been stung several times as an adult and not had a violent reaction. Maybe Alaska wasps and bees are milder than those in Massachusetts where I grew up? :)

I'm afraid that when I do get hot flashes I won't have anywhere to go to get cooled off. Can you imagine a hot flash when it's already 110 degrees outside! Oh, my, I'm sure I'll be asking for hormones as well.

I checked my bottle of niacin, although it doesn't state slow niacin, it does specifically state that it is made to be released in a constant manner to avoid flushing.

Ah, doctors and pills... a very interesting discussion indeed!

I do believe doctors are SO hasty to prescribe pills, BUT people are also hasty to GO on pills. It seems that people believe these days that there is (or should be) a pill to fix anything.

For example:
There was this really bad cold going around work. The symptoms were sneezing/runny/stuffy nose, coughing, sore throat, sweating, and overall weakness. A lot of my co-workers ran to the cold medications (which often don't really make the cold go away anyway, they just temporarily relieve the symptoms). I just made sure I was getting enough vitamin C, made sure I didn't eat/drink or anything to irritate my throat, drank plenty of green tea with little bits of honey, made sure I got adequate rest, and was done with it in three days. Everyone else took a week or more to recover... and they all relied on the cold medications.

Natural remedies and common sense can go a long way sometimes, but a lot of people think medications and/or pills will help so much more.

As for doctors loving to prescribe pills, I have an example for that, too:
My current doctor believes all type 1 diabetics should be on blood pressure medications and maybe cholesterol ones, too. The blood pressure meds are supposed to provide better cardiovascular health and the cholesterol ones are supposed to cause better kidney function.

He thought about putting me on blood pressure meds for preventative purposes, but I vehemently refused. My blood pressure while calm is never over 110/80 (with a general resting heart rate of 60 or so) and I am pretty sure blood pressure meds would cause my blood pressure to be unnaturally low and in turn would give me unnecessarily adverse side effects.

I also have a thing against pills (unless they are absolutely necessary for survival, function, or comfort, of course) because people tend to develop tolerances and dependencies to them. I don't want to develop a tolerance or dependency to any type of chemical provided in a pill unless my body is unable to produce it naturally.

From my experiences of extensive dealings with doctors and other people in the medical profession, I can tell them just as much about my body as they can (sometimes more) and I am right more often than they are. I could list several examples of how doctors have tested me for illnesses and pseudo diagnosed me just to have the tests show them what I told them all along. ;)

shane~while discussing my recent doctor appointment with my sister, the one and only thing she asked me was "why isn't he suggesting a cholesterol lowering prescription?" She had the same test as I did a year ago (we're going to compare numbers tomorrow) and she is on vytorin to lower her cholesterol. She's also diabetic (and on blood pressure meds, but she does have HBP). But I have to agree that there are some people who just naturally go for the meds while the rest of us look for more holistic approaches. I kind of liked it when my doctor said that he wasn't crazy about statin drugs for cholesterol.

Can I chime in on this discussion? :) After my recent experience with doctors, the best advice I can give is to "TRUST YOUR GUT". If you feel like your doctor isn't listening or giving you proper care, please find someone else - I don't care how long you've been going there.

Long story short, I recently had my thyroid removed due to cancer because I didn't take "no" for an answer. I KNEW there was more wrong with me that just "oh, you've gained weight because you need to eat better and work out more". Even though thyroid disease runs in my family, that was doctor's reason for everything. I'd finally had enough, picked a new doctor straight out of the phone book (lol) and FINALLY, she listened and tested my thyroid - and I thank God that she did because if not, I would be sitting here with cancer and not even aware.

Even though none of us are doctors, we know our body better than anyone else.