Posted by bleauberry on October 28, 2007, at 15:47:02
In reply to At a loss - need something..., posted by SheilaC on October 28, 2007, at 11:00:19
Since SSRIs work for you, would it make sense to stay with them? There must be some way to work on the bladder issues? I mean, what takes a higher priority, your mental sanity or a bladder inconvenience?
Maybe your doctor can prescribe something for whatever the bladder issues are.
Some people have done this and you could maybe consider it. That is, take a very low dose SSRI along with low dose tryptophan or 5htp. I know one girl who had side effect issues and poopout on higher doses of SSRIs, but had profound improvement with just 5mg prozac + 25mg 5htp (equivilant of 250mg tryptophan).
The trick would be to avoid B vitamins when you take 5htp, or otherwise it will convert to serotonin in your body more than in your brain and likely cause the same bladder probs as SSRIs. The trick is to get the serotonin boosted in the brain but not so much in the body. SSRIs will boost it everywhere. Without B vitamins, 5htp will mostly convert to serotonin in the brain. There are enough B's in food additives and a normal diet to supply all you need to convert it in the brain. Any extra will convert in the body before it even makes it to the brain.
Supposedly. All theory. For me though, true. I take 5htp without vitamins and I can feel it strongly without any bodily side effects. However, with B vitamins, that same 5htp causes sexual side effects worse than SSRIS.
Back to the original topic...you have already found something that suggests you are on target. Why venture away from that to try who knows how many other nasty drugs? Just fine tune what you know works, which seems to be serotonin.
poster:bleauberry
thread:791934
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071027/msgs/792019.html