Posted by blueberry on April 5, 2006, at 19:19:08
In reply to Anyone know how exactly how SJW works?, posted by Meri-Tuuli on April 5, 2006, at 11:09:27
I agree with you completely. SJW is powerful stuff. I had the best 3 months of my life on it, before I ruined it and pooped it out by smoking mj every day.
Anyway, I tapered off of 600mg in one week. Too fast. A few days later, oh my, I never knew what anxiety was but all of a sudden there it was like a freight train inside of me. And then, a panic attack that lasted 2 hours. Scared me to death. A small dose of zyprexa shut it down. But the next morning, panic attacks came back again. Scared me so bad that I, just like you, ended up in the ER. Amazing an herb had the power to do that.
At the time, I looked up the symptoms of benzodiazepine withdrawals. There were 30 listed. I swear I had every single one of them and in a big way. I was absolutely terrified what was happening to me.
SJW inhibits the reuptake of GABA, serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and glutamate, all about equally. And it has affinity for the benzo receptors. If you suddenly stopped a serotonin med, anxiety and panic would be viscious. If you stopped a dopamine med too fast, anxiety and panic and tremors. Same with norepinephrine meds. Not to mention GABA meds! Stop SJW too fast, and guess what, we get all of that combined at once! Yikes. No telling how the glutamate part works in there too.
SJW works by somehow blocking sodium channels. I don't know what that means. But it seems to me, that in addition to everything else, if these sodium channels have been blocked and are suddenly reopened, look out.
Your experience was frightenly similar to mine. I hear so-called experts on the web say all the time to "take breaks from SJW" if you take it longterm, or that if it doesn't work just stop it.
Yeah right.
poster:blueberry
thread:629186
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20060313/msgs/629407.html