I am reaching out to you wonderful people again - does anyone know what I can take to boost my immune system. I have seen products advertised that do this but the drugstore pharmacist told me that when you have afib you can't take anything for it. I have a sore throat and before I had afib I would take FX cold and immunity support but its advertised not to use if you take blood thinners. I do all the right things but still need some help for my immune system. I would appreciate any information. Thank you very much.
WHAT TO TAKE TO BOOST IMMUNE SYSTEM - Atrial Fibrillati...
WHAT TO TAKE TO BOOST IMMUNE SYSTEM
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kitttycat
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BobDVolunteer
COQ10 is good, Vit C. Vit D, Zinc and if you have started a cold then try some echinacea.
Hello Bob D thanks for the information. I am familiar with some of these, and will look into the COQ10. Unfortunately I cant take the echinacea which is good for the immune system because I take only blood thinners nothing else which is why the FX is advises against it - thanks for your help with this.
hI Bob I was looking back into my old posts because I remembered you said you took or know about COQ10. I went to a naturalpath to see if there was something that acted like a tranquilizer or sedative to slow my heart down (I get irregular heart beat for long hours and days and just take blood thinners, I feel terrible, cardiologist doesnt think it matters) and somehow she ended up givng me COQ10 SAP and said it would give me oxygen and make me feel better. There is something about reacting to blood thinners? Do you know how COQ10 works? what it would do to take on a regular basis?
What BobD said but I am very careful with echinacea as it does have some interactions with some drugs such as Amiodarone and shouldn’t be used all the time. As I have an overactive immune system I tend to go in the opposite direction and take immune suppressants. If you take VitD do take with VitK2.
thank you for this advice I take D and will look at K2. You do have to be careful with echinacea, I only have apixiban and it stimulates the heart - thanks again
You can buy these together VitD and K2. They often come as a spray. This form allows it to obsirb quickly into the body. Easily attainable on the Internet. Lots of us take it.
The food first approach is a good place to start. Citrus fruit (be careful with grapefruit if you’re on certain meds), green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, sweet peppers will all give you vitamin C. Sweet potatoes, carrots and any of the red/orange/yellow colours will give you beta carotene which is good for your skin and mucosal surfaces - important if you are suffering from a cold or throat infection. Berries are good for vitamin C and polyphenols. Frozen are good as the nutrients are preserved. For zinc you can add pumpkin seeds and hemp hearts. It’s also a good idea to make sure you eat enough protein as your body needs a little bit extra protein to make white blood cells and repair any tissue damage. Plenty of fluids too.
Personally I don’t take vitamin C supplements at any time because I have haemochromatosis and I don’t want to increase my iron absorption. But that’s specific to me. It’s otherwise harmless in most people. Some people take zinc supplements but it’s not a good idea to take zinc long term as it can interfere with copper absorption, but it’s safe in sensible doses for up to six weeks.
I don’t take any extra supplements or cold remedies or paracetamol or anything at all if I get a cold or minor respiratory infection. I don’t think they do anything and the cold goes away as expected in the same amount of time.
For longer term immunity, eat well, get enough sleep, reduce any stress if you can in whatever way works for you and exercise within sensible limits. The boring stuff works if you’re consistent.
Hello Autumn Leaves thanks for all this good advice. I keep a notebook and I have made a few notes on your suggestions to go forward. I used to have the problem solved before I got afib and had to take apixiban. thanks again
Hi
Thanx for your thanx.
I get your remarks as I follow you! Best mates.
Please don't get mixed up with GRATEFRUIT which
is a no no including products of it marmalade etc.
You are really prepared to change - diet etc and that
is a positive forward.
You will have a good season in front of you. I look for
reasons.
Last week Dr took away dose of Bisoprolol. That lessens
my pills!
Be good! Christmas is coming!! and New Year, JOY
thank you for this follow up, I have read notices about gratefruit and sense there are some issues if you take it with certain things. I have often seen this on bottles of medicines ie. do not take. Why did the doctor take away your Bisoprolol, So many people seem to take that- I am very happy for you especially if due to health improvement Thank you again for everything.
Hi Kittycat
It is because of some ingredient in gratefruit which stops our pills from working.
Some Christmas Cakes are made with orange juice or gratefruit juice,... beware. No butter!
cheri JOY
If you are in UK you are late going to bed..right?
Hi Joy to the World, this is so important to know, especially about finding gratefruit in foods. I had no knowledge about this. I wouldnt have even thought to look,, but now I will.. I am Canada, in Toronto. Thank you so much.
Hi Kitty
Saw Dr yesterday and I'm going to try 1/2 of 2.5 Bisoprolol.
I found without it although at 12.15pm I was low, at 5pm I was high
without it.
Dr says sometimes meds work better taking 2, 1 CCH and 1 BB.
cheri JOY
Hi
Forgot to mention that I've been to Toronto in 90s.
I greyhound bused to Toronto YHA.
I left my new tent there.
I went and stayed on a limestone farm and taxied to Nyiagra Falls before catching bus on to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Loved it but complained about the barred windows in my room and we were behind kitchen and communal room. Apparently YHA moved later.
cheri jOY
Hello Joy2the world, this is so nice to know, and especially since you seem to have enjoyed it so much. You would probaby find a lot of changes since your visit, but it still is a wonderful country. the best to you.
Thanks for sharing although I am not sure of the abreviations, due to my lack of knowledge, thanks again
Hi
Um.
H/R Heart Rate
BP Blood Pressure
AF Atrial Fibrillation
BB Beta Block
CCB Calcium Channel Blocker
Any others?
cheers JOY
thank you for this, as I am new to this, I made a note of these.
Hi the kittycat.
I have 2 heart pills for rapid persistent H/R day and AF.
In Dec I was introduced to CCB Diltiazem a calcium channel blocker.
It works amazingly by barring calcium to enter the heart.
On 180mg my heart dropped 105 H/R to 51.
We finished up with 120mg Diltiazem am and 2.5mg Bisoprolol pm.
Last week my Dr said BP too low. That's why no more Bisoprolol.
But I hav essential tremor which keeps down with a BB Beta Blocker.
Hoping this will sort out.
And the new Diltiazem with new manuf. ACCORD is not medsafe approved
but Pharmac NZ allow it under aCT 29 of Medicines Act. I should have signed
but haven't yet.
Chemist says NOT THEIR ROLE and CLINIC has not back to me. IT down.
All interesting eh.
Cheri JOY
Hello Joy2the world yes this is all very interesting. Thank you for sharing this with me.
Hello Autumn Leaves thanks for your good advice, I have taken a note of this. May be boring but works, so it means its so important. thank you again for getting back to me. Appreciate it so much.
Hi
Just take a healthy diet
Fresh salmon
McCoys dark grape juice
Smoothie blueberries
Kumara
little greens (as on anti-co.agulant)
Organic whole Oats. (Harraways)
Yoghurt
Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Avocados
There's lotsof good healthy things
Keep weight healthy. ( a bit over OK)
Oestrogen for ladies post
etc
I feel healthy apart from the stroke effects, taking B12 Solgar
gold top, taking Thyroxin (synthroid) as ca thyroidectomy, meds for control of
AF, Vit A, C and sit early sun natural.
cheers JOY 73. (NZ)
Joy to the World, thanks for sharing all of this, its all good sense isnt it and I will be following this. I had not thought of the grape juice although I know grapes are very good for you and will be getting some. thanks for everything..
Sambucol which is black elderberry.
Hi, I take a tsp of a high quality raw Yemeni Sidr honey in warm water every morning when I wake up. I noticed a huge difference in my natural immunity when I started last winter and have continued to do so.
Hi Kitticat
I take Beta Glucans recommended by a natural nutritionalist and I buy them from a good local health food shop, not HB. It all depends on the drugs you are taking, I take Bisoprolol, Rivaroxiban,Ramipril and Spironolactone (the bog standard I believe). I checked for contraindications with the clinical pharmacist at our surgery and none were found. I haven’t had any problems with them but check it out with a pharmacist regarding your own prescribed drugs.
I usually start taking them around this time of year until March.
Hope this is helpful.
Hello Tangalle, thank you for getting back to me. I am going to look into Beta Glucans. The only thing I wonder is if they have anti inflammatory properties. I cant take pharmaceutical products for inflammation and I wonder if this is considered the same. I will definitely check out Beta Glucans thanks again.
I might be wrong, but I think, scientifically speaking, that the immune system cannot be "boosted" if it is "weakened" only owing to age. Nor is it genuinely likely to be "weak" in the sense of able to be altered by any medical means. A truly weakened immune system would first show a rise in issues and illnesses associated with those organisms that normally live out their lives alongside us, inside our own bodies, including yeasts such as candida.
That said, from reading the many posts that mention it, the one supplement that seems likely to make us feel a bit better is vitamin D. It did nothing for me and might even have given me a kidney stone, but it is very popular and worth trying, especially in the winter months. Better still, in my view, is to eat a well-balanced diet with fewer processed foods and lots of vegetables, nuts, salads and fruit. Oh, and a small bar of chocolate each night before bed with a cup of Horlicks and a good book!
Steve
You are absolutely correct. The immune system cannot be “boosted”. Nor would you want it to be, as you don’t want an upregulated, overactive immune system resulting in an autoimmune disorder, would you?. I’m also very wary of many of the “immune boosting” claims around supplements and magical powders. I always maintain that the doses that are found in many supplements don’t occur naturally in food sources and they can throw the body’s natural equilibrium out of balance.
I once saw a TV programme where several people were given an “antioxidant” supplement powder but when the measurements of the various substances were measured in the blood over 24 hours, the body eliminated them very quickly to the extent that the antioxidant levels in the bloodstream went down significantly and shortly after consumption whereas the control group maintained very constant levels into the following day just having their usual five-a-day. The antioxidant supplement group eventually reverted to normal but the experiment showed how the body responds to these large intakes of unnatural doses, which are pretty standard for an off-the-shelf product. The point was that the body maintains its own homeostasis regardless of what you dose yourself up with. So you have to ask just how much good do these supplements do? I’d far rather spend that fiver or tenner or twenty quid note on fresh wholesome food. Also, supplements usually contain just one extracted compound out of many hundreds or thousands that may be found in a food source. This is also borne out by the research, for example lycopene supplements failing to show any health benefits versus the health benefits associated with consuming tomatoes.
Vitamin D is one supplement I take, for various reasons. It plays a role in immunity but it’s not some sort of all-powerful talisman. Immunosenescence is a reality as we get older, as we’ve witnessed in the pandemic era. It’s a reality I’m having to keep in mind in my own healthcare decisions now although how much of it is under our control is difficult to know for sure. I also think like you do that we need to pay attention to the rest of our lives and we’ve got to enjoy it too.
I so enjoy reading your posts. Thank you. I recall reading once, although I can find no current reference, that the high levels of vitamin E in our bodies brought about by its addition as a preservative and antioxidant in so many foods, causes corpses to decompose much later than was previously the case. Now, if that is true, well...
The natural metabolic process of homeostasis that you mention is disregarded so often these days. This process is central to health, and such things as water levels are very closely controlled by it, with any deficiency made good by the stored water of the bowel and splanchnic bed. Of course we need water, but few healthy people would become dehydrated and the amount some drink would risk dilution of electrolyte and B vitamin levels in the body.
Magnesium, too, is a panacea according to many people and websites. Really? I can find no solid evidence that in oral dosage it has any worthwhile effect on the heart. But, it is safe, and for those it helps, whatever the mechanism of action might be, well, I suppose it is worth taking.
But, on some forums, if I mention the scientific method, I can be made to feel in a minority and often just bite my lip! 
Steve
Oh, I’ve reduced my serum sodium levels by drinking too much water before my venesections. They advise you to drink extra fluids beforehand but it’s surprisingly easy to overdo it.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the Skeptical Cardiologist website but he isn’t an advocate of magnesium though he does suggest keeping your potassium levels above 4.0. I’m typically around 3.8-3.9 so maybe I need to up my game a bit, but on the other hand, our bodies control our electrolytes within a fairly small range so would an extra banana really make that much difference? Besides, it’s not as if we can have these blood tests done every day so how would we know? I did have a magnesium test a few months ago and I was on the upper range of normal without supplements. If I do take Mg supplements it does nothing for my ectopics. So I think it’s probably a fair assumption to say my ectopics aren’t caused by lack of Mg. I’ve even tried electrolyte sachets when they’ve been particularly bad but they didn’t help.
There is an oncologist called Prof Rob Thomas and he’s a great believer in lifestyle interventions, but at the same time he knows enough to say that it doesn’t help everyone, but interestingly some people who don’t respond to chemo and other medical interventions do respond to lifestyle, and vice versa. In his book he discusses vitamins and supplements and very interestingly, some which have benefits in some conditions actually increase the risk of other conditions. For example, a Norwegian study of people given vitamin B supplements after a heart attack reported a higher increase of some cancers. Another study which showed lower incidence of cancer in men with adequate folate in their diet, men who took supplements were more than twice as likely to develop prostate cancer compared to men who took a placebo. So, as you can see, there’s a lot of nuance when it comes to supplements versus dietary intake. Prof Thomas has made a few appearances on various podcasts and he’s definitely worth a listen, especially on Dr Rupy’s podcast, but he’s a working oncologist not a celebrity doctor so he’s not got much of an online presence.
So, I tend towards the food first approach. I’m not anti supplements on principle or anything like that because they do have their place, but we should all realise that these are synthetic compounds made in a factory and sometimes in very high doses that we’d never encounter in nature There’s nothing “natural” about them. I’d like to say, just eat food but there’s a whole universe of fads and fashions and don’t eat this/only eat that and I fear that some people have lost their way with that too. But that’s another quagmire for another day….
You speak with such a deal of common sense. I read from someone the other day who said that personal experience was far more important than science. Well, I think I’d put the word “psychology” in place of “experience”. Actually I wish I were a bit more open to suggestion at times - a bit of hypnosis might help my sleep problems!
I’ve read the Skeptical Cardiologist and enjoy much of what he says. His work with Kardia is really useful. My own doctor would get along well with him.
Take care over potassium supplementation as the kidneys aren’t always too keen on it I gather.
Steve
Thank you 😊
No, no! I wouldn’t dare supplement with potassium. I’d just eat a bit more foods with potassium but I think it may well be futile as our bodies keep the balance of electrolytes in check and there’s probably very little influence we can have by eating an orange.
I think there is something in listening to our bodies and with the eating habits people can adopt, even simple hunger and fullness signals can become difficult to detect and a lot conditions can be ‘silent’ so personal experience might not actually be all that reliable. Usually when some people adopt a new regime they have an initial boost, which may be for any number of reasons, but often it doesn’t last until beyond the novelty period. There’s also the ‘nocebo’ effect where people believe they’ve taken something they believe will produce negative symptoms when they haven’t taken the offending substance or ingredient, but they develop the symptoms because they believe that what the THINK they’ve taken is bad for them. Some gluten studies have demonstrated the nocebo effect. So…. how reliable are our perceptions?
The thing is, we all know what is and isn’t good for us, more or less The science actually supports all the boring stuff like eat your greens and eat a rainbow, drink enough water, go for a walk, etc. But it can’t really be packaged and sold to people as they latest fad, and most people don’t really take heed of the ‘boring’ advice anyway. Think many people get confused and I’m really not surprised with all the noise out there, the fads, the books, the influencers, the superfoods, the supplements etc.
It was, again, good to read that. Thank you. I spent many years in the pharmaceutical industry so know well the effect of psychology but trying to get people to accept that isn't worthwhile as it raises hackles like little else. Double blind placebo-controlled studies are so very revealing, where the placebo arm so often creates more side effects than the active arm!
That said - side effects do happen of course and those from the covid vaccine, although rare indeed, are sufficient to bring fear to anyone. My friend’s daughter is in hospital now with poor kidney function and it’s looking as if her covid attack last March has colluded with her asthma and recent mRNA shot to set up an autoimmune response that is going to be tough for her to deal with. She is also very overweight which with her asthma seems to have primed her immune system into hyperactivity. At a much lesser level, my wife is nursing a painful shoulder, with mine being similar but much less affected, and it looks as if a poor injection technique for our jabs was responsible. We will both recover, of course, but we could do without it.
Steve
My first Covid jab gave me arm trouble for a good couple of weeks. I thought it was SIRVA at the time but looking back I don’t think it was. It was a bit strange in that the arm pain settled down after about a week… and then it came back! And after several days it suddenly went. Gone completely. I’m definitely a sore armer with all the vaccines. My husband hasn’t had even a hint of a sore arm every time. Your friend’s daughter is in a bad way. That’s worrying. I think even for the vaccines we ought to be as well as we can at the time because they can provoke quite an inflammatory/immune response. I cancelled my flu jab last week because I had a sore throat. I may well have been fine but I decided to err on the side of caution.
You did the right thing. I suspect the common risks from covid itself far outweigh the rare risks from the vaccine but in her case, she hasn’t been fully well since covid and should have thought twice.
Steve
Thanks Steve, I think the well balanced eating regime is the answer and I have always tried to do this, however I have certainly been picking up a lot of good helpful information from all. When I took Fx it had ginseng and for some reason if you have a cold or sore throat it helps eliminate it, so I was able to use this. I think stress can take its toll also. thanks again.
Hi KC. Your post mentioning ginseng reminded when I took that once. I don't know what happened but it made me feel really weird, sort of massively over-active. I never dared go near it again!
Steve
Hi Kittycat, I was told pretty much the same as I have afib too. You have to be careful with all supplements when on meds for Afib. I am told to take vitamin d though and seem to be ok
My cardiologist told me he had heart rhythm symptoms after taking a supplement. So it goes to show that even these guys fall for the hype and find out the hard way that it’s not in their best interests.
Thanks Karendeena, I take some supplements, but the doctor has a list and they are all okay. I would never take anything considered different. Vitamin D seems to be one of the best doesnt it that most people take. thanks again for sharing this..
My Neurologist recommend dedicated Lysine otc to keep the Shingles virus at bay. I take the Soloray brand and haven't had a cold in almost 6 years. Not even a little sore throat or any cold symptoms. I swear by it and also no recurrence of shingles either. I get it on Amazon. It's an amino acid. Hope this helps. Sarah from San Diego.🤞
I watched a video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta of York Cardiology in which he suggests taking a daily supplement of 1,000 mg of Vit C to help with afib sufferers like us.
I got a bottle of time release Vit C tablets and voila, ever since I started taking it my episodes seem to be fewer and further between. Perhaps you could give this a try and see if it works for you. Good luck and take care
Hello Greenhilldrive, thanks for this, up until a few years ago I used to take,for many years 3000 a day and nothing ever happened to me. I had forgotten this. Thank you for reminding me about this and for your wishes. I appreciate this.
take oil of oregano
take oil of oregano the liquid will stop any virus. I put one drop of oil of oregano and one drop of water on my tongue and it kills all the bad bacteria
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