Are your supplements conflicting with your prescriptions?

Here’s a scary thought:  you’re taking your daily vitamins or supplements thinking you’re being healthy along with your prescription drugs, then WHAM suddenly you’re in the hospital wondering what in the world happened.  What leads to such a strange thought?  Oh wandering about a health site[1] usually does the trick. That being said, I stumbled upon a cautionary tale of sorts about combining a calcium supplement with blood pressure medications and immediately thought of my grandparents with their cabinet shelf of small plastic bottles.  How many prescriptions do they take alongside their vitamins helping to keep their bodies strong have the potential of harming them? After shaking off the horror film flashback I had, think “The Blob,” I quickly started looking up the syndrome associated with calcium supplements and blood pressure meds (both of which my grandparents take). Apparently calcium (pill or liquid form) plus blood pressure meds equals a BIG NO-NO!  Something called milk-alkali syndrome, a particularly nasty bit of evil, can occur if you combine blood pressure drugs such as, chlorothiazide with those calcium pills you ingest each morning, noon, and night.   Also, if calcium channel blockers happen to be a part of your medical treatment for blood pressure, try to avoid having calcium given to you intravenously.  The calcium actually decreases the effects of the calcium channel blockers, that is bad…very bad.  However (this is good news), the standard form of calcium supplements does not affect calcium channel blockers, so you’re good there just um…don’t mix those supplements with the Thiazide diuretics and you’ll stay your normal hydrated self rather than a chalky mess.

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[1] Information provided by: MSN Health & Fitness

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