Posted by bleauberry on December 10, 2010, at 17:59:55
In reply to Best starting med for atypical depression?, posted by bmwfan07 on December 8, 2010, at 14:45:25
Best place to start? Well in my opinion, not at the doctors office. That is unless you are nonfunctional or suicidal, in which time I feel medical intervention is mandatory.
Is it a low serotonin problem? Easy to find out. Play with doses of 5htp and then tryptophan.
Is it a norepinephrine problem? Play with doses of DLPA and then tyrosine.
Same for dopamine.
Is GABA involved? Play with doses of GABA and glycine.
For all of them, or meds, a high quality B complex should be at the heart of whatever you do. By high quality, I mean it needs at least two versions of B12 in it (methylcobabaline mandatory and another), two versions of B6 (p5p mandatory and regular B6), two or three version of niacin (niacin, niacinamide). This strategy covers a lot of bases....the stuff that makes things work, and the methyl groups to help bridge any genetic defects.
Also at the heart of any treatment you try should be magnesium. Long story short, its functions in the brain are too numerous to count, and it is woefully deficient in the american food chain. Ones to try include MgMalate, MgGlycinate, MgTaurate, MgCitrate...in that order.
St Johns Wort.
Rhodiola Rosea.
SAMe.Food can also make a significant difference. Through home experiments about a week each, you can determine whether you are a high protein person or a high carb person...one or the other will help your symptoms somewhat, while the other makes them worse.
I would not recommend to anyone a medication to start with until they first went through all the above. Even supposing all the above fail, which is no more likely than a medication to fail, at least along the way you would have discovered some interesting clues that help to choose appropriate medications. At this point in time it is a pure guess.
Follow your doctor's advice on medication suggestions, follow the advice of others here for medication suggestions, or take control of your own treatment first by finding out what it is your body wants/needs that it doesn't have. I personally prefer to pose med suggestions after someone has already been engulfed in the medication circle and it isn't easy to get out. You aren't there and hopefully by trying some things never will be.
poster:bleauberry
thread:972935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101203/msgs/973122.html