Sometimes, They Tell Us They're Out To Get Us

Adverse reactions have become notorious with the covid vax. But every medicine has risks.

Everyone is a little different. Most people enjoy peanuts, but some people have serious reactions. I have a strong reaction to black pepper, boosting my blood pressure 40 points. My doctors are mystified. It’s important to think about how you feel after everything you ingest — food, drink, and meds. It’s often complicated, and often subtle.

Watch your condition closely. Blood pressure, for example, is silent in most people. I’ve been abused by cardiologists long enough that I check mine fairly often. Then, when you see a reaction, the cause isn’t always clear. We don’t usually eat pepper by itself. It took some detective work (by me, not my mystified doctors — they recommended more pills) to identify that culprit.

I first encountered the risks, and mysteries, of meds when my dad became ill. He was hospitalized for several days with a bevy of mystified doctors poking and prodding. Then one clever doc looked at his meds, previously presctibed by his doctor, and which the hospital had been feeding him during his visit. He discovered one of them is known to react with another. They cleaned up his prescriptions and he walked out the next day.

I have resolved most of my heart troubles since I changed to a low carb diet, as described by Saladino in Carnivore Code, and discussed in other notes here. But my high fat diet raised my LDL to levels that make doctors automatically pull out the prescription pad. I declined, taking Saladino’s analysis that high LDL with high HDL does not result in heart disease. My cardiologist cooperated, but my inflammation markers showed possible inflammation, indicating possible artery plaques forming. I have the ApoE4 mutation that increases risk of Alzheimer’s, which is my highest priority to avoid, and statins increase that risk, so I declined statins.

There is a patented medicine called PCSK9 inhibitor which lowers LDL in the liver so isn’t believed to affect the brain, so I let her talk me into Repatha three years ago. I took it four months, with a hydrophilic statin, Crestor, which seems to avoid the brain. But I stopped both because my cholesterol dropped very low. Our brains use more cholesterol for maintenance than other organ, so I decided against both Crestor and Repatha. Three years later my inflammation is creeping up, so I agreed to try Repatha once more.

At the same time, my cardiologist got promoted, so I started working with a new one. She wanted a blood count in addition to my routine Boston Heart comprehensive test. Several events happened to motivate this note, First, I got a respiratory virus a week after my fifth dose of Repatha. That’s unusual, because I never get flu or colds, which Saladino shows is a protective function of LDL. This test showed my LDL was down a lot, as promised by Abbvie, and my lymphocytes had crashed. That’s the white blood cells that fight infections.

That triggered a memory that I had covid three years ago. I checked my medical diary and discovered it happened a week after my fourth and final dose of Repatha. So I pulled up the prescribing info for Repatha and found a short list of KNOWN adverse reactions, including flu and upper respiratory infections. So I texted my analysis to the doctor before my scheduled visit. When we met, she admitted she was unaware of this effect and had consulted a pharmacist, who confirmed it.

No more Repatha for me.

So, my doctor, a highly trained expert at the best university hospital in the area, was unaware she prescribed an attack on my immune system in the middle of a raging pandemic. I figured it out myself and convinced my doctor to correct it.

That sort of information is easily available for every medicine except the covid vax, which includes a blank sheet with the vax. We should (1) read the documents for every prescription we take, (2) avoid meds that don’t provide it, and (3) be a good patient and monitor our reactions carefully, working with our doctors if it isn't working right.

Good medical care is a team effort. We’re the boss of our team.