[lifecansuck]

Hello All,
This is a new thread based on a previous thread I posted "Delayed reaction to cold meds ect".

But the title wasn't too descriptive.

Ive been taking psych meds for about 30 years , And as of the past 10 Ive noticed some pretty crappy experiences consistently. Im not sure what exactly it is, no Dr. has input on it. Im deducing that it must be from prolonged medication usage?

The issue is deep depressive symptoms weather Im on any meds or NOT (which I haven't made it 3 months without ) for the past 10 years. I get this delayed reaction (not UNTIL 3-4 days later) which is deep depressive symptoms that will last for 3-4 days. This hapends if I drink 1 freekin beer, take NyQuil, smoke some strange (no , its not the pot thats the problem, hapends even when I haven't smoked for months). Its like ANYTHING that can slightly effect the brain causes this DELAYED crash and 3-4 day RECOVERY. I have switched meds/no meds, stopped drinking (except for a rare beer ), stopped smokin weed, done **** ton of therapy and practice meditation /exercise. Everything it seems.

My theory Is this:
Due to prolonged psych medication ussage :

I think that anything that has a slight effect on the brain causes the chemicals to dip, or stop being made .... then they all get depleted in 3-4 days THEN, the brain says "oh, I need to make more" and it takes 3-4 days to do so. (Although I am not aware how long brain chemicals last in the brain or how long it takes to make more)
Has anyone had similar experiences? Do you have any insight on it? My theory is just a guess because I cant for the life of me figure it out .

Thanks in advance

[still_crazy]

Orthomolecular really helps me. i still take Abilify. DoctorYourself.com: Andrew Saul's Natural Health Website

[lifecansuck]

Originally Posted by still_crazy

Orthomolecular really helps me. i still take Abilify. DoctorYourself.com: Andrew Saul's Natural Health Website

I asked my Dr. to do blood tests for all my vitamins, toxins, ect. I told him Ive heard over the years that some deficiencies cause dep, insomnia ect. I doubt he will but it sure would save me from spending alot on tests from Amazon.com

[possum220]

Originally Posted by lifecansuck

I asked my Dr. to do blood tests for all my vitamins, toxins, ect. I told him Ive heard over the years that some deficiencies cause dep, insomnia ect. I doubt he will but it sure would save me from spending alot on tests from Amazon.com

Any decent doctor would do testing when you ask for it. Time to see a different doctor?

[sarahsweets]

Originally Posted by still_crazy

Orthomolecular really helps me. i still take Abilify. DoctorYourself.com: Andrew Saul's Natural Health Website

Andrew Saul

A.k.a. the MegaVitaminMan

Andrew Saul is a self-proclaimed expert in nutrition and proud holder of a PhD from a “non-traditional PhD program”, the non-accredited diploma mill mail order program Greenwich University. (It never ceases to surprise us that those who defend people like Saul so rarely stop to consider why he would feel the need to mislead his audience by claiming such expertise.) Saul has written several books with titles like Doctor Yourself and Fire Your Doctor; his website takes its name from the title of the former, whereas Fire Your Doctor refers to how important it is that you, his reader, doesn’t consult anyone except him about the contents his advice, and especially not anyone who might have any real competence in any of it, since they’ll only disagree with him and tell you things he doesn’t want you to know. On his website – which Saul refers to as “his peer-reviewed website” and claims to be “one of the largest non-commercial natural health resources on the internet” – and in his books, Saul will tell you what they don’t want you to know and why “a grandmother is worth two doctors” (probably relevant to understanding his claim about his website being “peer-reviewed”), and he promotes a range of demonstrably useless dietary supplements. One reason you need supplements is apparently that much of today’s food is crappy and much of it GMO. No, Saul really doesn’t like doctors: “Doctors command far more respect than they've earned. It amounts to a religion, almost a perverse opposite of Christian Science, when we have so much faith in people.” Moreover, medical science was wrong about much in the past, so it is clearly not to be trusted. Instead, you should trust him, whose degree is at least not from a real medical school.

Also known as the MegaVitamin Man, Saul is best known for promoting huge doses (at least 15,000 mg, but he has also mentioned “½ million to 2 million milligrams”) of Vitamin C as a miracle cure; “[n]ow, I don’t believe in ‘miracle cures’ or silver bullets,” says Saul, “but high-dose Vitamins sure come close”: apparently megadoses of vitamin C are effective for anything from scorpion bites (according entirely to himself, Saul detoxed himself from a venomous scorpion bite using vitamin C, “which acts as a potent anti-toxin;” it most assuredly does not) to chronic disease to compromised immune systems to the flu; vitamin C ostensibly works as an “antibiotic, antihistamine, antitoxin, antipyretic, antidepressant and will even curb your appetite.” Indeed, Saul “personally worked with a woman who had HIV, drug addiction, alcoholism, you name it. I told her to consider really shoveling in the Vitamin C, quit drugs and drinking, and clean up her diet. Well, she got off of drugs and eventually the alcohol. She tried to clean up her diet, and she took an awful lot of vitamin C. I ran into her 20 years later and she told me that the last three times she was tested for HIV they couldn’t find any.” In short, C vitamins clearly fits the definition of “miracle cure”, but for marketing purposes it is probably strategically advantageous to give a more modest first impression lest people think Saul is as ridiculous as he is. “Wouldn’t it be great if your doctor would teach you how to use common Vitamins for healing chronic illness, reversing disease and injury, or just for maintaining health? But most can’t … or won’t – and there’s a surprising reason why.” It is not very surprising. The reason is of course that Vitamin C demonstrably does none of what Saul claims it does. This is not the answer Saul gives.

Indeed, according to Saul, “medical doctors have been using high doses of vitamins to cure disease for over 70 years”; in fact, they “have been stopping and curing Polio with high doses of Vitamin C since the 1930’s. In the 1860’s and 70’s they were curing pneumonia with Vitamin C therapy” (it probably doesn’t need to be pointed out that these claims have nothing to do with reality). Elsewhere he claims that doctors don’t use vitamins to cure disease because “doctors are pretty indoctrinated by the time they finish med school” and will never even consider any alternatives, even though researchers according to him constantly publish on the almost magical efficacy of vitamins; in any case “[i]t could have something to do with money” because doctors are “basically funded by the pharmaceutical industry from the moment they enter med school to the moment they hang up their stethoscope”, and the pharmaceutical – unlike himself and the supplement industry – cannot make money off of vitamins.

Of course, the evidence Saul is talking about is studies published in things like the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. Orthomolecular medicine is of course one of the more deranged branches of dangerous pseudoscience out there. In fact, Saul has managed to become one of the more, uh, recognized figures in orthomolecular medicine – he is editor of the “peer-reviewed” Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (he keeps using that expression; I do not think it means what he thinks it means) and was “inducted into the Orthomolecular Medicine Hall of Fame in 2013” – and according to the grand old man of orthomolecular medicine, Abram Hoffer: “Andrew Saul’s website is great. And it’s accurate. I read it all and it’s very accurate.” Hoffer, who died in 2009, was also Saul’s co-author on the book The Vitamin Cure for Alcoholism, one in a series of books that also include The Vitamin Cure for Depression (with one Bo Jonsson), The Vitamin Cure for Children’s Health Problemsand The Vitamin Cure for Infant and Toddler Health Problems (both with Ralph Campbell). Saul’s website, which is certainly not accurate by any stretch of the imagination (you should, for instance, emphatically not trust Saul’s advice on niacin), is mostly a series of links to various articles from a wide variety of quacks and crackpots claiming things that fit Saul’s narrative.

Saul has also branched out a bit and written Vegetable Juicing for Everyone (with Helen Saul Case) and I have cancer, What should I do: Your orthomolecular guide for cancer management (with Michael González & Jorge Miranda-Massari). What you should is to listen to your doctor and stay as far away as possible from Saul’s book.

Diagnosis: Certainly a crackpot and pseudoscientist, but his own promotion of his fake degree makes it hard to maintain the position that he is merely a true believer. Dangerous.

Encyclopedia of American Loons: Search results for andrew saul

The notions behind orthomolecular medicine are not supported by sound medical evidence and the therapy is not effective;[6][7] even the validity of calling the orthomolecular approach a form of medicine has been questioned since the 1970s.[8]

The scientific and medical consensus holds that the broad claims of efficacy advanced by advocates of orthomolecular medicine are not adequately tested as drug therapies.[6] It has been described as a form of food faddism and as quackery.[14] Proponents point to mainstream sources that have published research supporting the benefits of nutrient supplementation[15][16] and to instances where conventional medicine uses vitamins as treatments for some diseases.

Some vitamins in large doses have been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, of cancer and of death.[17][18][19] The scientific consensus view is that for normal individuals, a balanced diet contains all necessary vitamins and minerals, and that routine supplementation is not necessary absent specific diagnosed deficiencies.[20]

In general, the vitamin megadoses advocated by orthomolecular medicine are unsupported by scientific consensus.[32] Some vitamins are toxic in high doses,[70] including niacin (B3),[71] cholecalciferol (D)[72] and tocopherol (E).[73] The view of the medical community is that there is no evidence for the efficacy of Orthomolecular medicine as a treatment for cancer,[6] and that high vitamin doses may – on the contrary – increase overall mortality.[74] Nutritional treatments are not generally accepted as being helpful for psychological health.[75] Its claims have been criticized by most medical organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Institute of Mental Health,[50] the American Academy of Pediatrics,[76] CHAMPUS, and the Canadian Paediatric Society. The American Medical Association describes as "myths" the ideas that adequate nutrition is not readily achievable with normal food, all food grown with pesticide is poisonous, all food additives are poisonous, vitamin and mineral deficiencies are common, that the cause of most disease is poor diet, which can be prevented by nutritional supplements. [77]

Similarly, the American Cancer Society comments that the current scientific evidence does not "support use of orthomolecular therapy for most of the conditions for which it is promoted." Some supplements have exhibited benefits for specific conditions, while a few have been confirmed to be harmful; the consumption of nutritious foods is the best recognized method to obtain vitamins, minerals, and nutrients crucial for good health.[32] Barrie Cassileth, an adviser on alternative medicine to the National Institutes of Health, stated that "scientific research has found no benefit from orthomolecular therapy for any disease,"[52] and medical textbooks also report that there is "no evidence that megavitamin or orthomolecular therapy is effective in treating any disease."[78]

Safety
In the United States, pharmaceuticals must be proven safe and effective to the satisfaction of the FDA before they can be marketed, whereas dietary supplements must be proven unsafe before regulatory action can be taken.[84] A number of orthomolecular supplements are available in the US in pharmaceutical versions that are sometimes quite similar in strength and general content, or in other countries are regulated as pharmaceuticals. The US regulations also have provisions to recognize a general level of safety for established nutrients that can forgo new drug safety tests. Proponents of orthomolecular medicine argue that supplements are less likely to cause dangerous side-effects or harm, since they are normally present in the body.[5] Some vitamins are toxic in high doses[70] and nearly all (with the possible exception of Vitamin C[85]) will cause adverse effects given high levels of overdosing for prolonged periods as recommended by orthomolecular practitioners.[10] Forgoing medical care in favor of orthomolecular treatments can lead to adverse health outcomes.[6]

Health professionals see orthomolecular medicine as encouraging individuals to dose themselves with large amounts of vitamins and other nutrients without conventional supervision, which they worry might be damaging to health. Potential risks[86] of inappropriate vitamin and supplement regimes include an increased risk of coronary heart disease,[87] hypertension, thrombophlebitis, peripheral neuropathy, ataxia, neurological effects, liver toxicity, congenital abnormalities, spontaneous abortion, gouty arthritis, jaundice, kidney stones, and diarrhea.[7][17][88][89][90][91][92] In their book Trick or Treatment?, Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh conclude that "The concepts of orthomolecular medicine are not biologically plausible and not supported by the results of rigorous clinical trials. These problems are compounded by the fact that orthomolecular medicine can cause harm and is often very expensive."[10]

Example: vitamin E
Orthomolecular proponents claim that even large doses of vitamin E pose no risk to health and are useful for the treatment and prevention of a broad list of conditions, including heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes and nephritis.[93] Initial hopes for the usefulness of vitamin E in orthomolecular medicine were based on epidemiological studies suggesting that people who consumed more vitamin E had lower risks of chronic disease, such as coronary heart disease.[94] These observational studies could not distinguish between whether the higher levels of vitamin E improved health themselves, or whether confounding variables (such as other dietary factors or exercise) were responsible.[95][96] To distinguish between these possibilities, a number of randomized controlled trials were performed and meta-analysis of these controlled clinical trials have not shown any clear benefit from any form of vitamin E supplementation for preventing chronic disease.[97][98][99][100] Further clinical studies show no benefit of vitamin E supplements for cardiovascular disease.[101] The current position of the American National Institutes of Health is that there is no convincing evidence that vitamin E supplements can prevent or treat any disease.[102]

Beyond the lack of apparent benefit, a series of three meta-analyses reported that vitamin E supplementation is associated with an increased risk of death; one of the meta-analyses performed by the Cochrane Collaboration also found significantly increased mortality for the antioxidant vitamins A and beta-carotene.[103][104][105] A subsequent meta-analysis found no mortality benefit from vitamin E, but also no increase in mortality either.[106]

Use in AIDS
Several articles in the alternative-medicine literature have suggested that orthomolecular-related dietary supplementation might be helpful for patients with HIV/AIDS.[107][108] A study using 250 mg and 1000 mg doses of vitamin C along with other antioxidants to treat people with AIDS did not find any benefit.[109]

A meta analysis in 2010 found that micronutrient supplementation decreased the risk of death and improved outcomes in pregnant women with HIV in Africa.[110] A 2017 Cochrane review found no strong evidence to suggest that micronutrient supplementation prevents death or is effective at slowing the progression of disease for adults with HIV.[111] It is important for people living HIV to eat a healthy adequate diet.[111] For people with HIV that have clinically demonstrated deficiencies in micronutrients or for people who are not able to consume the recommended daily quantities of minerals and vitamins, supplementation is still encouraged.[111] Vitamin A in children with HIV appears to be safe and beneficial.[112] Vitamin A deficiency is found in children with HIV infection who may or may not have symptoms of AIDS. Vitamin A supplementation reduces morbidity and mortality in AIDS symptomatic children, but has no effect on asymptomatic children. It does not prevent HIV infection, cannot treat the chronic HIV infection, and will not cure AIDS.

Orthomolecular medicine - Wikipedia