[CeLaVie]

Did anybody tried 5HPT supplement for depression? If you did, can you please tell me about it? How did it go, what were the side effects and mostly did it help? Thanks you.

[healingme4me]

I don't have personal experience. Have you asked in the Psychiatric Medications Forum, there's more traffic there, in case anyone missed your thread here.

Here's a review that I found on it.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/revie...hp/product/176

[Captainc]

You need to take a nurotransmitter test you might not need 5htp you may need tyrosine you never know.

But 5htp over time will defiantly increase serotonin. I tried it before without a test and ended up stoping it for whatever reason. But after some guidance and took it long enough it really helped me.

I used it in the past to help my depression. It worked well for a while and was very fast acting, but the latter also meant the effect did not last long (a few hours) so I had to take it multiple times a day. It took a bit of experimenting to find the right dosage and timing to take it for me and this is also what I read from many others. Taking too much made me feel weird and gave me gastrointestinal side effects, taking too little no positive effect. For example, I had to take the largest dose in the morning and very little or nothing in the evening otherwise I would not be able to sleep (interesting, because many people take it as a sleep aid). I thought it was a life saver for me during the worst of that depressive episode as I was not taking prescription meds or receiving any other form of treatment. I found it stopped working after a while, although perhaps I was just not that depressed anymore so did not feel such a difference.

In case you are taking other medications, I would definitely discuss with your doctor as it can have interactions with other drugs.

[vital]

Originally Posted by CeLaVie

Did anybody tried 5HPT supplement for depression? If you did, can you please tell me about it? How did it go, what were the side effects and mostly did it help? Thanks you.

Hi CeLaVie,

I tried 5-HTP at one point, but it didn't do much for me. There are a number of things to realize about it, I think:

1) 5-HTP and tryptophan are natural serotonin precursors. Food or supplements are actually the only way to raise the serotonin level in your body. Antidepressants don't raise your total serotonin.

2) Although they are natural, you can't just take arbitrarily large amounts of it because of "serotonin toxicity", which can be dangerous. In general, for any kind of vitamin or supplement, you should take recommended amounts and not just assume that if it's good for you more must be better for you.

3) Although it is widely believed, the whole story that depression is caused by low serotonin is not true. Unmedicated depressives actually don't have less serotonin than the general population (it's measured in the cerebral spinal fluid). If you have been taking SSRIs, however, you may actually end up with low serotonin due to oppositional tolerance.

1) means it's pretty safe if you avoid 2). 3) means that if you have not been medicated, it's not particularly likely to help. Still, it might be worth a try.

- vital