Posted by tealady on April 8, 2005, at 21:08:52
In reply to RE: Segeline (Deprenyl) and phenyalanine » Larry Hoover, posted by Elroy on March 26, 2005, at 13:42:33
> Well, what I have found - with the Dr. Bib protocol or whatever - is that the DLPA or even LPA tends to make my anxiety and certain physical symptoms qute worse. Physical symptoms such as a UTI or semi-prostatitis type pain. My urologist thinks that I have an over-production of adrenaline (NE and so forth) and that it is not only causing the severe anxiety, but also the flare-ups of the UTI type symptoms and some other "evil effects"... and that any supplement that I take that greatly increases NE (etc.) just worsenes things.
>
> Interesting....
>
> And, yes, I caught those same errors on the Dr. Bib web site. With SAMe - and I also believe with TMG - is pretty necessary to take th B vites...
>
> Interestingly, the Deprenyl by itself (5 mg dose) did NOT have that same effect, only when I took it with the DLPA or even just the LPA... so then I wondered about just the "D" version? I wonder if it would have lessened effects on increasing NE, etc. as (I believe) it is mostly converting to PEA???
>
> Then I got to thinking....
>
> My primary problem is ANXIETY - not depression. And here I am getting caught up - like most pscyh docs - in looking at ADs to address an anxiety problem. I actually have very little depression - other than the ocasional depression at being ticked off at my continuing physical / emotional state!
>
> I had a somewhat "unique" situation occur where I had developed anxiety problems (after several years of stress related to work stress in a whistleblower environment and a subsequent whistleblower lawsuit) for about 18 months or so (July 2002 to early February 2004) and then everything cleared up. The anxiety was mostly on-again and off-again and mild to moderate with occasionals ever episode - but even then not extremely so.
>
> And then in June of 2004 the anxiety returned much, much worse and remained constant - and seemed to just worsen week by week. Within just 2 - 3 weeks I had the following physical symptoms quickly appear - and with severe ysmptoms almost immediately, no "build up": hypogonadism, UTI or prostatitis type pains (but no infection ever found), tinnitus, and peripheral neuropathy type pains in hands and (especially) feet - plus some other minor symptoms. No significant problems in any of those areas prior to then.
>
> No depression (other than the occasional normal depression at my continuing state of condition), but severe on-going anxiety.
>
> Last September I was found to have extremely high cortisol levels but anti-cortisol supplements have done a nice job in bringing those levels back down (still elevated, but now just above normal). In September my cortisol levels were almost SIX times the maximum end of the normal reference range! Unknown what they were in June (took a while to get an ENDO to do the desired testing, but I suspect was even much higher. Was some initial concerns as to having Cushing's, but that was eliminated with numerous advanced testings.
>
> Levels stayed high until late September when I was put on 1st anti-anxiety med (Ativan) when they came down a little bit. When I was switched over to Xanax XR they came down another noticeable chunk (but still prety high). The big ddecreases started after a regimen of taking strong anti-cortisol products (only after Cushing's was eliminated).
>
> Interestingly, during the testing process, a small "lesion" (i.e., tumor) was found INSIDE my left adrenal gland. Cushing's can - of course - be caused by an adrenal gland tumor (though usually it is a pituitary gland tumor), but once Cushing's was eliminated the adrenal gland tumor was declared "incidental" and "probably not biologically active".
>
> Now a new PCP doc that I recently hooked up with has expressed some strong reservations about that adrenal gland tumor. He pointed out that being inside the gland that it is probably affecting the adrenaline secretion as that's where it occurs in the adrenal gland, in the medulla or inner layer. His suspicions - at this point - is that the adrenal gland tumor may have caused the severe anxiety and some of the physical symptoms and somewhere along the way the HPAT Axis obviously broke down and the lowered testosterone production and the the super high cortisol output was part of the body's reaction to that...
>
> So.....
>
> A whole new round of (different) testing coming up. My PCP seems to think that the adrenal gand needs to come out and that then the anxiety - and subsequently a lot of the physical symptoms - will clear up. Not as convinced that theHPAT Axis will then achieve a full "re-set" or not after that...
>
> ElroyHi Elroy again, good luck with all of this.
A book I have says this on pheochronocytomas, but I think you probably know all of this"PHEOCHROMOCYTOMA
These tumors make catecholamines, just like the normal medulla, except in an unregulated fashion. Patients with pheochromocytomas typically have a plethora of symptoms, as might be expected from such a wide-ranging hormonal system. Paroxysmal (sudden outburst) hypertension, tachycardia, headache, episodes of sweating, anxiousness, tremor, and glucose intolerance usually dominate the clinical findings. The key to the diagnosis of this disorder is a careful history, evidence on physical examination of excessive adrenergic tone, and laboratory detection of increased amounts of urinary catecholamines and their metabolites. When chemical evaluation of the urinary metabolites confirms the presence of a pheochromocytoma, it is often possible to localize the tumor to one or the other adrenal gland and resect the tumor. Rarely, both glands will be affected and necessitate bilateral adrenalectomy. Such patients must subsequently receive glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid replacement. Interestingly, no therapy is routinely given to replace the adrenal medullary function. It is not clear whether these individuals react less well to external stimuli that might trigger the fight-or-flight response."also "catecholamines-dopa, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine-are all made in the adrenal medulla. Norepinephrine is found in many other somatic tissues in amounts that roughly parallel the extent of sympathetic innervation of the tissue. In other words, the norepinephrine in these other tissues is not made there but is derived from the sympathetic nerve endings in them. Epinephrine, the principal product of the adrenal medulla, is made only in the adrenal medulla. "
my understanding is that adrenaline=epinephrine, noradrenaline=norepinphrine,
(the latter terms being US terms and this text is a US book)Hope all goes as smoothly and as well as possible with all of this for you. The adrenals still seem to be a bit of a mystery to medicine as far as I can see unfortunately.
tea
poster:tealady
thread:452259
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050323/msgs/481821.html