Rubbing yourself with that cream every day is too much of a hassle. I'm now spending allready a considerable amount of time taking and preparing supplements. But you'll get used to that and to the flavours! I'm now even able to swallow multiple pills at once
It is a hassle, although I got it down to a fast technique (using a household cleaner spray bottle) that took just 60 seconds or so to administer. See this post.
Generalized anxiety disorder can be mild, moderate or severe (these are medically defined levels of anxiety): when you have severe GAD as I did, almost all of the days becomes focused on trying to reduce (usually unsuccessfully) the horrendous levels anxiety. So I was happy for any treatment that helped, and transdermal magnesium did noticeably help.
Once I found some more effective treatments such as N-acetyl-glucosamine, etc, I was then able to drop the transdermal magnesium protocol, although I will still use it sometimes on days when I feel some anxiety returning, where my usually daily set of anti-anxiety supplements are not quite keeping the anxiety under control. My theory is that the anxiety is caused by elevated levels of extracellular glutamate in the brain, deriving from brain inflammation. So my theory is that a bad is simply caused by an upsurge in neuroinflammation and the glutamate this inflammation produces.
My regular daily set of anti-anxiety supplements are: N-acetyl-glucosamine, flaxseed oil, turmeric and vinpocetine (vinpocetine must be taken with food, otherwise it's not well absorbed); usually that is enough to keep the anxiety fully eliminated. But when I get a bad day and the anxiety flairs higher, I will add some extra anti-anxiety supplements from my list.
Typically on a bad day I will add:
Taurine powder 4 grams
Arginine pyroglutamate powder 100 mg (intranasal by snorting)
Magnesium (as saturated magnesium sulfate solution) all over body
Cetirizine (antihistamine)10 mg
The anti-anxiety effects of the above kick in with an hours or two. And usually I only use this extra anxiolytic boost for one day, just on bad days.
If my IBS-D is bad (ie, if I get increased diarrhea, which I think tends increase intestinal inflammation), I may also add some supplements to calm and fix the gut, such as:
Saccharomyces boulardii
Probiotics
Prebiotics
Though fixing the gut usually takes a day or two, I find, and so the reduction in anxiety levels it produces also appears on that timescale
Are you taking inositol too? This makes me bloat and fart real bad actually :O
I seem to have no gut issues with high dose inositol (some people find it causes diarrhea), but these days I only take it if I have increased depression (which again I think may be brain inflammation-related). I take two heaped teaspoons of inositol powder. The effects only kick in after around 12 hours, I find, so if you take it in the evening, you will feel the benefits the next day.
BTW I love your experiments!! Are you still snorting arginine LOL :D
I'm actually really curious about that NAG!
I definitely seem to have the mad scientist gene.
Snorting around 100 mg of arginine pyroglutamate powder is one of the fastest ways I have found to lower anxiety levels. If I take 1 heaped teaspoon (5 grams) of arginine pyroglutamate powder orally, it takes one or two hours before the anti-anxiety effects kick in (as per most of my anti-anxiety supplements).
But if I snort just 100 mg of arginine pyroglutamate powder into my nostrils, the anti-anxiety effects kick in within 20 minutes. So this is great when you want a quick way to quell anxiety. Plus it is very economical on arginine pyroglutamate, since 100 mg intranasal has the same anti-anxiety effect as 5 grams oral.
I tend to snort arginine pyroglutamate powder whenever I have a unexpected upsurge in anxiety.
(Don't ever try to snort any supplement into you nose which is even slightly acidic (tart in taste) — it will sting like hell).
Edited by Hip, 23 June 2016 - 04:35 PM.
