Well I'll Be Darned

Remember my post on November 17th titled "What Went Wrong"?

While reading the newspaper a few days ago I made a remarkable discovery. Someone questioned the consumption of black licorice possibly causing certain severe side effects. Reading on, I discovered that people with high blood pressure should NOT eat black licorice because it aggravates the condition and makes it worse than what it already is. It also causes severe Migraine-like headaches. Holy crap! I have been eating at least one ounce of Australian-type black licorice daily for at least three months, ever since it was presented to me at a local candy shop. Australian black licorice is made from the actual licorice root. It's expensive to say the least. I paid $10 for half a pound that day. But like a junkie, I was desperate for it. I wish I had never bought the stuff now that I look back on it.

And I would not have bought it had I remembered to get the regular licorice I had been buying every week at my regular grocery store. But I forgot to get it that particular day. So my husband went on the hunt and the first store we stopped at (in our neighborhood) had this Australian stuff. I never heard of it. I tasted it and from then on I never went back to what I was buying before.

When I finished reading that article in the newspaper I decided I needed to do some researching and so I looked up the word glycyrrhizin which is the sweet-tasting compound from the licorice root. As I read each entry I soon became quite scared. I had been on the road to possibly killing myself had I kept up eating just one ounce a day. It has been known to cause heart attacks. Some days I ate more than an ounce. I am human, you know.

I also found that it can counteract blood pressure medication. And the one pill my doctor doubled the dosage for me was on that list. When I finished my research I went right to where my supply was and found I had only two days' worth left meaning there was two ounces in the dish. Those went right into the garbage. I was prepared to buy a new supply the following day, so I am glad I found out about it before I did that.

I don't understand why licorice does not come with a warning. Or why some doctors don't warn their patients about eating it after they have prescribed drugs for hypertension. In my case, it took almost three months for the side effects to pile up until that morning when I was wobbly once I was out of bed, and then the severe headaches that followed that. So it's a good thing I had a doctor's appointment a few days later or I could be sleeping with the fishies by now.