Posted by bleauberry on April 12, 2008, at 14:00:53
In reply to tryptophan, posted by Markwell on April 10, 2008, at 15:19:45
If someone has any kind of metabolic error, either from genetics, environmental insult, past drug use, or diet, tryptophan may or may not convert properly. It goes through many conversions, with only about 10% ending up as serotonin.
I found it to be less reliable and less predictable than 5htp. Sometimes it felt like it was mostly turning into melatonin instead of serotonin. It was calming to me and zombied me out in a daze. I felt so drugged I could not continue with it for more than 3 days. That was just 500mg.
I found 5htp more friendly, but even with that I was quite sensitive and needed doses as low as 10mg with a peak of 50mg.
Either one did not help my anhedonic type depression, though they did give a sense of calm and worry-free.
For some people tryptophan works great and 5htp doesn't. For some people 5htp works great and tryptophan doesn't. For some people they don't help at all. For some people they feel worse, more depressed, or more anxious, on either one of them.
These things aren't supposed to have sexual side effects, but I had worse sexual side effects than medications.
A personal trial and error starting with very low doses and varying what times of day you take doses (or dose) is the only way to find out how you personally respond to these.
poster:bleauberry
thread:822572
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20080326/msgs/822882.html