11 replies to this topic

[rades1]

Hi all, long time member, haven't been on in a while.

I suffer(ed) from anxiety, depression, stress, low energy, nervous about social settings (still VERY much) Also have trouble FALLING asleep, not staying asleep.

I've been on a stack for a while and it's been going great but I think it's time to cycle off and try something new.

Currently I'm on
Rhodiola 300mg
L theanine 200-300mg
Multivatmin
All in the AM with coffee
Ashwagandha at night occasionally


This has worked well for me but I still have trouble falling asleep and I get very tired around 2pm, feel good all morning and feel like a nap @ 2. Second wind comes at about 8 hence the trouble falling asleep. Diet isn't terrible, could always be better and I do play in a men's hockey league which is pretty competitive for exercise.



I started a new job so I'm basically looking for:

Stress/anxiety relief
Sleeping help
Focus/energy/concentration/cognitive enhancement
Social situation anxiety help

I'm open to any of sort of stack building advice including racetams (if you think they are warranted for what I'm looking for!)

I've been researching for the past few hours and came up with a stack, of course I would introduce all of these individual to access the effects.

Uridine
Aniracetam
L theanine
Multivitamin with a B complex and 50mg Choline in it
Cordyceps mushrooms
Max DHA Fish oil
Ashwagandha at night


Thoughts?

[hydrus]

Max DHA Fish oil 

 

 

I think for these symptoms:

 

 

Stress/anxiety relief 
Sleeping help 
Focus/energy/concentration/cognitive enhancement
Social situation anxiety help

 

 

EPA would be more effective than DHA. Individual results may vary. Sometimes the reverse is true.

 

[rades1]

Max DHA Fish oil

I think for these symptoms:

Stress/anxiety relief
Sleeping help
Focus/energy/concentration/cognitive enhancement
Social situation anxiety help

EPA would be more effective than DHA. Individual results may vary. Sometimes the reverse is true.

Good catch, how does everything else look?

[Kinesis]

Your statement piqued my interest because I tend to have similar issues ... alert and energetic in the morning and late evening, tired in the afternoon.  So I've been working on this too.

 

I take a "triple strength" EPA/DHA supplement that is weighted in EPA six days a week, along with a ALA-rich flax oil supplement.  Once a week I take an algal DHA with the ALA.  ALA can be converted into EPA and DHA but is more easily converted into EPA .. the idea being that it's giving my system a chance to find its own balance.

 

If you add the aniracetam, you might consider balancing that with a low dosage of phenylpiracetam late morning - early afternoon.  Phenylpiracetam is energizing at first, but I find that several hours later as it's wearing off I'm more relaxed in the evening.  By "low" I mean just 25-50 mg, where the effect is reminiscent of a cup or so of coffee but without the jitters.  These racetams clearly don't affect everyone the same (YMMV), but I mention this particularly because your post suggests you might react similarly to me.

[rades1]

I'm already on it!! Instead of phenylpiracetam I opted to go with oxiracetam instead. I already ordered everything and it all came in the mail this week. I'm going to start out trying aniracetam on its own tomorrow and go from there. Trying oxi on its own before combining.


So here's what the stack will look like when it's all up and rolling:

Aniracetam
Oxiracetam
Fish oil
Alpha gpc
Multivitamin
Holy basil (adaptogen) I use lots of adaptogens and love them, holy basil will be a new one for me.

[Hip]

See my thread about a potent anti-anxiety treatment: Completely eliminated my severe anxiety symptoms with three supplements!

[xatu01]

Depression is mainly illness of thoughts, try cognitive behavioral therapy with antidepressants which will supress your OCD/depression. Trust me

[Kinesis]

Depression is mainly illness of thoughts, try cognitive behavioral therapy with antidepressants which will supress your OCD/depression. Trust me

 

Depression is a word that if banished from our mental health vocabulary would leave us better off.  It's become a catch-all for a wide variety of different things.  The DSM for example doesn't even require low or melancholy mood for a diagnosis of clinical depression ,,, anhedonia may suffice.  When I was first diagnosed with clinical depression in the 1980s, I was surprised, because I didn't feel emotionally down ...I'd gone to the doctor for physical complaints such as unexplained pain and lack of energy and was ultimately referred to a neurologist who after a number of tests and a thorough history told me I was "depressed" and prescribed the "antidepressant" amitriptyline.  (This was before SSRIs hit the market).  I was skeptical, but nevertheless this "antidepressant" helped.

 

The point being that in at least some cases, like mine, "depression" (as the term is used in medicine) is a very physical illness having little to no apparent connection with thoughts or state of mind.  In other cases, it's not.  But functionally it's almost wound up being reverse defined by its treatment ... if it's something that might be helped by  "antidepressant" therapy, it's depression.  Flimsy circular logic for sure, but a rough approximation of clinical realty nevertheless.  It's just all over the map.

[Dichotohmy]

 

 

Depression is a word that if banished from our mental health vocabulary would leave us better off.

 

 

Exactly. The diagnostic criteria, both unofficial and per the DSM, for major depression disorder has become so non-specific and all-encompassing, that the diagnosis really doesn't mean much. Barring very few existing objective ways to confirm a diagnosis of depression, and the fact that what few objective tests that do exist are practically never used by GPs and managed-care psychiatrists who commonly treat and diagnose the condition, anti-depressant medication response is a very important confirmation for a diagnosis of depression. This raises another problem in that clinical trials of anti-depressant medication have to rely on subjective questionnaire and symptom reports from participants, because there is a problem objectively measuring the presence or change of severity of depression. Thus, medication response being a confirmation of depression is problematic in that clinical trials can't objectively show how antidepressants change the condition of depression, which itself is tough to objectively measure in the first place. This is a problem because the antidepressant drugs, when they work, could be treating some other condition that could be better treated with another treatment that has fewer side effects, and which treatment could provide more complete patient outcome and well being.

 

As a non-sequitor, this is why I find the very notion of treatment resistant depression so absurd. How does one have depression when arguably the most important confirmation of the diagnosis (adequate medication response) is absent? Why do doctors and patients go on and on with medications instead of revisiting the diagnosis - especially when it is well known that there are a myriad of lifestyle factors or non-mentall illnesses that can all cause or contribute to depressed mood and explain other diagnostic bullet points in the DSM for major depression disorder?

[Hip]

Depression is a word that if banished from our mental health vocabulary would leave us better off.  It's become a catch-all for a wide variety of different things.  

 

There are lots of sub-types of depression: this article lists and describes 9 subtypes. 

[Hip]

As a non-sequitor, this is why I find the very notion of treatment resistant depression so absurd. How does one have depression when arguably the most important confirmation of the diagnosis (adequate medication response) is absent? 

 

Major depression is easy to self-observe and self-report, so we can rely on subjective accounts to an extent. In a study, you need to use questionnaires to be objective, but we also have subjective reports at out disposal. You also have many psychiatrists and psychologists who have considerable empathetic skills, and can get into the minds of others much more easily that those without empathy.   

 

Interestingly though, those with the dysthymia form of depression are often unaware that they have it. They often mistake their depression for their actually personality. Which is interesting, because by contrast in major depression, people are aware they are depressed, and they make a distinction between themselves and their depression; they understand that depression is something that has happened to their brain and mind. But with dysthymia, people are often unable to distinguish between themselves and the depression they are affected by.

Edited by Hip, 28 October 2017 - 09:17 PM.

[Kinesis]

 

Depression is a word that if banished from our mental health vocabulary would leave us better off.

 
Exactly. The diagnostic criteria, both unofficial and per the DSM, for major depression disorder has become so non-specific and all-encompassing, that the diagnosis really doesn't mean much. Barring very few existing objective ways to confirm a diagnosis of depression, and the fact that what few objective tests that do exist are practically never used by GPs and managed-care psychiatrists who commonly treat and diagnose the condition, anti-depressant medication response is a very important confirmation for a diagnosis of depression. This raises another problem in that clinical trials of anti-depressant medication have to rely on subjective questionnaire and symptom reports from participants, because there is a problem objectively measuring the presence or change of severity of depression. Thus, medication response being a confirmation of depression is problematic in that clinical trials can't objectively show how antidepressants change the condition of depression, which itself is tough to objectively measure in the first place. This is a problem because the antidepressant drugs, when they work, could be treating some other condition that could be better treated with another treatment that has fewer side effects, and which treatment could provide more complete patient outcome and well being.
 
As a non-sequitor, this is why I find the very notion of treatment resistant depression so absurd. How does one have depression when arguably the most important confirmation of the diagnosis (adequate medication response) is absent? Why do doctors and patients go on and on with medications instead of revisiting the diagnosis - especially when it is well known that there are a myriad of lifestyle factors or non-mentall illnesses that can all cause or contribute to depressed mood and explain other diagnostic bullet points in the DSM for major depression disorder?

 

 

And part of the problem is that we started referring to a diverse array of drugs as "antidepressants" in the first place.  We're better off calling things with three rings "tricyclics", things that selectively inhibit the reuptake of serotonin SSRIs, things that inhibit monoamine oxidation MAOIs, etcetera.  These are at least objective descriptions of what these drugs are, leaving the diagnosis to the doctor.  When you name a drug by the diagnosis it's intended to treat, you open yourself up to trouble ... especially if the diagnosis is such a broad and fuzzy thing as clinical "depression".

 

This gets pretty circular.  Since you are already a bit at sea trying to define what the disease is, once you name a treatment after it you can wind up putting the cart before the horse and using the treatment to modify how you define the disease.  Clinical "depression" winds up being defined as something that is treatable by an "antidepressant".  Over time the term has drifted pretty far afield from what people normally think of as depression.

 

So confusion reigns.  As you point out, what happens when your "depression" is resistant to treatment?  How much of that is a consequence of medicine's actual inability to successfully treat what ails you, and how much of it is due to the fact that something we call an "antidepressant" didn't happen to work?

 

It's fortunate that in many cases, such as mine, that the treatment does work, but I suspect often as not is has less to do with what name we used for the condition or how we tried to pigeonhole it than with the talent and experience of the doctor in assessing the symptoms and identifying a treatment that fits.

 

How did this state of affairs develop?  I don't know, but I suspect it's more legal and regulatory than medical.  The FDA not only approves drugs, but approves them for specific conditions.  That means some name has to be attached, and some definition of what it means.  If the business of deciding what treatment was appropriate were left up to the doctor and the patient, probably a lot of this confusion would be moot.

 

Edited by Kinesis, 10 November 2017 - 10:02 PM.