Strange L-Arginine Experience
First I should say that I’m not in any way claiming that my taking L-Arginine directly caused the way I felt. There are too many variables, and as a scientifically inclined person I could never conclude a definitive relationship without eliminating all other variables that could affect me.
Anyways, I started taking L-Arginine last week at 1.5-2 grams per day. It is the GNC brand 500mg capsules. I would take 2 caps in the morning on an empty stomach and another 2 later on in the day when I hadn’t eaten in a while. During this time I was also taking GNC Mega Men’s Multi-vitamins, Pygeum, and Creatine. Well the first 2 days nothing happened, but on the third day I began to have a strange feeling in my throat. It wasn’t exactly a sore throat but felt more like a sore throat caused by thirstiness. I was already drinking a lot of water due to the creatine, around 1-2 gallons a day but I started to drink more. As the days went on this feeling persisted and even got a little worse. At about the 6-7th day I decided that I didn’t want to feel like crap all the time, like I was sick, and decided to stop taking it. The feeling in my throat stayed for about 2 more days and then slowly faded away.
I have to say that I have always had problems with my tonsils. Ever since I was a kid I have had problems with them, but I have a pretty good immune system. I rarely get sick anymore, but if I ever do its usually my throat. The strange thing is that as the sore throat went away I began to develop a cough. This struck me as very strange. Now I know it’s possible that I got sick, but given that I rarely get sick, it’s the summer, and I haven’t really been in any position that I can recall that should cause me to get sick, it made me wonder.
Like I said, I’m not claiming anything really, but just letting people know what happened. I read up on L-Arginine and found that it might boost the immune system. On one site it said ” L-arginine supplementation may also be helpful for the immune system. L-arginine is used by the immune system to help regulate the activity of the thymus gland, which is responsible for manufacturing T lymphocytes (T-cells), which assist the immune system and body defenses” (). So this makes me wonder even more about my condition and whether the L-Arginine had anything to do with it. Is it possible that it made my immune system over-active giving me symptoms? I think I will try it again sometime in the future and see if the same thing happens, if not then I’ll know I simply caught something at an unfortunate time.
Start (6/23/04): 7.25 BPEL X 4.75 EG As of (7/12/05): 8.00" BPEL X 5.00" EG Midshaft (5.25 base) Short Term Goal: 8.0 BPEL X 5.25 EG Midshaft Long Term Goal : 8.5 BPEL X 6.0 EG
