14 replies to this topic

[chroncile]

I've been depressed for 4 years now. My depression started at the beginning of high school and coincidentally, at the beginning of my puberty. It has only gotten worse over the past 4 years. Now my motivation has disappeared and I have severe anhedonia. I only partially-enjoy doing a very limited number of things. My libido is non-existent and I have severe attention problems. I suspect I have low dopamine levels. I took 150 mg of Wellbutrin XL starting in October of 2011, but discontinued it after reading many negative studies about it; I read it can cause hypersensitivity and reduce white blood cell count, it can cause parkinsonism and it can reduce tyrosine hydroxylase expression. It's also anticholingeric. I was taking piracetam and choline bitartrate at the time, but it didn't help me with the short-term memory loss that was induced by Wellbutrin.

Wellbutrin helped me tremendously. It increased my libido, motivation, mood and allowed me to genuinely laugh at funny things for the first time in my life.

Did I overact when I decided to stop Wellbutrin? I remember reading a study that suggested antidepressants increased BDNF levels and therefore, antidepressants are neuroprotective.

Here's the study that suggested depression may cause neurotoxcicity:

The possibility of neurotoxicity in the hippocampus in major depression: a primer on neuron death
A number of studies indicate that prolonged, major depression is associated with a selective loss of hippocampal volume that persists long after the depression has resolved. This review is prompted by two ideas. The first is that overt neuron loss may be a contributing factor to the decrease in hippocampal volume. As such, the first half of this article reviews current knowledge about how hippocampal neurons die during insults, focusing on issues related to the trafficking of glutamate and calcium, glutamate receptor subtypes, oxygen radical generation, programmed cell death, and neuronal defenses. This is meant to orient the reader toward the biology that is likely to underlie any such instances of neuron loss in major depression. The second idea is that glucocorticoids, the adrenal steroids secreted during stress, may play a contributing role to any such neuron loss. The subtypes of depression associated with the hippocampal atrophy typically involve significant hypersecretion of glucocorticoids, and the steroid has a variety of adverse effects in the hippocampus, including causing overt neuron loss. The second half of this article reviews the steps in this cascade of hippocampal neuron death that are regulated by glucocorticoids.

→ source (external link)

What should I do?

[niner]

Yes, depression is neurotoxic and anti-nootropic. It's a serious threat to your long term well being, as well as your current well being. If I was you, I'd go back on the Wellbutrin in a heartbeat. It sounds like it was working well for you.

[chroncile]

What about the possibility of dopamine receptor downregulation? I certainly do not want that to happen.

Also, aside from neurotoxicity, how does depression cause a serious threat to long term well being? I'm just curious because all I heard or read was depression is neurotoxic.

[hooter]

Try taking your piracetam without choline and higher doses of piracetam. It has an anti-depressant effect that increases with time and dosage. Choline can worsen depression and is anti-dopaminergic. Try taking bacopa monnieri 20% extract alongside piracetam. You can get it for extremely cheap at beyond-a-century under bacopin powder.

There's lots of research to suggest that they protect from stress and depression induced neurotoxicity and I have personally had excellent results. My chronic refractory depression haunted me for 8 years and nothing helped until I finally just decided to keep at it with piracetam and bacopa. Eventually the improvement became amazingly significant. Bacopa furthermore regenerates the hippocampus in a similar way to typical antidepressants, and I've actually noticed lasting differences.

Depression increases general mortality, risk of dementia, lowers immune system. All sorts of terrible stuff. And neurotoxicity is very much a serious threat to long term well being.

[chroncile]

Yes, I noticed that piracetam and choline actually potentiated my depression. I have taken a week off of piracetam and choline and my depressive symptoms got better, but I'm still depressed. I have started taking piracetam alone with no choline source aside from diet.

That's interesting, I didn't know bacopa had that effect on the hippocampus. I'll definitely look into it.

Did bacopa increase your libido? My libido is insanely low and the only thing that helped was Wellbutrin. I'm able to get erections, but I don't feel anything when I do; erections are actually a nuisance for me. There's no urge or desire to engage in sexual activity whatsoever. It's really depressing.

[1thoughtMaze1]

Goes without saying

[hooter]

Bacopa doesn't increase libido but it greatly increases the pleasure derived from sexual activity and life in general. This effect increases with time fully peaking after roughly a year. Since it has neurotrophic benefits, it will actually contribute to repairing the damage caused by depression. Piracetam will accelerate this process and anti-depressant effects of its own.

I've long figured that a palliative approach (pill to treat symptoms) is not a reasonable idea in chronic depression or anxiety. More and more research suggests depression is correlated directly to changes in neuroplasticity , LTP and the brain's self-repair mechanisms in general. So I think it is most reasonable to regenerate the receptors responsible for pleasure and perception. Once these are fully restored, consciousness will no longer seem bleak.

I've tried lots of things that helped, but nothing that got stronger as time went on like this. This is honestly the first time I've felt 'true repair'. I realize the subjective effects vary from person to person, but neurotrophic repair of the hippocampus should result in positive improvement in all cases with that as an underlying cause (which fits your symptoms, anhedonia, no libido, etc). A neurological approach to psychology is what we need, not freudian ghosts and haunted skulls.

[chroncile]

It doesn't seem to work for everyone, but that's expected. It also might lower dopamine levels. There's no sure way to say if it'll work for me without actually taking it. Hooter, which brand did you find worked best?

Also, since it takes a year for it to start working, should I take Wellbutrin to counter the depressive symptoms?

I've long figured that a palliative approach (pill to treat symptoms) is not a reasonable idea in chronic depression or anxiety. More and more research suggests depression is correlated directly to changes in neuroplasticity , LTP and the brain's self-repair mechanisms in general. So I think it is most reasonable to regenerate the receptors responsible for pleasure and perception. Once these are fully restored, consciousness will no longer seem bleak.

That's a bit hypocritical, After all, bacopa comes in pill form. Also, antidepressants increase BDNF so I don't think they merely just treat symptoms.

Brain-derived' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20708057']Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) belongs to the neurotrophin family, and enhances the growth and maintenance of several neuronal systems. In addition, BDNF may promote neurogenesis and protect against hippocampal volume loss in depressive disorders. Although first detected in brain, BDNF also exists in peripheral tissues and is mainly stored in platelets and circulates in blood. Recent reports indicate that serum BDNF levels in depressive patients are lower than in control subjects, and antidepressant treatment increases serum BDNF levels in responders. A single report suggests that decreased serum BDNF in major depression is related to mechanisms of platelet BDNF release; however, the mechanisms of changes in BDNF blood levels are still poorly understood. In the present study, we investigated the direct influence of antidepressants on BDNF release from platelets and their effects on serum levels. We used samples of washed platelets prepared from rat blood, and investigated the platelet BDNF release and serum BDNF concentration changes in response to adding antidepressants. We found that BDNF was dose-dependently released from platelets by direct treatment with various kinds of antidepressants in vitro, and serum BDNF concentration was also increased by intravenous antidepressant treatment. These results confirm that BDNF release from platelets is affected by antidepressants, which may relate to the circulating BDNF level change in peripheral blood. The response of BDNF release differs depending on the type and amount of antidepressants, making BDNF a serious candidate as a predictor of antidepressant treatment response.

→ source (external link)

Antidepressant' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2394727/']Antidepressant treatments have been proposed to produce their therapeutic effects, in part, through increasing neurotrophin levels in the brain. The current experiments investigated the effects of acute and chronic treatment with different pharmacologic and somatic antidepressant treatments on protein levels of BDNF in several brain regions associated with depression in the rat. Repeated applications (10 days) of electroconvulsive shock (ECS), but not a single treatment (1 day), produced 40-100% increases of BDNF protein in the hippocampus, frontal cortex, amygdala, and brainstem. Chronic (21 days), but not acute (1 day), treatment with the tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) desipramine (10 mg/kg), the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluoxetine (10 mg/kg), and the monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) phenelzine (10 mg/kg) increased BDNF protein levels in the frontal cortex (10-30%), but not in the hippocampus, amygdala, olfactory bulb, and brain stem. To determine whether the regulation of BDNF was unique to antidepressant treatments, drugs used to treat schizophrenia and anxiety were also studied. Chronic administration of the typical antipsychotic haloperidol (1 mg/kg) and the atypical antipsychotic clozapine (20 mg/kg) increased BDNF levels by only 8-10% in the frontal cortex. Haloperidol also elevated BDNF levels in the amygdala, while clozapine decreased BDNF in the olfactory bulb. Acute or chronic treatment with the benzodiazepine chlordiazepoxide (10 mg/kg) did not alter BDNF levels. These results suggest that diverse pharmacologic and somatic antidepressant treatments, as well as antipsychotics, increase levels of BDNF protein in the frontal cortex, even though they have different mechanisms of action at neurotransmitter systems.

→ source (external link)

[nupi]

Bacopa does not take a year to start working, 1-2 weeks sounds more like it. The only issue I have with Bacopa vs Wellbutrin (which I liked save for the stomach issues I had with it) is that Bacopa is quite anxiolitic (which is good) but also sedating (which is why I would take it in the evening).

Mixing the two is BTW quite feasible, take the Wellbutrin in the morning to have energy for the day, use Bacopa in the to calm down and improve sleep. While I was using both, medium-high doses of Bacopa would put a grin on my face, especially when listening to music. Quite enjoyable, really.

Having said that, I do suspect Wellbutrin to impair memory (maybe it was just the drinking though), which might be explained by the anticholinergic effects...

[nito]

Bacopa does not take a year to start working, 1-2 weeks sounds more like it. The only issue I have with Bacopa vs Wellbutrin (which I liked save for the stomach issues I had with it) is that Bacopa is quite anxiolitic (which is good) but also sedating (which is why I would take it in the evening).

Mixing the two is BTW quite feasible, take the Wellbutrin in the morning to have energy for the day, use Bacopa in the to calm down and improve sleep. While I was using both, medium-high doses of Bacopa would put a grin on my face, especially when listening to music. Quite enjoyable, really.

Having said that, I do suspect Wellbutrin to impair memory (maybe it was just the drinking though), which might be explained by the anticholinergic effects...

As always there seems to be difference in experience depending on the brand.I hear you need 20% bacosides. But there are brands like himalaya, and more common planetary herbs and paradise herbs people take. Which one do you take?

[nupi]

Thorne Research, which many believe to the best quality. Paradise Herbs was good too, but I could for my life not figure out what their specs on heavy metals are (which is important, because Bacopa gobbles them up). There's quite a thread on it in the Product forum

[gamesguru]

Common sense answer: feeling bad (depression/melancholia) and worried thinking (stress/anxiety) aren't healthy. In small amounts they are "normal", and probably psychological vestiges evolved to cope with food shortages and tribal turmoil, but if they repeat themselves chronically (with unipolar or bipolr depression), they indicate an underlying problem, or at least something which isn't ideal or desirable.

Some science to support this idea:
http://seedmagazine....of_the_self/P1/ (the lady who popularized belief in adult neurogenesis after research by Rakic and Kaplan fell into obscurity, and who now believes that glucocorticoid-mediated stress&depression cause an array of cognitive disorders and seal a miserable fate for the shy and the poor, who she thinks cannot will themselves to self-improvement or self-motivation or a stronger character...may God help us to help ourselves)
http://neuro.psychia...93&journalID=62
http://journals.camb...nline&aid=26227
http://journals.camb...line&aid=242059 (study used only women)

Against the monoamine theory, toward a unified theory of mental illness:
This doctor thinks he has proof that the monoamine chemical imbalance theory is wrong (although he goes to extremes by denying that depression has a physical basis [after all isn't the brain just a physical organ? weren't Hippocrates and Galen right? of course materialism is still trying to defeat idealism, but I think idealism is losing the war.], I agree that it's really over simplified to say that dopamine and serotonin imbalances are the sole and original instigators and progenitors of every possible sort of depression): http://articles.merc...lobotomies.aspx. A bad upbringing and a stressful childhood (as well as genetic predispositions) probably cause a variety of chemicals to become imbalanced (not just monoamines), and I believe these cause what we refer to as generalized depression and anxiety. There's a long way to go, so hopefully curious scientists keep uncovering the truth and falsifying the lies for the sake of everybody...after all, we can do better with if we are honest than if we are deceitful.

Edited by dasheenster, 22 July 2012 - 07:38 PM.

[Galaxyshock]

Have you tried any pro-dopamine herbs? Rhodiola for example could benefit you tremendously.

[chroncile]

Have you tried any pro-dopamine herbs? Rhodiola for example could benefit you tremendously.

Yes, I have. Rhodiola worked for a week then I stopped it because I was worried about tolerance. Rhodiola improved my motivation and ability to laugh. The thing is, Rhodiola isn't for long term use so I had to stop taking it.

I recently started taking 500 mg of Maca Root. I've been doing it for about 3 weeks now. I should note that I have also been taking Panax Ginseng, Fish Oil, Vitamin D3, and a multivitamin for more than 1 or 2 months. Before I started taking Maca, the aforementioned regimen didn't really have an effect on it other than some subtle things here and there, but after about a week and a half of taking Maca, my motivation increased. My sex drive also increased somewhat, but it's still not normal. I still don't have any urges or desires, but if I look at porn for more than 30 minutes now, I start to desire masturbating somewhat. I can still just close the porn and go back to whatever I was doing though.

Also, my energy level has improved and yesterday I did HIIT on the treadmill for the first time in more than 3 weeks and I felt I was able to perform better. I did 2 minutes of walking followed by 1 minute of running.

I should also note my facial hair has increased, albeit not very much.

Does anyone know why Maca has these effects on me? I've read that Maca balances hormones, but every study I read mentioned there was no change in hormone levels. Maybe the study used people who did not have imbalanced hormones.

[HoldingTheFaith]

Bacopa doesn't increase libido but it greatly increases the pleasure derived from sexual activity and life in general. This effect increases with time fully peaking after roughly a year. Since it has neurotrophic benefits, it will actually contribute to repairing the damage caused by depression. Piracetam will accelerate this process and anti-depressant effects of its own.

I've long figured that a palliative approach (pill to treat symptoms) is not a reasonable idea in chronic depression or anxiety. More and more research suggests depression is correlated directly to changes in neuroplasticity , LTP and the brain's self-repair mechanisms in general. So I think it is most reasonable to regenerate the receptors responsible for pleasure and perception. Once these are fully restored, consciousness will no longer seem bleak.

I've tried lots of things that helped, but nothing that got stronger as time went on like this. This is honestly the first time I've felt 'true repair'. I realize the subjective effects vary from person to person, but neurotrophic repair of the hippocampus should result in positive improvement in all cases with that as an underlying cause (which fits your symptoms, anhedonia, no libido, etc). A neurological approach to psychology is what we need, not freudian ghosts and haunted skulls.

 

Thank you hooter, this gives me hope. I will try Withania in high doses and a strong standarized Bacopa now, both are neurotrophin-beneficial according to the literature I screen obsessively. I will add Gotu Kola ASAP to these, similar properties. Btw I borrowed your avatar and use it in Facebook now, it is very popular lol 

Edited by HoldingTheFaith, 15 December 2014 - 04:26 PM.