Posted by bleauberry on March 8, 2009, at 8:54:42
In reply to FINALLY GOT A DIAGNOSIS - NOW WHAT TO DO?, posted by Cseagraves on March 7, 2009, at 18:49:54
> Have to find a psychologist who specializes in PTSD for some intense therapy. Also trying homeopathic approach. Anyone here with experience with therapeutic doses of St. Johns Wort? Read that it works like a mild maoi.
>
> Am also in the process of being treated for adrenal fatigue syndrome. So hopefully, that will straighten itself out soon.
>A few things jumped off the page at me and I just wanted to offer possible comments.
St Johns Wort is worth a try. Start low, go slow, find your own personal therapeutic window. The instructions are wrong. People vary in their response to SJW with some doing great at 150mg and worse at higher doses, others needing the full 900mg (300mg X 3 per day), and many people find the 600mg range just right.
Different brands are like different drugs. Similar, but different. Some people respond better to the inexpensive RiteAid or WalMart brands, and some people respond better to the clinical brands (Kira or Perika). Some people get worse on one and better on another.
I've been dealing with adrenal fatigue for a few years and I have spent hundreds of hours at forums that specialize in cortisol and thyroid issues. I can tell you the vast majority of people get minimal help from common things such as herbs, adrenal cortex extract, Isocort, or licorice. Licorice is sometimes helpful in combination with other things, and of course there are people that do ok with something like an Isocort+Licorice combination. But the point I want to make is that the great majority of people do not get better until they do the real stuff...prescription oral dosing of Hydrocortisone in daily doses of 1.25mg to 20mg per day. Those are physiological replacement doses, just replacing what is missing.
Many people find that after a year of HC they can carefully slowly wean off and be fine. Many never got anywhere with any other treatments. If your doctor is taking you down the road of herbs and extracts and such, the odds are poor. That's just based on real people experiences, which is different than doctors' hopes and imaginations.
By the way, Xanax will in its own way make the treatment more difficult. When it is working, it squashes down cortisol. Yours is already down to begin with. When the last dose of Xanax begins to wear off, there is a cortisol rebound, where large spikes of cortisol increase and it puts a heavy demand on the adrenal glands. That is part of the rebound anxiety felt when a dose wears off. Xanax may be be helpful in other ways to you, but is not going to complicate the adrenal fatigue thing.
One other point. It is usually assumed that if you have low cortisol your adrenal glands are worn out. What is often overlooked is that the adrenal glands might be just fine, but that they are getting faulty instructions from the headquarters...the pituitary gland. Common things that mess up the pituitary instructions sent out is heavy metals from amalgam fillings and hidden chronic bacterial infections that have been unsuspected.
As for the diagnosis itself, I am in the minority when I say I do not believe in labels like that. Call it whatever you want...depression, anxiety, bipolar I, bipolar II, schizophrenia, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome...all these things are mysteries. That is, no one knows what causes them and no one knows how to cure them. All they know is that some medications might, maybe, help you feel better and maybe could make you worse instead. Each cluster of mysterious symptoms gets a name, just so we can call it something. In the real world, outside of clinical settings, labs, and pinhead researchers, real people respond to things that have no relation to the so-called diagnosis. For example, Gabapentin for depression, when nothing else worked. Lithium for anxiety when nothing else worked. Provigil for depression when nothing else worked. Tramadol for treatment resistent depression discovered by accident when someone was prescribed it for post-op pain. Ya know? This stuff happens.
poster:bleauberry
thread:884306
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090304/msgs/884376.html