Posted by bleauberry on August 22, 2009, at 10:30:44
In reply to Re: Rapid and dramatic improvement from 5-HTP?, posted by markwell on August 21, 2009, at 18:10:56
> Is there a good book that is helpful, Bleauberry as to how to tackle anxiety and depression without meds? It's hard to know where to start on an alternative journey. Suggestions anyone?
I sometimes wonder why "alternative" treatments for depression are called alternative, when in fact it makes sense they should be first-line treatments. Psychiatric meds should be alternatives when everything else has fallen short. Somehow along the line we humans and the medical profession got it backwards.
Most of the psych meds and many other meds are derivatives or take-offs of "alternative" herbs. Aspirin from the bark of a tree, penicillin from a specific mold, several popular antibiotics isolating the quinine chemical found naturally in several herbs, St Johns Wort being a broad spectrum reuptake inhibitor, curcumin from the spice tumeric with feelable Parnate-like MAOI mechanisms, just for starters.
The difference with alternative is that it puts more focus on identifying and removing/reducing the cause of the symptoms, in addition to alleviating immediate symptoms.
There are many books. But you can learn a majority of what is in the books by studying google searches.
Key research words would include all of the following: Candida, candida diet, borrellia, babesia, bartonella, mycoplasma, 5htp, tyrosine, dl-phenylalanine, rhodiola rosea, st johnswort, wormwood, black walnut hulls, olive leaf, chlorella, grapefruit seed extract, berberine, mercury detox, amalgam illness, adrenal fatigue. Learn those topics and you will have more power than any doctor you will ever meet to address your own health in a targeted logical systematic manner.
If one were to do a search on each of those, then study a dozen or more various hits on each for at least 6 hours each and take notes, there is a wealth of information. The reason to read a wide variety is to gain the perspective in sorting out strong anecdotal evidence versus scientific evidence versus internet hype/selling. You might not be able to do that at first, but after many hours you begin to see the big picture, where things seem to unaminously agree and be validated, where other things don't.
You also gain the ability to see the whole picture. If depression is a result of something biological, you have a manageable and easily testable list of the most common things that cause it, how, why, and what to do to reverse it. So you can cheaply and easily test yourself for this or that.
Simple example: The Candida spit test.
Another: Full dose anti-bacterial herb to see if it induces a Herx reaction or not.
Take a DMSA urine provoked metals test to see how much mercury/lead/aluminum comes out of storage.
Simplest test of all: Look in the mouth for silver fillings.Whether books or online studying, it takes time. Some would say too much time. To that I counter that if they see a psychiatrist once a month, at a mere 1 or 2 hours of studying per day they would have gathered all of the expertise they need to take charge of their situation within the time frame of 2 monthly psychiatrist visits. The one studying made huge forward progress. The one popping pills and watching the calendar for the next psych visit made zero forward progress. The person studying is very close to discovering what is really going on here. The one not has learned nothing and still has no clue where to turn. Two months of an hour a day completely totally wasted.
I believe it is a deadend road to study all about psych meds, or all about alternative depression supplements, or all about this or that. Almost always there is more than one problem going on, tied to each other, so we need to know how they all interconnect. The big picture. Something so simple as a topic of 5htp or Effexor or Abilify will not do that. For example, where there is Lyme, there is probably depression, and there is probably candida, and there is probably heavy metal accumulation, and probably a few co-infections, and adrenal fatigue is common. All of them need attention. To merely take a psych drug is but the tip of the iceberg and misses the entire target. While for someone the single supplement 5htp might be helpful, 3 or 4 targeted supplements could be curative, not only removing the symptoms, but removing the cause of them so as to never return.
Alernative, to me, should be mainstream firstline. That is, find the cause, use easy cheap fast testing to rule-in rule-out common suspects. Use gifts of the planet to heal the found problems. In a worst case scenario, resort to manmade drugs. The pharmaceuticals should be alternatives to true diagnosis and treatment, backwards from the way it is today.
The more books on the topics mentioned the better. But even without books, it is all on the net. Some of it scientific, some of it anecdotal, some of it garbage. Read it all.
poster:bleauberry
thread:912947
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090818/msgs/913468.html