Posted by Elroy on April 26, 2005, at 16:32:11
In reply to Re: Arghhh, posted by gromit on April 25, 2005, at 17:41:28
Agree with your gut feeliing about smi2le... mine was the same. They can be a superb resource if they get their act together.
Let's see...
The NE level in my case was determined by a blood test. It was part of a "metanephrine test" (or something like that) that the endo doc was doing to see if that adrenal gland tumor was a "pheo tumor" or not. As a side test they also do a blood test for your baseline adrenaline (etc.) levels. These measurements are in "pg/ml" units of measurement. The "normal range" (i.e., reference range) for NE is 80 to 520. Mine was a 26. The normal range for epinephrine is 18 - 200. Mine was a 42. Dopamine shows a reference range of 0 - 20 (that seems kind of stupid as 0 dopamine would obviously be bad) and mine just showed that it was "less than 20 pg/ml". Does that mean it was 19.4 or that it was 0.3???
Anyway, my psych doc was shocked. She was positive that my constant high levels of anxiety would have definitely resulted in high levels of all of those adrenaline type hormones. She's wondering now if the cortisol is not only causing the high anxiety, but somehow keeping the adrenals from producing levels of adrenaline hormones that they should...
The one problem that I do see is that this is a blood test, so it only reflects serum levels of those particular hormones at that specific time. There is a 24-hour urine catecholamines test (that term refers to NE and all the other adrenaline related hormones) that is - IMHO - more accurate in reflecting the actual daily levels of those hormones.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003613.htm
To give you an example of what I am refering to (since I am VERY familiar with this process), most endos seldomly do serum cortisol tests - unless fo a specific purpose - as the 24-hour Urinary Free Cortisol test is much more accurate in showing what daily totals of cortisol are. You might go in at 3 PM to get a serum cortisol test and that just happen to be your low point of the day (for cortisol secretion), so the serum test would be very innacurate in portraying a picture of what was going on in "The Big Picture".
I just know that I have an extreme sensitivity to anything that increases NE levels (as indicated in earlier post). As such, I believe that the NE level shown in my test is very accurate simply because your theory makes a lot of sense in that context.
Like you said, 500mg of tyrosine might increase one's NE levels 25pg/ml and yours from 250 to 275 - a 10% increase. That same dosage would almost DOUBLE my NE levels. And if my body had become acclimatized to the mid 20s being the body's "baseline", then doubling it would be severe.
That makes sense simply because that what seems to be happening!
Anyway, I started Selegiline today - and starting it out by itself - at the rate of 2.5 mg (half a 5 mg tablet) per day. Knock on wood, but no problem with anxiety (etc.) Once I get assured that 2.5 mg is not creating any problems then will gradually move it up to 5mg daily. And then maybe to a second 5 mg before 2 PM (starting the second dosing out at first at 2.5 mg). Then will gradually add in one of the pro-dopamine amino acids (DLPA or tyrosine). Again, starting out in very low doses. If I can find tryrosine in 100 mgs tablets, I'm going to start at 1/2 tablet (50 mg) daily... and work up from there.
(P.S. I've noted that all the studies with low dose selegiline and these amino acids have used either DLPA or L-Phenylalanine or just Phenylalanine... wonder why tyrosine hasn't been used??? Anyone - Hoover maybe - have any ideas on that)?
I'd like to talk my endo doc into increasing my 24-hour urine tests from every two months to monthly AND to include the catecholamines in the testing process along with the cortisol that is already being tested.
I also had minimal - but some - positive effects with GABA. Had better effects with Picamilon (which is GABA bonded to niacin at the molecular level so it supposedly crosses the brain's blood barrier more efficiently). But using Taurine alone - or even with GABA - has seemed to have a very positive effect about 75% of the time (depending on severity of the anxiety).
Elroy> > smi2le seems to have gotten a new business manager to run things (a guy named Jeff). He has actually responded to a couple of my e-mails and informed me about the Idebenone and Sulbutiamine being on long-term backorder.
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> I hope they can get it together, I've always had the gut feeling they have good intentions but are perhaps not very good at business/logistics.
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> > I have found that I have a very sensitive response to anything that increases NE levels... which is surprising seing as how my NE levels are so low.
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> I don't find this that surprising, beer with me for a second. Say my normal level is middle of the road, conveniently 250. If I take something that raises it by 25, for *me* that might not be a big thing, it's subtle or maybe I don't even notice a 10% difference. If you have a level around 26 now you're talking about a huge jump, relatively. Enough of me talking out of my rear.
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> I'm curious how it was determined your level of NE is 26 , I didn't think such tests existed. 26 what?
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> > Actually I have found a lot of relief with using the Taurine. I am using it in combination with GABA (both bought in bulk powder). Along the lines of 1 to 1.5 gram Taurine with 1/2 to 3/4 gram of GABA. Seems to have allowed the cutting back of both the Xanax and Neurontin and the use of Ambien as a sleep aid rather than the Restoril.
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> Still haven't tried taurine, I did experiment with GABA at around 2-3 grams around bedtime. I can't say it made a huge difference but it was something. Have you tried theanine?
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> Rick
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poster:Elroy
thread:452259
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050414/msgs/489925.html