Posted by med_empowered on March 12, 2005, at 2:24:42 [reposted on March 12, 2005, at 6:31:34 | original URL]
In reply to Re: St John's Wort Instead of AD's? » mmcconathy, posted by Phillipa on March 11, 2005, at 23:43:55
hey! I've never done the st. john's wort thing, but I have taken 5-HTP, which supposedly boosts serotonin levels in your brain. It worked well, but it has a 3X daily dosing schedule and its not covered by insurance, so I ditched it. Before you do anything herbal...do a little bit of research on the dosage you need and the concentration of active ingredients desired. With anti-depressants St.John's Wort (or SAMe, or 5-HTP, etc.) I think the rule is to never combine treatments and obviously you'll want to do a washout before taking an "alternative" treatment. I think the rule for going from SSRI-MAOI is 2 weeks SSRI-free, except Prozac, which is more along the lines of 5 weeks. I'd use those guidelines, since the MAOI-SSRI interaction can be fatal the guidelines probably err on the safe side. As for interaction with other drugs, like Valium, I think the best place to check would be with data culled from the German E commission (I think that's what its called), which is used to study things like st.john's wort...before it hit it big in the US, I believe st. John's Wort had been available via RX in parts of Europe.
poster:med_empowered
thread:469971
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050225/msgs/469974.html