1 Reply by sofla

(1,275 replies, posted in Focused Discussion)

Been almost a year since I last posted my results with H2-blockers so I thought I'd do a followup with some more findings.

battlingnelson wrote:

By the way, sofla,

Can you please outline your timeline while using ranitidine, as in how long you wait between taking the medication and drinking? Thanks!

I've been testing taking ranitidine in various amount of time before drinking and I've had best results with taking it several hours before drinking.

steph1234 wrote:

So I've been taking Pepcid for a while now, does anyone else still feel a hot face even though there's no visible flushing? I often find that I feel like I'm flushed when I'm not actually red, not sure why

I experience this aswell initially when drinking. Then after a few units it fades and I feel normal.


In the past year I've been testing both at what time it's best to take ranitidine, and how much. After several tests I've found out that taking just half a pill, no less than 6 hours before drinking, gives the best results. The closer to drinking I take it, the more severe side-effects I get (more on this below). If I start drinking without taking ranitidine, and start to flush, I've come to the conclusion that I just have to stop, let it wear off and call it a night.

After using ranitidine extensively over almost two years I've slowly come to find out that it has a couple of side effects:

1. Blackouts and not remembering anything the day after drinking.
2. Not feeling as intoxicated as I should feel after a certain amount of drinks.

The blackouts are rare, but annyoing. I normally have good behaviour even when drunk, but it's an anxiety-inducing feeling not remembering what you've said and done the night before, even though I've been told everything was fine.

Not feeling as intoxicated is probably the reason why this happens, because lately I have been tracking how many drinks I've been drinking, not taking ranitidine, and how many drinks I've been drinking when taking rantidine. In the latter case I've discovered that I tend to drink more. My tolerance for feeling intoxicated rises and I have to drink more to get the same effect.

In my latest "tests" I've found out that halving the dose (just break a pill in two halves with a knife) decreases the effect of ranitidine, and decreases the chance that any of the side effects occur. Combining this with a more precautionary approach, taking the pill 6+ hours before drikning has given great results so far.

Just three weeks ago I was going to a concert friday and birthday party saturday. I was dreading the second day all week because 2 days in a row is usually a guaranteed recipe for disaster. I didn't take any pills friday and it was fine, and I took half a pill just when I woke up on saturday and, to my big surprise, everything went just fine!

I've found that there are three crucial elements to success with H2 blockers. The amount you drink (find your tolerance, keep track and avoid over-drinking), how fast you drink (find your own pace and no bottoms up. Ever) and WHEN you take the pill. The combination of the first and latter being the most important aspects of whether or not I'll have a good night without flushing and without side-effects.

Although I don't have any scientific competence to say this, it seems like taking the pill well in advance gives my stomach time to prepare, and thus reducing the amount of ranitidine required to avoid flushing.

My next project is to test ranitidine (I use 75mg pills from Ratiopharm) against Zantac (also ranitidine, but different brand) and Pepcid (famotidine) more systematically to see what experiences they give.

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2 Reply by sofla

(1,275 replies, posted in Focused Discussion)

So, I've been using Ranitidine actively for the past 8 months with great success. I still believe that theres a varying degree to how intense or severe the flushing reaction is because I can still, as long as I stick with beer/wine, get drunk without flushing and without taking ranitidine.

Since july I've been logging all my incidents, and logged every time I've been drinking to see if there's some sort of pattern to when I'm flushing, and when I'm not. And whether or not I've taken a pill or not. I've also been controlling my diet to see if it could have any effects, but it doesn't seem like it.

I have done some discoverys though. They may be random, but I've tested the "myths" atleast 10 times each to see if the results would differ:

1. Sugary booze is my worst enemy. Shots like jägermeister or turkish pepper, or mixed drinks with such types of booze are almost guaranteed to make my face glow. Jäger has a whopping 75g og sugar pr. liter, or 3 grams of pure sugar per shot. Anyway, Jäger has been the worst. Not a single time have I been able to drink this without flushing, unless I've been taking ranitidine.

2 Non-sugary boozes are howere fine, if the intake is slow and steady. For example Whisky (even bare!), mixed vodka-drinks, white rum drinks or gin drinks are fine. Black rum however is bad.

3. Dry sparkling wines like Cava or Prosecco (or even Champagne if the wallet allows it) are my new "go to" when drinking. Almost no sugar, the low alcohol % and the bubbles helping my stomach absorb the alcohol faster has made this my ultimate drinking partner. It's somewhat expensive in comparison to beer, but being able to drink a whole bottle (or even two!) without flushing and without any pills at all makes it a worthwile investment.

4. Beer is always a loose canon. I can have a couple at home without taking a pill, but if I'm going out or at a party I'll have to take a pill because I'll never know whether I'm going to flush or not.

I was also concerned that I had some sort of rosacea and visited a skin doctor last spring, but he couldn't find any evidence of any kind og skin-condition, but said that my AFR could be the cause of a "permanent" or long-lasting redness in the skin. However, after persistently taking ranitidine over the last 8 months, the redness (when not drinking) has almost vanished and my skin looks clean again.

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3 Reply by sofla

(1,275 replies, posted in Focused Discussion)

I never get headaches and I (still) don't get very hungover afterwards, but if I don't use rantidine my heartrate will spike like crazy when I am about to have, or during a flush reaction. Although I don't get headaches while or after drinking, I do get a "pressing" sensation in the head when flushing, like I can feel my head "pumping" to the beat of my heart.

Another thing came to mind right now and that was that when I consulted my physician a while ago he also said that my vitamin d levels were low (30 something, reference between 50-200) so I had to start taking supplements. I've also read on the internet that people with rosacea could see great improvement in the condition when taking vitamin d supplements, but they also said that they would see positive effects after just a couple of days. I've been taking a fairly high dosage of 2-4000 UI a day for over a month now and haven't seen any improvement at all. The main reason I think that I might have rosacea is becuase my grandfather (on my fathers side) had rhinophyma and had to get his nose fixed. Rhinophyma is most often caused by untreated rosacea, and I strongly suspect that my father has this too, even though neither my mom or dad flushes when drinking.

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4 Reply by sofla

(1,275 replies, posted in Focused Discussion)

Hi.

I'm a 26 year old male from Norway (not asian, pure scandinavian descent) which have developet a flushing reaction in recent years.

I startet drinkin at 17, but didn't get my first reaction until i was 20-21, but then only a very few times untill i turned 23-4 when it started to escalate. At the age of 25-26 it started to become a regularity rather than an oddity and it slowly started to become a huge concern and source of mild depression and lowered self-esteem. Instead of getting it once in a while, it started to occur almost every time i drank. I consulted my physician about this and we did some tests. He said before the results came in that it might be caused by me developing rosacea (as my grandfather had it) which is a skin disease that causes flushing. However, rosacea flushing can also be caused by eating things like hot food (chili) and other things, but I ONLY flush while drinking alcohol.

After having this problem for about a year I read about antihistamines. I remembered that I had pollen allergy as a kid, but stopped taking my medicine when I turned 20-ish as I no longer had symptoms. I then started to take cetirizne regularly, but it didn't have any effect at all on my flushing. I also read about H2-receptors like rantidine and remembered that my ex gf had a pack of those 300 mg pills (the strongest ones?) because of a peptic ulcers and I tried one of with great, positive effects.

When taking one rantidine approx. 1 hour before drinking my flushing totally disappeared and I could drink as much as I wanted without flushing. After som more experimenting I learned that even the mildest dosage (which doesn't need a prescription) of 75 mg actually did the trick, but I would have to start slowly and not go straight on the booze for it to actually counter it.

My physician however meant that even though I didn't flush, the acetyldehyde that is produced is still dangerous so I got a reference to a skin doctor to do some more tests. I'll have to wait a few more months until my appointment, but I'll try to remember to post back when I get the results and if he has some more tips to prevent this all together for us non-asian flushers.

Anyway, I have one question for you all. What pepcid do you find the most efficient?

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