Posted by Emme on May 4, 2004, at 11:30:50
In reply to Re: 5 htp, posted by McPac on April 28, 2004, at 23:40:15
So I may not be imagining it. A while back I had tried 5HTP and it seemed to make me sadder and pretty sluggish. So I called it quits after a week's trial.
Lately I've been feeling intense stress and in the interests of masochism, I thought I'd give it another whirl to see if I could take advantage of any sedating effects it might have to help simmer down. I was hoping the boost in serotonin might help some of the wildly anxious overly negative thoughts as Paxil did for me once. Maybe I'm thinking incorrectly about the biochem and whether 5htp could be a stand-in for an SSRI....
Anyway, it's been a litte over a week. I'm at 150 mg. Good god am I wired. I've been unsure whether it was the 5htp worsening agitation or whether it was simply being ineffective in moderating my anxiety. Hard to tell.
Two trials, potentially different results so far. Maybe 5htp is not the supplement of choice if one is somewhere in the bipolar spectrum?
I tried some GABA (Twinlab GABA Plus) to see if it would help, and 300 mg later it didn't seem to do anything, though I may try the GABA again when not taking 5htp.
If 5htp were going to have any calming effects, how long would it take to kick in? Should I increase 5htp and see if I get worse or better? Or drop it now, assuming that if it were going to do anything *useful* it would have by now at this dose?
And for GABA users, how much do you typically need and is there any reason to avoid using it regularly? I've done okay with regular benzo use and didn't know if GABA might be the same.
Thoughts and inputs welcome.
Thanks,
Emme
> MoBe,
>
> 5htp increases dopamine and noradrenaline neuronal activation (as well as serotonin). This can cause some to feel agitated.
poster:Emme
thread:339150
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040418/msgs/343201.html