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Old Oct 16, 2008, 05:47 PM
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In a related vein...

Last night I took some niacin. I took some because I'd done a work-out and I haven't done one in a while. I can't recall the exact terminology but when you work out, you produce slight tears in the muscles. As a response to these tears, lactic acid builds up in the tissue. It's the combination of torn mucle fibers and lactic acid that creates that tender, post-work-out ache -- the kind that makes you wince every time you flex a thigh muscle over the next few days and wish that you hadn't worked out at all.

Niacin helps to flush lactic acid out of your body tissues by expanding the small blood capilleries. In turn, this produces a greater blood flow within the body. The body's response to this activity is to get "flushed"...

Quote:

You experience this as a reddening of the skin -- simply because there is more blood close to the surface of the body. As this blood flows in these areas the cells of the small capillaries will also be getting rid of their waste products, and often they produce "histamine" as part of that process.

That histamine is another natural substance produced by every cell in the body -- when the cell is under attack, or is getting rid of toxins. So, histamine causes an "itchy" feeling.

Source: Niacin Flush & Itching

I don't know if any of your medications might include niacin. Even if they didn't, it's possible something else within them could be triggering a histamine response, experienced by you as the feeling of "tiny bugs under your skin" and accompanied by an intense "ITCHY!" feeling.

Note that it's not necessary to be psychotic/schizophrenic or to have taken niacin to experience a histamine reaction.

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