A lot has changed since that post. I'm no longer going the all-natural route, but I'll tell you what I was doing then and what I'm doing now.
For a while I was (at my psychiatrist's suggestion) 2000 mg of fish oil per day. The catch is that it had to be EPA, which is in most brands only about 150 mg per pill (the two types are listed on the back of the bottle--It is only the EPA that matters.). That's a lot of pills! It definitely took the edge off the downs, though. Besides the expense of buying so much fish oil, there's a problem with nasty burps and occasional upset stomach, much of which can be solved by freezing the pills and taking them with food. I also had some limited success with St. John's Wort, but in therapeutic doses, St. John's can cause light sensitivity.
Now we've found a synthetic that works for me with absolutely no side-effects. It's called Lamictal, and the manufacturer has a patient assistance program for people who can't afford it. I take 300 mg a day, which would cost about 300 bucks a month without the patient assistance program. It takes about 5 weeks to ramp up to a 100 mg dose, at which point I began noticing a little bit of a difference, and that doseage works fine for a lot of people. It took another few weeks to ramp up to the 300 mg dose.
It may not work for everyone, but you might want to check it out. Good luck! Let me know what you end up doing and how it works for you.
:-)
A lot has changed since that post. I'm no longer going the all-natural route, but I'll tell you what I was doing then and what I'm doing now.
For a while I was (at my psychiatrist's suggestion) 2000 mg of fish oil per day. The catch is that it had to be EPA, which is in most brands only about 150 mg per pill (the two types are listed on the back of the bottle--It is only the EPA that matters.). That's a lot of pills! It definitely took the edge off the downs, though. Besides the expense of buying so much fish oil, there's a problem with nasty burps and occasional upset stomach, much of which can be solved by freezing the pills and taking them with food. I also had some limited success with St. John's Wort, but in therapeutic doses, St. John's can cause light sensitivity.
Now we've found a synthetic that works for me with absolutely no side-effects. It's called Lamictal, and the manufacturer has a patient assistance program for people who can't afford it. I take 300 mg a day, which would cost about 300 bucks a month without the patient assistance program. It takes about 5 weeks to ramp up to a 100 mg dose, at which point I began noticing a little bit of a difference, and that doseage works fine for a lot of people. It took another few weeks to ramp up to the 300 mg dose.
It may not work for everyone, but you might want to check it out. Good luck! Let me know what you end up doing and how it works for you.
-Rob
Reply
Leave a comment