Posted by bleauberry on June 12, 2008, at 17:53:14
In reply to Odd Case: Tyrosine=Tired, Tryptophan=Wired, posted by Gadman on June 11, 2008, at 7:46:31
Lexapro even at a low dose is a very powerful on serotonin. So even a little bit of more-than-normal enhancement of serotonin production is going to go a long way. 500mg tryptophan is equivalent to 50mg 5htp, which is a lot of serotonin production. Even when I took tryptophan by itself with no drugs, 500mg was a lot. My tolerable amount of 5htp was in the 10mg to 25mg range, which is equivalent to 100mg-250mg tryptophan. That was without drugs.
You might have experienced a tad bit of serotonin storm, or serotonin syndrome. Or it could have been something similar to the start-up effects of ssris where anxiety is increased. In any case, for your particular symptoms, I doubt more serotonon will help. Too much serotonin already is a likely culprit to those symptoms.
Wellbutrin. Now that is a confusing drug and no one really knows how it works. It somehow has interplay with the same chemicals that tyrosine converts to. The strange effects you experienced were probably not directly related to tyrosine, but rather the combination of wellbutrin and tyrosine. Had you tried tyrosine all by itself, the experience might have been a lot different. My best intuition says that, but no way to know for sure.
Sometimes increased dopamine/norepinephrine function results in calming and mellowing rather than activating. That is seen when ADD kids are helped by a psychostimulant like Ritalin or Adderall. It has something to do with the sensitivity of the dopamine receptors, of which Lexapro itself is probably exerting a significant effect one way or the other.
If you want to try experimenting more, try very very low doses of tryptophan, or better yet, 5htp. 5htp is cleaner and more direct. For tyrosine, try very low doses. On a day that you can afford to experiment if things go weird, try a higher dose. For custom size doses, you can empty out capsules or cut pills. Mix custom dose powders in juice or reload them in an empty capsule. For powders I usually put them on a plate and cut divide into roughly equal piles...3 piles, 4 piles, 6 piles, whatever the desired dose is.
In my experience it is hard to mix natural and pharmaceutical things, other than the previous suggestions for particular vitamins. That's good. You might do better adding something else pharmaceutical, or stop the pharms and just do naturals. The previous suggestion of provigil is one I agree with, though I would drop the wellbutrin first. It just confuses the whole thing and might even mess it up.
With all things unchanged, SAMe 200mg a day is worth a try, increasing over time as tolerated. In one clinical study it was shown that SAMe could be combined at fairly high doses with ongoing ssris without serotonin syndrome.
Deplin is worth considering also.
All that being said, the symptoms you complained about commonly come with the territory when taking ssris.
poster:bleauberry
thread:834118
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20080612/msgs/834363.html