Risk of serotonin syndrome when mixing 5-HTP and fluoxetine?

[nancy145]

My friend takes fluoxetine for depression, and it seems to help but clearly not enough. I reccomended he tries 5-HTP. I know the combination can cause serotonin syndrome though, so I wanted to know how big of a risk this is before he tries it. I used to be on citalopram, and spoke with my psychiatrist about taking 5-HTP too, which he said was fine. He said it can cause serotonin syndrome, but it's not as big of a deal as people make it. Still, I want to be more careful about reccomending something to someone else than taking it myself. Can anyone give me a detailed response of how significant the risk is? Thanks.

 

[Melancholy Hill]

I personally wouldn't combine any two drugs/substances or supplements that both act on serotonin. You can get serotonin syndrome just from taking large amounts of an SSRI, so combining two different substances that have similar effects increases your chance probably very substantially.