I have used said supplements before. In fact, I have a close friend who is very enamored with supplements and has about 50 different pill bottles in his medicine drawer.

Out of curiosity, I once spent two weeks taking about 25 pills a day at his recommendation, and I'm afraid they did not do very much for me — at least that I could noticeably discern.

The only supplement/herbal medicine I've had success with is St. Johns Wort, but I've been strongly discouraged from using it by a psychiatrist who emphatically emphasized that an SSRI is a much safer and more controllable way to achieve the same effects if need be.

Magnesium deficiency is relatively common, though I wonder if that isn't more of a dietary issue.

There are absolutely scammers selling trash (there's someone selling stem cell injections as a cure) and fuck them. But don't ignore the very real problems that patients are experiencing, and that they're helped by simple remedies that aren't yet proven by science. Science will catch up, but people are suffering dying in the meanwhile.

Yep. From Wikipedia[1]:

> On average, lead levels in women taking St. John's wort are elevated about 20%.

It's also a relatively dirty drug, with effects on typical monoamine and GABA reuptake, MAO-A and MAO-B inhibition and is an inhibitor or inducer at pretty much every relevant enzyme that breaks down common medications.

I wouldn't want to become dependent on something like that because the withdrawal syndrome could be pretty nasty compared to something relatively more selective and understood like an SSRI.

Even switching from SJW to something else might be tricky because of the enzyme induction.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypericum_perforatum#Antidepre...

For illustration, just go on pubmed and search for "nigella sativa" (black seed oil).

I'm speaking from personal experience here. I suffer from a mild case of Erythromelalgia. During typing my fingers and hands would get red and feel warm. My case is most likely secondary caused by some nerve damage from a medication I took. There is a doctor who had severe case of it and has done some research on using magnesium/ala and it made his condition 95% better and he was able to return back to work. I have been following his protocol for about a month now, and it has made an incredible difference.

Anyone who is suffering from an annoying illness, that is not aggressive and require immediate treatment, should try research possible supplements and diets. Clean/healthy diet is always good.

This is factually wrong. Search for posts by dang frequently explaining traditions and norms in this forum, including the downvote very much being a standard way to express disagreement (although it is better to voice your disagreement in a comment if you think the conversation would be interesting).

[edit] seems I'm not the only one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19406299

Fwiw, I'm not really a fan of it (and don't do it) either. But it's a lot harder to upvote not-objectionable things (so many!) and not upvote things purely because you agree (tempting!) - so I suppose it makes sense. I've thought before about making a 'proof of concept' type commenting system where its designed around not/objectionable; the default as you scroll past things would be to up-vote them (automatically), only down-voting on intervention when 'this does not contribute to the discussion'. Meh, might be interesting, but I'm not interested enough that I've gotten around to it :).

If you're considering this (I wouldn't), be aware that milk of magnesia is a very effective laxative, and other magnesium salts like magnesium oxide etc work similarly.