Posted by bleauberry on September 25, 2007, at 16:34:13
In reply to Re: Aggressiveness and hostility!, posted by Mary-Lisa on September 25, 2007, at 0:32:23
Very cool. I really hope 5htp helps you out. It did me. My doc did a urine test on me. Gaba, norepinephrine, dopamine, PEA, and a few others were all in the middle of the normal range. But serotonin was extremely low. Of course, the tests are not completely accurate and can be misleading, but still, because everything looked so normal except for the dramaticly low serotonin, it really kind of made me take a close look. Since I had not done well with any serotonin medications, I was pretty doubtful.
Anyway, due to mercury, as you know, I am super sensitive to everything. So I started with 12.5 5htp at about 4:00pm for 3 nights. I slept so good it was awesome. Lots of dreaming, but very deep sleep. It perked up my mood during the day for a couple days but then seemed to lose that effect. I eventually went to 50mg and then backed off to 25mg. At first 5htp made me real tired during the day. So I was afraid to try daytime dosing. But I should have, and probably will. Some people find 5htp uplifting during the day, and others sedating.
As you probably know, mercury badly screws up the whole tryptophan conversion thing. It also messes with tyrosine and taurine. So if 5htp isn't everything you are looking for, keep tyrosine and taurine high on your watch list. My doctor says for any mercury patient they should stay on medium to high doses of fish oil, flax oil, and borage oil for years to help repair the damaged cell sheaths from mercury. He says phosphatydl serine and phosphatydyl choline together also do repair jobs.
My first couple days on 5htp did come with a slight increase of nervousness, agitation, teeth clenching. Very mild, quite bearable, but enough to notice. That went away in a couple days. I'm sure it was the receptors freiking out at the new supply of serotonin that they were not accustomed to.
If 25mg feels too much, go down to 12.5mg, then move up slowly.
I'm amazed the Andy Cutler protocol made it all the way to Finland. Wow. I have his book and study it all the time. I have done 2 rounds of 25mg DMSA but am temporarily on hold until my doctor and I go over my most recent lab tests. My fillings came out about 3 months ago.
One more note on 5htp. Almost everybody says to take it with vitamin B6 to convert to serotonin. If you eat decent food, there is plenty of B6 floating around in you to do that. So many foods have vitamins added to them anyway. Too much B6 will just convert that 5htp to serotonin rapdily in your body before it ever gets into the brain. Once it is converted to serotonin, it cannot cross the brain barrier and get in. You want the 5htp to get in before it converts to serotoin. So either do not take B6 supplements, or take your 5htp as far away from your vitamin as possible, like at least 6 hours.
So, contrary to what most people say, do not take extra B vitamins with 5htp unless you know for sure you are highly deficient in them.
poster:bleauberry
thread:784580
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20070923/msgs/785137.html