Need Help: Severe Reaction to Sam-e (Went to the ER) - SAMe

[LampLights]

Reasons why I might still be experiencing symptoms of too much serotonin after 1 week from the ER are:

I'm starting to piece things together and it seems that I was also separately taking other amino acids and supplements but didn't realized they combine together in my body to synthesize serotonin on top of the other serotonin creating supplements. Sometimes I'd take Quercetin with bromelian pills for when my allergies still couldn't be managed, and I now knew that it was keeping serotonin from being released and excreted. After learning this, I'm sure the other supplements I was taking kept serotonin from being properly removed. Yikes.

Also the food and spices that I've been eating in their combination was also keeping the overly produced serotonin from naturally leaving my brain and body, so it's staying longer than normal and causing lots of problems.

I feel like a big fool. This really stinks. How was I to know about all of those interacting things? I mean I honestly tried my best to learn as much as possible. I definitely learned this lesson the hard way; hopefully I get an A for effort and making it through ok :/

---
From my other thread: "how do you reduce or remove serotonin?"
https://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/how-do-you-reduce-or-remove-serotonin.61092/

Also avoid Monoamine Oxidase inhibitors

https://www.botanical-online.com/english/vegetalmaois.htm

https://www.everydayhealth.com/maoi/guide/

Edit: especially turmeric can worsen SS

Wow! I didn’t realize but I was not only eating dangerous food combinations but also taking tyrosine pill in the morning and tryptophan pill in the afternoon not realizing that it causes the production of more serotonin- while I was taking Sam-e and 5-HTP... maybe that’s why my symptoms have been taking so long to leave my body after stopping for 1 week! Insane.

Thanks again @Gondwanaland

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Gingergrrl Thank you so much for helping me out with this. I’m truly grateful because I felt heard, acknowledged, and you gave me more confidence to keep on advocating for my symptoms. It’s hard when you’re experiencing it to do that. And your encouragement was needed. Including everyone’s response to my question as well! Very encouraging.

Thank you for the kind words and I am so glad that you were finally able to see a doctor who took you seriously and was kind and compassionate. I hope that more time away from the Sam-e and other serotonin inducing supplements, plus the beta blocker, will bring you some relief. Did that doctor say if benzos could be helpful (temporarily) for serotonin syndrome? Glad you were able to advocate for yourself in spite of those initial doctors and your dad's lack of encouragement (to put it nicely)!

 

[LampLights]

Thank you for the kind words and I am so glad that you were finally able to see a doctor who took you seriously and was kind and compassionate. I hope that more time away from the Sam-e and other serotonin inducing supplements, plus the beta blocker, will bring you some relief. Did that doctor say if benzos could be helpful (temporarily) for serotonin syndrome? Glad you were able to advocate for yourself in spite of those initial doctors and your dad's lack of encouragement (to put it nicely)!

@Gingergrrl I was able to get a follow up appointment at a different doctor’s office, she never heard of Serotonin Syndrome but was willing to hear me out. I decided to not get benzos because I was concerned about how strong of a medicine it is and I didn’t want to get hooked on it or anything (I’m really adverse to drinking, drugs, etc., but here we are talking about how I screwed up more with supplements than anything considered bad :/ ). There I received the cyprohepdatdine (anti-serotonin) prescription that I desperately needed. I’ve been taking it since this Wednesday (2 days ago) and I feel a whole lot better, despite some spasms and twitches I still feel at different places of my body and sore muscles among a few other symptoms, at least I don’t shiver or tremor anymore, breath easier, and my blood pressure has gone down to a better range for own body. The first time I took the cyproheptadine, my body immediately improved- that was such a relief! It felt like it was night and day the difference it made in my body. When the medicine starts wearing off I notice that my symptoms comes back again, so I’m guessing hopefully it’ll be a a few more days before I stop having the symptoms (fingers crossed) and recover.

Currently I’m eating only steamed white rice, store bought beef bone broth, fresh apples, and a small cup of clear plain Knox brand gelatin without ending anything else to it because I read that they don’t have tryptophan in them and might help lower serotonin by competing against tryptophan from getting absorbed into the brain. Also, I’m eating shredded raw carrots with some coconut oil in between meals.

Is there anything else I should be eating? Or watching out for?

 

[Gondwanaland]

That is relieving to hear, I'm glad you got the right treatment!

Is there anything else I should be eating? Or watching out for?

https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/serotonin-syndrome/
http://180degreehealth.com/reducing-serotonin-levels/

If you think you should antagonize Tryptophan even further, taking a BCAA supplement is an option, especially if you got too much muscle wasting from the SS.

Hopefully you will be able to go back to a proper healthy diet soon.

 

[Gingergrrl]

There I received the cyprohepdatdine (anti-serotonin) prescription that I desperately needed. I’ve been taking it since this Wednesday (2 days ago) and I feel a whole lot better

That is great news and I'm glad you got what you needed and are slowly starting to feel better! Thanks for updating us.

 

[LampLights]

That is relieving to hear, I'm glad you got the right treatment!

https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/serotonin-syndrome/
http://180degreehealth.com/reducing-serotonin-levels/

If you think you should antagonize Tryptophan even further, taking a BCAA supplement is an option, especially if you got too much muscle wasting from the SS.

Hopefully you will be able to go back to a proper healthy diet soon.

@Gondwanaland Thanks for those helpful links. I'm reading through them now. Yeah I'm so glad- what a relief! Btw, is the shredded carrots meal consists of one full carrot each serving with a teaspoon of coconut oil?

 

[LampLights]

That is great news and I'm glad you got what you needed and are slowly starting to feel better! Thanks for updating us.

@Ginger You're welcome. Thank you for seeing me through this ordeal. I'm really hopeful to be healed soon.

 

[Gondwanaland]

Btw, is the shredded carrots meal consists of one full carrot each serving with a teaspoon of coconut oil?

I would say at personal tolerance... I only prepared it once a couple of years ago, and my husband got instant depression from it, while for me it was ok. I don't recall quantities.

Edit -- BTW I suspect the gelatin should be more helpful

 

[LampLights]

I would say at personal tolerance... I only prepared it once a couple of years ago, and my husband got instant depression from it, while for me it was ok. I don't recall quantities.

Edit -- BTW I suspect the gelatin should be more helpful

Thanks for the tip!

It's so weird. After eating a good size bowl of one raw carrot shredded and mixed with coconut oil, I heard my stomach make some loud noises and then all of a sudden I felt cold with strong emotional agitation and started getting shortness of breath, heavy chest, shivering/tremors, hands felt tingly and cold, tightened muscles on my back and neck, and strong headache. I measured my bottom blood pressure (diastolic) as it went up to 84 from 73 (the 73 reading was taken an hour ago - I felt good with low symptoms just a few spasms, soreness, aversion to bright lights, and a slight headache).

Currently, I'm feeling kinda like I did an hour ago when my diastolic was 73, which is a good thing. I didn't get the same bad response the last time I ate some shredded carrots with coconut oil but last time I ate only a small handful. What an unusual condition to have such a quick roller coaster of a ride. So, so strange...

Having seasonal allergies that turned to year round allergies, I hope the beef bone broth doesn't make things worse later on. I read somewhere it has lots of histamine?

 

[Gondwanaland]

I read somewhere it has lots of histamine?

You have to gauge your tolerance to it.

I wouldn't eat the carrot salad more than 2-3x weekly.

 

[LampLights]

@Gondwanaland Makes sense. Thanks!

 

[LampLights]

Great..I found out that a single strain probiotic I was taking 1 to 2 weeks before my ER visit on Monday helped cause me having too much serotonin: It's called Bifidobacterium longum. I noticed that I kept on forgetting to list that probiotic on my medication/supplements form of what I've been taking. But when I was running across a lot of articles that indicated 95% of serotonin is made in the gut and not in the head, I started thinking my prolonged symptoms might also be indicated by my own gut biome / flora.

Here's a link to the clinical study that concludes the probiotic Bifidobacterium longum upregulates SERT mRNA and protein levels in intestinal epithelial cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5848327/

I guess all those things taken was a perfect storm for serotonin syndrome to occur.

*If anyone knows how to reduce this Bifidobacterium Longum from my gut, I'll greatly appreciate it.

 

[pamojja]

*If anyone knows how to reduce this Bifidobacterium Longum from my gut, I'll greatly appreciate it.

Many times these commercially available probiotics, though exerting their effect while in transition, don't easily settle down. For example, took some myself for years, ate sauerkraut, kimchi, natto and curd every day. But my first ubiome result last from last years showed none had taken residence within my gut microbiome.

 

[LampLights]

Many times these commercially available probiotics, though exerting their effect while in transition, don't easily settle down. For example, took some myself for years, ate sauerkraut, kimchi, natto and curd every day. But my first ubiome result last from last years showed none had taken residence within my gut microbiome.

@pamojja I’m guessing it’s highly likely that the B. Longum will be gone out of my system in a few days or weeks, if not already? Thanks for sharing your experience on this. Maybe once I’m fully healed I’ll start eating a cup of plain yogurt every other day.

 

[LampLights]

So a strange thing happened yesterday (last night, technically this Sunday morning), my blood pressure shot up to 160/95 with a 106 beat per minute at 12:47am. All my symptoms came back in full force. I took 8 mg of the Cyproheptadine at 11pm so I was surprised that this happened. In the end, I grabbed a Propranolol 10 mg tablet (which my primary healthcare provider told me to stop taking when the Cyproheptadine was prescribed because of the potential of too low bp) broke it in half, chewed one half for under my tongue and the other half I swallowed- I was able to drastically lower all of my symptoms to almost being non-exsistant in 40 mintues (but I started feeling its positive effect at around 10 - 20 minutes). At 2 am, my symptoms subsided. I basically felt like nothing happened earlier; that's when my dad walked by me finished with his praying.

When the symptoms were happening my body was starting to shut down as the shivering / tremors came back strong while the agitation and confusion quickly went up. I woke up my parents and fumbled the words out of my mouth as my jaw muscles were tremoring that I needed to go to the ER. My mom said they won't do anything for me like the last 2 times I went but she was preparing to drive me there anyways. My dad said I should join him in prayer to help me calm down. Obviously I got angry at my dad for not sensing the extreme urgency of this condition and for constantly thinking that the cause of my symptoms was an emotional one instead of a biochemical one that's medically well documented. After taking the Propranolol and my blood pressure and rate went down, my dad walked by to check on the front door and looked at me with indifference and told me to go to sleep because it's late...

 

[LampLights]

If you think you should antagonize Tryptophan even further, taking a BCAA supplement is an option, especially if you got too much muscle wasting from the SS.

@Gondwanaland Is there a brand of Branch Chain Amino Acids that you heard of or found for yourself to be good for SS?

I believe I need to seriously antagonize Trytophan because last night my Serotonin Syndrome symptoms strongly came back despite taking 8 mg of cyproheptadine an hour before that incident.

 

[Gondwanaland]

@Gondwanaland Is there a brand of Branch Chain Amino Acids that you heard of or found for yourself to be good for SS?

No, but actually it seems you already have too much on your system. Adding it could worsen vitamin and mineral imbalances.

 

[LampLights]

No, but actually it seems you already have too much on your system. Adding it could worsen vitamin and mineral imbalances.

Ok, thanks!

 

[Mr.Catts]

LampLihts, how are you now? What halpened lately?