i personally dont do well with any herb that contains oxalic acid or ace inhibitors. I fainted after drinking a tea of with just five goji in it. Crazy!
I read a fascinating piece on depression and TNF alpha. I find this fascinating because I also have Ank Spond and when i get a flare up now days I tend to get low mood as well. Apparently they also have now found elevated TNF alpha - both peripheral and CNS in depressive patients and apprently they think that rather than effect serotonin release, uptake or reception, that chronic increases in certain cytokines actually stops the body even producing serotonin and they find low trytophan precursors, high tryptophan catabolic metabolites but low actual serotonin levels.
They wonder whether SSRIs are working different ways, because reduced reuptake would not do much if there was low serotonin to begin with. perhaps the sutblte increase just reduces expression of 5HT receptors.
So it got me wondering about the nature of CFS with documented innate immune activation, chronic activation of pro inflammatory cytokines like TNF alpha and whether some how this is also not decreasing serotonin release, but actual production. SSRIs and precursors might work to fix this short-term, but the best solution would actually be to decrease actual inflammation through stopping these cytokines. it might also explain stomach irritability - as low serotonin might tranlsate to hypersensitive receptors in that area, it might explain the altered hemodynamics in those with OI as serotonin receptors are specific venous constrictors.
So with this in my head Im just going to go out and try Humira. I can get it tomorrow as I have 8 1/2 year Ankylosing Spondylitis. Will be interesting to see how this translates to perhaps fixing POTS and the periods of tired inflammation I call CFS.