Vinpocetine

Vicki...Please keep up the great work!! As I have told you before, you are a great asset to all of us and I am personally grateful to have you on these boards. You never miss a beat and I have never seen a person more committed to the fine details. Please keep posting anything you think may be of benefit to any of us and don't let any negatives get you down.

 

If it was either irresponsible or ignorant for me to fail to list any of the putative side effects of vinpocetine (other than the tachycardia side effect I do mention in the regimen PDF), is it not even more negligent and/or irresponsible for the manufacturers of vinpocetine to fail to list these side effects and drug complications on their products? I can get away with this because I'm just some anonymous bloke off the street. And I don't sell vinpocetine at all, just describe it (and tell users to check with their doctors before using it).

But why aren't the manufacturers of vinpocetine at risk for failing to tell all that Vicki has about the hazards of the substance?

Could it be that the listed hazards are without merit? Could the liability lawyers for the VMS manufacturers have parsed this all out and found the precautions to be imagined, without clinical merit? How can they sell a product that has so many un-labeled health hazards?

Vicki, perhaps you should convey your helpful information to the manufacturers of vinpocetine, so they can warn users of their products on the label. Just the smallest fraction of vinpocetine is used for Meniere's therapy. Many more others are at risk, until they learn of the hazards of vinpocetine usage.

--John of Ohio

 

Possibly because VMS are non-regulated. We've all read articles on how a lot of these VMS don't even contain the exact amount of the substance they are supposed to contain. Moreover, depending on where they are manufactured, you could be ingesting a lot of icky stuff along with your Ca, Mg, K, etc.

I think you really need to understand, JOH, that these are not personal attacks toward you. Your level of defensiveness is uncalled for. The truth is that there are people who need to know that VMS are not innocuous substances. If they were, they would not heal, right? So we need to know the interactions with pharmaceutical drugs just as we need to know the interactions with food or drink.

Please don't be opposed to that. It's just common sense to be informed about a product (any product) so we don't fall victim to something entirely preventable.

Nobody is attacking YOU. You simply put together a list of products that you believe (and your data collection shows) helps keep symptoms under control. However, we CAN and NEED TO talk about these products so please let us.

Those who want to get on your program will do so regardless and those who don't won't. You can't come here and control what people post on VMS. We're allowed to discuss our opinions and post what we think might be beneficial for the Meniere's population on this forum.

You are correct when you say that only a very small fraction of Vinpocetine is used on your regimen so it can't really cause any of the harm it did to rats in experiments who were given much more. But your regimen doesn't just include Vinpocetine. It includes a multitude of VMS in varying quantities. Sometimes those combinations don't always do some people good nor should they be mixed with any mandatory pharmaceutical drug an individual may be taking for conditions not related to MM.

I believe that is what Vicki's intention is.

 

No one has yet answered the question I posed: Why aren't the putative hazards listed on product labels? This has nothing to do with me whatsoever.

If the hazards are as real as Vicki contends, the manufacturers and vendors of vinpocetine are at great legal risk. They are selling a product that can bring harm and aren't warning purchasers of these harms. If the harms are already listed and clinically described in the medical literature (which they aren't --- Vicki has cited no published study of vinpocetine hazards, mere generic statements without attribution; while I posted statements by vinpocetine researchers and articles that the substance is safe), why aren't they on vinpocetine labels? That's the cogent question, nothing else.

This has nothing to do with John of Ohio or his regimen. It has to do with the safe use of vinpocetine.

Let me repeat the unanswered question. If they are documented to be real, why aren't any of the hazards of vinpocetine usage on the label? Their absence implies the hazards are not real.

--John of Ohio

 

It's not a regulated product. They don't have to list any contraindications.

 

Well, thanks. That settles it. NEVER take any over the counter vitamin, supplement, or mineral, as one simply can't know the hazards of such, unlike all the safe prescription stuff.

Don't take the John of Ohio Meniere's Treatment Regimen. It has ONLY unregulated vitamins, minerals, and supplements. If you've got Meniere's symptoms, better stick only with what a doctor can prescribe or perform. Much safer, of course. All will be well.

--John of Ohio

 

You're being childish now. Nobody said NOT to take any supplements. However, if one has a medical condition or is on prescription drugs it is wise to investigate before taking any supplement.

I will use myself as an example. I have a low resting heart rate. It's about 42 bpm. When I take Magnesium, a supplement that is really very good for most people and a necessary one, my HR drops even more to the point where it is dangerously low.

Why? Because Mg is a muscle relaxant and the heart is a muscle. MY heart does not need that effect of Mg. I have no heart problems but I had to see a cardiologist because I could not understand what was happening to me. After loads of blood work, unnecessary money spent on an echo and a nuclear stress test, we finally determined it was the darn Magnesium supplement (conservative dose of 400mg daily) that was causing this drop.

I cannot take Mg on a regular basis. I still take it a couple of times a week but cannot let it accumulate too much or I drop. Does the label on any Mg bottle say this? No. Do doctors warn patients about this? No. I found out the hard way.

Just like me, there could be people who react to Vinpocetine, Calcium, Vitamin C, etc. in different ways based on their specific health condition. So why the heck must Vicki be crapped on, by you, for making us aware of the potential dangers of VMS?!

To then use the dangers of prescription drug as your only defense is silly. We all know those come with their own set of dangers, but, at least the side effects and hazards are documented and known by most physicians, so more caution is exercised when prescribing and using them.

It's not a perfect system but one industry is regulated and the other is not so there is a little more caution involved.

 

My reply was to JOH not nwspin.

 

It has been portrayed that a) vinpocetine has unknown and un-labled health hazards, and b) I was remiss in failing to warn vinpocetine users in my regimen. In fact, my regimen specifically tells potential users to confer first with their physicians, who would know what regimen users would also be taking and would know of potential substance conflicts. Wasn't that sufficient or appropropiate? Instead, should they have waited for postings by Vicki?

--John of Ohio