Herpills,
Thank you for your reply. It's good to hear that you seem to be feeling at least a little bit better than how you were feeling before you started supplementing with vitamin D, and I also think that what you wrote about the slight improvement that you've noticed being due to multiple factors makes total sense. And I think that what you wrote about it being too early to tell how vitamin D might affect your treatment also makes sense, especially given the fact that the vitamin seems to have a long half-life in the body and that there seems to be some information indicating that a good response to vitamin D can take some time. I do, of course, hope that the vitamin will end up having a clear, positive effect on your mood, along with the other treatments that you're utilizing.
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> I'd love to be able to fight this with all "natural" treatments but I've come to the conclusion that I think an integrative approach combining alternative and traditional psychiatric treatments is going to give me the best chance at remission. And I'm glad I've finally found a primary care physician who is willing to help me in that area and not just hand me a psych script and send me on my way. It gives me hope.
I like what you wrote here about combining alternative treatments with traditional ones. I too take a psychiatric medication in Abilify, and although I would love to eventually be able to discontinue it (mostly because of side effects), I think that I'd likely be a wreck without it at this point, and the same may continue to be true six months down the line, a year down the line, or even longer. I don't know how well vitamin D3 is going to help me in the long run, and even though I have some reason to think that vitamin D plays a role in the development of mental disorders (especially schizophrenia and clinical depression), the evidence that the vitamin can work as a treatment isn't so strong at present. So, even though I think it's smart to use vitamin D as a treatment for cases of mental illness that involve vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency, I think that combining vitamin D supplementation with traditional mental health treatments is even smarter.
Here's to hoping that your treatment regimen will serve you well.
Tomatheus
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this signature | Show by default | Change to hide (next time)Has schizophrenia with strong negative and cognitive symptoms
Taking Abilify, niacin, & vit. D3