Boron: anti-inflam., helps brain, bones, cal/mag absorption, sex hormones, anti-cancer, raises SOD

[Hip]

I've recently had some success with moclobemide (MAO-A inhibitor) for my depression symptoms (which are not the same as the negative emotional symptoms described earlier). This is not available in the US, except if you import. Moclobemide has a much better safety profile compared to SSRI and TCA antidepressants, which lead to sexual dysfunction in 70% and 30% of patients respectively. Whereas with moclobemide the figure is only 3.9%. The mood boost I get from moclobemide feels more natural and balanced compared to the TCAs I've tried.

 

[Iritu1021]

I've recently had some success with moclobemide (MAO-A inhibitor) for my depression symptoms (which are not the same as the negative emotional symptoms described earlier). This is not available in the US, except if you import. Moclobemide has a much better safety profile compared to SSRI and TCA antidepressants, which lead to sexual dysfunction in 70% and 30% of patients respectively. Whereas with moclobemide the figure is only 3.9%. The mood boost I get from moclobemide feels more natural and balanced compared to the TCAs I've tried.

My long standing depression has fully resolved a few weeks after I've titrated two mood stabilizers (lithium orotate + gabapentin). Now that I've finally realized after 20 years the bipolar nature of my depression, I will never ever use any antidepressant again as they only compound the problem in my case by destabilizing my cells, and for me the transient improvements are not worth it.

I'm the classic "middle of the spectrum case" since my hypomanic states have been always masked by my low energy. I've only had what's called "mixed states" which are extremely unpleasant states of inner agitation, tension, sensory hypersensitivity, irritability and anxiety. The only positive manifestations of my bipolarity that I've experienced were heightened intellect and creativity.

Again, I highly recommend that book to anyone with treatment resistant depression. Or you can read the version that he wrote for physicians: "A Spectrum Approach to Mood Disorders: Not Fully Bipolar But Not Unipolar--Practical Management".

 

[Iritu1021]

@Hip Actually, I have to correct myself. I'm using three mood stablizers since levothyroxine is also a mood stabilizing drug.

 

[Hip]

I've related to bipolar II all my life, since I often think aspects of my personality are like the manic phase of bipolar, including lots of excitable lateral thinking and making creative connections, as well as at other times experiencing lots of deeply depressed moments. However, I have never had the mood swings from depressed to elated like bipolar people do, which is usually in cycles lasting weeks or months (depressed for weeks/months then manically elated for weeks/months).

In my case, I was nearly always depressed for the first few hours of the morning each day, but this would clear up by about 11 pm, usually with the help of lots of coffee. To be more precise, it was not depression I had, but dysphoria (similar to depression but without the loss of self esteem commonly found in depression).

I would also often experience deep dismal dysphoria in the dark days of winter due to my seasonal affective disorder; but even on these depressed winter days, often by 9 pm in the evening I could be in a buoyant elevated mood full of life and mental energy. So there was often a rapid swing from deep dysphoria to elation in the same day with me.

So that sounds a bit like bipolar, but I am not sure if it can be classed as genuine bipolar. Rather I think I might have temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), which has some similarity of symptoms and pathophysiology to bipolar. Treatments are similar too. There are also some symptoms I had as a child (such as Alice in Wonderland syndrome) which suggest I may have TLE.

If you have ever experienced deja vu, or its opposite jamais vu, those are symptoms of TLE.

I tried low dose lithium orotate 130 mg daily, but did not notice much.

In the past, selegiline (deprenyl) was my mood booster of choice. This is an MAO-B inhibitor. I discovered selegiline through my interest decades ago in nootropics ("smart drugs"); selegiline is considered a nootropic. I found selegiline increased mood, creativity and libido, and for me was a general feel-good drug as well as a great creative thinking aid. It's also touted to be a longevity drug with general beneficial effects. So I would use it on and off, but not continuously. MAO inhibitors are a known treatment for bipolar.

Now ever since getting ME/CFS in 2006, selegiline makes me feel worse; but I think I know the reason: it ramps up IL-1beta, which is one of the sickness behavior cytokines.

 

[Hip]

I highly recommend that you read a book by James Phelps MD titled "Why am I still depressed?" or just check out his website psycheducation.org.

I will investigate this.

 

[Iritu1021]

@Hip
I was able to derive benefit from SSRIs, various stimulants, and other drugs for years in the early stages of my illness but bipolar 2 is a progressive illness.

Phelps explains really well that there is a multitude of presentation for mid-spectrum illness. Mania itself is comprised of three components: 1) thought, 2) mood, 3) energy - and everyone's unique presentation will differ depending on the various combinations of those three components.

People with bipolar 2 never have classical hypomanic episodes. Bipolar 2 is a completely different illness than bipolar 1. Bipolar 2 has a much worse prognosis and disability, and basically it's mostly depression, especially later in life. Too long to explain it all here but I think you will have a shift in paradigm once you read his book or at the very least check out his website (psycheducation.org).

I had to work my way up to 30 mg of elemental lithium orotate before I began to feel the benefit and it only worked in combination with a hefty dose of levothyroxine. Before levothyroxine, I've tried and failed miserably. I think lithium also raised my very low ACTH (part of my atypical depression) in addition to stabilizing something within the cells (either calcium, glutamate or whatever other theories of bipolar are there).

Not everyone with bipolarity responds to lithium, however. Given that you suspect TLE, perhaps a drug like lamotrigine or carbamazepine will be the the right choice for you since it would address both issues.

 

[Iritu1021]

@Hip I want to add one more thing- I do find ARI lithium tablets to be superior and different in effect to lithium capsules, probably due to their extended release formulation.

 

[Hip]

Given that you suspect TLE, perhaps a drug like lamotrigine or carbamazepine will the the right choice for you since it would address both issues.

I've dabbled with lamotrigine a bit at low doses of 12.5 mg daily. It did have a nice antidepressant effect, but did not help my anhedonia. Though it did alleviate my blunted emotions a bit, and improved my sociability quite substantially.

However, I noticed that my desire and ability for reading scientific and biochemical research online, and my desire and ability to laterally and creatively think about these biochemical subjects, was quite diminished on lamotrigine, and instead I found I wanted to do more simple and physical organizational tasks around the house, like moving furniture, organizing my desk, or house cleaning. So that's a possible negative of lamotrigine.

I have not thoroughly tested out lamotrigine though; I've only taken it for periods of a week or two. I know it can have withdrawal symptoms, so I am little wary of that. I need to test it more.



In general though I would not say my TLE or bipolar-like symptoms were a major impediment. I lived relatively normally with these TLE / bipolar symptoms, and would be happy to go back to my old self with just these TLE symptoms and nothing else. The short-lasting dysphoria states I experienced are not nice, but I just got used to it.

However, after I had a suspected viral brain infection in 2005, I developed ME/CFS and various new and nasty mental symptoms like severe anhedonia, blunted affect, depression on and off, generalized anxiety disorder (now fixed), some social withdrawal, ADHD, sometimes some very mild psychosis symptoms.

Literally just this week I learnt of a mental illness called simple schizophrenia, which unlike classic schizophrenia does not manifest any hallucinations or delusions. Simple schizophrenia sufferers only have the so-called negative symptoms of schizophrenia, like anhedonia, blunted affect, social withdrawal, but not the positive ones like hallucinations, hearing voices and delusions. So with simple schizophrenia you don't have the classic major psychosis symptoms.

So I am now wondering whether my suspected encephalitis might have triggered simple schizophrenia, which might explain some of my symptoms. I've benefited from very low dose amisulpride, which is a third-generation antipsychotic (also known a dopamine system stabilizer drugs).

 

[Hip]

Too long to explain it all here but I think you will have a shift in paradigm once you read his book or at the very least check out his website (psycheducation.org).

I've already had look at that website, and do like the idea of the bipolar spectrum, explained on this webpage, which runs from unipolar to bipolar. I will read the website more thoroughly very soon.

 

[Iritu1021]

I've dabbled with lamotrigine a bit at low doses of 12.5 mg daily. It did have a nice antidepressant effect, but did not help my anhedonia. Though it did alleviate my blunted emotions a bit, and improved my sociability quite substantially.

However, I noticed that my desire and ability for reading scientific and biochemical research online, and my desire and ability to laterally and creatively think about these biochemical subjects, was quite diminished on lamotrigine, and instead I found I wanted to do more simple and physical organizational tasks around the house, like moving furniture, organizing my desk, or house cleaning. So that's a possible negative of lamotrigine.

Haha. That's not a negative side effect, that's just called "welcome to being a regular human". That's the reason why so bipolar people (especially in creative sphere) don't take their medications - the drugs that help you also make you lose your superpowers.
Jon Nash from "Beautiful Mind" had schizophrenia. He stated that all his brilliant ideas came from the same place as his hallucinations.

 

[Iritu1021]

@Hip Full strength atypical antipsychotic is another way to go for bipolar 2 so you cover both bases, the only downside is the potential for metabolic side effects but nothing is perfect. Or you may end up on a combination of two drugs.

 

[Iritu1021]

Indeed, postmortem studies have reported higher lactate concentrations in the brain of people with BD, which suggests a shift from oxidative phosphorylation to glycolysis (Dager et al., 2004). This observation has been supported by similar studies using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (Stork and Renshaw, 2005) and cerebrospinal fluid studies (Regenold et al., 2009).

Electron transport chain complex I is decreased in both levels and activity in BD patients (Andreazza et al., 2010). Moreover, BD patients downregulate nuclear transcripts for proteins of the entire electron transport chain when subject to glucose deprivation, while controls seem to have the opposite response (Naydenov et al., 2007). There is also robust evidence of increased lipid peroxidation and alterations in calcium metabolism in BD (Munakata et al., 2004; Kato, 2008). A decrease in the expression of genes regulating oxidative phosphorylation and proteasome degradation in BD patients in comparison to patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls was also shown (Konradi et al., 2004). High energy requirements in the brain may also increase the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), potentially damaging mitochondria themselves, resulting in an exacerbation of mitochondrial energy production failure (Hagen et al., 2002a).
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This is why I think using stimulants and T3 to treat my fatigue which was related to bipolar depression pushed me into ful blown CFS and autonomic dysfunction.

 

[Chiron]

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, I just wanted to add my input. I recently used 20 Mule Team borax to make the popular borax solution you see online. I added 1 tablespoon of MTB to 1L of distilled water. I then started taking 1/4 teaspoons of that solution daily.

For me it caused massive diarrhea and now some rectal bleeding, so I had to stop. I don't really know the reason for this, but I don't really care. Anything that does this to the body can't be good. Proponents online say that I just need to start at a smaller dose and work my way up, but the amount is already so little.

I also found out that the company that makes MTB does not recommend it for internal use because it's not food grade. So their workers don't wear clean gear or operate under clean conditions. So they are walking all over the borax flats with their street shoes while raking it, and handling product with their hands. Also MTB is made in the same factory as other cleaning products, so there may be cross contamination. It is actually 99% borax but it's not processed in clean conditions.

Once my bowel inflammation calms down, I'm going to approach this again by using an actual boron supplement. I eat a lot of avocados though so maybe I already have enough boron in my body.

 

[girlfromeurope]

Hi, I've been having a severe magnesium deficiency for years, I'm suffering from heavy depression, anxiety attacks, joint pain,arrhythmia, I've tried everything but nothing helps, vitamin b6(p5p) used to help but not anymore. From what I've read here it seems like boron is needed to absorb magnesium? So taking boron alone might help my symptoms? I'm really lost and hope this is the missing link

 

[pamojja]

Hi, I've been having a severe magnesium deficiency for years, ... From what I've read here it seems like boron is needed to absorb magnesium?

Had a severe magnesium deficiency for 10 years. Titrated oral supplemented elemental Mg up to 2.4 g/d during that time period (1.6 g/d in average), but it alleviated extremely painful muscle-cramps only somewhat. Finally found a GP who does inexpensive Mg-sulfate IVs last year, and after 6 of those the cramps ceased (Mg-sulfate ampoules for IVs can be bought without prescription in Germany/Austria).

After 10 IVs and having whole-blood Mg retested, I still seem to need as many more to get normal values (34-36 mg/l):

year mg/l

2012 31,78
2015 29,85
2018 32,82

Also took boron, about 10 mg/d for the last 5 years.

 

[Wayne]

Hi, I've been having a severe magnesium deficiency for years

I've read that the fastest and most efficient way to restore magnesium levels is to apply magnesium oil topically to the skin. So that has become my preferred method of supplementing with it. The oil can be made by mixing magnesium chloride "flakes" with water, and let it set for a while to completely dissolve. Fill magnesium flakes to half full of any container, and then add purified water to the top. -- I hope you can find something soon that will really help you!

 

[girlfromeurope]

I've read that the fastest and most efficient way to restore magnesium levels is to apply magnesium oil topically to the skin. So that has become my preferred method of supplementing with it. The oil can be made by mixing magnesium chloride "flakes" with water, and let it set for a while to completely dissolve. Fill magnesium flakes to half full of any container, and then add purified water to the top. -- I hope you can find something soon that will really help you!

I've tried that for years, it doesn't work. I seem to be deficient in a magnesium cofactor, but thanks !

 

[Chiron]

Topical magnesium and epsom salt baths do increase serum magnesium, but it's negligible.

I do a daily injection of 3mL of 500mg/mL magnesium sulfate. This gives me 150mg elemental magnesium. The injection hurts and sometimes I have to do it twice a day, but due to malabsorption I don't have another choice. I'm hoping that this plus other measures will correct the root of my malabsorption so that one day I can switch to oral mag.

I've started taking boron 3mg pills. I must take them in the morning because they make me wired for some reason. It reminds me of how intense mag felt when I first started using it. To me this implies a deficiency.

 

[Wayne]

but due to malabsorption I don't have another choice.

There's an accouint somewhere here on PR by a guy who did rectal implants of magnesium. I think it was the kind that epsom salts is made from. If interested, you could try doing a search on it.

 

[pamojja]

I do a daily injection of 3mL of 500mg/mL magnesium sulfate. This gives me 150mg elemental magnesium.

Wow. For how long have you taken these daily injections? How much in total?

In my case the 10 Mg-sulfate IVs in the course of a year - each containing about 480 elemental Mg - did alleviate it already greatly. But increased whole-blood Mg levels by 2 mg/l only. So definitely need an other 10 IVs to get normal blood-levels again. Also in my case serum Mg didn't even show a deficiency, but dropped to low of normal after commencing with the IVs.