Dopamine seretonin challenge? Is my Natropathic dr nuts?

[Therunningman]

I’ve been sick with ME for 2 years. I’m seeing a Natropath. He is supposed to be experienced treating CF and has been helpful with Myers IVs and B12 injections. Neither have given me any extra energy whatsoever. Now he is saying my neurotransmitters are out of whack since I take Nortriptyline, an antidepressant. He says my seretonin or dopamine are just being recycled and reuptaked by the drug. He thinks I crash because I run a depletion of either seretonin or dopamine, I don’t have reserves of these and my body just produces adrenaline???

So he wants me to take a natural supplement for depression such as 5htp to boost my body’s natural seretonin production. My concern is you shouldn’t take 5htp and an anti depressant as you run the risk of seretonin syndrome. I told him this but he says it’s overstated. In all the research I have done I’ve never found a link between seretonin depletion and crashing. To me it’s mitochondrial issues.

I dunno. My antidepressant is fine and I couldn’t tolerate SSRIs.

Should i ditch this guy and move on?

 

[JaimeS]

You might want to find my reaction to 5-HTP here on PR. I'm not saying his basic idea is incorrect -- suppose he's right. Then he's dumping extra serotonin on you presuming it's the serotonin that's low? I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I'd say maybe have another convo before 'ditching' though. Maybe you can bring him around to your POV?

 

[percyval577]

As I don´t take any antidepressants (it´s still unknown why the work, I think) I don´t know if it helps:

I once boosted my serotonin (by tryptophan) with first a good effect and after a week a longlasting bad one.
But I very often experience a good effect when boosting both, dopamine (by tyrosin) and serotonin.


Well, this says nothing about leaving the docotor or not. I didn´t came across a doctor who really was able to commuicate. It may depend on what you think would be worth to be checked/tried. I find it rather uncomfortable to move around.
PS: I personally think that a mitochondria issue would be only/rather a technical aspect.

 

[Judee]

I know there are ways to wean off the SSRIs when taking things like 5-HTP but I think it would be better to work with someone who is trained on how to do that and not a doctor who does not take your concerns seriously.

Plus, so many of us ME/CFS people are super sensitive to medications so I think its important to be extra careful about trying what he is suggesting.

Julia Ross talks about transitioning in her book The Mood Cure. I don't know if that would be helpful to you could see if your local library has a copy of her book if you decide to stick with this doctor.

 

[edawg81]

Sounds dangerous to me. If you wanted to go this route maybe you should try to slowly taper off the AD first. I always say, when in doubt call a pharmacy, they are happy to answer questions about interactions. Good luck, i decinitely feel like i have similar crash symptoms and seritonin maybe involved. But it just may be because of ME not the cause of ME.

 

[joanierav]

its so hard to find an antidepressant that agrees with you, so i would definately not stop this one.

ditch the doctor. easier than ditching the antidepressant.

joanie

 

[ljimbo423]

He thinks I crash because I run a depletion of either seretonin or dopamine, I don’t have reserves of these and my body just produces adrenaline???

In all the research I have done I’ve never found a link between seretonin depletion and crashing. To me it’s mitochondrial issues.

Most people with ME/CFS crash but low neurotransmitter levels don't cause the crash.

Like you have said, I think the research is leaning towards mitochondrial dysfunction and possibly low grade brain inflammation from immune system activation as the main cause of crashes and PEM.

Having said that, I take 50mg 5htp 4 times a day and 375mg n-acetyl-l-tyrosine, which help with both energy and mood but do very little for my PEM or crashes.

I take many things for dysfunctional mitochondria, like coq10, alpha lipoic acid, branch chain amino acids (BCAA's) acetyl-carnitine etc. Which are helping quite a bit.

I believe my gut is the core issue though, feeding all the others, so that's my main focus in getting healthier.

 

[MrMagoo]

I wonder if it could be the anticholinergic effect of nortyptaline. I was on amitryptaline for 2 years for post concussion headache and it was effective. Attempted to restart it years later when symptoms got worse and felt horrible on the same drug. After I learned it was an anti-cholinergic, my theory was I was deficient in acetyl-choline and started supplementing with Alpha-GPC (choline source) 300mg to which I noted slight improvement.

 

[raghav]

Most people in the forum try only SSRIs. Actually you should try SNRIs (Typically milnacipran). Only when you block both serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake will you feel increase in mental and physical energy. This will also indirectly increase dopamine levels in the synapses.