St. John's Wort can make birth control ineffective and increase light sensitivity. But it has worked for me. I was severely depressed when I started taking SJW and it made a huge difference. I started taking too much of it because I hadn't ever felt good before as long as I could remember, and I went hypomanic a couple of times. It's been over 10 years now and it is not so dramatic an effect anymore, but I still think I am better on SJW than off of it. And no side effects that bother me. Zoloft was awful. It might have worked, but it was painful because of the side effects and some didn't stop until I had been off of it for two years.

Doctors in the U.S. are taught that herbs are unreliable because they are not standardized precisely like prescriptions. In other words, there are no pharmaceutical companies promoting them and passing out literature, and not that much money to be made from herbs unless the pharma companies are altering them in a way that can be patented, so it's unfamiliar to doctors and they don't trust what they can't control. My sister, who is a psychiatrist, wouldn't let me give her kids chamomile to calm them down. She gets very nervous about any herb that I mention, not because they don't work but because it is not precise and controllable.