Posted by bleauberry on January 10, 2014, at 5:06:40
In reply to Reallllly irritable on klonopin, posted by SpratNZ on January 8, 2014, at 2:54:53
To my eyes this looks like a hormonal issue, most likely the stress hormone cortisol being too low.
Adrenal hormonal issues are so common in psychiatry and play a much bigger role than anyone gives credit for, in my opinion. Balance is what is needed. When cortisol is too low, all sorts of over-stimulated anxiety like behaviors happens. When it is too high, same thing.
With klonopin, we are further damping down the adrenal glands. If they are already low, then that will make existing symptoms even worse, despite the actual calming of the med. The chaos created by the low cortisol, in other words, is made even worse by a benzo, so worse in fact that the benzo cannot work the way you want it to.
When we think of anxiety, we automatically think too much adrenaline, too much NE, too much DA, something along those lines. But, when cortisol is low, the glands pump out extra NE by mistake, and there is the anxiety. So in fact, there is too much adrenaline, it is the body's confused way of trying substitute for low cortisol.
Rhodiola rosea. Eleuthero. Ashwaganda. These are very helpful to restore balance to the adrenal glands and other hormonal glands. Experimentation to find which is most beneficial is needed, so try them one at a time, about 2 weeks each for an introductory trial to see what happens. Focus on which ever one felt most promising. Keep in mind, that while these plants can indeed turn the ship around, the ship is huge and the turn is going to take some time. For these plant medicines to really do their magic takes several months, though benefit can be felt very early. The early benefits, if any, are not good enough for the healing we want. That takes months. So stick with it. Do not approach these as psych meds.....6 week trial, bye bye. Wrong approach. Won't work. Won't help.
There are adrenal supplements out there too, that sort of try to imitate or replace cortisol, made from adrenal glands of other animals. These can work and have worked for some people, did not work for me, but can be overly potent if not aware of what one is doing and accidentally scare the trial into failure.
That's why I always try to go for lowest doses at first, many times much lower than the lowest dose available, simply because I want to stay in the game all the way. Many times, especially in psychiatry, the body's physiology is so messed up that when we start a new supplement we can end up in a state of chaos temporarily as the supps unwind the bad and start to rebuild the good. A "healing crisis" can scare someone away, even though that healing crisis was exactly what was needed to take a step forward into progress.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1058069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140104/msgs/1058162.html