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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by qqqsimmons on June 29, 2007, at 19:48:56
5 htp seems to be working well despite the initial side effects. i wish they'd sell it in smaller doses. 50 mg is too much for me...
i also had side effects i only ever had on ssri's, so it seems to have very similar effects one would expect...
Posted by qqqsimmons on July 1, 2007, at 18:40:55
In reply to progress on 5htp, posted by qqqsimmons on June 29, 2007, at 19:48:56
well, i missed the dose for a couple days again, and i think i was experiencing some bad withdrawal symptoms: feeling anxious and depressed.
now, i've taken my tiny dose (5-10 mg maybe), and i feel a bit spacey and solitary from my visiting family here, but much calmer.
i wonder how much of the spaceyness is just me being introverted and overthinking about this stuff...possibly a placebo effect???
but also the stuff makes me sleepy. i read that serotonin is a precursor to melatonin and that's why 5-htp and drugs like paxil cause sleepiness...
is there an anti-melatonin? caffeine?
Posted by circusboy on July 2, 2007, at 16:11:39
In reply to Re: 5-htp frustration?, posted by qqqsimmons on July 1, 2007, at 18:40:55
Though I've responded okay-ish to SSRIs in the past, 5-HTP was not my friend.
From my small experience, you should blame the spacey/tiredness on the supplement, not on yourself. If it really is doing you some good otherwise, lemme think what might work to counteract the side-effects (don't know if you've tried these; I haven't been lurking on babble much lately)...
Maybe l-tyrosine, to help bring your dopamine/norepinephrine levels up as well to compensate. I've got a few other good energizing supplements on my shelf, but I'm not sure any of them would be powerful enough to cut through 5-HTP fog. SAM-e might help (seriously, SAM-e feels a lot like desipramine to me), but it's still pretty expensive... The herbs are always flaky, though you might try one of the usual suspects like Rhodiola. (I'm giving that stuff another shot now).
I've found both vinpocetine and acetyl-l-carnitine to be really great at re-energizing the brain... unfortunately, they both bring me down over time. The vinpo just makes me depressed, and I suspect the acetyl-l-carnitine of precipitating obsessive thoughts. (No, I have no idea what the mechanism might be. Something to do with its acetylcholmimetic properties?).
At any rate, if your brain's anything like mine, caffeine won't do much to cut through the sleepy/fogginess. So ... I guess I wasn't that helpful after all. :)
-cb
Posted by revaaron on July 2, 2007, at 22:07:38
In reply to Re: 5-htp frustration?, posted by qqqsimmons on July 1, 2007, at 18:40:55
> but also the stuff makes me sleepy. i read that serotonin is a precursor to melatonin and that's why 5-htp and drugs like paxil cause sleepiness...
To me, unless I have a serotonin deficiency, taking some 5-HTP does nothing but make me sleepy, and it feels exactly like when I've taken melatonin and then not gone to bed before it kicked in.
Have you tried taking the 5-HTP at night? I take 5-HTP once or twice a week to deal with what feels like a serotonin depletion depression that dextroamphetamine is causing. Because it makes me quite sleepy (in a way that is more like a geniune need for sleep rather than something more enjoyable/relaxing as with more GABA-type meds) I've been taking it at night.
Is the dose too high? Have you tried taking a lower dose?
I also wonder about L-tryptophan- some people seem to respond to it better and get the same out of it.
Another wacky idea: it may be too much work, but the other possibility is to try making up your own "sustained release" setup- taking fractions of the dose that works for you split up into 2-10 doses through the day, whether capped, broken up tablets, or a powder mixed into a drink.
revaaron
Posted by qqqsimmons on July 2, 2007, at 23:15:36
In reply to Re: 5-htp frustration?, posted by revaaron on July 2, 2007, at 22:07:38
yeah, i don't trust this 5-htp stuff. either i'm spacey or if i stop taking it, i go through serious withdrawal effects.
i'm biting the bullet tonight and suffering through the withdrawal. i hope i survive.
Posted by revaaron on July 3, 2007, at 15:58:59
In reply to Re: 5-htp frustration?, posted by qqqsimmons on July 2, 2007, at 23:15:36
> yeah, i don't trust this 5-htp stuff. either i'm
> spacey or if i stop taking it, i go through
> serious withdrawal effects.
>
> i'm biting the bullet tonight and suffering
> through the withdrawal. i hope i survive.
First, I'm not saying not to stop taking 5-HTP, but if it makes you spacey, there's a good chance your dose is too high. Everywhere I've seen, from pill bottles to websites seem to say that you should take 100mg of 5-HTP, three times a day. I think that's almost criminally irresponsible. Or, maybe it's just me- but if I took 100mg of 5-HTP 3 times a day I'd be narcoleptic and completely off-task. There are other folks who feel the same way, but I'm not sure percent-wise how many people have my kind of reaction to 5-HTP. If I were the one writing the instructions, I'd say to start at as low as 10mg once a day or maybe 5mg 3x/day and to titrate up a little each or every other day until you were noticing something but not feeling sleepy.This hypothesis has no experimental basis, but I can't help but wonder: if that when someone take those big doses of 5-HTP that a lot of it gets metabolized into melatonin, a higher percentage of it becoming melatonin than if you took a smaller dose. For me, taking 5-HTP when I don't need it or more than I need feels exactly like melatonin.
Also, when I take 5-HTP I take it before bed because it makes me sleepy during the day. For me, I've not noticed a difference in its effectiveness based on what time I take it, but I only take it once or twice a week rather than every day.
Why not try tapering rather than just going cold turkey? As a rule, tapering down on a psychotropic is a LOT healthier than cold turkey. There are a couple of ways you could handle this, and each of them are aimed towards getting your body to start making serotonin again by itself. The idea being when you're done doing this you'll be back to how you were before the 5-HTP rather than stuck in withdrawal from 5-HTP.
1. Adding a little bit of time between each 5-HTP dose. E.g. going form taking it daily (every 24 hours) to ever 25, 28, 30 hours and slowly increasing the time between doses slowly. There is nothing about 5-HTP that requires a 1-3x/day dose- one 100mg dose once a week is enough for me to prevent serotonin depletion induced depression from my AD/HD med.
2. Slowly decrease the dose. Not sure what the form your 5-HTP is in, but mine is a mostly tasteless white powder in a gelatin capsule. I've taken 25mg and 12.5mg doses by sliding open the cap and pouring 1/2 or 1/4 of the contents into my mouth or a some water. I'm not sure if the stuff dissolves, but even if it doesn't completely, you could still pour it into a liquid and then consume parts of that liquid. For instance, pouring 600mg worth of capsule contents into a cup juice and using a teaspoon to take smaller doses. Using these numbers, you would be taking 12.5 mg in each teaspoon. Take the amount you need and put it back in the fridge. Or, if that's too much hassle, dump one 50mg capsule into a cup of water and then split it into 1/4th cup (2 oz) for 12.5mg doses. Etc etc. If you need help with the numbers I can help.
3. A combination of the above. First, increase the time between doses and then start decreasing the dose. This has the best chance of easing your brain into producing its own serotonin again without shock.
3. OK, I'm not a doctor, and as such I wouldn't reccomend this, but some folks have used it and had it work for them- add a low-med dose of weak SSRI, lower your 5-HTP dose substantially and then taper off the 5-HTP, and then taper or stop the SSRI. The only weaker SSRI I know of is St. John's Wort. This has the added benefit of keeping the serotonin your brain makes around, in addition to what you are taking in via 5-HTP.
Mixing 5-HTP with an SSRI needs to be done with caution, but it is done (under doctor supervision) with the synthetic SSRI meds as an adjunct. The main risk with either cocktail is serotonin syndrome, see the bottom for symptoms. [1]
Also, I don't think there are many antidepressants that don't have some sort of withdrawal syndrome, with most SSRIs being pretty similar to the 5-HTP. 5-HTP's might be worse in some senses because it works right away, rather than taking weeks, like most of the SSRIs. St. John's Wort is claimed to not have withdrawal symptoms, but I find that hard to believe- if it is increasing the amount of serotonin in your brain, and then stopped cold, if you don't feel it it probably wasn't doing anything in the first place. That said, the withdrawal symptoms might be negligable compared to 5-HTP or the synthetic SSRIs.
good luck!
revaaron1. Serotonin syndrome symptoms: agitation, confusion, diarrhea, fever, increased sweating, extreme mood or behavior changes, overactive reflexes, poor coordination, racing heartbeat, restlessness, and shivering or shaking.
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