"I always want to know exactly how big supplements are before I buy them sight unseen. So I put photos of a typical 500 mg acetaminophen tablet on one side (the white tablet) and an ordinary 325 full sized round aspirin on the other side. The Jarrow 200 mg dark gel capsule is in the middle with a ruler in the background. They are not entirely small, but they are somewhat soft and reasonable to swallow. I just cannot swallow large pills. And the other thing I like to see is the label on the back side of the bottle. They never show it and they never show the size of the pills or capsules in the advertising. They will show anything and talk about everything except this. So this is my main contribution. See the photos below.

I've been taking Co-Enzyme Q10 for decades, possibly for well over 25 years. First I’ll say this is a very good supplement and I will always continue to take it. But do not be lulled into thinking it will cure everything about your heart, especially as you get older. In recent years, I started taking the QH version. It's difficult to ever know if the long term benefits are working for you or not. I've had several fairly serious atrial fibrillation events starting just before my 50th birthday. Except neither my uninformed doctors nor I knew what it was. I was in atrial fibrillation for more than a week – could have easily died of a blood clot that is quite common during even short duration atrial fibrillation.

That was my first encounter with atrial fibrillation and I still didn’t know what it was for another 15 years. I kept thinking it was anxiety attacks and so did my ignorant doctors. I wore heart monitors for a full month and of course, nothing ever happened. I went through very extensive treadmill tests complete with real time ultrasound. Then that cardiologist said I was in great condition. And I added, for my age? He stopped me saying – for any age. So I left his office with all that fancy equipment thinking I was in superb condition. Of course, I still continued to take my Co-Enzyme Q10 faithfully for another 20 years – yet these events kept happening at random, even five to ten years apart. Of course, they became more frequent as my heart aged – even with Q10.

Finally, a big one happened that almost scared me to death – literally. I thought my chest was going to explode, thankfully it stopped after about 5 minutes. I recorded 166 beats per minute and that was as it was slowing down, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The heart beat intensity was explosively strong. A few months later I had a sustained event that didn’t go away and I managed to drive to the cardiologist’s office. Just two days earlier, this new cardiologist had run me through an impressive barrage of tests and pronounced me super healthy. Next day, I was in the hospital with atrial fibrillation that didn’t want to stop. A horrible hospital I might add. Only took them 5 long hours to start doing anything – not even an aspirin. So I eventually had heart ablation surgery in an excellent hospital, Methodist Hospital where former President George Bush goes, and that really helped – for quite a while.

Only now, after 23 years and countless doctors, I’m beginning to know what’s causing it. But not before my primary care doctor nearly killed me with the wrong prescription. I had a bunch of blood tests and I noticed that my TSH has always been zero for at least 5 or more years. It is the hormone from your pituitary master gland to your thyroid gland that controls the amount of thyroid hormones produces. So my doctor prescribed some thyroid stimulant medication. Still the TSH was zero. So he increased the dose. Next thing I knew was my wife was racing me to the hospital. My oximeter was showing as many as 4 skipped beats in a row and I really felt like this was it. She drove right past that horrible hospital at 100 mph, no exaggeration. I made it to a good hospital and within literally 2 minutes I was in a hospital bed being actively tested by cardiologists. No registration or insurance cards at all. I was there for two days and about to have risky procedure to stop and restart my heart when it finally went back to normal. Then a Cardiac catheterization procedure showed my heart’s arteries are in superb condition – zero plaque.

Then I saw a trend over the next few months of having tachycardia events weekly ever since the middle of March. Then I personally connected the dots. Thyroid medicine. My primary care doctor went the opposite direction of what he should have done. Decrease thyroid, not increase it. A TSH level of zero means the thyroid is already producing too much hormones. Too long out of medical school it appears. Now quite by accident, I myself told him I wanted a MRI of my neck and upper chest and there it was – a small tumor on my left thyroid gland. I have to be my own doctor. I use Dr. Google to learn so much. I just got it biopsied two days ago. Results in a week. It’s an 85% chance it is benign. But with my luck… My mother had a goiter removed. And she had atrial fibrillation, except she never called it that. Only long after she died did I realize what it really was.

My cardiologist was horrified and said he was going to call my primary care doctor to educate him. He said that thyroid medication is very likely what put me in the hospital and literally could have killed me or I could have had a massive stroke. I had taken that medicine about one month before he increased it to a higher dose. It is absorbed slowly, but surely. Then bam – in a race against time to a good hospital.

I’m still taking this QH-Absorption 200 mg gel capsules. I think I need it more than ever now. Maybe when I get my thyroid medications and know what this 15 mm thing on my left thyroid gland is, maybe I’ll stop having so any atrial fibrillation events. The strange thing is all my other thyroid levels were right in the middle of normal. My blood tests are always normal. After ablation surgery, only that major event in the hospital has happened and that was from a bad thyroid prescription. The others have been nuisance level events with heart beats in the high eighties or low nineties and a small dose Atenolol pill begins to slow it down within ten minutes typically. Now with medication to lower my thyroid level, perhaps I can finally feel some benefit from these Jarrow Formulas QH-Absorb, High Absorption/Enhanced Stability, 200 mg, 60 Softgels. I take them at night.

Sorry for the long tangentially related story, but maybe somebody out there will read it and benefit from my bad experience. Hearts are tricky gadgets and so many different things can cause them to do odd things. My heart’s blood vessels are remarkably clean – no plaque at all. I grew up on a cattle ranch. I have no idea how many calves I’ve eaten, but a lot in my 73 years. I took Lipitor for years, but then learned of its shady past – built upon a hoax with manipulated data. I stopped taking it immediately.

It’s the size of LDL that matters. The small balls of LDL are the dangerous ones. The big LDL just bounces off. Doctors never test for this. By the way, my total cholesterol is very near the low end of normal including triglycerides. And my diet is just awful – the complete opposite of what you’d expect from my blood tests. Cholesterol has nothing to do with atrial fibrillation. It is often inherited. My mother in my case. She lived to 86 and died from nursing home neglect. I am anxious to get my thyroid hormones lowered so my TSH will be above zero.

And then I hope these Jarrow Formulas QH-Absorb, 200 mg Softgels will help keep me going a couple more decades."

"I have taken CoQ10 before so wasn't expecting a issue with this one. Perhaps it is due to the high absorption factor. I stopped taking it for a week with no nausea and then the next week I alternated days for taking it and have connected the mild nausea and stomach cramping with the supplement. I did find the pill is larger than I like, did not find that it had a taste. Others may not have this issue, may be just me."

"It's rare I actually feel something from a supplement such as this. I've taken several CoQ10 brands and felt nothing. This actually makes me feel very alert and like I can do anything at work. Will probably never stop taking now."