Pacific Northwest Gardening: The Roundup Party is over Part 2, 1 by

wrote:
Caution: Large and dramatic soapbox ahead. Informational services rendered. Breakthrough 'bleeding' of my professional persona manifesting...You have been warned.

You went cold turkey, Summerkid? I hope you were not on it very long. If so, you could be in for serious rebound effects. Seriously, it's not a good idea at all to go off of those medications suddenly. I've had patients hit a wall a few weeks after going off medication precipitously. Watch yourself closely. Wouldn't want to see the summerkid hit a wall.

Those meds should not make you into a non-feeling person. If they do, you should be on something else. Also, the libido issue is very true for about 40% of the population; certainly way higher a percentage than the informational inserts admit to, but also not everybody. When those meds are working correctly and you are on the right one, the goal is to allow you to be your best self, not make you lose a part of yourself. Here's the advice I give my patients: if you don't like how you feel on the medication after you've given your body time to adjust, it's not the right one for you. Go back to the doctor and ask to try something else. Don't settle, because there are lots of choices out there.

Also, there are very nice supplements sold in the healthfood store that, for mild cases of depression, can totally do the trick with minimal to no side effects, and no rebound effect if you go off of them. 5-htp and St. John's Wort both effectively increase serotonin, and St. John's Wort increases other neurotransmitters as well. Don't take them with anti depressants, though. And if you are on anti depressants and you drink at all, keep your alcohol intake to the absolute minimum. Alcohol is a system depressant, so you're just fighting the effects of the medication. Most regular MD's are not going to know much about treating with supplements and might even be a little suspicious of them. Mostly that's because there is no money invested in this country to research products that cannot be patented. Supplements are natural, generally extracted from one plant or another (the Griffonia bean, in the case of 5-htp), so the pharmeceutical industry pretty much ignores them, except to use scare tactics and lobby to get our right to buy them in perfect freedom compromised. So doctors don't generally get any training on using supplements medicinally. However, a psychiatrist friend of mine used to give his patients 5-htp all the time until Prozac came along. If you lived in a different country, you would likely be given these treatments, especially St. John's Wort, first rather than going straight for the medication. That doesn't mean the meds are not good. They are good for most people, and if someone is seriously depressed they should pass by the supplements and just go for the medication. It just means that there are alternatives and that they should be offered as well.

In addition, one of the best treatments for depression, with no side effects at all, is a treatment light such as this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-GoLite-Spectrum-Therapy-Device...

Originally designed to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder, they are now being used to treat regular depression, as well as bipolar disorder (under a doctor's care for this please), sleep disorders, and biorhythm problems. This is the same price Costco was selling them for last year and this is an excellent treatment light. I recommend this one to my patients, and I have one of these in my own home. My son and I both use it in the winter. I believe they should be issued at birth for anyone in the northern latitudes.

supplements for anxiety include GABA (which works in the brain the same way Xanax works, without the side effects and possibility of addiction) and L-theanine, which is extracted from green tea. Use Google to get more info about these supplements. For people who have been under long term stress and have adrenal deficiency because of it, and where anxiety is part of that manifestation, Catecholecalm is excellent. Going to a good naturopathic physician would be the thing to do if one really wanted to get a good assessment of which supplements would be best.

Seems like I've been on this soapbox before, so I'll get off it now and get back to the fairies. Any questions for me, just dmail to keep it off the thread.

Melissa is now 'out of the office'.

So Mary,, I waited about 2 minutes with the camera at the ready and in focus to get that shot! Here's another fish photo for you. This is Gumbo. He started out life as a walmart fish living in a small aquarium at my sister's house. I couldn't tolerate it. I invited him to the pond. She brought him in a bucket, sat the bucket down on the deck by the pond and in 2 seconds he had jumped out of the bucket and directly into the pond. He never looked back and now he is one of the prettiest fish I have.

Has anyone heard from Thistledown?