I have the same response, but find that too much protein cancels this effect. I think overall it has something to do with low or depleted glycogen levels. If glycogen levels get too low, then the adrenals send out cortisol to break down proteins and fats to provide glucose. At least I think that's the deal. Lots of discussion about this on 180degreehealth.com (Matt Stone). A google search will turn up more info...
Completely eliminated my severe anxiety symptoms with three supplements!
- Thread starter Hip
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I have the same response, but find that too much protein cancels this effect. I think overall it has something to do with low or depleted glycogen levels. If glycogen levels get too low, then the adrenals send out cortisol to break down proteins and fats to provide glucose. At least I think that's the deal. Lots of discussion about this on 180degreehealth.com (Matt Stone). A google search will turn up more info...
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wonder if it's something that taking the DHEA supplement would fix by lowering cortisol production...too much cortisol in the body is known to induce anxiety. Or maybe taking a glucose supplement? Do you have any suggestion on how to fix this?
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@Hip Hi Hip, I received my order from iHerb and will take the supplements flaxseed oil, NAG and choline as mentioned in your post. They made a mistake though and instead of turmeric they sent me L-Tyrosine...Do you think taking L-Tyrosine in combination with the other supplements would be beneficial?
Hip
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@jordan2tagg
Tyrosine can have a mood boosting antidepressant effect, but I don't think it will help with anxiety.
Tyrosine can have a mood boosting antidepressant effect, but I don't think it will help with anxiety.
Dreambirdie
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In my case L-tyrosine made me more revved-up and anxious. Not sure exactly why, though I do recall that it can be stimulating to the thyroid gland.
MeSci
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I tried a supplement containing tyrosine years ago, but had to stop it because it made my hands go numb.
It's possible that this was due to the B vitamins it also contained.
There is info about tyrosine here.
Yes, too much cortisol will induce anxiety. DHEA might help, I'm not sure. I suppose it depends on your DHEA levels. And I'm not sure about pure glucose, but that might be something talk to your doc about. I'm experimenting with small amounts of (gasp) sugar occasionally, after a meal. Or eating a lot less protein…
Thanks for the great post. I know where to go if I ever get anxiety again.
For the record, I recently eliminated my month-long anxiety. I tried pyroluria supps, aminos from 'The Mood Cure' book & upping the T3. All helped a bit.
Finally I contacted Freddd, who told me that anxiety was a low-potassium symptom & I may be losing too much potassium via taking LCF daily. (LCF is by far the most potent of Freddd's DQ for me.)
So I doubled my potassium and the anxiety vanished.
Irrelevant to most, but may be useful to someone some time.
For the record, I recently eliminated my month-long anxiety. I tried pyroluria supps, aminos from 'The Mood Cure' book & upping the T3. All helped a bit.
Finally I contacted Freddd, who told me that anxiety was a low-potassium symptom & I may be losing too much potassium via taking LCF daily. (LCF is by far the most potent of Freddd's DQ for me.)
So I doubled my potassium and the anxiety vanished.
Irrelevant to most, but may be useful to someone some time.
MeSci
ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
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I had anxiety for as long as I could remember until adopting a leaky-gut diet, but my serum potassium has always tested normal or high - never low.
npeden
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Hip and all, I have appreciated what you have shared. Almost all my neurotransmitters are unable to down regulate glutamate. I am on a ketogenic diet and that has really helped. I don't feel anxious much any more but I still cannot sleep on my own. I am also MAO A for which I take passion flower tincture and it works better than any antidepressant ever did.
I would really like to try NAG but it sounds like it is sugar as it is a glucose containing supp and I am carb free. My sinuses are fine. I have terrible candida and am in the process of having my amalgams removed. I take NAC; it doesn't effect me and it is recommended by Ben Lynch to override candida and give me a little glutathione. So, is NAG as form of sugar?
I am also hi in sulfur so I avoid curcumin. Flaxseed oil would be ok but I take two tbsps. a day of chia flax so not sure that would help but this I would try.
Before I started working with a nutritionist, I was anxious and my psych put me on inositol and it worked great but not so much any more. I noticed over the holidays, when I had some alcohol, that my anxiety went up so I took some inositol. Not sure it helped. Generally I think the ketogenic diet has helped. I think it is recommended for kids with ADD. I guess I have "brain kindling" of glutamate???
But I really would like to take some NAG if it is not full of sugar...my nutritionist said many of my symptoms would go away when I get my histamines down which I am trying to do but still dysbiosis hangs in....candida I guess. Help!
Hip
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Glucosamine is naturally found within the joint cartilage, so you already have glucosamine in your body. N-acetyl-glucosamine is just glucosamine attached to an acetyl molecule (which is from acetic acid in vinegar); adding acetyl allows glucosamine to more easily cross the blood-brain barrier and enter into the central nervous system.
Glucosamine is an amino sugar, not an ordinary sugar, and is considered safe in diabetes. However, there are some issues about NAG and Candida. See here and here.
Do you actually have Candida overgrowth that has been demonstrated by digestive stool analysis?
Chia oil may be just as good as flax seed oil for anti-anxiety purposes. Chia oil contains alpha linolenic acid (ALA), and it in fact Chia has slightly more ALA than flaxseed oil does. ALA has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects, and I think it is the ALA that may offer the anti-anxiety benefits. Although flaxseed oil also contains an interesting compound called secoisolariciresinol (SECO), a phytoestrogen, which has been shown to provide antidepressant effects, and I believe it has anti-anxiety effects too.
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Kenshin
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Can someone describe the differences between "normal" anxiety and anxiety as an organic symptom of M.E?
Does anyone find not eating makes their physical M.E symptoms improve but increases anxiety?
Eating seems to decrease anxiety but increase brain fog and other cognitive impairments caused by M.E.
Carbs more so than protein.
Does anyone find not eating makes their physical M.E symptoms improve but increases anxiety?
Eating seems to decrease anxiety but increase brain fog and other cognitive impairments caused by M.E.
Carbs more so than protein.
Hip
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Anxiety is a normal and healthy human response that appears in appropriate situations. For example, if you were suddenly dragged into an alley at gunpoint, you would naturally experience a strong anxiety response.
The areas of the brain that are known to mediate such anxiety responses are the amygdala, hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex and locus coeruleus. These areas you can call the "anxiety circuits" of the brain.
So if dragged into an alley at gunpoint, your anxiety circuits would be strongly activated as part of the brain's normal reaction to such circumstances. When the brain is functioning properly, its anxiety circuits create the appropriate anxiety responses as a survival mechanism in these type of dangerous or precarious situations.
Anxiety will also arise to a lesser extent when facing difficult challenges, like say having to give a speech in front of dozens of people; or when your exams are coming up next week, but you have not yet done any revising.
However, in the condition of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), in which an individual continually experiences anxiety with no good reason, it would appear that these anxiety circuits have become permanently switched on as a result of a dysfunction of the brain, leading to constant anxiety symptoms, even though no anxiety-provoking circumstances are present.
In other words, in GAD you can have constant anxiety, sometimes incredibly severe, but for no external reason whatsoever.
The other thing to consider is that if you suffer from GAD, and then you experience an anxiety-provoking situation that would induce anxiety even in healthy people, your anxiety level may go through the roof due to the combined effect.
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Kenshin
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Thanks, that basically confirms what I thought, I think the last sentence is important, as even a small trigger can send people with anxiety disorder through the roof.
As someone with PTSD, some of my M.E symptoms (particularly the cognitive ones such as anxiety and inability to concentrate) are also symptoms of PTSD which leads me to wonder what the cause is.
But I guess both PTSD and M.E involve badly wired neurons.
As someone with PTSD, some of my M.E symptoms (particularly the cognitive ones such as anxiety and inability to concentrate) are also symptoms of PTSD which leads me to wonder what the cause is.
But I guess both PTSD and M.E involve badly wired neurons.
Hip
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My working theory of the cause of GAD, which is briefly outlined in this post and this post, is that there is an overabundance of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the anxiety circuit areas of the brain. Glutamate acts like the volume control or the gain control on neurons: the more glutamate, the more the neurons amplify their input stimuli. So if there were high levels of glutamate in these anxiety circuits, this is going to turn the volume on all the neurons right up, and you might imagine that the anxiety circuits are then going to be on overdrive.
Certainly there is good evidence that glutamate may be involved in anxiety: when glutamate antagonists are locally infused into the amygdala, these have been shown to decrease fear and anxiety in animals. So reducing the effects of glutamate is known to decrease anxiety.
But where does this excess glutamate arise from? Well, when you get inflammation in the brain (neuroinflammation), which might arise from a brain infection with an enterovirus (a virus strongly linked to triggering ME/CFS), there is a hypothesis that high levels of glutamate will be generated from this inflammation. So my idea is that if this inflammation-derived glutamate is released into the anxiety circuit areas, you will get GAD.
In order to counter this anxiety that I presume is driven by glutamate derived from brain inflammation, my strategy is to take anti-inflammatories that specifically target and reduce brain inflammation. That's what many of the anti-anxiety supplements listed in this thread do. And they seem to work very well for a number of patients with GAD, according to the feedback I have received from people.
Glutamate has also been postulated to underlie PTSD, so these same brain anti-inflammatories may also be very beneficial for PTSD (although I have not yet had anyone with PTSD try them).
Certainly there is good evidence that glutamate may be involved in anxiety: when glutamate antagonists are locally infused into the amygdala, these have been shown to decrease fear and anxiety in animals. So reducing the effects of glutamate is known to decrease anxiety.
But where does this excess glutamate arise from? Well, when you get inflammation in the brain (neuroinflammation), which might arise from a brain infection with an enterovirus (a virus strongly linked to triggering ME/CFS), there is a hypothesis that high levels of glutamate will be generated from this inflammation. So my idea is that if this inflammation-derived glutamate is released into the anxiety circuit areas, you will get GAD.
In order to counter this anxiety that I presume is driven by glutamate derived from brain inflammation, my strategy is to take anti-inflammatories that specifically target and reduce brain inflammation. That's what many of the anti-anxiety supplements listed in this thread do. And they seem to work very well for a number of patients with GAD, according to the feedback I have received from people.
Glutamate has also been postulated to underlie PTSD, so these same brain anti-inflammatories may also be very beneficial for PTSD (although I have not yet had anyone with PTSD try them).
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Hip
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@Kenshin
You might also want to Google search about the psychedelic herb Iboga for PTSD treatment. There are some good anecdotal reports. Note that you do not need to go through the full psychedelic trip on Iboga to get its treatment benefits (and this would not be recommend at all for ME/CFS patients): many have found that microdosing Iboga works just as well. I tried Iboga microdoses (taking around 50 mg to 150 mg sublingually each day), not for anxiety but for some other mental symptoms I am trying to fix (namely anhedonia and blunted affect). It helped a bit, I think.
You might also want to Google search about the psychedelic herb Iboga for PTSD treatment. There are some good anecdotal reports. Note that you do not need to go through the full psychedelic trip on Iboga to get its treatment benefits (and this would not be recommend at all for ME/CFS patients): many have found that microdosing Iboga works just as well. I tried Iboga microdoses (taking around 50 mg to 150 mg sublingually each day), not for anxiety but for some other mental symptoms I am trying to fix (namely anhedonia and blunted affect). It helped a bit, I think.
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Kenshin
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Which anti inflamatory do you recommend/or has been most successful Hip?
Ive found ZMA (zinc, magnesium and B6) to help somewhat and improve my mood in general,
also taurine, vit D and E are good.
Ive heard of iboga but this was for curing heroin/opiates addicts, apparently it "resets" certain pathways of the brain involved in addiction. I think they were using fairly high doses which is an intense trip.
Ive also heard that psylocibin mushrooms have been helpful with Ptsd at low doses,
psylocibin mushrooms are known to be safer than iboga (both physiologically and on the pshyche)
so worth considering.
http://www.naturalnews.com/041393_psilocybin_psychological_disorders_magic_mushrooms.html
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/grade...nd-magic-mushrooms-may-help-with-ptsd/2132049
Ive found ZMA (zinc, magnesium and B6) to help somewhat and improve my mood in general,
also taurine, vit D and E are good.
Ive heard of iboga but this was for curing heroin/opiates addicts, apparently it "resets" certain pathways of the brain involved in addiction. I think they were using fairly high doses which is an intense trip.
Ive also heard that psylocibin mushrooms have been helpful with Ptsd at low doses,
psylocibin mushrooms are known to be safer than iboga (both physiologically and on the pshyche)
so worth considering.
http://www.naturalnews.com/041393_psilocybin_psychological_disorders_magic_mushrooms.html
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/grade...nd-magic-mushrooms-may-help-with-ptsd/2132049
Hip
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The ones listed in the first post of this thread.
Yes, and I think MDMA too. I'd like to try psilocybin microdosing to see if it might help certain ME/CFS symptoms. Until recently, psilocybin mushrooms used to be legal to sell in the UK.
Kenshin
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Thanks I put N-acetyl-glucosamine on my list to try, also the flax oil and turmeric (can you use fresh turmeric? (root).
Another one you've probably come across - CBD - its a cannabinoid (derived from cannabis), but is legal,
it has been shown to be anxiolytic, anti psychotic, and has a whole host of other beneficial effects, whats more its completely safe and non toxic.
Studies:
http://www.projectcbd.org/conditions/anxiety-2/
http://www.projectcbd.org/conditions/ptsd-3/