Tried antidepressants and the side effects are just too bad for me. Anyone had luck with some natural stuff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I struggle with anger issues. Have been in DBT therapy for years. Not helping. I exercise every day and really enjoy it. But I am always irritable. I yell at my kids a lot and it needs to stop. I drink much less too. Need to stop having coffee too, I guess. So it looks like o have to be heavily medicated in order to be normal. And it sucks. Seeing how my body changes on meds isn’t fun.

Have you ever cut caffeine completely? Maybe you are sensitive to it and it causes agitation?

[Anonymous]

I am the same way. After years of experiment I finally found peace with L theanine and St. john’s Wort. Fish oil. Vit D. Also daily excercise and good sleep habits, no alcohol ever.

[Anonymous]

experimentation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inositol is incredibly powerful and has real science behind it!

Have you used this personally for depression? If so what dosage? How taken? Whats the science? TIA

DP

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/inositol#dosage

I found benefit from combining inositol, magnesium and regular exercise, ideally outside and in the early morning.

[Anonymous]

I’m about to ask my doc for a prescription med for anxiety tomorrow am. Any suggestions? I tried celexa/lexapro decades ago and it was wonderful/completely calming my everyday anxiety and yes, rage, except I couldn’t orgasm (and that lingered for about a year post stopping the med. I’ve been reluctant to try again but maybe there’s a new ssri without that side effect? Thoughts?! I’m at a mental healthy anxiety breaking point where I’m up all night worrying about stuff. I tried buspar a few years ago and it calmed the anxiety but made me a zombie so that’s a no go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m about to ask my doc for a prescription med for anxiety tomorrow am. Any suggestions? I tried celexa/lexapro decades ago and it was wonderful/completely calming my everyday anxiety and yes, rage, except I couldn’t orgasm (and that lingered for about a year post stopping the med. I’ve been reluctant to try again but maybe there’s a new ssri without that side effect? Thoughts?! I’m at a mental healthy anxiety breaking point where I’m up all night worrying about stuff. I tried buspar a few years ago and it calmed the anxiety but made me a zombie so that’s a no go.

Mirtazepine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Touch grass. Literally.

*I haven’t tried this due to my dirt and poop phobias but it’s supposed to work

This is such a disrespectful and flippant response. You don’t even know the reason for the OPs depression. Unlike your charmed easy life, OP could be dealing with some very heavy stuff. It could be something horrible.

Telling someone to go touch grass to get over their depression is very asinine.

Touching grass doesn't fix a chemical imbalance in your brain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Touch grass. Literally.

*I haven’t tried this due to my dirt and poop phobias but it’s supposed to work

This is such a disrespectful and flippant response. You don’t even know the reason for the OPs depression. Unlike your charmed easy life, OP could be dealing with some very heavy stuff. It could be something horrible.

Telling someone to go touch grass to get over their depression is very asinine.

Touching grass doesn't fix a chemical imbalance in your brain.

DP I don't know about touching grass but the chemical imbalance thing is not really a scientific reality. Medications work for many people (including me) but it's not fully understood why.

It's often said that depression results from a chemical imbalance, but that figure of speech doesn't capture how complex the disease is. Research suggests that depression doesn't spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Rather, there are many possible causes of depression, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, and stressful life events. It's believed that several of these forces interact to bring on depression.

To be sure, chemicals are involved in this process, but it is not a simple matter of one chemical being too low and another too high. Rather, many chemicals are involved, working both inside and outside nerve cells. There are millions, even billions, of chemical reactions that make up the dynamic system that is responsible for your mood, perceptions, and how you experience life.

With this level of complexity, you can see how two people might have similar symptoms of depression, but the problem on the inside, and therefore what treatments will work best, may be entirely different.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/what-causes-depression

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I struggle with anger issues. Have been in DBT therapy for years. Not helping. I exercise every day and really enjoy it. But I am always irritable. I yell at my kids a lot and it needs to stop. I drink much less too. Need to stop having coffee too, I guess. So it looks like o have to be heavily medicated in order to be normal. And it sucks. Seeing how my body changes on meds isn’t fun.

thyroid levels? my TSH was "normal" but my active thyroid was extremely low so I take snythroid to get it up to level. life changing. endo was the one who was willing to medicate, everyone else blew me off.
ashwaganda, insitol, etc. lower glucose or glucose swings can lead to irritability.
dessicated liver pills can help with energy
vitamin D
magnesium


do NOT drink. limit caffeine to 100-150mg which is essentially a nespresso pod and afternoon green tea or a lower stimulant preworkout. my preworkout has 60mg and I have a nespresso in the morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m about to ask my doc for a prescription med for anxiety tomorrow am. Any suggestions? I tried celexa/lexapro decades ago and it was wonderful/completely calming my everyday anxiety and yes, rage, except I couldn’t orgasm (and that lingered for about a year post stopping the med. I’ve been reluctant to try again but maybe there’s a new ssri without that side effect? Thoughts?! I’m at a mental healthy anxiety breaking point where I’m up all night worrying about stuff. I tried buspar a few years ago and it calmed the anxiety but made me a zombie so that’s a no go.

Take the lowest dose possible. Try adding in Wellbutrin. Zoloft was better for me than Lexapro for that side effect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How depressed are you? Exercise and time outdoors and sleep are great but there are many people who do not have a real choice about using medication and it does in fact often take many tries to get the right one at the right dose.

I mean: years.

Honestly I may be the wrong person to comment on this because the expectation that if one drug doesn't work that means welp, no drugs just seems so off-base to me based on experience. Good luck.

People have different approaches to this and there's no "right" answer. But I can tell you that for me, the side effects of SSRIs were bad enough that the idea of spending years trying to find a drug and dosage that made things better instead of worse was absolutely not worth it. Even if you could guarantee me that after 2 or 3 years, I'd have a drug that worked, it would not have been worth it to me because my well-being, which was obviously already not good, declined so much more when I went on SSRIs. Night sweats, digestive issues, worsening depression, feeling low energy or catatonic all the time, having no feelings at all, etc. And this was on the lowest possible dose. I made it about 8 months on two different SSRIs and decided that process was not for me. I was in therapy and the CBT was definitely the best thing I had going -- I tapered off the drugs, dug in hard on CBT, and made sure I exercised daily. It is the only thing that has worked for me. And the best part is that when my depression comes back (which it has, several times, I have chronic depression), I can dig back in on CBT and exercise and see the same benefits every time, unlike a drug which often has decreasing effectiveness or may not work as well depending on your weight, other medications, whether you have anxiety as well, etc.

IME, CBT and exercise are more reliable treatments for depression with no decline in effectiveness over time and no side effects. I have nothing at all against medicating for depression or anxiety and would recommend pretty much anyone with these horrible issues try it because doing anything is pretty much always better than doing nothing when it comes to depression. But the idea that medication is the only solution, or the best solution, is just flat wrong. So many of us struggled with meds and found more relief with other treatments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m about to ask my doc for a prescription med for anxiety tomorrow am. Any suggestions? I tried celexa/lexapro decades ago and it was wonderful/completely calming my everyday anxiety and yes, rage, except I couldn’t orgasm (and that lingered for about a year post stopping the med. I’ve been reluctant to try again but maybe there’s a new ssri without that side effect? Thoughts?! I’m at a mental healthy anxiety breaking point where I’m up all night worrying about stuff. I tried buspar a few years ago and it calmed the anxiety but made me a zombie so that’s a no go.

Take the lowest dose possible. Try adding in Wellbutrin. Zoloft was better for me than Lexapro for that side effect.

+1. Zoloft is better for me and I take a low dose. I think lexapro is amazing for the anti-anxiety effects but the other side effects are not tolerable.

[Anonymous]

My PCP always advocated highly and strongly on exercise daily.

[Anonymous]

Google the studies

There are a number of studies that an hour running on the treadmill is as effective as anti depressant scrips.

Again, I'd encourage you to read the studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m about to ask my doc for a prescription med for anxiety tomorrow am. Any suggestions? I tried celexa/lexapro decades ago and it was wonderful/completely calming my everyday anxiety and yes, rage, except I couldn’t orgasm (and that lingered for about a year post stopping the med. I’ve been reluctant to try again but maybe there’s a new ssri without that side effect? Thoughts?! I’m at a mental healthy anxiety breaking point where I’m up all night worrying about stuff. I tried buspar a few years ago and it calmed the anxiety but made me a zombie so that’s a no go.

Take the lowest dose possible. Try adding in Wellbutrin. Zoloft was better for me than Lexapro for that side effect.

Pp here — thanks! The doc prescribed 25 mg of Zoloft. Hopefully that will not result in sexual dysfunction! I’m excited about this! I really could use a break from the constant intrusive anxious thoughts and anxiety spirals.