Is this a reputable pharmacy? top-rx-pharmacy.com? UNITED PHARMACY LCC

[Mush]

Sorry for multiple pictures was having trouble posting !

 

[Hip]

@Mush
Have you ever considered the supplement curcumin for antidepressant use? One study found curcumin was as effective as Prozac (fluoxetine) for treating depression.

I have been using this in recent months, and it seems to help, although the depression I have is inexplicably intermittent (it can appear for no apparent reason for a few days to a few weeks, and then disappear for a similar time), so it can be hard to gauge whether a medication is working, or my depression has just disappeared on its own.

I usually take 2,000 mg of curcumin daily with some cooking oil (I use olive oil), as this helps the curcumin absorb. Curcumin is poorly absorbed in the gut.

Alternatively you can use Longvida Curcumin 400 mg, a highly absorbable form of curcumin.



I also find that sublingual vitamin B12 helps, and in fact, if I don't take this at least once a week, I get bogged down a lot more into depression. Something like Jarrow B12 Methylcobalamin 5000 mcg should be fine, if you want to experiment with this. You suck one of the B12 lozenges under the tongue for 5 or 10 minutes. You should not swallow the tablet, as B12 is poorly absorbed in the stomach.

This study says that is is worth trying B12 and folic acid for treating depression.



The supplement pregnenolone 50 mg daily also helps, I find.

 

[Mush]

Morning @Hip

No I haven't taken the curcumin but I do take the B12 but not sublingual.

I went to a herbalist a couple of year ago and spent a fortune which I wouldn't have minded if it had worked. I think he was correct in that my hormones needed balancing but agnus castus just wasn't strong enough. I can't remember what was in the other one but unfortunately it didn't help.

I will have a read about pregnenolone.

I have had about two hours sleep last night so was up really early and have taken a quarter of the Adderall about 5.30am..... nothing so took another quarter 15 minutes ago nothing. Will wait and see. I have ordered the test strips so will know one way or another.

 

[Mush]

@Hip

I have just put in Turmeric or Curcumin? It's all a bit confusing. I started taking the turmeric (with black pepper) on your recommendation last week. I like the idea of the turmeric because I am pretty much always in pain and I do think my pain is a little bit better. So I think I will stick with the Turmeric for now.

I emailed the company yesterday about the "generic Adderall" and so far no reply. I will keep you all up to date just in case any of the information might be of use to anyone else.

 

[Undisclosed]

Receiving unmarked pills in a ziploc bag is a huge red flag. A reputable pharmacy would deliver meds in blister packs with appropriate labelling. It appears whatever they sent you is not Adderall-- it doesn't even match their own image. I can't find the pill from your image on any pill identifier website. Adderall or generic form is always imprinted.

 

[Mush]

I know @Kina !

I've taken them, started at a quarter then half and then whole and they did absolutely nothing, I may as well have taken a Smartie!

I've emailed them and thankfully they are replying to my emails. They asked for photos and have said they are going to look into it. I think I've been had! :-(

Will wait and see what they say.

 

[matt3n]

I know @Kina !

I may as well have taken a Smartie!

I was just about to suggest Smarties! ;-)

 

[Mush]

LOL I think they are!

 

[Undisclosed]

I know @Kina !

I've taken them, started at a quarter then half and then whole and they did absolutely nothing, I may as well have taken a Smartie!

I've emailed them and thankfully they are replying to my emails. They asked for photos and have said they are going to look into it. I think I've been had! :-(

Will wait and see what they say.

Let us know what they say.

 

[Hip]

I do take the B12 but not sublingual.

When you take B12 orally, it does generally absorb a tiny bit, but not as much as by the mucous membranes inside your mouth. A lot of ME/CFS patients find high doses of B12 helpful for energy and brain fog. Some take B12 injections; others use the next best thing which is sublingual B12. In the past, I have used these concentrated B12 drops under the tongue. Just one drop contains 1,000 mcg (1 mg) of B12 hydroxocobalamin.

Whether high dose sublingual B12 might help your depression is hard to say. Like so many supplements and drugs, unfortunately you often don't know if they help until you try them. Which can be an expensive business.

I think he was correct in that my hormones needed balancing but agnus castus just wasn't strong enough. I can't remember what was in the other one but unfortunately it didn't help.

I will have a read about pregnenolone.

Pregnenolone I find does help, but if I take too high a dose, it makes me a bit aggressive. Too high a dose I find will sort of turn my depression into anger, which in one sense is OK, because it is a relief from the horrible depression, but anger is not a pleasant condition to be in either. I like to be calm and mellow. So for me, the trick is to take just the right dose of pregnenolone that helps with the depression, but not so much as to trigger anger.

I use doses around 25 to 50 mg of pregnenolone daily, and that seems to be OK for me. But higher doses of 100 mg start to cause anger side effects.

I find pregnenolone has very similar effects to the closely related hormone supplement DHEA. If you look online, you find accounts of too much DHEA or pregnenolone triggering anger, snappiness or bitchiness in people.

I have just put in Turmeric or Curcumin? It's all a bit confusing. I started taking the turmeric (with black pepper) on your recommendation last week. I like the idea of the turmeric because I am pretty much always in pain and I do think my pain is a little bit better. So I think I will stick with the Turmeric for now.

A lot of people get confused with the difference between curcumin and the spice turmeric. Curcumin is a pure concentrated extract obtained from the spice turmeric. Turmeric contains many beneficial components, and curcumin is one of them. Around 3% of turmeric is curcumin, and the rest of the turmeric is composed of other ingredients.

What I think may confuse people is that the botanical name for turmeric is Curcuma longa; but turmeric is not the same as curcumin; it just contains some curcumin.

I find turmeric 1,000 mg daily has some useful anti-anxiety properties, whereas pure curcumin 2,000 mg I find has some antidepressant effects.

 

[matt3n]

By the way, I'm also a fan of curcumin although I take so many things it's hard to know for sure what does what. Certainly never got any negative side effects from it though, which I can't say for everything. I also seem to benefit from pregnenolone (currently 200 mg per day divided into two doses, morning and night), DHEA (50 mg in the a.m.), and 7-Keto DHEA (100 mg a.m. and another 100 mg before lunch), plus some (15 mg) slow-release cortisol from a compounding pharmacy. I'm lucky enough to be able to travel to a doctor in the Atlanta area that believes in "adrenal fatigue" and using T3 instead of Synthroid for hypothyroid problems and fibromyalgia.

Sometimes I thought I noticed curcumin being calming but I dismissed it until now because I had never heard it could affect your mood! I just take it for inflammation and general health but I may have to reclassify it in my brain a little and experiment with doses. (400 mg of Life Extension's Bio-Curcumin which is supposed to have 7 times greater absorption than plain curcumin, but I'm sure they're comparing taking them on an empty stomach. I bet you can spend less and maybe get half the absorption with plain curcumin extract taken with a meal with fat in it).

 

[Mush]

Thanks @Hip and @matt3n for your input.

I will add them into the mix then. I get what you say matt3n about taking so much it's hard to tell what is working!

I do think some of the natural remedies you've suggested Hip are working, I am feeling calmer but not put myself into any social settings as yet and I really don't want to, not until I feel a bit more stable/stronger. I think the social event I was meant to be going to on Saturday I am going to give it a miss. I was really hoping the Adderall might have worked for one off situation like that but hey ho not meant to be.

Once again thank you so much for all the great advice.

 

[Hip]

Once again thank you so much for all the great advice.

It's a pleasure, @Mush. I have lots of other suggestions for supplements you can try for depression — supplements that I have found help, and supplements that studies have shown help depression. So if you want some more suggestions, just let me know.

I still have not found the magic pill that fixes my depression, so when it hits, I tend to take several supplements that I know each help a little with alleviating my depression.

I am also slowly systematically trying out various drugs that are antidepressants, or drugs that have off-label antidepressant effects; but I have not found much, apart from very low dose amisulpride, which helps to a degree.


I wish it were possible to find some clinic or specialist that could investigate the root causes of each case of depression, via a series of blood tests and other tests. The depression might be caused by something very specific. For example, it is possible to be deficient in human growth hormone (HGH), and this can cause the following mental symptoms:

Psychological and Cognitive Symptoms of Growth Hormone Deficiency:
Anxiety, apprehension, nervousness.
Shyness, withdrawal from others, feelings of social isolation.
Sadness, hopelessness, depression.
Labile emotions.
Poor memory and impaired concentration.

More symptoms listed this post.

In fact, one member of this forum thought she had ME/CFS for many years, but it turned out to be HGH deficiency.

 

[Rvanson]

Hi @Mush

It is hard to find an online pharmacy selling Adderall, because such stimulants are classified as a controlled drugs (you can usually buy prescription drugs online, but it's hard to find controlled prescription drugs). I don't think the pharmacy you mentioned (www.top-rx-pharmacy.com) will sell it.

For your treatment-resistant depression, has your doctor tried you out on many different types (classes) of antidepressants? There are many different classes of antidepressant, so if one class does not work, it's possible that another will.

Classes of antidepressant include:
SSRI — like Prozac, Lexapro, citalopram, Zoloft, Paxil (Zoloft and Prozac are said to affect Dopamine to a much greater extent then the other SSRI's )
SNRI — like venlafaxine (Effexor), duloxetine (Cymbalta)
NRI —like bupropion (Wellbutrin) NDRI as it also affects Dopamine
Tricyclic antidepressants — like amitriptyline (Elavil)
Selective MAO-A inhibitors — like moclobemide
Selective MAO-B inhibitors — like deprenyl / selegiline
Neuroleptics — like very low dose amisulpride (I use this, and it works for me) Effects Dopamine as well.
Classical non-selective MAOI's: Nardil, Parnate & Marplan

For more classes, see: List of antidepressants - Wikipedia

In addition to my ME/CFS, I suffer from depression, and I have noticed that all new A/D's that target Dopamine specifically, seem to be unavailable or made to be so, very quickly.

In 1985 an A/D called Merital was fast removed from the US/world. It was a Dopamine enhancing drug. Then in the 1990's Amineptine was recalled for no valid reason whatsoever, other then the standard "it might be addictive" FDA nonsense. even though it was not a US
approved medication.

The reason I mention this is that adhedonia seems to respond to Dopamine enhancing medications, which are few in number. The reasons why these are not, or rarely, mentioned are a mystery to me. The US FDA has LOTS or sway outside of the US, that much is certain.

 

[Mush]

Heck the symptoms of the HGH deficiency hit home.

I came to the conclusion after doing research that I thought it was Dopamine I was lacking and not Serotonin. I have just lost faith in the medical system now and seem to find out more helpful information this way. I have tried all the antidepressant apart from the MAOI drugs - I don't know why I wasn't ever tried on them but I am not going to start on that now. I think the SSRI drugs have done enough damage to my body and brain!

 

[Hip]

@Rvanson
If a drug is strongly dopaminergic and works on the reward centers of the brain (like cocaine), it does tend to get banned, as it can be open to abuse potential.

However, there are lots of drugs and supplements available that boost the dopamine system: I compiled a list of them in this post.


Prior to getting ill with ME/CFS, I used the the MAO-B inhibitor deprenyl (aka: selegiline) a lot, on and off for 20 years. It always gave me a very nice and clean and natural-feeling mood boost, and what's more, I found it boosted creatively and lateral thinking ability (dopamine seems to be linked to creativity).

I am very wary of any drug that has tolerance, addiction and withdrawal problems. I never like the idea of becoming addicted to anything. But I found with deprenyl that you could take it for weeks, and when you stopped, there was no unpleasant come down effects at all. For me, that makes it a good drug. I used to take doses of around 2 mg to 5 mg a day. The younger you are, the less you need. So in my 20s, I'd only take around 2 mg daily.

The mood boosting effects of deprenyl I found kick in after around 12 hours. So a good time to take it is the night before the day you need it to work.

Deprenyl is also taken by the longevity enthusiasts (the anti-aging people who want to live longer by taking life extension drugs and supplements), because in mouse studies, taking daily deprenyl extends mouse lifespan by 40%, if I remember correctly (though that benefit probably does not translate to humans). It's a quite a good neuro-protective compound. See:

Deprenyl: The Forgotten Anti-Aging Pill


Unfortunately for me, after I had a serious chronic organophosphate pesticide poisoning 15 years ago, just prior to developing ME/CFS, deprenyl completely stopped working for me as an antidepressant mood booster. So I can no longer benefit from what was a fantastic antidepressant for me. But I found deprenyl to be a great drug.

I have tried all the antidepressant apart from the MAOI drugs - I don't know why I wasn't ever tried on them but I am not going to start on that now. I think the SSRI drugs have done enough damage to my body and brain!

I think deprenyl (selegiline) is a very benign drug, it's actually good for you in many ways, according to the longevity enthusiasts. Nothing like the rather dubious effects of SSRIs.

A similar drug to deprenyl is moclobemide, which is an MAO-A inhibitor rather than a MAO-B inhibitor like deprenyl. But it works the same way, in preventing the breakdown of dopamine in the brain, thereby increasing the levels of dopamine.

I don't have much experience with moclobemide, so I can't really comment about it.

 

[Hip]

Heck the symptoms of the HGH deficiency hit home.

Yes for me too. I did an experiment a year ago where I bought some injectable human growth hormone (somatropin) from a reputable supplier, and gave myself a subcutaneous injection of this HGH once each day for 8 days in a row (I took a dose of 1.25 IU of HGH per day).

I used these HGH injections as a means to check if I might have some HGH deficiency. I reasoned that if my depression and other symptoms were due to HGH deficiency, then HGH injections would fix the symptoms. I had viral meningitis 10 years ago, and meningitis is known to sometimes damage the pituitary and hypothalamus glands in the brain that secrete hormones such as HGH.

During my 8 days of HGH injections, my anhedonia was noticeably improved. I started to become more enthusiastic about life's normal daily activities.

HGH is normally very expensive, but I found an economic brand of HGH made by Gen-Shi, which cost me US$38 for 10 IU.


I want to try taking HGH again for a longer time, perhaps a whole month, to test it properly. However, at present, I can no longer find the cheap Gen-Shi somatropin (HGH) anywhere online for sale, and other pharmaceutical brands of HGH are much more expensive.

 

[Hip]

Then in the 1990's Amineptine was recalled for no valid reason whatsoever, other then the standard "it might be addictive" FDA nonsense.

Some time ago I saw this website where apparently you can buy amineptine (Survector), though I have not bought any. Not sure if it is reliable.

A chemically related drug is tianeptine (Stablon), which you can buy as a drug, or as a supplement (cheaper this way). Stablon increases dopamine in the reward center of the brain. But Stablon can be addictive, and I read can have major withdrawal symptoms.

 

[TigerLilea]

@Hip

Adderall (?) have arrived today. Not sure what to make of them as they have no marking on them whatsoever!?

I ordered 30mg strength so am going to half it and try tomorrow morning. Watch this space.

Google Adderall from a reputable website to see if they look the same.

 

[TigerLilea]

they came in loose in a ziplock bag. They look a bit like this but a bit pinker:

BUT without any writing on at all.

The fact that they came in a ziplock bag is a big red flag. Why wouldn't they be in a pill bottle like pharmacies usually use? I certainly wouldn't be taking them. You have no idea what it is that you are swallowing or whether they are safe.