44 replies to this topic

[ajnast4r]

it also seems that not every St John's wort extract is equivalent. Most of the stuff sold OTC is of shady quality.

there are only 2 types of SJW that anyone should ever take...

the first, best and most well studied if the WS 5572 extract from willmar schwabe... sold in america as PERIKA by natures way.

the 2nd best, and 2nd most well studied is STJOHNSELECT, made by Indena sold as KIRA or vitamin shoppes house brand.


ive tried both, perika is far more effective to me. its std for hypercin and hyperforin. hyperforin is unstable, and both use stabilizers. (tiny doses of ascorbic acid for the schwabe product, grapeseed opc for the indena product). there are other actives that add to the effects, and like i said perika (for me) is by far more effective.

i know for sure that WS-5572 is scheduled as a drug and not available OTC in a lot of countries...and where it is available outside america its sold as different brands. im not sure about the indena extracts. if anyone is having trouble finding it in their country give me a PM and ill help you.

Do you recommend a particular brand of SJW? Dosage?

standard dose for the average male is 3, 300mg tablets per day with meals. 1 with breakfast, lunch & dinner or 1 with breakfast & 2 with dinner. i dosed both of these ways for a year, and then began to experience some fatigue and irritability so i cute my dose down. its almost universally common that after a while you will have to cut back your dose in order to maintain efficacy. it seems to me that st johns wort actually 'fixes' some of the problems in the brain, and then a lower dose or complete stop is needed and positive effects are maintained.

if you experience initial fatigue (which is very rare) and it doesnt go away after a few days... only take 2 pills with dinner, or before bed with a small amount of fat (a few nuts or some fishoil pills). hyperforin is lipid soluble so its important that if you dont take it with a meal you take it with a small amount of fat.

most people see results in 2-6 weeks, i saw results the 3rd day (which is faily common). so give it time and be patient.

ajnast4r, so, just to make it totally clear, SJW did NOT have the typical SSRI sides of:

- emotional blunting
- apathy
- impotence
- poor focus

ive never heard anyone complain of that... mostly its exactly the opposite... for me: sharper more vivid positive emotions, more caring/compassion, it improved my focus, and my erections and libido did not change at all. read a few posts up where i posted the speculations on its method of action.

be mindful though that sjw does induce certain cytochromes so it increase the clearance of certain medications, specifically birth control can be an issue for a lot of people.

heres a list of the interactions:
http://www.rpsgb.org...heetstjwort.pdf

taht all being said, i think its important when dealing with depression (and in general) to also adhere to good eating, sleeping & exercise habits, and maintain active means of reducing stress (meditation, etc). i dont think any anti-depressent should be used in and of itself, i think they are best used to facilitate healing and as a springboard to make more sustainable positive changes in your life. so obviously sjw is no miracle cure, but it REALLY, REALLY helped me and i think its safe enough for most people that its worth a shot, even if used temporarily to get through some rough times.

Edited by ajnast4r, 25 June 2008 - 08:25 PM.

[HereInTheHole]

This is exciting. I'm going to order the Perika. Probably should keep at it a couple months to get past the placebo effect. It's only anecdotal, but I'll report what I experience.

I've had problems with depression and anxiety for most of my life. I suspect that an extremely stressful childhood did some lasting damage. In the past five years, I've tried Paxil, Effexor and Remeron (Effexor in the morning and Remeron at night to come down from the Effexor -- "California Rocket Fuel" the doc called the combo), Wellbutrin, and Deprenyl. The fatigue and constipation from the Paxil were unpleasant. Effexor stopped working (that is, I became suicidal -- YEAH!) after a couple months, despite doubling the dose. More than a quarter of the Remeron dose kept me in a fog the next day like taking Benadryl. A plus with the Remeron was dreaming: lengthy and vivid. Wellbutrin was nice except for the constipation and the cost. Even 10mg of Deprenyl each day doesn't do much except (wait for it...) constipation.

Edited by NarrativiumX, 06 August 2008 - 06:52 PM.

[HereInTheHole]

This is exciting. I'm going to order the Perika. Probably should keep at it a couple months to get past the placebo effect. It's only anecdotal, but I'll report what I experience.

I've had problems with depression and anxiety for most of my life. I suspect that an extremely stressful childhood did some lasting damage. In the past five years, I've tried Paxil, Effexor and Remeron (Effexor in the morning and Remeron at night to come down from the Effexor -- "California Rocket Fuel" the doc called the combo), Wellbutrin, and Deprenyl. The fatigue and constipation from the Paxil were unpleasant. Effexor stopped working (that is, I became suicidal -- YEAH!) after a couple months, despite doubling the dose. More than a quarter of the Remeron dose kept me in a fog the next day like taking Benadryl. A plus with the Remeron was dreaming: lengthy and vivid. Wellbutrin was nice except for the constipation and the cost. Even 10mg of Deprenyl each day doesn't do much except (wait for it...) constipation.

I'm done with my trial. Almost two weeks taking three pills a day, one at each meal. Perika made me tired and concentration difficult. Paxil did the same thing, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I can't talk to the mood elevating aspect, since being tired makes me frustrated. There were no other SSRI-type side effects like dampened libido.

For what it's worth, The Vitaman Shoppe's brand of St John's Wort had no effect on me, good or bad. So for those people who are helped with SSRIs, the Perika brand might be a great alternative.

Edited by NarrativiumX, 20 August 2008 - 02:12 AM.

[stephen_b]

It might be interesting if you revisit the thread a couple of weeks after you stop taking it though. I'm just about finished a round of Kira's product. I too was a little tired while taking it, but I think I noticed a slight improvement in the ease of holding a conversation, for example. I was never considering this a long term supplement.

Stephen

[lynx]

This is exciting. I'm going to order the Perika. Probably should keep at it a couple months to get past the placebo effect. It's only anecdotal, but I'll report what I experience.

I've had problems with depression and anxiety for most of my life. I suspect that an extremely stressful childhood did some lasting damage. In the past five years, I've tried Paxil, Effexor and Remeron (Effexor in the morning and Remeron at night to come down from the Effexor -- "California Rocket Fuel" the doc called the combo), Wellbutrin, and Deprenyl. The fatigue and constipation from the Paxil were unpleasant. Effexor stopped working (that is, I became suicidal -- YEAH!) after a couple months, despite doubling the dose. More than a quarter of the Remeron dose kept me in a fog the next day like taking Benadryl. A plus with the Remeron was dreaming: lengthy and vivid. Wellbutrin was nice except for the constipation and the cost. Even 10mg of Deprenyl each day doesn't do much except (wait for it...) constipation.

I'm done with my trial. Almost two weeks taking three pills a day, one at each meal. Perika made me tired and concentration difficult. Paxil did the same thing, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I can't talk to the mood elevating aspect, since being tired makes me frustrated. There were no other SSRI-type side effects like dampened libido.

For what it's worth, The Vitaman Shoppe's brand of St John's Wort had no effect on me, good or bad. So for those people who are helped with SSRIs, the Perika brand might be a great alternative.

Have you tried SAM-e? If not eat 1600 mg of high quality and see what happens. High quality = Jarrow, LEF, Natures Made.

[bgwithadd]

Everyone responds to drugs differently. No doubt there are many causes of depression each responding best to different treatments and it is definitely simplistic to think of it as just a serotonergic problem. Otherwise why not simply take 5htp as your only treatment? You can even ingest pure serotonin for that matter, aide from the fact it's extremely itchy.

[Ben]

I'm a bit biased against most SSRIs, i find them to produce zombie like emotional states rather than actually raising moods, plus the other side effects are rather bothersome. If the individual is capable of regulating the emotions himself with the right training i'd say that would be a wiser approach.

That's an interesting find though ajnast4r. I am also bothered by big pharma but i don't really see a solution to it since this is essentially the way things go - destroy competition. The only real solution is to become knowledgeable.

london710's find is also interesting...

This reply was a long time coming but a "zombie like state" is exactly what St. John's Wort put me in. I was happy though, lethargic and unmotivated but happy and contented.

[StrangeAeons]

Generally speaking the modeling of depression on the basis of any neurotransmitter system is not only an oversimplification but most likely a complete fallacy. I don't think behavioral manifestations are a reliable indicator of the underlying pathology save for perhaps the most gross generalizations (i.e. neuroses vs. psychoses). SSRI's and all other drugs targeted at neurotransmitters or the metabolism thereof are more likely symptomatic management of a more complex problem; which is why the approach to finding the right one is very much hit and miss.
I see playing with neurotransmitters as akin to playing with the equalizer of the behavioral stereo. You can't use it to change the genre of music, but if you tweak it you can get the sound to be a bit better. Of course, the right tweak is hard to figure out. I also think certain receptor subtypes might generally result in a more pleasant tweak; AMPAkines in specific give me a lot of hope. Ketamine's theorized MOA on depression is through the upregulation of AMPA in response to NMDA antagonism.
As per the notions of neurogenesis, I like the idea of making my brain bigger but I'm skeptical about what's actually going on. Patients on neuroleptics show hypertrophy in the basal ganglia; I think this type of growth is a compensatory measure to the D2 antagonism. It's conceivable that SSRI's might have similar effects in regions where serotonin has an inhibitory effect or where it competes with other monoamines; but that's all untrained speculation. Bottom line, our modeling of mood disorders is based purely on behavioral criteria (with the exception of the DSM's favorite saying "x disorder cannot be a result of other medical problems") with no regard to the underlying neurological phenomena; so long as this backwards paradigm is in place we cannot hope to create an effective model for treatment.

[mSiren]

There is some good evidence that SSRI's promote the growth of a small group of neurons in the brain, a group that is diminished/killed by chronic stress. In support of this hypothesis, it is known that the time required for neurons to grow and reach maturation is about the same amount of time that it takes for a person on an SSRI to realize beneficial effects.

SSRI's taken over a long period of time increase BDNF which supports neuroregenesis, but for those who feel a worsening in there depression by taking SSRI's, It may not be worth it.

[mSiren]

The general seratonin imbalance theory may just be "off". Depression is a handful of symptoms which can be experianced by a person with low seatonin and high dopamine. The same symptoms can be felt (apathy, lethargy, low motivation) by a person with low dopamine or NE.

I was getting pretty deep into the different receptor-types of 5HT and DA. Each receptor type does a different thing (simply put) in different areas of the brain. This comes into play with Schizophrenia, and has recently been shown by the effects of Tianeptine.

People who have a higher concentration of DA in other parts of their brains don't have "low" DA, because they have a significant amount, just not in certain areas. If you give them a SSRI, they wouldn't find it helpful. They may actually feel worse. By guiding the DA to the needed part of the brain, they find relief. Tianeptine increases DA in the frontal cortex. Thats why for some who haven't found relief in other drugs which increase DA or 5HT find Tianeptin beneficial.

[phetryamine]

Sceletium Tortuosun is the closest natural product you can come to pharmacetical ssri, I feel almost the same effect without the sexual byeffects.
50 mg of the powder and it works for 5-6 hours.

interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine

The National Institute of Health News reports that a study of 18 patients has found that ketamine significantly improved treatment-resistant major depression within hours of injection.[24] The improvement lasted up to one week after the single dose.[25] The patients in the study were previously treatment resistant, having tried an average of six other treatments that failed. NIMH director Dr. Thomas Insel said in the paper:

"To my knowledge, this is the first report of any medication or other treatment that results in such a pronounced, rapid, prolonged response with a single dose. These were very treatment-resistant patients."

The researchers apparently attribute the effect to ketamine being an NMDA receptor antagonist.[26] Those findings of Zarate et al corroborate earlier findings by Berman et al.[27] However Zarate et al do raise some concerns about their results due to a possible lack of blinding, because of the inebriating effects of low dose ketamine infusion, and it is recommended that future studies include an active placebo.

The findings by Zarate et al. are confirmed by Liebrenz et al, who substantially helped a 55-year-old male subject with a treatment-resistant major depression and a co-occurring alcohol and benzodiazepine dependence by giving an intravenous infusion of 0.5 mg/kg ketamine over a period of 50 minutes and Goforth et al who helped a patient with severe, recurrent major depressive disorder that demonstrated marked improvement within 8 hours of receiving a preoperative dose of ketamine and one treatment of electroconvulsive therapy with bitemporal electrode placement.[28]<[29]

However, a new study in mice by Zarate et al. shows that blocking the NMDA receptor is an intermediate step. According to this study, blocking NMDA increases the activity of another receptor, AMPA, and this boost in AMPA activity is crucial for ketamine’s rapid antidepressant actions. NMDA and AMPA are receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate. The glutamate system has been implicated in depression recently. This is a departure from previous thinking, which had focused on serotonin and norepinephrine. The glutamate system may represent a new avenue for treatment and research.[30]

[Natascha]

Clinical depression is likely the result of environmental and biological factors. To support this hypothesis, it was shown that patients with severe clinical depression responded better with an anti-depressant plus therapy (more often than not, CBT) than they did with one or the other alone.

Another thing about the question of serotonin's implication in clinical depression, it has been shown that an SSRI is only very slightly more effective than a placebo in relieving symptoms of depression. Medications that act on both serotonin and norpinephrine (such as the TCAs and Effexor) or norpinephrine and dopamine (such as Wellbutrin) are more effective than a sugar pill than the SSRIs are. Often times, lose of interest in sex, pleasure and enjoyment in things once enjoyed are often the most burdensome symptoms of depression. One medication that has been shown as particularly effective in relieving these symptoms is Wellbutrin, which has very weak effects on serotonin, if any at all. Something to think about.

[ajnast4r]

i should note that while sjw was more effective in dealing with the emotional aspects of depression... daily intense exercise was -the- most effective thing for increasing motivation & decreasing introversion, and increasing overall quality of life. significantly more effective than any molecule or combination of molecules.


the most effective methods of exercise were, for me:

short runs (2-3 miles) with a few short sprints (until failure, ie: until i had to walk and was physically unable to run)
resistance exercise; heavy, compound lifts. 6-12 rep range, last set to failure under 6 reps.


for me, pushing myself till failure seems to be the key to getting the mood enhancing effects from exercise. note that proper form, proper diet & sleep habits are necessary when training like this to prevent injury, immunosuppression and cns overload or it will actually backfire and make you feel worse.

Edited by ajnast4r, 08 December 2008 - 09:01 PM.

[desperate788]

my theory of depression is anger towards oneself causes depression, more active noradregenic system means more pressure on serotonergic system in situaton of anger towards self, this causes depression.

[VespeneGas]

my theory of depression is anger towards oneself causes depression, more active noradregenic system means more pressure on serotonergic system in situaton of anger towards self, this causes depression.

Which would of course be why SNRI's relieve the symptoms of depression in some patients