• Log in with Facebook Log in with Twitter Log In with Google      Sign In    
  • Create Account
  LongeCity
              Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans

Photo
- - - - -

Serious, long-lasting eye bags/ side effects from taking L-Citrulline/other vasodilators consistently for ~ 3 months

citrulline l-citrulline vasodilators hypertension edema side effects sides vascular

  • Please log in to reply
9 replies to this topic

#1 ImprovingMyself

  • Guest
  • 10 posts
  • 5
  • Location:United States
  • NO

Posted 05 December 2017 - 12:55 AM


Hey all,
     Just made an account here on LongeCity trying to learn more about my side effects. I have been to doctors, including a derm, plastic/cosmetic surgeon and a vascular specialist and they have not known what is going on/ have doubted my story. Also posted on reddit to see if anyone had these issues but nobody has been able to help so far. Sorry for the long post in advance but this has been about a 4 month issue so far for something I never thought would cause problems!  :sad: 
 

My background: M, 5'10, 22, 160 lbs, ~12% BF, fairly good health (I ran a 7:30 minute mile yesterday for reference). I got big ugly puffy bags under my eyes which I am 90% sure are due to taking several vasodilator supplements together daily for about 3 months, (stupidly) trying to maximize my lifting. I figured there was nothing bad about maximizing blood flow, and worst case I will have better sexual health. However, it is definitely possible to have too much and I will be way more careful now. Each day, I took a combination of L-Citrulline, Ginger Root Extract, Ginseng, and Ginkgo. I would roughly take 2-3 g of citrulline, which is a normal daily dose, but then over the course of the day I would take the daily dose of each of those other vasodilators as well. So in retrospect this was likely too much since it is more like 4x the daily dose, not to mention any potential synergistic effects. Overall, daily I would take 2-3g of L-Citrulline, 1000mg of Ginger root extract, ~400mg of Ginseng, and 240 mg of Ginkgo Biloba extract consistently daily. These are all roughly the dosages the typical supplier from Amazon says to take per day or a bit more. 

My allergies, sleep, and diet all did not change significantly in that time. In fact, I was in university previously, and had worse sleep and diet regularly, without ever having eye bags close to this. I know this since I wore contacts for all of University, and my eye bags when I got them were bad enough for people to comment that I look awful, so if I had them during Uni I would have definitely noticed. I didn't notice the eye bags as they crept up over the 3 months since I was wearing glasses for that time period. For reference, this was June, July and August of this year (I noticed them around august) and ever since then through now (December) I have had these big puffy eye bags making me look like I haven't slept in days. As soon as I wore contacts for the first time in a while though, I didn't want to go out in public because while my dark glasses make them hard to notice, they are obvious in contacts. I can't link images since this is my first post.

I believe my symptoms are due to these vasodilators. I believe taking these relatively high doses of L Citrulline upregulated the levels of Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS) in my body, which will hopefully fall back down eventually. This is because while L Citrulline is a product of NOS, it can also be recycled into L-Arginine, so I may have produced continuously high arginine levels in my blood over 3 months, allowing NOS (probably inducible NOS aka iNOS aka NOS-2) to be upregulated significantly.

 

It has been roughly 3 months since I have touched the L Citrulline or any vasodilator since I realized it may have been contributing to my eye bags and they are slightly better, but it seems to be taking a while. As of right now it has been about 4 months that I have looked like a 30 year old drug addict without my glasses, while previously, before I took the Citrulline I had a baby face. If you google a bit you will see that there are a few potential causes:

  • Nitric Oxide (NO), a byproduct of citrulline, causes lymphatic flow to be slowed in experiments, so I believe my lymphatic system has been slowed down significantly over the past months but I am hoping it will get back up to speed as my levels of NOS fall back to normal, although it may take several more months.

  • NO causes vasodilation, allowing more lymph to exit blood vessels into the interstitial space, which shows up as edema/puffiness/swelling

  • I am not sure how the Ginkgo, Ginseng and ginger are involved, but they may have caused general vasodilatory effects which are taking a long time to reverse. 

Anyone who has taken citrulline have similar stories? Or anyone think my logic is right? As I said above, doctors have so far not known what to do. *I have been taking L-Lysine, roughly 2-3g a day for 2 weeks in an attempt to reduce my iNOS levels since lysine competes with arginine, but I haven't noticed much change so far.*

I can't link studies since this is my first post but here is a name of a study; "Genetic removal of basal nitric oxide enhances contractile activity in isolated murine collecting lymphatic vessels"

The above basically says that " higher agonist-evoked concentrations of NO exert purely inhibitory effects on contractile function." and also that removal of NO increases lymphatic speed, which follows from the previous statement. The bags I have are definite due to combined slow lymph flow and increased edema since they are worst in morning and reduce over the day as they drain better.

 

TL;DR: Took a lot of citrulline and vasodilators over about 3 months. Months after stopping, still have bad eye bags which I never had before and my allergies, sleep, salt intake, exercise, etc haven't changed. Why? Anyone experienced similar? Would lysine or any other supps help?

Thanks so much to everyone!


  • Informative x 1
  • Agree x 1

#2 pamojja

  • Guest
  • 2,837 posts
  • 720
  • Location:Austria

Posted 05 December 2017 - 11:23 AM

..or any other supps help?

 

Heard Astaxanthin helps with iNOS.



sponsored ad

  • Advert
Click HERE to rent this advertising spot for SUPPLEMENTS (in thread) to support LongeCity (this will replace the google ad above).

#3 ImprovingMyself

  • Topic Starter
  • Guest
  • 10 posts
  • 5
  • Location:United States
  • NO

Posted 05 December 2017 - 03:48 PM

 

 

Heard Astaxanthin helps with iNOS.

Thanks Pamojja, I will look into that. If you don't mind me asking, do you think it is likely that the iNOS levels in my body ARE upregulated/ higher than normal? It would make sense based on my symptoms since I believe eye bags and slow lymph are due to overproduction of NO in general, that is, they seem to be an inflammatory response. 

However, it is possible that I am barking up the wrong tree. I read papers that made it seem like Citrulline/vasodilator supplementation could either upregulate OR downregulate NOS levels, since if you imagine a body being given enough Nitric Oxide, maybe the NOS enzyme will be reduced/downregulated through negative feedback since the body doesn't need to produce much NO after outside supplementation. So do you think my NOS levels are upregulated, or downregulated, if you don't mind me asking? /Do you think me having low NOS levels would lead to these symptoms I have? 

Btw: Haven't really FELT much different physically. I look much worse, yes, but I feel mostly fine and have been running 1-2 times a week, hoping cardio will help reduce the eye issues. 



#4 pamojja

  • Guest
  • 2,837 posts
  • 720
  • Location:Austria

Posted 05 December 2017 - 06:54 PM

 If you don't mind me asking, do you think it is likely that the iNOS levels in my body ARE upregulated/ higher than normal?

 

Too long ago, I read about it here: http://www.heartlife...s&t=258#post573

(needs signing-up for the forum but it's free). If you search on that forum 'iNOS' you'll find a lot of good contributions by the owner of that forum.
 



#5 ImprovingMyself

  • Topic Starter
  • Guest
  • 10 posts
  • 5
  • Location:United States
  • NO

Posted 05 December 2017 - 11:25 PM

Hey pamojja, Thanks for the link, I am trying to make an account and have tried with 2 separate user names but I am not getting the confirmation email! So I am not able to access the forum yet... :(



#6 pamojja

  • Guest
  • 2,837 posts
  • 720
  • Location:Austria

Posted 06 December 2017 - 10:37 AM

After a server-change there was a longer down-time, and just now an announcement that email-notifications aren't functioning anymore. Due to time restrained it can only be fixed till Thursday. Be patient.



#7 Skyguy2005

  • Guest
  • 291 posts
  • 9
  • Location:London
  • NO

Posted 08 December 2017 - 01:13 AM

Don't add - delete. Ditch everything except Ginkgo, Ginger, Ginseng which I'm sure are FINE. Ditch weird amino acids and shit. What the fuck even is citrullinine? Take a well-designed multivitamin like sanatogen A-Z, that includes all minerals in good balance. Don't take LEF, it's imbalanced (no iron, copper, stupidly high B vitamins). Listen to your body, if it's making you feel bad, stop it. And remember that men's health is wrong about absolutely everything, even when it contradicts itself it's wrong twice.


Edited by Skyguy2005, 08 December 2017 - 01:18 AM.

  • Ill informed x 4

#8 ImprovingMyself

  • Topic Starter
  • Guest
  • 10 posts
  • 5
  • Location:United States
  • NO

Posted 08 December 2017 - 03:48 AM

@Skyguy, L Citrulline is an amino acid which is part of the urea cycle. It is a product of L-Arginine but can be recycled to produce L-Arginine as well, which means it can be used to generate NO. I haven't taken any vasodilators in about 3 months now. I believe the proper thing to do is eat a high L-Lysine diet and take L-Lysine supplements for several weeks or a few months to reverse the effects since L-Lysine may reduce the levels of iNOS in the blood as well as being a safe supplement which is unlikely to have any side effects. Mostly just drinking a lot of milk.

And I figure do away with the gingko, ginseng and ginger for now too, since while they are natural, the dose makes the poison so i'm sure higher doses of them too may also be harmful. and I don't need them right now



#9 Hyperflux

  • Guest
  • 122 posts
  • 11
  • Location:Canada

Posted 28 March 2018 - 05:21 AM

Would Cialis/tadalafil cause the same issue with facial swelling/bloat?

sponsored ad

  • Advert
Click HERE to rent this advertising spot for SUPPLEMENTS (in thread) to support LongeCity (this will replace the google ad above).

#10 hav

  • Guest
  • 1,089 posts
  • 219
  • Location:Cape Cod, MA
  • NO

Posted 28 March 2018 - 07:02 AM

I've taken both L-Citrulline and L-Arginine together at 1 gm each daily for years and have never had an eye bag or face swelling issue.  During the last year I've switched to a 1.2 mg daily dose of tadalafil which gives me a better blood pressure reducing effect and no swelling or bloat with that either. You might want to consider a diuretic herbal supplement like Now Foods Water Out or, if that doesn't work for you, perhaps discuss a medication like HCT with your doctor.

 

Howard


Edited by hav, 28 March 2018 - 07:26 AM.






Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: citrulline, l-citrulline, vasodilators, hypertension, edema, side effects, sides, vascular

1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users