Posted by LOOPS on October 7, 2004, at 16:28:27
Just wanted to post my experiences with these :
Ginkgo - first two days at 60mg standardized extract, great, thereafter, anxious with increased appetite and unable to sit down and chill out.
vinpocetine - the more I take this the more I like it. I would even go so far as to say it has helped with depression (increased neurotransmitter turnover??). It very much increases my concentration for about 2 hours after 5-10mg dosage, and makes me more chatty and sociable. It also does not interfere with sleep. I usually combine it with a good dose of taurine, which has been a regular supplement of mine along with P5P and zinc; the taurine, B6 conenzyme and the zinc seem to work together very well and ground me.
I went off lith orotate in the end because it was making my lack of motivation worse not better, even with the small dose I was on. Taurine is great, but you have to fiddle with dose - I don't take it every day, but most days, especially in the morning when I feel I need it for the anti-anxiety. Also I am a vegan so I probably need more. If I am scared of a social occasion etc, I take more taurine - completely blunts the fight-or-flight response.
I am still taking pharmaceutical quality 5htp and have recently restarted st johns wort after a two month break. For sleep I take pharm quality melatonin, anti-histamines for eczema and ambien in addition - am sleeping like a baby right now.
Another interesting discovery for asthma sufferers - I have mild asthma exacerbated by smoking, and have found that schizandra (1g, 3x daily) has completely anihalated my need for an inhaler, and I am still smoking.
Other stuff - dong quai if you're a woman in last two weeks of cycle with P5P - completely eliminates my PMS.
B25 tablet before bed to balance the Bs.
Include much more natural magnesium in diet in form of oats, brown rice, quinoa, lots of veggies, beans and fruit, homemade wholemeal bread etc. Since doing this I don't need to take my mag tablets anymore and my back problems seem to have gone wahey!
Forcing myself to MAKE CHANGES rather than just pop supplements and hope for the best. I.e., having found this or that that helps, taking the opportunity to change the things in my life that are making me depressed before the supplement stops working!. Not easy, but with me it's sooo easy to rely on a pill to make yourself feel better and just hope for the best. I always find that eventually nothing works longterm because I am still stuck with the same old behaviour patterns that got me depressed and anxious in the first place. I am extremely resistant to change as a result of big amounts of fear in my life. Pushing through this is now very important to me and is hard, so when I feel up to it, I have to just DO IT.
Loops
poster:LOOPS
thread:400076
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20040928/msgs/400076.html