This is a warning about mixing SSRI's and Curcumin. There have been some discussions about whether curcumin's MAOIs effects are strong enough to interact with SSRI's and provoke serotonin syndrome, and I say yes.
I started a trial of escitalopram a few days ago to see if it would help with my GAD ( at 5mg a day ). Because I also had some nasal allergies that were bothering me, I stopped escitalopram and started taking high doses of curcumin ( 400 to 500 mg a day, Longvida AOR brand ). Curcumin has often been of tremendous help in lowering my allergies, and even after just two days it started indeed to help .
On the third day, I made the stupid decision of restarting escitalopram at 10mg, then later at night I took another 200mg of curcumin. Lo and behold, less than an hour later, while in bed , I started shivering all over my body, feeling frozen to the bone. Even during some of my worst past infections I never had such violent shivering. My body muscles were twitching in violent spasms, yet my mind had no particular symptoms, I was perfectly fine and awaken. It was purely physical.
This lasted for a while, and luckily I remembered I still had some cyproheptadine left ( wich is a known serotonin antagonist and is often given during serotonin syndrome crisis ). I was so much frozen and twitching I barely could get out of my bed and walk to my pharmacy drawer , but ended up doing it and took 4mg of cyproheptadine. A few hours later , the spasms and shivering started diminishing and I fell into deep sleep for almost 12 hours...
Bottom line, yes curcumin has serious potential of provoking serotonin syndrome if taken with an SSRI ( especially a purer one like escitalopram, others like mirtazapine have barely any serotonin action ), so be careful.
