Pycnogenol

I am a sucker for a good sales pitch.

The website is no longer there (surprise surprise) but the words linger: "I currently have no symptoms of MS, I have my eyesight.... My balance has returned. I can run, skip, do cartwheels...." It included a photograph of a smiling young woman who looked very much like an old friend of mine! "I can reach into my purse with my right hand and know what I am touching without even looking! I can go out into the heat, I can live like a person without MS"

Described simply as a "super anti-oxidant", pycnogenol allegedly works on the blood/brain barrier which is (allegedly) central to the whole MS thing.

I tried it and it seemed to be doing some good for a short time. But then I got progressively worse. I was prepared for the 'worse before better' effect (a sort of Herxheimer reaction) but somewhere at about day 60+ I went back to the literature which said poistive effects might be noticed somewhere about day 10-30. So I stopped the pycnogenol. And realised I was having an exacerbation/relapse which was no doubt masking any positive effects the pycnogenol might have been having. Or perhaps the exacerbation was itself caused by the pycnogenol? I plan to try it again, once I am away from this.

It's quite expensive: about $A140 for 180 tabs, and I was taking 10 a day. I am prepared to find the money for something which works, but....

(And note that there is a lot of stuff sold as pycnogenol which is not. The real pycnogenol is derived from the bark of a French pine tree, but there is grape seed extract sold as pycnogenol (which the guy at the health food shop swore blind was the genuine stuff). Okay, I might think that it isn't working for me, but you might as well try the real stuff and be certain either way.)

I ran into another MS friend who had had a similar experience to mine. That's life.

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