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Misc 5htp causing anxiety?

C

Castillo

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 5, 2013
Messages
53
Hi, i am currently weaning my last bit of celexa at 1mg. This is my last month on this drug after two years of tapering. About a month ago i got hit with major anxiety (string of stressful events) and couldnt sleep, i alternated zoplicone and ativan to counteract and cope with the inability to sleep. Im not taking anything to sleep now but i've been slowly upping my 5htp to 100mg time released.

Ever since ive started my taper i experienced an onset of anxiety and ocd, although 5htp has now helped those symptoms, i now get panic in my sleep and after an hour i jolt awake and I am wide eyed and sweating with a pounding heart that never goes away. Where melatonin use to work like a charm, now it doesnt even touch the tip of my insomnia.

For a couple days i also tried to take a dose of 500mg tyrosine in the afternoon to see if it would help the depression and anxiety, while it did make me more alert it made it worse when it wore off. I may try half a dose just to balance the high serotonin. (Or maybe i should just stick to 5htp alone?). I did add holy basil to help my high cortisol levels. It helps to an extent.

I dont want to give up on 5htp because of my ocd, but this nocturnal anxiety is driving me crazy, literally. The last couple of months life has been so stressful that i thought my body was going to give up. Now i dont know whether i inadvertently put myself in benzo withdrawal, still going through celexa withdrawl or i have high cortisol from stress or the 5htp is not a great fit or i need a higher dose. Tried kava and it helps but i find I become air hungry on it. Please help!!!!!
 
I also wanna add, many years ago in the midst of cold turkeying celexa I had an amino acid test done and it showed elevated tryptophan, low 5htp and low precursors to Epinephrine and Norepinephrine. I also have lyme disease so I'm sure that just makes the party even more delightful =)
 
In the respect of 5-htp causing anxiety I can't see how that can be. I started taking 5-htp on the last day of October at 100mg a day. I stopped about 2 weeks ago prior to my new years party roll on MDMA. But after a month of 5-htp treatment it helped my anxiety, depression and sleeping patterns. I felt like I was on 0.5mg of Xanax all the time(no anxiety). Even on the 5-htp bottle I have says it helps reduce anxiety. So unless I'm just different to you or your brain clearly does not mesh with the supplement, then I can't see how it's been giving you anxiety.

Since it's a precursor to serotonin it aids the flow of the hormone and serotonin is responsible for sleep, eat and happiness. So a regular flow of serotonin should be aiding all of these things and not causing it.
 
Thanks for the reply. Then what i'm going through must be withdrawal from benzos. What can i use to get some sleep. I'm so desperate at this point. Someone suggested powdered magnesium but i'm not sure if it's strong enough. I'm sure benadryl will just make me anxious I could up the kava kava. I was only taking one capsule.. And maybe add some melatonin to it.
 
5htp could cause anxiety, it causes me to be anxious as im quite sensitive to serotonin releasers but seeing as you were on a ssri, I doubt this is the case.
Its likely your getting rebound anxiety from the zopiclone and lorazepam. A month isnt long enough for a real dependance to develop so dont panic yourself over that.
I dont think increasing the 5htp will make much difference and the side effects of excess serotonin arent always as predictable as the above poster intimated.
Could you maybe discuss with your doctor about some mild anxiety relief to help you through this rough patch? Hydroxyzine is a 1st generation anti-histamine but it affects serotonin (sert transport to be exact) in a way that lowers anxiety and is a anti-obcessive so should work against the OCD and in higher doses its a hypnotic so it will help with sleep.
Another option could be pregabalin (lyrica), it works in a similar way to benzos but at a slighty different receptor and has pain relief and mood stabilsing effects.
 
I wish benzo withdrawal wasn't the case for me but i think it is a valid cause for my insomnia. It didnt start till i started messing around with ativan. So angry at myself! I really should have toughed it out.

I do have some hydroxyzine.. I think its called atarax here. I remember feeling sleepy on it but my mind would be wound up so i was in a sleepy/awake state. It was a great concept but a miss for me. I think this happened when i tried nyquil too.

Someone suggested valerian but is valerian okay if i'm on my tiny dose of celexa?

i just noticed something, i noticed that on one night after being wired on tyrosine all day, i actually got super sleepy. Of course, i didnt get to bed on time due to events and i ended having some sort of second wind and stayed up with anxiety. Could tyrosine be the answer? I discontinued it because of how restless it made me during the day.

Just speculating here as serotonin/5htp doesn't seem to be dimming the anxiety. I notice that even semi loud noises make me jump now. Why are my nerves so sensitive all of a sudden?
 
That 'nerves on edge' feeling and being 'jumpy' are side effects of ssri withdrawal and benzo withdrawal (a mild WD as some insomnia and anxiety does not make a full on bz WD syndrome).
Its caused by a sudden excess of noradrenaline and glutamate, fight/flight and excitatory chemicals.
Could you discuss a prescription for propranolol with your doctor?
Its non-addictive and works by blocking the action of noradrenaline mainly in the PNS. This means that although it wont help the mental side of anxiety and panic much it will stop the physical side like the heart palpitations (that rapid, pounding heartbeat you mentioned), sweating and flushing. It should help with that jumpy, agitated feeling as well.
Damn , I thought I had it cracked with the hydroxyzine idea...oh well like I said propranolol and pregabalin are worth looking into.
I think valerian would be ok with y our small ssri dose but I cant say for certain as varlerians mechanism of action isnt fully known but its thought to act on the GABA complex similar to benzos but nowhere near as potent.
 
Ok i have decided to cease the use of 5htp and taper a bit with klonopin as needed. Having not slept in two days i'm desperate for a little shut eye. I use to take 0.25mg to 0.5mg.. Now im just taking a quarter of a pill. Im thinking of taking it every two days.. Is that a good option?

Are you sure beta blockers aren't addictive? And the fact it lowers blood pressure. I heard some horror stories about it.
 
Castillo said:
Hi, i am currently weaning my last bit of celexa at 1mg. This is my last month on this drug after two years of tapering. About a month ago i got hit with major anxiety (string of stressful events) and couldnt sleep, i alternated zoplicone and ativan to counteract and cope with the inability to sleep. Im not taking anything to sleep now but i've been slowly upping my 5htp to 100mg time released.

Ever since ive started my taper i experienced an onset of anxiety and ocd, although 5htp has now helped those symptoms, i now get panic in my sleep and after an hour i jolt awake and I am wide eyed and sweating with a pounding heart that never goes away. Where melatonin use to work like a charm, now it doesnt even touch the tip of my insomnia.

For a couple days i also tried to take a dose of 500mg tyrosine in the afternoon to see if it would help the depression and anxiety, while it did make me more alert it made it worse when it wore off. I may try half a dose just to balance the high serotonin. (Or maybe i should just stick to 5htp alone?). I did add holy basil to help my high cortisol levels. It helps to an extent.

I dont want to give up on 5htp because of my ocd, but this nocturnal anxiety is driving me crazy, literally. The last couple of months life has been so stressful that i thought my body was going to give up. Now i dont know whether i inadvertently put myself in benzo withdrawal, still going through celexa withdrawl or i have high cortisol from stress or the 5htp is not a great fit or i need a higher dose. Tried kava and it helps but i find I become air hungry on it. Please help!!!!!
Click to expand...

All those really weird symptoms and this post are really typical of people taking SSRI's for a long time, melatonin not even working is a MAJOR concern. I'm gonna print this post and fax it to my psychiatrist's office.
 
Well the last two years ive been tapering my celexa has been smooth as butter. The only thing screwing with my serotonin right now is 5htp(insomnia started around this time now that i think about it). It has got to be the culprit. How long does it stay in the body? How can i facilitate the detoxing of it?
 
Just stop taking it. Its a synthetic copy of a endrogenous chemical so I would have thought its rapidly metabolised and excreted.
 
Yeah I'd say cut out the 5-htp. As long as you're eating a decent not-absolute-shite diet, you're getting enough tryptophan anyway. Your enzyme to monoamine (tryptophan hydroxylase to 5-hydroxytryptamine[SE]) balance/function is off and I think that due to the fact you've been weaning of an SSRI, taking 5-htp might actually be counterproductive in the homeostatic recalibration process.

NT-Precursor supplements like 5-htp and l-tyrosine often look good on paper but in application do not always equal out to the expected benefits and/or have unintended side effects. 5-htp is definitely one of those supplements that seems like it can do no wrong; more serotonin=more happiness etc but IME it's just not that it's just not that simple, and more than anything it just promotes over-elevated endogenous SE levels, which results in more adverse effects than it does in positive, because it passes through the BBB so easily. 100mg ER is better than most IR capsule formulations, and is not a huge dose, but in addition to the benefits can cause problems associated with elevated serotonin.

Tyrosine is especially one to use with caution. Although IIRC tyrosine hydroxylase is the rate limiting enzyme in the synthesis of dopamine from the initial precursor(s) phenylalanine/tyramine which is a fairly slow process, once it is converted into l-DOPA (levo-dihydroxyphenylalanine) which has nasty sided effects of its own, it is essentially a rapid subsequent biosynthesis; DOPA decarboxylase converts the DOPA into dihydroxyphenylethylamine, or dopamine. Further from there, the other catecholamines are made, and in a period of as little as an hour from taking the supplement on an empty stomach, a person can exhibit symptoms of mania that can even mimic schizophrenia from an overabundance of DA and NE. Again, we think more dopamine=pleasure, and more norepinephrine=alertness and energy. But taking these supplements with the idea in mind that you will be/feel better by boosting monoamine production is not exactly a correct approach. To put it simply, there's a lot more involved than can be accounted for and positively augmented by simply shoveling precursors into your body.
 
Thanks for the abundance of information. I did stop the 5htp and I am feeling much better. The heart palps were horrific and now they are just bothersome. What is your stance on Inositol???
 
Just here to update and inquire some more. I got off 5htp and for some odd reason I felt better but after a week it just go worse again, so I have to wonder what happened there? Was there a small amount of serotonin that was effective as it detoxed from my body. Tyrosine didn't do much to remedy the issue. Sleep is still a recurring issue with panic attacks. I want to try beta blockers but I'm afraid of the dependence. What if i alternate between benzos, z-drugs and beta blocker. Would that lessen the chance of dependence?

I'm grasping at straws here. I would give inositol a try but I'm afraid it'll have the same effects as 5htp. Im trying desperately to lower my extremely all day cortisol with rhodiola, relora, ashwagandha, holy basil and theanine. It's strange that I have all the symptoms of low dopamine/serotonin yet raising those levels make it worse. Any suggestions?
 
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