Re: Mukta Vati

>If I find that the Divya kind of Mukta Vati works just as well, almost as well, or not too well compared to the Ivy's formulation for me, I'll post back to let you know.

Hi again,

You never know for sure what you're measuring when other things could be happening that you haven't identified, but here's my impression of the two different Mukta Vatis.

The Mukta Vati online purchase from Swami Ramdev Divya Pharmacy in India went well. They said delivery might take on average 2-5 weeks and the product was delivered to me here in the US within maybe 10 days. I didn't pay the extra charge to get it faster than that. I imagine the delay goes on where it originates getting it into the mail system in India, because the product came air mail from Great Britian. They actually mailed it within about 24 hours of the time I placed my order using their website; I received an email acknowledgement.

I would certainly be willing to do business with them again. I ordered three boxes and they explicitly sent a fourth for free. The tablets arrived inside foil-seals on a stiff card, the kind of product protection that is common in US pharmacies nowadays too. (The Ivy's brand comes in a safety-sealed bottle with something inside to hold the pills firmly in place during transit. I like the Ivy's arrangement better, but that's simply because tendonitis in my hands makes me clumsy with opening the foil-card kind of product.)

My experience was that the Swami Ramdev product does work to lower my blood pressure, though not as much as the Ivy's brand does. It's a blend of more different herbs than Ivy's and has one herb in common with Ivy's. I don't know, but if I had to guess, I'd guess that the Ramdev brand might have just as much blood thinning properties as Ivy's brand does. That's not certain at all, just my impression from blood flow and clotting when taking my blood Sugar regularly every day multiple times. They both look like blood thinners compared to the behavior of my blood before taking these herbal supplements... so if you are taking either one, you might want to back off before surgery.

No directions arrived with the Swami Ramdev product, other than to follow your physician's directions. I elected to use six tablets per day, divided up into 3 doses, the same as I had been doing with the Ivy's brand. I couldn't tell that I was having any side effects from that much, so I kept that up the entire 3 weeks I was using the product. Less is probably better if you can manage to get by with less, but my blood pressure problem is not mild.

Six tablets of the Ramdev Mukta Vati product seemed to provide less blood pressure lowering ability than six tablets of the Ivy's brand. I say that because I kept taking my blood pressure while I was on both, and it went up some when I switched to the Ramdev product. Nothing like the rise that would have derived from going without anything at all, though, so I know it does work to lower blood pressure some, just not by as much as the Ivy's brand. I had to end up adding back in 2 tablets of my Ivy's brand to help make up the difference, and I'm not sure it totally made up for the difference either. (That made a total of eight tablets--six of the Ramdev brand and 2 of Ivy's.)

I've just added back in another two of the Ivy's brand today, and the difference is very noticeable (4 tablets of each kind). My blood pressure was perfectly normal just a little while ago, and it hasn't been close to that good on the Ramdev formula. (Bear in mind that without anything effective at all, the systolic is up to around 245, though, so the Ramdev formula was definitely doing some work to bring it down to around 160-170.)

I haven't decided whether to keep up this 4/4 regimen or to go back to 6 tablets of Ivy's alone. Anyway, I have figured out that I do need Ivy's, no matter what else I might do. If I had to put a number on it, I'd guess that the Ramdev product is maybe 2/3 as effective on lowering blood pressure as compared to Ivy's.

Please don't assume that my experiences predict yours if you want to try either or both of these products; I'm atypical in lots of ways. Only through lots of detailed individual experience reports will you be able to glean a general idea of effectiveness/side effects/combbinations that might apply to someone trying to decide what to do.

Best wishes,
Mary