• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

About a month ago I was diagnosed with Serotonin Syndrome...

Messages
45
albeit a mild case. I still can't eat any food with more than a little tryptophan in it or the symptoms get worse. The symptoms improved once I quit the medications and started eating rice, butter and vegetables, and when I had just a bit of millet earlier today I got worse almost immediately. I'm well aware that CFS sufferers have extremely long recoveries from things such as surgeries etc; do you think it can be the case for my serotonin syndrome as well? For about a week I've been taking 10-20mg of BCAA to help combat the excess serotonin with decent success, but only if I take the powder at most a few hours before eating.

I really hope this thing will pass one day, there's only been 1 case ever of chronic SS from what I've read on the internet so most probably mine will pass. It just makes me feel so depressed and I have decided to buy some serotonin antagonists to help with this nightmare (unable to get them here in Sweden). Any thoughts? Thanks for reading.
 
Messages
45
Anyone have any idea if it's possible to have this slow of a recovery due to CFS or if something's wrong? My doctor doesn't seem to take it seriously.
 
Messages
45
An update if anyone's interested:

Been getting increasingly susceptible to anything that raises serotonin, and now I've also developed a severe histamine intolerance, which hopefully is due to the different meds I've tested. Now I'm able to only eat overcooked potatoes and rice, and only 600 kcal each day. Hopefully my body starts to heal soon or I'll be gone not before too long.
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
An update if anyone's interested:

Been getting increasingly susceptible to anything that raises serotonin, and now I've also developed a severe histamine intolerance, which hopefully is due to the different meds I've tested. Now I'm able to only eat overcooked potatoes and rice, and only 600 kcal each day. Hopefully my body starts to heal soon or I'll be gone not before too long.

Really sorry to hear how you are suffering. I read back on some of your other posts and see this was Lexapro

Hope other have some ideas on what else you can do. This is serious
 

bertiedog

Senior Member
Messages
1,738
Location
South East England, UK
My understanding is that various enzymes clear serotonin from our brains but if these enzymes don't function properly then serotonin can build up.

The ones I have seen so far are certain COMT enzymes and MAOA. If these are running slow then this stops us getting rid of various neurotransmitters including serotonin. Of course there are others involved in this during the methylation process.

Some suggest having less tryptophan because it converts to serotonin and one suggestion that I came across was that eating protein plus carbs of certain foods will lower tryptophan levels.

I think I have this problem because I do have some of these SNPs and I also benefit from Triptans which block serotonin.

Pam
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
An easy selfhack to lower serotonin is to eat a grated raw carrot with coconut oil (Ray Peat's recipe). I don't know what the precise mechanism is, but 2 Tbsps of it caused a severe depression in my husband.