Posted by bleauberry on December 31, 2009, at 10:52:35
In reply to hydroxytryptophan - any success?, posted by Relapse on December 31, 2009, at 0:11:33
5htp can work really well, but it has to be targeted to the right people and the right symptoms. It is not a shotgun effect that covers all types of depression. It is more specifically for the types characterized by low serotonin, which includes crying spells, doom and gloom, excessive emotional sensitivity, and such. Julia Ross does a good job of charactezing the different types of depression and matching the right precursors for them.
Tryptophan with B3 and B6 can work better when 5htp doesn't.
Very often it needs companions, such as DLPA for low endorphines, tyrosine for NE/DA, and/or GABA/glycine. It usually is not any single one, but the proper "balance" of the right ones, that gets people feeling better quickly.
5htp on its own by simple blind trial and error can work fantastic for some people, but often poops out within a few months. It actually isn't a poopout, but rather a signal that the serotonin stores are full, too full, at the expense of NE/DA. The strategy to restore effectiveness is to reduce dose or frequency of dose, and add tyrosine.
At sjwinfo.org there is a section devoted to people who focus on just 5htp. That's a good place to read archives of actual 5htp users, what they discovered works and doesn't work, add-ons, etc.
poster:bleauberry
thread:931712
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091227/msgs/931779.html