[hereiam]

St. Johns Wort, SAMe, etc?

What has worked best for you when fighting depression with a natural remedy?

Larry Hover - I know you had given me some advice on this before. What do you think works best? Someone had mentioned earlier in chat that they took SJW and it worked very well for them. Is SJW the best one to take?

Thanks!

[Rhapsody]

Well, I will give you my two cents for what it is worth... I have tried all the natural remedies out there over the last year or two and while a few of them gave me some relief, I was still left with the deep despair and suicidal thoughts.... so with that said might I suggest that you do what I did and just forget the natural stuff and seek a doctor (therapist or PCP) that will write you out a stronger prescription for something that can really give you your life back.... I am presently taking Celexa and is working great!

BTW - most of the natural remedies out there on the market is for very mild conditions or occasional upsets or stress, and not that of the more severe disorders....

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

[darkeyes]

I'll have to agree with Rhapsody. It's best to get a "real" medication. The 2 mentioned, have had reverse effects, and without any documented research like "real" meds. makes it harder to help someone self medicating. Use caution with these "OTC" remedies, always check with a doctor. Sam-e is not good for bipolar disorder, some literature even states that and cautions people with psychiatric disorders to check with their docs before using.
We had a friend, whose dad's wife swore garlic pills were the answer to her husband's high blood pressure, without the right meds this man had a stroke, almost died. There are other stories I have heard, and would hate for anyone to have to experience them. Just my 2 cents.

DE

[Azalysa]

I agree with the above posters re: St. Johns Wort. (Never heard of the other one.) I'm assuming you're not taking any prescribed meds. If so, most everything I've read on at least the ones I take specifically DO NOT TAKE this while taking prescribed me.

Also, as another poster said, St. Johns Wort is an herb, which is not regulated by the same standards prescribed meds are.

I have a good friend who is totally into fresh food, vegetarian, protein shakes, drinking "greens" and almost exclusively uses herbs for all kinds of health situations; BUT, she told me to not take herbs while on meds because they could interact badly.

One final idea, my T. and I were talking about meds when I was feeling overmedicated. She said I was going the "Western Way" of medicine and that "Eastern Methods" would be things like Yoga and acupuncture. If you're looking for something natural, I personally would be more comfortable with one of those two.

Just another opinion.

[adeline]

I agree with the other posts that herbal remedies aren't enough, and may be harmful to mix. However, nutrition can play a BIG role in psychiatric disorders, and certain supplements have had beneficial effects for many people. I take fish oil caplets (LOTS, like 6 of 'em a day...not sure of the exact EPA & DHA %) and eat a very natural diet (minimum of the white flour, sugar, preservatives, etc).

Fish oil has been amazing for my recent slip into depression, to further balance my mood (and impulsiveness), and has given me amazing mental clarity (oh, and helps regulate appetite). I've asked my psychiatrist about drug interactions (for 300mg lamictal, adderall, and xanax) and he said it shouldn't be a problem (the oil has little or no mercury in it). I would still check with your doctor about it, though.

I'm positive that it's not a placebo thing, cause I've been off and on the fish oil for a year now, with no effects until now (I upped my "dose" from 1--> 6 caplets). I've not had to take xanax in a while, and have gone down from 60 to 10 mgs of adderall (the spring semester has begun for my college, too).

Hope you can find something that helps you.

~Jessie

[Larry_Hoover]

I can tell you this....I have never used an antidepressant that worked as well as St. John's wort. I have never used an antidepressant that had as few side effects as St. John's wort. And I went off it, thinking I didn't need it, and it never worked the same way again.

There are two big strikes against herbal treatments. One, herbs are completely unregulated *in the United States*. Other countries have brought in regulations that force herbs to be marketed under similar quality-assurance provisions as those for pharmaceutical drugs, but only the U.S. market (among major Western governments) remains totally unregulated. Why?, you might ask. Follow the money. The pharmaceutical companies are the only ones who could profit from the lack of credibility that unregulated herbs now possess; it is currently not even a crime to sell an herb with no active ingredients (i.e. outright fraud), except for the civil crime of fraud itself. Heard of any prosecutions for herb fraud lately? It could probably be a RICO case.

The second challenge for herbs is a media system that is controlled by money. I remember the headlines that ensued when a JAMA article found no effect in a study of SJW against treatment-resistant depression. The thing is, the active comparator, Zoloft, also had no effect whatsoever. I think that was bigger news, but you only heard about the SJW. I could show you that this particular study was meaningless, but I don't want to waste too much time here. But, consider this: two recent studies had SJW beating established SSRI meds in head-to-head trials, but I bet you didn't hear a whimper about them. Here's SJW beating Prozac: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=16160619 And, here's SJW beating Paxil http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15708844

I bet you didn't ever hear about those studies.

The biggest issues for using SJW effectively are: a) finding a quality product; and, b) taking a high enough dose.

As I mentioned, quality products are not necessarily the norm in the United States. Kira and Perika are German pharmaceutical grade products, and HBC Protocols is an American pharmaceutical grade product. Kira is the one that beat Prozac.

The other thing is dose. There is no known overdose syndrome to worry about. The "standard" dose of 900 mg/day SJW may not be enough for all people, just as the 20 mg/day standard dose of Prozac is often not enough. I saw one study where people received 22,000 mg/day SJw (not a typo), with the only adverse effect noted being sun sensitivity. So, if you try SJW, treat it like any other drug. Start low, and slowly increase the dose until either one of two endpoints is reached: a) you have achieved remission from depression; or, b) side effects are intolerable. The most common side effects of SJW are digestive upset, headache, and malaise. These are usually mild, and fairly quickly disappear. Also, sun sensitivity may occur, but everyone uses sunscreen already, right?

SJW has recently been shown to produce at least 2 distinct and novel antidepressant effects. It is not like any other antidepressant out there. You should also realize that SJW is a powerful modulator of liver enzyme activity. It can cause oral contraceptives to fail, for example. It has the exact opposite to the grapefruit effect, so if you take a med that is affected by grapefruit, SJW will do the opposite. I'll help anyone understand that part better, if you have specific questions.

I recently wrote a fairly detailed post on the subject, with many many abstracts included. If you check it out, and have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.su...e=source&hl=en

Lar

Wow! love your new pic, Larry!

why can't i have my beloved grapefruit products with wellbutrin?

[darkeyes]

Is that what Larry looks like? Very dignified, I must say.

"me"

[Larry_Hoover]

Uhhh, fayerody, there is no interaction between Wellbutrin and grapefruit juice.

Glad you like the updated pic. The other one is the used-to-be me. I'm not sure I shrunk this new one correctly, though. My face looks broader than it ought to. Or maybe my brain is broader than it ought to be. You never know.

Lar

[Larry_Hoover]

Yes, that is the real me. As of about a year ago, anyway. My hair is different now.

Thank you for your kind words.

Lar

[hereiam]

Larry Hover and everyone - Thanks for all you input! Larry...do you think it's a good idea, then? I don't take any other kind of medication except for birth control and propranolol (as needed). Birth Control will be effected, I understand, but what about the propranolol?

I really want to take a natural route because I don't like the idea of putting an anti-depressent in my body and messing with my brain. I know it works well and most people don't mind, but I do, this is why I'm trying a more natural remedy.

Thanks.

[PetulantWolf]

it sounds weird but i was eating salmon like four time aweek and my mood was so much better. but then I got afraid of Mercury. I dont know if its the omega 3 or 6 or whatever it is but it definately worked. I dont know if thast any help...maybe some else has heard of this?

[jennie]

my hubby, counselors, and virtually no stress in my life have helped me manage my depression without meds. being pregnant has helped, too.

[Azalysa]

Justsignme: You're getting fish oil from the salmon. There are studies (and even commercials) that advocate eating fish a certain number of times per week. Or, in addition, Omega-3 is a supplement that is supposed to be GREAT for a lot of things, including depression. It is a fish oil supplement. I am currently taking it.

[hereiam]

All of these are really good ideas. Thanks everyone!

[Larry_Hoover]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread....

Propranolol is safe, but the issue with oral birth control is that SJW will increase the rate at which the synthetic hormone is broken down, reducing the blood concentration more quickly. So, the end result is as if you took a lower dose of the birth control hormone. It would be possible, I guess, to go to a higher dose product, but that would be guesswork. A back-up method is a better idea, probably.

Also, with respect to the issue of natural vs. synthetic. Almost everything we know about how to drug the body arises from our study of the effects of herbs and such on health. Do not make the mistake of thinking natural = better, or that natural = safer. Pharmaceutical drugs are very simple in one respect. They're a pure substances. Herbs, on the other hand, exert their effect(s) usually via multiple active ingredients, acting simultaneously. But nonetheless, herbs used as medicine should be given the same cautions used around pharmaceutical drugs. I could give you a natural herb that would kill you in seconds (hypothetically).

I think there are a lot of things people can do, to promote mental health, that are not drug-based. Modifying diet, for example, or supplementing with nutrients. But that's a separate issue from what I'm addressing, above.

Lar

[Larry_Hoover]

Just to preface my comments, I'm an environmental toxicologist. Although mercury was not the focus of my studies, I've very closely followed the subject of mercury and other contaminants in fish. I don't know why, but fish have been very closely studied, yet other foodstuffs have not been. The result is an unfortunate fear of contamination of one of the healthiest sources of protein known to man.

Mercury contamination is not something unique to fish. Your McDonald's hamburger patty probably has a similar amount of mercury in it. For some reason, people aren't looking that closely at domestic meat supplies. (Money trail.)

The fact is, fish consumption has been linked to numerous health benefits. We found that out by studying the diet of large numbers of people, and looking for correlations with health or adverse effects. Fish keeps coming to the top of the list for health benefits. All the people who were studied were eating contaminated fish. That's because all fish are contaminated, to some extent. As are your eggs, your meat, and so on. Pollution is everywhere, and it affects everything.

Despite that, depite high pollution levels, fish eating is correlated with health. The risk of mercury contamination is trivial, compared to the health benefits accruing from eating the fish. There was just a conference on the subject, a few weeks or so ago, and that is their take-home message. Ignore the issue of contaminants; eat the fish. I totally agree.

I've provided some detailed discussions of the issues (with excellent references) before, and I'm pressed for time......so, here's a link to a Usenet post. If you read my other posts in this thread, you'll find some discussions of the contaminant issue, and what fish oil does to promote health.

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.su...de6d0e5?hl=en&

There is one simple thing to do, to minimize the risk of mercury that you do consume......make sure you get adequate selenium. Selenium binds to mercury. It totally inactivates it. Selenium deficiency is a risk in much of Europe, particularly Great Britain, so getting more selenium could alone improve mood.

Back to salmon. Salmon are full of omega-3 fats. Salmon protein may also have a mood effect. Fish is brain food, and we're still trying to figure out the details.

I hope you go back to eating salmon four times a week, and taking a selenium supplement, for security from mercury.

Lar

[Greenleaves]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Mercury contamination is not something unique to fish. Your McDonald's hamburger patty probably has a similar amount of mercury in it. For some reason, people aren't looking that closely at domestic meat supplies.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I don't really get that Lar. Cows eat grass. That is where the food chain ends. Mercury in fish on the other hand gets bioaccumulated in the food chain. Big fish who live a long time like tuna accumulate a fair bit of mercury so says my professor. Fish like salmon are OK. My professor told us to not eat tuna more than once a week. She said that other smaller fish are OK. Even some bigger fish are OK too, if they don't have a long lifespan.

Is there really that much mercury in the soil?

[Greenleaves]

Hmmm...actually the term she used was "biomagnified", not bioaccumulated...

[Larry_Hoover]

Good catch. Perhaps there was a modicum of hyperbole there. Rather than "probably", I'd more accurately have said "could". Some meat monitoring programs have found mercury levels in meat that are the same order of magnitude as those found in fish.

Assuming that cows only eat grass is a little bit naive, though. Mad cow disease was probably initiated by the practise of feeding sheep to cattle, and it was probably propagated by the persistence of feeding cattle to cattle.

There are a number of variables that moderate the mercury level in fish, but it's pretty clear than certain species are probably not a good idea to eat. Some tuna (there are a number of tuna species), swordfish, shark.....top predators, generally, are not good food souces, due to mercury contamination. Certain water bodies are polluted, making any seafood sourced there unwise to eat. However, for the "average American" person, only 20% of mercury intake from food is from fish. Where is the other 80% coming from?

I like this brief quotation from a World Health Organization publication, "For mercury, average intakes were below the PTWI (300 micrograms/person; 200 micrograms/person or 3.3 micrograms/kg bw as methylmercury) for adults and for breast-fed infants. Contributions from fish varied from 20 to 85%; in some countries because of different dietary habits, cereals or meat may contribute similar amounts. Because of inadequate data on food other than fish, intake estimates are biassed and sometimes based solely on typical levels in fish."

Fish get a lot of scrutiny. Other sources do not. It's not that mercury is in the soil that grows the grass that the cow eats, but it's in the industrial dust and deposits that settles everywhere. It's in the supplements fed that cow. The older the cow, the more likely it is to become a hamburger. And as we know, age is a factor in bioaccumulation. We just don't have good evidence for 80% of the total mercury consumed in food. Fish aren't "contaminated" while meat is somehow "clean". Fish are good for you. Almost without exception. And we know which ones we should consider exceptions.

300 metric tonnes of mercury go towards making amalgam tooth fillings every year. Now that's a mercury problem. But, we're drifting away from the subject matter.....

Lar

[hereiam]

You guys are smart.