41 replies to this topic

[dunbar]

Hi folks,

I am worried about symptoms which I have been getting for almost a year now on an on and off basis. I simply don't know what that is and what to do against it.
Basically whenever I am under stress, this could simply be a stressful situation where I try to read a manual or where I have to read a contract or instructions to something, I notice that I almost instantly get this really weird feeling in the head. I feel almost as if I'm on something. It's really hard to describe. It feels like a dullness or heaviness, almost like a pressure in or against my head!
I have no clue what that is. But it's really worrying me. In such stressful situations I almost feel as if I can't think straight anymore. But it's also definitely a physical feeling. Actually as I type this right now I have this feeling again. It's not simply "psychosomatic" but it's like something physical. Yesterday I had it to. I was feeling stressed and then I got upset over something and immediately this feeling kicked in and I felt like I couldn't even think straight anymore and then after a while it goes away again. I first noticed this almost 1 year ago. Maybe one could call it brain fog but I'm not sure what brain fog really is and how others define it.

What could this be?
I had a brain MRI 1,5 years ago due to something else and it was normal.

I also suffer from anxiety and depression and possibly adhd. I have been tested for adhd and did concentration tests and the results were poor concentration.
I tried time-released ritalin but it didn't really seem to make a difference and then my doc wasn't sure wether I should continue with it.

Against the depression I have been on a few meds which didn't work (Citalopram,Mirtazapin,Bupropion).

The depression and the anxiety are already bad enough but these new symptoms concern me even more. I'm in my final year and next year I have final exams coming up which I'm totally afraid of. And now when I feel like under stress I get this dull feeling and feel like I can't think straight anymore I'm worried even more.

I also had it happen to me that under stress I suddenly felt so jittery and physically weak that I couldn't even write anymore cause my arms were so weak!
I have a very bad stress resistance. Even small things can totally unsettle me and make my head spin. For example when I'm just doing something and then another person approaches me with a request then this already stresses me out and I start to feel restless and begin to talk really fast and so on.
Or when I'm in a mall just looking for stuff which interests me and I see a lot of things which are interesting then I also get this same restless feeling it's almost as if I'm intoxicated. I have been having this since childhood but back then it wasn't so disabling. I just thought that it's normal.

It sucks cause none of the medications I tried changed anything and I'm running out of ideas.
I don't even know if psychopharmaceuticals are the way to go for me.
I wish doctors would do more testing to find possible causes.
I thought maybe I have an issue with the adrenals and then got an acth stimulation test but the results were normal. I don't have Addison's.
When I describe my symptoms to a doctor then I feel like he can't work with them.

[nickthird]

I'm really sorry to tell you this, but it sounds like prodromal schizophrenia/bipolar. Look it up online. I could be just another symptom of an anxiety disorder but the fact that you have three conditions and the normal drugs don't work fits.

(Assuming you've done all the endocrinological tests and you are in your early twenties.)

[dunbar]

I also wanted to add that I have a lot of other issues with my body where no doctor could ever help me with and sometimes I wonder what if there are common root causes?
It's really not funny anymore. Over the past few years my health has gotten so much worse it's no comparison to when I was 20. This is also why I'm so depressed. I simply cannot
deal with this. I tried therapy but it was so disappointing. The therapist simply told me I have to accept it. Great advice lol. If I could simply accept being sick and miserable I'd have done it
in all those years! I cannot even go out during the day without becoming totally depressed because of floaters.

I have been suffering from floaters, visual snow for years which is also getting worse and I also have blue field entoptic phenomenon. Been to many opthamologists and neurologists and neuro-opthalmologists but they could't help me or tell me what causes it.

[dunbar]

Damn do you want to scare me?
I don't think I am bipolar. I mean I'm not enthusiastic or high.
I have been to an endocrinologist a few times. I have low testosterone but he said it's still high enough.
Other than that he didn't find anything abnormal.

I am simply so vulnerable to stress. But maybe this is also because of my situation. I have been under tremendous stress for years.

Btw, these symptoms I listed are not new except the brain fog/dullness symptoms.
Depression,anxiety and the sensory overload issues have been persistent since childhood!
Even as a child I had days where my head was totally racing and then I couldn't sleep and stuff like that.
I still have this. When I am exposed to stuff which is either scary or threatening or exciting then I instantly get this restless feeling in my mind.

Edited by dunbar, 23 November 2013 - 11:54 PM.

[nickthird]

It's not that simple I did write prodromal that doesn't imply being psychotic or manic. I advise you to read up on the prodromal symptoms of the conditions mentioned and see if it matches. These symptoms are mainly negative (lack of normal function rather than an addition to it).

The symptoms don't need to be new, they could be present since childhood, in fact in most cases they are to some degree.

Edited by nickthird, 23 November 2013 - 11:59 PM.

[dunbar]

I read up on it but it said that this phase is usually weeks or months. I have been having this much longer.
Also many of the symptoms I have could be something else. My doc also told me that adhd symptoms could also be something else.
So what shall I do now?

[nickthird]

"The onset of psychosis may be preceded by weeks, months or years of psychological and behavioral abnormalities, including disturbances in cognition, emotion, perception, communication, motivation and sleep."
Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2930984/

This shit is extremely hard to diagnose. In fact I've never heard of anyone being diagnosed at the prodromal stage. They are usually labelled depression, ADHD and/or OCD and/or anxiety.

This is most likely what your doctor meant and why your ritalin dosage was stopped instead of being upped.

Edited by nickthird, 24 November 2013 - 12:26 AM.

[dunbar]

My doc said that I probably dont have adhd then. He suggested another ssri.

You're worrying me now.
Are you saying I should go on heavy APs and then mess myself up with side effects?

[nickthird]

I don't know if bipolar or schizophrenia is more likely.

You can try low dose amisulpride, it's considered one of the "light" ones and it's used in treatment resistant depression anyway. Apart from that you have abilify as the newest and most tolerated AP, it's supposed to help with concentration too somewhat. As for bipolar there are mood stabilizers too.

Usually side effects depend on the dosage. A couple of months on a low dose "light" AP pose less risk than staying unmedicated. Do you have any better options to try anyway?

[dunbar]

Shall I just go to my doc and ask for Abilify or how shall I proceed?
Or if I say I worry about BP or S, what will he do then? Hand me out a questionaire for both disorders and then count the yes answers?

[nickthird]

It doesn't matter what disorder you have, the treatment is symptomatic. AP are used in cases of depression and anxiety when regular medication does not help. You don't really have to shove a diagnosis. Just say that you have read about this drug and ask if it could help you with your current problems.

By the way I suggested amisulpride for depression but I don't know what AP is the most effective for anxiety. That's what you are really after right?

Check this out - AP for anxiety:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2720845/

By this paper, your best choice should be Risperidone (better the newer active metabolite - Invega), then Seroquel and Zyprexa. Abilify is also mentioned. They also state that two 2nd generation AP have been approved for anxiety but it doesn't say which.

Edited by nickthird, 24 November 2013 - 03:50 AM.

[kelka]

Have you tried treating it like low blood sugar? I get it quite suddenly when under stress. I also have depression and anxiety etc. Stress and anxiety create lots of physical sensations too. They can be very subjective. I get derealization/depersonalisation when I'm severely stressed which might be worth a look.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[peterhendry]

I would consider a Hair tissue analysis. . Check if you're deficient in any minerals and the ratios are correct. This will also test for any toxins. Mercury. Etc.. in the meantime try Niacin B3 .. 500mg 3 x a day.. should be a good start. . Note.. you will get a red flush over you body.. dont worry that is normal. Cheers

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[dunbar]

@Nick
Thanks for the advice. I'll bring this up to my doc at my next visit.

@Kelka
I don't think it's BS related. I mean usually I eat quite often.Stress triggers my symptoms.Or are you saying that when stress kicks in the BS takes a nosedive? I can't really imagine that the BS
can suddenly go down in such a short time only because of stress.

@Peter
I have never had a hair analysis. I read that shampoos can totally mess with the results if the shampoos for example contain stuff like zinc then this can affect the results.
I had however a vitamin test a few years ago. Back then my D3 was totally low. Since then I have been taking D3 and now my levels are better. My selenium,B6 and zinc were also pretty low.
And recently I decided to get another test where I had only a few vitamins measured like A,E & D and while E and D were okay vitamin A was at 550 with the norm going from 500-1500.
I read that even when your liver is almost out of vitamin A and you have nothing left in the body then the blood levels can still be normal. And since my A is already low I wonder if this means
that my liver is out of vitamin A. But my GP has no clue about vitamins he cannot help me with this.
I also have keratosis pilaris. Been having it since I was a child. I asked a dermatology professor if this means I have low vitamin A and this idiot just laughed at me and said no. What a jerk.
I don't really know what to do about this. I'm scared of medicating myself with vitamins which can be overdoses. I mean with the D3 I had a doctor who told me how much to take but I don't
have this doctor anymore and I also don't know if he also knows what to do about low Vitamin A.

[Kyle McGill]

Anyone else think it's a tad irresponsible to jump immediately to Schizophrenia/bipolar as a reason for his head pressure? The possibilities are truly endless, and I'm likely to be inclined towards it being a toxic buildup or deficiency of some kind.

[nickthird]

Nobody is going to diagnose anybody online. It's irresponsible to suggest symptomatic treatment for a list of symptoms? It's just a suggestion, I'm not the guys doctor.

Besides schizophrenia is 1/100 and bipolar 1/20. Just how common is a toxic buildup or deficiency causing psychiatric symptoms? symptoms since childhood? I know the web is full of new age all natural shit but I mean clinically from what I understand it's very rare.

I would not rule out taking vitamins to get the levels back to normal before trying any prescription meds though.

Edited by nickthird, 25 November 2013 - 06:56 PM.

[dunbar]

The problem is I dont even have a doc who could really diagnose a toxic buildup or deficiencies. Nobody does that. My GP doesn't even measure vitamins. Nobody measures them unless you insist on it and even then they can't help you if vitamins are low. I had a test years ago where I was low on D3,zinc,B6,selenium, and vitamin A.
I have been on D3 since then and my D3 is better now but zinc and A are still borderline low. I ask myself why is that? I eat foods which are high in zinc and still I'm low. But my GP can't help me with that. And I don't really know how to go about this because vitamin A can be overdosed which I'm also scared of.
I also wonder what if I have deficiencies which cause all kinds of different issues but no doctors diagnoses them? That's scary especially since I have so many weird bodily issues like the visual snow and the blue field entoptic phenomenon. Something must be causing this but I don't know what it is.

There are also labs which offer all kinds of expensive tests which you have to pay for yourself like measuring neurotransmitters in the urine and measuring oxidative stress and stuff like that. These tests are expensive and I don't even know if they are worth anything. If neurotransmitters could simply be measured in the blood or urine then it would be so simple to find out what's wrong with psychiatric patients and what drug they need.

I also read about a condition called Kryptopyrroluria or something like that. It's also not recognized by doctors but I read online about the symptoms of this condition and many of them fit to me but then again the list was totally long so that most people would have found a few symptoms.

The issue is simply when you're sick and have all kinds of weird symptoms and no doctor can really help then you wonder what could cause it and you can as well end up being totally ripped of my doctors who simply run all expensive tests only to make money.

Usually I go to a doctor and describe my symptoms and he runs a few tests, finds no explanation and then that's it for him. Nobody is really interested in solving issues or finding causes.

Edited by dunbar, 26 November 2013 - 11:47 PM.

[Flex]

I got the same problems as while I´m in a stressful situation.
As a example: writing an application was allways a horror for me.
So my brain feels overloaded and I got this feeling like I have a brick in my Forehead, which is accompanied with a bit headaches.
Also I have a Depression and Anxiety problem as well.

So I believe that this, in my case, is caused by Weed abuse in my Adolescence.
And I still havent find anything that might could help in this regards.

I belive this all is caused by a malfunction of the PFC, which is known to be caused by thc.
altough I dont know if this is caused by a Hypo or a Hyperfunction of the PFC which has a bellshaped response,
means too much or too little dopamine could cause a disfunction of the PFC.

If I find something and I dont forget it, I will let You know this.
(today I tried for the first time Coluracetam so lets see if this is a Choline related problem)

I have because of the Weed and some experiment with Ethylphendiate also to deal with my fate and I´m aint happy with this either, but I keep hoping..

Edited by Flex, 29 December 2013 - 05:41 PM.

[dunbar]

Hello, do you also have visual disorders like visual now (see here http://visionsimulat...-snow-simulator)
or do you see these tiny sparks all over the place? (see here http://www.orgon.de/25.gif)

I really cannot even tell what this is. Is it neurologic or is it something with the eyes? But since I also see the visual snow when it's dark I'm really not sure if it's the eyes.

I have been tried ritalin and I cannot say that ritalin helps with these issues. I have been having the visual snow for at least 10 years but the tiny sparks are new. I have only had
them for a few years now. Been to many doctors and nobody could help me with it or tell me what it is. These sparks look like wild sperms under a microscope. They pace all around
without boundaries. They appear, move around, disappear, and pop up somewhere else.

[formergenius]

Sounds like it may be Blue Field Entopic Phenomenon, or just regular floaters.
It seems you also suffer anxiety, in which case methylphenidate wouldn't be the best idea.

Edited by formergenius, 29 December 2013 - 09:46 PM.

[dunbar]

Ritalin doesn't really make my anxiety worse, at least not in normal situations. I cant say if it did during an anxious phase.

No, it's not floaters. It's BFEP. Floaters are totally different.

[turchin]

It looks like high blood pressure - it is rising under stress and make you feel bad things in your head. Try to measure your blood pressure in normal state and under stress. I had this issue before. I now control my blood pressure by taking some drugs.

Edited by turchin, 29 December 2013 - 10:25 PM.

[dunbar]

No, that's not it. I don't have high BP.
Do you mean seeing those caleidoscope-like patterns in the eyes which change with every heartbeat? I have seen this, but it's not BFEP.

[Flex]

Usually I go to a doctor and describe my symptoms and he runs a few tests, finds no explanation and then that's it for him. Nobody is really interested in solving issues or finding causes.

Similair thing happend to me about my atypical depression.
There were two Doctors at the same time at my last appointment 3 weeks ago.
The first one was clueless so she oredered his colleague.
I repeatet the whole Story and what makes this worser e.g. Coffee, which made them wonder.

And then he said ultimately : Well, hm, well, this sounds very difficult, hm.. Well it doesnt sound like a Psychosis nor a usual Depression.. Hmm, it could be something psychosomatic of course. -.-
So go on with Your Mitrazepine(need it for Sleep) and we "could" maybe try to add Duloxetine or some Lithium since it helped You -.-

As for the floaters: I dont have them.unless if I´m looking in the dark I see sough or ruslte in my sight, which I refer as normal.
the only similair thing that I´ve gotten were some tiny bright dots in my eye sight, which immediately dissapeard after I´ve consumed Methiopropamine(MPA) for a short time.

Edited by Flex, 30 December 2013 - 04:06 AM.

[BioFreak]

To me, your symptoms look like they have a common cause. I had most of them myself.

See, your symptoms are almost all neurological (anxiety, adhd, brainfog, visual problems, excluding floaters).
The only thing that does not directly fit into the neurological part are the floaters, but they most likely are related to some metabolic problem that keeps your eye from repairing itself.

Like I wrote in your other thread, I always had a few floaters, but when I was severely sulfur deficient, they got REALLY bad.
I fixed this with NAC and cysteine.

I also had several other visual problems you mentioned and more...

And a lack of sulfur can also cause neurological problems, although I think this is not the only problem.

Anxiety together with adhd, visual problems, and brain fog could point to low catecholamines in general.

The problem is, no doc will go through supplements with you and test which work for you and which won't, you'll have to do this yourself and see what happens. I mean - you've already been the medical route and it didn't help you, so now its your turn.

I would start by using NAC, up to 2g/day.
See if your symptoms get better. Floaters within 1-2 weeks, as well as neurological problems, starting after a few days.

If they don't, you still stay on NAC, for general brain protection and it will work nicely with the rest of this stack.

I would then see if raising catecholamines in general does help you, or not. There are 3 scenarios that can happen when increasing catecholamines:
1. Nothing, then dosage was too small, or the compound used not strong enough
2. negative effects, then you can be sure that you got too much
3. If low catecholamines are your problem, you can expect that a sufficient increase will work like a light switch that will turn most of your symptoms off.

So I would add quercetin, 500-100mg a day. One of its mechanisms of action is being a mao inhibitor. Another mechanism of action does make you react better to stress. It also is a strong antioxidant.

If you don't feel much better, I would stay on those two and add dl-phenylalanine. 350-700mg/day.

By now you should feel at least some improvement if your problems are related to neuroinflammation due to oxidative stress, or to low neurotransmitters.

If your symptoms get worse, well, then increasing catecholamines was not the right thing to do. at least one of those (dopamine, adrenaline, noradrenaline) should not be raised. Since you didn't have a problem with raising dopamine through medication, that would only leave the other two. It would be worth finding out which one is causing you problems.
You shouldn't feel worse for long after you discontinue supplementation.

if nothing changed, then it's probably not low catecholamines, and not neuroinflammation due to oxidative stress. Well, you could try the NAC+longvida curcumin combo for neuroinflammation, to be sure. And you could experiment with mucuna seed powder, to be sure that it's not low catecholamines.

No matter what your reaction is, it will provide hints to your actual problem, and point you into the right direction for the next step.

And before I forget it - you probably should not be on any medication such as amphetamines, ssris, mao inhibitors, any reuptake inhibitors etc while trying this.

That is what I would do. Of course, I don't know you, your condition, and I am not a doctor, so I have no way of knowing if this is the right course of action for you. I can only advise from my point of view and my experience.

[dunbar]

@ flex
What is Methiopropamine? I think as long as you also have psychiatric issues and are on drugs you shouldn't experiment with other
supps/chemicals whatever. This sounds dangerous to me.

@biofreak

How did you know that you're sulfur deficient? I mean did you get this tested?

My issues could really be neurological. I probably lack neurotransmitters cause of the depression and ocd. They show that something's
not right there. But Celexa (SSRI) & Wellbutrin (NDRI) didn't work for me. Ritalin also doesn't really do much for me. Mirtazapin also didn't do anything. It's really discouraging. I mean all these antidepressants hit different NTs and I still didn't feel anything. If for example NE is my issue then Wellbutrin should have made me feel better cause Wellbutrin hits NE. Ritalin hits DA. Celexa hits SERT. But none of them did anything on their own. Maybe I would have needed a combo. But my doc always put me on a different med and didn't try combos.
But the issue is that due to my depression I feel like the most important thing now would be find something which helps against the depression. I mean I cant quit antidepressants now (or better said the search for an antidepressant which might work) only in order to experiment with supplements.
I could for example try moclobemide, a reversible maoi. But not a real MAOI. I'd be way too scared of a real MAOI.

You mentioned oxidative stress and neuroinflammation. Is there a way to test this?
This scares me. What if I have high oxidative stress and neuroinflammation?
Years ago I went to a doctor who did some kind of oxidative stress measuring in the blood. He claimed my ox stress was high
and then sold me vitamins. I dont know if he was legit or not.
I have been taking fish oil 1-2gr per day for many years now. But I dont even know if this was good or not cause I was only taking
fish oil and no additional vitamins or antioxidants.
Now I have started adding vitamin C 1gr/day and vitamin E 100IU/day.
I also took spirulina in the past but I felt like it makes my seborrheic eczema worse. I'm not 100% sure though.

I have NAC at home but the tablets only contain 200mg. They also taste like shit. They are dissolvable tabs which contain
aspartame and stuff like that. Not really a good product. I bought it in the pharmacy.
I read once that NAC can cause lung problems in high doses so I'm not sure if 2gr NAC is really a safe dose.

Btw, I use curcumin powder in foods whenever it fits to the food. I usually add it to spicy foods and then also add some black pepper.

[BioFreak]

How long have you been on wellbutrin? Have you tried higher dosages? I might be wrong, but an reuptake inhibitor might not work well if your neurotransmitter levels are already almost depleted...Also, if your brain is especially good at metabolizing neurotransmitters, reuptake inhibitors might not help you much either. Maybe thats why all reuptake inhibitors don't affect you.
So you could try a mao inhibitor and see how it goes. Low dose selegiline (5mg) could be interesting, you could stack it with 250mg dl-phenylalanine to increase its effects (there is actually a study about this combo), and at this dose you would not have to worry what to eat while on it.

I have not been tested for sulfur deficiency, however I have been on high dose 5-htp, and to solve the side effects of that, I took tyrosine to get dopamine back up (serotonin depletes dopamine). That did help, however dopamine metabolism is very sulfur thirsty so to speak, and I developed massive floaters, my nails got extremely weak, and the 5-htp + tyrosine combo even stopped being effective. See, sulfur is needed for glutathione synthesis as well as for the synthesis of SAMe, and when there is not enough sulfur, you will suffer on other metabolic processes that need it first. That happened to me. After 4,5g l-cysteine a day all those problems went away. I am a 100% sure that low sulfur levels were the cause because everything pointed to it, and sulfur was the cure. Other sulfur containing compounds helped too, such as NAC, or MSM, but they did not contribute directly to the sulfur cycle and therefore were inferior to cysteine for this purpose. I could reproduce the whole thing too by stopping to take cysteine. Its also backed by studies from the scientists that invented the amino acid therapy (www.neuroassist.com). studies are on their website. Anyways, I am off amino acid therapy, basically because I wanted to get off 5-htp due to side effects that did not resolve fully even when doing the full protocol.

Listen, you can still try NAC even with your meds. And high dose, short term, will do you no harm whatsoever.
See:
http://www.cma.ca/mu...-2/pdf/pg78.pdf
2g is not even the maximum dose used in humans. And I have yet to see any proof that NAC does harm at those dosages, other then theory based on a mouse model, that not even affects humans at this dosage (if you calculate the equivalent to humans)
Look at the dosage of NAC for paracetamol overdose:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/17582039
If it wasn't safe at THOSE dosages short term, we would know by now. Case closed.
If you need high quality nac, inexpensive, order from bulkpowders.co.uk. You'll have to mix it with fruit juice or something though.

I suppose you could measure inflammation in the blood, but to be sure you would have to test it in spinal fluid.

Why I think I had elevated neuroinflammation? Well, I can't be sure. But it fit my symptoms, and nac + longvida curcumin helped in lowering them. So can I be sure that I had neuroinflammation? Nope, but if I have the same symptoms again, and the combo helps again, well, thats good enough for me. BTW, curcumin has a very hard time passing the bbb, so to have almost instant effects from curcumin, you need longvida curcumin. Its the only form of curcumin that has been proven to cross the bbb in humans and have an effect on the brain. All other forms that are currently available can not cross the bbb (or have not provided studies that say that they do). As far as I know piperine does only help curcumin cross into the bloodstream, but not through the bbb.

Don't be scared though. If you do have it, simply take supplements to fix it. End of story. And usually, they work fast, at least the curcumin+nac combo worked fast for me - within a day I could feel it.

[dunbar]

I have been on wellbutrin for probably a weeks. First 150mg then 300mg for at least 4 weeks. Didn't feel anything.

I asked myself exactly the same thing. What if I am low on NTs? I mean do doctors not even consider this an option or what?
Or do they think that a person who gets enough protein cannot be low on NTs?
I'd really like to try adderall and see how this affects me but it's not available in Germany. Ritalin is really disappointing. I read stuff
where people wrote they take 5mg and feel it.

On the page you linked to they also have an article about monoamine depletion through reuptake inhibitors. This is concerning stuff.
If this is true then ssri,snri etc would only make the problem worse.
But ordinary psychiarists don't use stuff like 5-HTP,Tyrosine. Once I asked a doc about tryptophan and he warned me that it could cause
serotonin syndrome. But he wasn't afraid to recommend a MAOI to me.

The problem is if I decide to experiment with amino acids like 5-HTP then I'm on my own and no doctor can help me with this or if I get side effects then doctors probably also won't know what to do. And I also don't know if I can combine other drugs with stuff like 5-HTP or not. This is what worries me about taking stuff on my own.
I'd also be scared of taking something like L-Dopa without a doctor to supervise me and to tell me how much to take and so on. L-Dopa is nothing to fool around with. In the US you can buy this but I don't think it's even legal in Germany.
This is depressing. Now I wonder what if all the antidepressants are basically useless crap? I wish I had a doctor who is familiar with precursors and who'd do a trial with me.
Also when you read the bottom of page 4 then this looks totally complicated and unpredictable. I mean if you take 5-HTP then you deplete something else. It also says sulfur aminos deplete dopamine.
If this is all so complicated then figuring out alone what to take seems impossible to me.

http://www.neurosupp...eficiencies.pdf

Did you buy your l-cysteine from bulkpowders? I'm always worried when ordering raw materials especially from other countries.
Do they have their stuff tested by independent labs?

Edited by dunbar, 03 January 2014 - 07:45 PM.

[BioFreak]

SSRI's need up to 6 weeks to work, I don't know about other RI's, however.

Don't think about amino acid therapy for now. It's really complicated stuff. However, I have no idea why they say that sulfur can lower dopamine... Do they say why? It's not true, at least not for me. I think they are wrong on this... If any, then low sulfur would have a negative impact on dopamine.
There are no doctors in germany that know about this protocol, or how to use this kind of therapy. So I guess its no option for you.

The doctor who wanted to try an MAOI actually might be on the right track(although him saying that tryptophan can cause serotonin syndrome is a joke, only a tiny fraction of it gets converted into 5-htp, and you would need high doses of 5-htp to cause serotonin syndrome, probably only in combination with an ssri or maoi...). Think about it, if you have low NT's then high MAO or COMT enzyme activity might be the reason. It would be important to see if you get a benefit from this or not, after RI's did not work for you.

I buy n-acetyl-cysteine from bulkpowders, but l-cysteine from amino-factory.de. Their stuff seems legit, but I haven't asked for lab tests. Its such basic stuff that I didn't think it matters. Plus, bulkpowders is a pretty big uk online store, I would assume that low quality rumors would have made its way into the forums by now. Anything I bought from them checked out so far.

[darksanity]

Good lord another lost soul in a sea of misinformation.

This one I'll keep it real short.

If you really think you're in a bad enough state then go ahead a give moclobemide a try. It's a pretty neat all around fast-acting mood-booster with little side-effects in my experience. It even made me borderline hypomaniacal at some times... A full-on MAOI by the way is actually not that 'dangerous' and MAOIs don't deserve their bad rep imo... As long as you're not stupid an MAOI is probably the most effective and strongest anti-depressant/mood-booster you can get but probably should be reserved for more severe cases.

5-HTP or tyrosine are unlikely to do much.

The n-acetyl-cysteine is actually a good idea and definitely can't do harm.

What you describe sounds like either a vascular issue like increased intracranial pressure from high emotional stressors or some sort of cataplexy. Propranolol or clonidine could potentially be worth trying if it's a vascular issue with sympathetic overactivity during high-stress. Then again I'm not sure what you're experiencing... Basically, you have a stress response to stress? But that's normal you know? It's kinda vague lol

Edited by darksanity, 04 January 2014 - 11:05 AM.