Medication for mood disorder?

[Daught]

Hello, here is a bit of background on my situation. Due a very messed up environment around me for most of my teen years and early adult life I am quite positive I ended up with a mood disorder. I have a "background" depression with wild mood swings. By background depression I mean a depression that I work very hard to subdue and control. My mood tends to swing very hard when I loose control.

My situation reached rock bottom a few months ago. Since then I made some major changes in my life that improved my situation. However the scars are still there. I am tired of trying to control my mind so much. I feel like I am wasting my life in the state I am in so I want to try some medication but I refuse to even consider prescription antidepressants. Still half a bottle of scotch and 3 packs of smokes a day is not a good road to take.

I am looking for a bit of help on my mood disorder lack of focus and motivation. After quite a bit of research I am looking at combining St. John's Wort, 5-HTP,
DMAE and Piracetam. How does this sound? Any other suggestions?

 

[3dmusic]

St johns wort worked better than SSRI medication for me.
Kanna (a.k.a) sceletium tortuosum, is a herb, which acts like an SSRI.

You cant take these two together, and they interact with pharmecutical SSRI's too.

SSRI's are really a band-aid for a boil, and are a hassle to switch, as some have funny side effects, so I would save these for a totally last resort.

5htp is good, but I got too much sleep paralysis of it.

I am still experimenting myself as I have had bad depression lately.
I stopped taking speed ages ago, and I guess the depression and anxiety is slowly improving, but a bit too slow for my liking.
This was my reasons why I relaspsed, but the depression got so bad, it has now got in the way of speed itself, so I am forced to shelve speed and look for others.

I am sprinkling pharma grade kanna into my tobacco rollies at the minute, but i have only been doing this a few weeks, but I think its slowly starting to work.

I am also fighting urges to bosh downers.

 

[TRPPNASS_DSCOMONKE]

most people (i havent tried it) say that DMAE is garbage, but again i havnt tried it, thats just what many of the reports i have read told of it.

were it me, i would add in some L-tyrosine (precursor to dopamine and epinephrine) before breakfast, and some soy lecithin (which will synth to choline) after breakfast and lunch. the lecithin will synergize and help bump up the piracetam. with these minor changes i think you would have a wonderful stack going on!

also, you can buy multi vitamin/supplements that have stuff like st. johns wart/ginko/guto kola/saw palmetto/other goodies already in them.

 

[Daught]

How about Centrophenoxine instead of lecithin or DMAE ? From searching, it seems to be very good but in the end from what I understand it is a compound made of DMAE and pCPA. Can It actually be good or is it just like simple DMAE.

The L-tyrosine seems like a great suggestion.

 

[acetylcholine]

I honestly don't think any of these "supplements\nootropics" will do anything for serious mental distress.

Also, "natural" anti-depressants like St Johns wort and Kanna are just unregulated, poorly studied, imprecisely dosed versions of potential pharmaceuticals like SSRIs.

5-htp, tyrosine, cholinergics, kanna, st johns wort did nothing for my depression. SSRI's, SNRI's, and bupropion have been somewhat more helpful.

If you are serious about dealing with a mood disorder, there are a variety of options. If you are willing to take the precations, MAOIs sound attractive to me.

 

[safety]

Are you a coffee drinker and/or a nictotine smoker?

 

[Daught]

acetylcholine I dont expect them to be magic. I will continue to deal with my problems as I always did, but I am looking for a bit of help. Even if they are just placebo my strong will will make good use of them.

safety I dont drink coffee, but I occasionally drink red bull. I used to smoke 3 packs a day but now I am down to less than one.

 

[Mehm]

Definitely fish oil or some other omega-3 supplement. Your brain and nervous system is largely built out of omega-3 fatty acids. Their huge success in treating mood disorders is well documented.

Also, yoga will exercise your nervous system along with every other muscle and organ. This has the effect of calming the mind so that trauma can be passed through consciousness and out of the 7th chakra, back into the universe.

 

[Daught]

Alright after a lot of reading this is what I am considering, please comment on dosages.

St. John's Wort: I already got a bottle made by Flora. They are gel caps of St. John's Wort extract in olive oil. Since St. John's Wort oxidizes easily I thought this would be a good choice.

5-HTP: 100mg daily. This seems a generally suggested dosage for daily intake. In the future I would like to replace this considering it could damage the heart.

L-Tyrosine: I consider taking 3g(3x1g) a day. I found http://www.bulknutrition.com/?ingredients_id=7 to have some good and clear info on dosage.

Piracetam: 4.8g(3x1.6g) a day.

Lecithin: Here I am having some trouble finding a dose. Everyone recommends this with piracetam but I could not find anything concrete on dosage of lecithin when taking piracetam. I remember reading somewhere a 3:1 ratio is good. Can someone confirm this?


Please comment if this is too much or any adjustments I should make.

My vitamins have omega-3 in them. At least I got something covered already

While looking at all this stuff I also stumbled over Idebenone Powder. I might add that to the stack in the future. It seems to be good all around.

 

[Mehm]

^^you should be hitting about 1 gram per day of omega-3. I doubt your supplement has that.

 

[acetylcholine]

Three grams of Tyrosine a day is what I take. I believe it does have some energizing effect. The powder has no taste so it's no problem to just eat it and drink it down with some water. I've read that vitamin B6 and C supplementation is recommended for increasing the efficacy of Tyrosine.

Piracetam dosage seems about right. My range has been between 3 to 10 grams of Piracetam daily. I'm currently taking a break from it because I got sick of having to cap it so often.

I take a Choline salt rather than lecithin, so I'm not sure of the dosage.

Plus, I take about two to three grams of Omega 3 fish oil daily with meals.

Despite what I said, I do take supplements, though I rarely see any acute effect. I consider them as augmentation to my RX meds. But judging from what you've said about your situation, only supplements might be fine. It should be noted that many people find that choline supplements and cholinergics like Piracetam produce mild dysphoria rather than improving mood. This has not been my experience and I encourage cholinergics for mood, nootropic, and long term health purposes.

I also strongly recommend Alpha Lipoic Acid. This is a great all-around supplement with several benefits. Not sure if improved mood is one, though. Make sure to take the ALA with meals or you might get indigestion.

 

[Hammilton]

Why take tyrosine at all? Just like phenethylamine, it's chewed up by MAO rapidly. If it wasn't, three grams would cause a serious hypertensive crisis. Those who are on MAO-A inhibitors may experience a life-threatening crisis from consuming as little as 10mg from cheese.

 

[Daught]

^^you should be hitting about 1 gram per day of omega-3. I doubt your supplement has that.=

Thanks I put it on my shopping list

First of all, mood disorders aren't usually caused by a fucked-up environment. They're usually genetic.=

I am even more screwed then

I'm also trying to figure out mymood disorder right now, but what;s helped me most is self-medication. I reccomend a mood stabilizer, and there are no natural ones.=

What about lithium?

Why take tyrosine at all? Just like phenethylamine, it's chewed up by MAO rapidly. If it wasn't, three grams would cause a serious hypertensive crisis. Those who are on MAO-A inhibitors may experience a life-threatening crisis from consuming as little as 10mg from cheese.=

Considering I am taking St. John's Wort which is a very mild MAOi would this be a problem or a benefit?


I am also looking at D,L-Phenylalanine, here is what I was reading earlier

L-Phenylalanine, the form that is found in most foods, is an essential amino acid that can be converted into L-tyrosine (the precursor to norepinephrine and dopamine, for more info see David Tolson’s article on Tyrosine). But unlike L-tyrosine, L-phenyalanine is a direct precursor to phenylethylamine (PEA). L-phenylalanine is converted to PEA at a rate similar to that of L-tyrosine to dopamine (1). PEA acts as an endogenous amphetamine in the brain that promotes energy, elevates mood, and favors aggression (2).A deficit of PEA is implicated in ADHD and depression while too much PEA might be a part of schizophrenia (3). When administered with the MAOI l-deprenyl, PEA improves mood similar to amphetamine but without tolerance (9).

Does this mean I can replace L-Tyrosine with D,L-Phenylalanine and get the advantages of both? It says it CAN be converted to L-tyrosine but it never said it does. Should I just add D,L-Phenylalanine to the stack along L-tyrosine? I am a bit wary about adding more stuff to this stack.

 

[Mehm]

First of all, mood disorders aren't usually caused by a fucked-up environment. They're usually genetic.
I'm also trying to figure out mymood disorder right now, but what;s helped me most is self-medication. I reccomend a mood stabilizer, and there are no natural ones.=

That is hardly proven because genetics and environment are confounded variables. For instance, a family unit shares both genetics and environment. Because of this is almost impossible to say that a certain gene is causing a disorder. In fact, genes are activated by the environment, and the environment can possibly re-write genes. The two are very related and interdependent.

 

[lollerskater]

Lithium blows and has tons of side effects. Lamictal is waaaaay better, and is commonly used off label for bipolar disorder or treatment resistant depression. I've been on several different mood stabalizers and Lamictal takes the cake.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Mood swings are often related to sleep problems and can also benefit from making sure you are getting good nutrition. For different people there are different triggers, journaling about your emotional life along with nutrition, environmental, and sleep might reveal patterns you wouldn't pick up on otherwise.

Theoretically cholinegic nutrients like DMAE and choline can induce mania.

A lot of serious research shows fish oil to be good for both people with unipolar depression and people with bipolar.

 

[Volcano]

I've been taking 5-HTP since Monday because I am taking ecstasy tomorrow night and wish to avoid a headache the next day.

I've noticed, overall, I've been in a really good mood this week. I've been smoking my usual (if not less) amount of marijuana, but overall I've felt GOOD.

 

[Daught]

Something really cool happened this past two days. I was suspecting I have a serotonin problem since I have very bad sleeping patters. I usually can't go to sleep before 5-7AM. Also I never ever recall dreams. Well for the past two nights I was able to go to sleep earlier and I am starting to recall dreams.

The only thing I been taking for almost a week now is quite a high dose of St John's Wort. I did notice an improvement in my mood. I thought I was just coming out of a cycle but dreaming is a very interesting development.

Cant wait to receive my other stuff and throw them in the mix.

 

[Jabberwocky]

The only thing I been taking for almost a week now is quite a high dose of St John's Wort.

Daught if you get any prescriptions for anything make sure the prescriber knows you are taking St John's Wort. It interacts with many medications.

 

[agasdf339]

i'll stay away from ltyrosine. if u already had some -old post- i'll better shut up , and u shouldnt lookup to see why...