Supplements, slimming injections and other tweakments

Back before Covid I was firmly in the dietary supplements just result in expensive urine camp and all you needed was a healthy mixed diet with everything in moderation.

However, in the space of a few weeks from about mid February when stories started to hit about Covid we started taking first Selenium, Vitamins A, C and E then Zinc and finally vitamin D. There were specific reasons behind these choices and in one case it turns out there is no actual evidence to support the supposition we were working on.  Nevertheless we continue to take them and are unlikely to stop anytime soon if only as S’s complaints about his nails stopped very soon after we started.

For a variety of reasons I have opened the office a couple of times this week.  This is not unusual but we do have a contingent who start at 8am so it is not that commonplace either.  It does mean that I get the benefit of the early morning conversation as the earlier birds wander in and we do have a couple who are more than capable of an impromptu comedy sketch.

Wouldn’t wish to stereotype but we are on the Essex/London border and eyebrow microblading has featured from time to time which is enough to have me scurrying back to my office wincing.  Such reaction stemming from a time when I was convinced by a colleague to have my top lip threaded.  On complaining about the pain the following day I was told that they always took one of their Dad’s Tramadol beforehand.  This was accompanied by a facial expression that suggested that surely everybody did that.  I know they say you have to suffer to be beautiful but Tramadol is a step too far and I have made peace with my moustache.

Now we have a couple who have definitely had the results they were hoping for on Ozempic.  I have to admit they are looking good and both report feeling much better, especially knees wise.  This is all very positive though for my part I am trying to work out whether the potential side effects worry me most or whether I am just too mean to fork out.  Regardless, I am not going there either.  The big anti-aging thing of the moment appears to be collagen.  My ears did perk up and pay attention at this.   I’m resigned to my wrinkles and even some bits of me not being where I last thought I’d left them but I noticed a few weeks ago that my ear lobes were not quite as they once were.  No one warned me about this.  I had decided to put this down to my imagination when the Mail OnLine (so need to give up on that obsession) had a column about the apparent age of celebrity ear lobes as opposed to their real ages.  This is, it seems, a collagen or lack of collagen thing.  Who knew?  

My colleague went on to explain that you have to take both bovine and fish collagen for it to be work effectively and the starting point is 3 months’ supply though it does sound like it is a ‘for life or until you are past caring’ thing.  That person gets their supply from Holland and Barrett.  Someone else has the one that is recommended by Ben Shepherd.  I had to Google who he is.  I suspect that unless and until the studies come back conclusively that it has health benefits, beyond the cosmetic, I will not be joining this, clearly popular, bandwagon.  Not only is the mean streak wincing at the prospect but I’m not sure I have the staying power.  It’s an effort to drag myself to the hairdressers for a trim once or twice a year, leaping out of bed to prepare myself a collagen drink every morning seems unlikely unless the science really is compelling re health benefits.  Meanwhile I shall make peace with my ear lobes at sixty.