Posted by barbaracat on September 27, 2005, at 11:59:19
In reply to Adderall and supplements » barbaracat, posted by pseudoname on September 27, 2005, at 9:21:30
Note to Dr. Bob: I eventually get back to babble meds so please don't boot me over to Alt just yet.
Before you go out and spend too much money on those supplements... I've been communicating with a guy over on the Alternative board. He recommended Macuna pruiens instead which is a south American bean, standardized to contain high amounts of pure L-dopa. We both agreed that the two amino acids were less than great for us.
I did a search for ADD+macuna and came up with loads of hits where macuna has been used successfully as an alternative to pstims for ADD. Here's a link for a source with some interesting info on the herb.
http://store.yahoo.com/herbalpowers/macunapruriens.html
BTW, sorry to hear you have those crushing despairing depressions. For what it's worth, I spent most of my life thinking I had severe unipolar depression but my depressions were very different from how I heard others describe theirs. Mine were bleak and black and filled with anguish - agitated nightmarish things. SSRIs would always poop and with every increase I'd get worse to the point where I was in constant dread.
With the help of this board, I finally recognized I might really be bipolar and asked my pdoc to try lithium. The difference has been miraculous. I'm lucky in that I respond very well to low dose lithium, in fact, refuse to take the higher 'therapeutic range' dose cause I don't need to overdo it.
I still get depressed and anxious but nowhere near those awful hellish things that were just getting worse with the years. It's clear now that what I thought were unipolar depressions were really bipolar mixed states dysphoric mania. I'd had my share of whoopie-do hypomanias and some full-blown manic episodes but it was mainly awful depression and that's why it took so long to think outside the box.
We've all been on so many meds and perhaps you've already given Lith a try, but if not it might be worth it. If it's the right drug for you it works wonders. I personally hated all the other mood stabilizers I tried, all except lithium, which is calming, soothing, and even grows new neural dendrites! Best to you, Barbara
> > Have you ever tried supplementing with amino acids like DL-phenylalanine or L-tyrosine to build the stores of dopamine and NE back up?
>
> I have not, but I'm definitely going to be looking into this. I've tried those supplements in the past to no effect, but I haven't tried them when I was also using Adderall.
>
> Thanks for the tip!
poster:barbaracat
thread:559429
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050927/msgs/560190.html