What works for your anhedonia?

W

wasted_potential

Messages
12
Among all of my symptoms anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure) is one of the worst. I cant seem to enjoy anything which makes life in addition to all the other symptoms just miserable. What supplement and/or medication has helped you the most to treat the anhedonia?

I have tried countless antidepressants, stimulants and other medications to little or no effect.
What has helped me somewhat is vyvanse/dexedrine. Its far from perfect tho and makes me more motivated and focused rather than increase my ability to experience pleasure. Lyrica improved my anhedonia in the beginning but quickly faded with longterm use. Memantine seemed to improve my anhedonia in the first few days after dosage increase but quickly faded and the dissociative side effects were too much.


After reading praise on this forum of low dose amisulpride for anhedonia i tried it but dissappointingly it had little effect. Im gonna order Sarcosine soon to take with my NAC in hope of improving the anhedonia. What else can i try?
 
5150

5150

Senior Member
Messages
360
This is a serious reply , so I hope nobody thinks it isn't.

This problem perhaps might be solved or mitigated by hypnotism.
My wife stopped smoking based on a suggestion by a hypnotist... 25 years it had her in the grip.
Pleas by loved ones all went unheeded. Then the hypnotist spoke and she was ready to accept wisdom.
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wasted_potential said:
Among all of my symptoms anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure) is one of the worst. I cant seem to enjoy anything which makes life in addition to all the other symptoms just miserable. What supplement and/or medication has helped you the most to treat the anhedonia?

I have tried countless antidepressants, stimulants and other medications to little or no effect.
What has helped me somewhat is vyvanse/dexedrine. Its far from perfect tho and makes me more motivated and focused rather than increase my ability to experience pleasure. Lyrica improved my anhedonia in the beginning but quickly faded with longterm use. Memantine seemed to improve my anhedonia in the first few days after dosage increase but quickly faded and the dissociative side effects were too much.

After reading praise on this forum of low dose amisulpride for anhedonia i tried it but dissappointingly it had little effect. Im gonna order Sarcosine soon to take with my NAC in hope of improving the anhedonia. What else can i try?
Click to expand...
 
W

wasted_potential

Messages
12
I dont see how hypnotism would solve anhedonia as i think anhedonia is a result of a dysfunction in the reward center in the brain. Unless its directly related to some kind off emotional shutdown mechanism i cant see hypmotism doing much, but that being said.. to each their own, we are all different and respond to different things.
 
R

robinhood12345

Senior Member
Messages
151
It is an essential nutrient, and yes it is the precursor to the neuro transmitter acetylcholine.
I started taking melatonin last night, and that has helped a lot too.
I don't think choline actually did much. Was wrong about that one.
 
Y

yurybx

Messages
92
Six months later, how are you doing with anhedonia treatment?

I have the same problem. Since birth, I am introverted and uncommunicative, but as an adult I turned into an emotional vegetable: I feel like a little child who needs to be played with, because I am not able to enjoy something myself. When I successfully complete any work, I find myself on the fact that I endlessly scroll through it in my head, as if trying to convince the brain that this is a reason for satisfaction. But my brain is not able to feel satisfaction, and I remain with a feeling of absolute emptiness inside, as if I had done nothing at all. I can spend hours concentrating on some exercise, but I do it as if on autopilot, without feeling any emotion. I'm like a zombie! Even video-games, which I loved very much in childhood, do not bring pleasure.

I also tried various antidepressants and stimulants, psychotherapy, but nothing helps. The last thing I want to try is high frequency rTMS.
 
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uglevod

uglevod

Senior Member
Messages
220
I have the same thing from childhood and its associated with chronic inflammation. Type "inflammation" "anhedonia" in pubmed - ton of data out there like this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29843560

Usual treatment consists of anti-inflammatory drugs. The problem is if inflammation raised(upregulated) as a result to chronic infection, anti-inflammatories will blunt the immune response to it.
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
18,115
yurybx said:
I also tried various antidepressants and stimulants, psychotherapy, but nothing helps.
Click to expand...

You describe anhedonia very well (I know all about it). Note that anhedonia is slightly different from blunted affect (blunted emotions), although anhedonia and blunted affect often arise together. The difference between them is described in this post. I also detail some anhedonia treatments in that post.



Unfortunately whilst there are dozens of antidepressants that are often effective for depression, there are almost no drugs that can treat anhedonia.

However, a newish antidepressant drug called agomelatine (which is structurally similar to the hormone melatonin), has been shown effective for treating anhedonia. See:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27859669
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22722509
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21382280

Unfortunately agomelatine is quite expensive, around $60 for 28 x 25 mg tablets. However, it's often stated that sublingual agomelatine is 8 times more effective than oral, so to save money, you can crush each tablet into powder, and use just ⅛ of the tablet sublingually each night (agomelatine is taken before bed). This may be equivalent to a 25 mg tablet taken orally.

I've been experimenting with sublingual agomelatine for my own anhedonia, and it does seem to have an effect (but may have negative effects for some other mental symptoms I suffer from, so I have to be cautious).
 
T

talkinghead

Messages
64
I don't have a personal experience, but this thread on reddit contains some anecdotal evidence of sarcosine + NAC being useful. Give it a try maybe, hope it helps.

Well me and my brain just noticed you mentioned them in your original post :) So I guess I didn't help you much but I guess the reddit link can serve as a reference for future readers.
 
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Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
18,115
talkinghead said:
I don't have a personal experience, but this thread on reddit contains some anecdotal evidence of sarcosine + NAC being useful.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for that link.

Coincidentally enough, I've been experimenting with sarcosine recently, as I read it can be effective for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (which include anhedonia; anhedonia is found in both schizophrenia and in major depression).

I did not notice much from my short-term tests with sarcosine (I take NAC 600 mg daily all the time anyway), but reading that Reddit article, it seems that you have to give sarcosine a few weeks for the anhedonia benefits to manifest.

So I think I will definitely try sarcosine + NAC again, but for a longer period.
 
Y

yurybx

Messages
92
@talkinghead, thanks for the link, it is encouraging!
But unfortunately in my country sarcosine is not for sale. On the other hand, in that article they write that it can be replaced with DMG or TMG. Do you think DMG + NAC or TMG + NAC will be as effective as sarcosine + NAC? And which option is better: DMG or TMG?
 
T

talkinghead

Messages
64
yurybx said:
Do you think DMG + NAC or TMG + NAC will be as effective as sarcosine + NAC? And which option is better: DMG or TMG?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I can't give any advice in this regard. I myself haven't tried sarcosine yet because I also can't get it in my country. I'm still trying to figure out if it's worth the hassle of importing.
I'll definitely update here if/when I'll try sarcosine and/or TMG/DMG. Please do the same if you try it.
 
Y

yurybx

Messages
92
@Hip, I bought agomelatine and took one pill before bed yesterday. And it was awful! Today I had a terrible drowsiness all day long and recovered only in the evening. Usually on Saturdays I go for a walk to the market, and then cook dinner. But today, because of yesterday's pill, I spent the whole day on the couch. And most antidepressants act on me in a similar way! Drowsiness and lack of initiative are my chronic problems with which I try to fight, but without success. Coffee, ginseng, eleutherococcus, tea, salbutiamine, hopantenic acid - none of these stimulants help. And antidepressants only make things worse.
But I'm still grateful to you for the information, these experiments help me not to lose hope that one day I will find the right medicine. So next week I will try other methods.
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
18,115
yurybx said:
@Hip, I bought agomelatine and took one pill before bed yesterday. And it was awful! Today I had a terrible drowsiness all day long and recovered only in the evening.
Click to expand...

Sounds bad. Did you take a full 25 mg tablet of agomelatine? I wonder if you took a much lower dose, say for example 1/8 of a tablet, would it be better?

Agomelatine is related to melatonin, so you might expect drowsiness from this drug (that's why agomelatine is taken at night). It's possible that the dose of agomelatine was too high for you, and so the drug remained in your body throughout the night and most of the next day, which could explain the drowsiness you felt for the first half of the next day.

If you took a smaller agomelatine dose before bed, then it might leave your system by the next morning.
 
panckage

panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
I have been taking polygala tenuifola for a few weeks. I noted initial impressions in this thread: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/polygala-tenuifolia-extract-review.76823/

After starting, my anhedonia has improved quite a bit. Reddit has a number of posts from people who say it has treated their anhedonia as well . You know right now I am listening to music and I can actually feel it. It doesn't feel like an attack anymore. It feels like pleasureable as it should :redface:
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
18,115
panckage said:
After starting, my anhedonia has improved quite a bit. Reddit has a number of posts from people who say it has treated their anhedonia as well . You know right now I am listening to music and I can actually feel it. It doesn't feel like an attack anymore. It feels like pleasureable as it should
Click to expand...

Sounds very interesting, I am going to get hold of some Polygala tenuifolia (yuan zhi) straight away, as anhedonia is the bane of my existence.
 
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