5-HTP and mental health

Guys, I appreciate the concern, really I do. I have a firm policy of never making important decisions while I’m not right in the brain and that’s where I’m at right now.

I had a really bad week and I thought I might be going crazy in the brain again but friends pointed out that it happened once before when I stopped taking hydroxycut. I took them for energy and both times when I stopped taking them, I got disoriented and in a bigtime brainfog and had even less energy then when I started taking them. I have no clue why that is but it just is. Because of the brainfog, I sometimes forget if I took my paxil or not, so I don’t take it and then that adds more problems for me so that’s what happened to me this week (I hope). I bought a pill case, and won’t take hydroxcut anymore-problem solved.

If that was it then in a couple of days I’ll be right again and I’ll do some research. Right now I don’t have the skills to do a sudoku puzzle successfully, so reading up on neurotransmitters at this time is pointless for me and it only makes me more nervous anyway.

Somebody posted about maybe getting on paxil- all I can tell you is paxil is truly a bitch to get off of. In the past I’ve tried and sometimes I’m halfway there and start back up again because I get so scared of the “losing control” feeling you get as it leaves your body. It’s not cool. It’s probably why I stay on it. I’m a slave to my paxil.

I’ll resume my post whoring once I have more coherent thoughts, but thanks everybody for caring:)

Hello Mgus,

You are welcome for the posts. I am happy to be a team player here.

I am not exactly sure what you are meaning by the words “excess amounts” but I will do my best to answer.

First though, let me put in a disclaimer. Since you are taking Paxil, you already have a physician. Therefore, my answer is not intended to be a treatment protocol for you or anyone else.

With that out of the way, lets go to the chemical route. By taking 5 HTP, you are bypassing the rate controlling mechanism in Serotonin, which is the hydroxylation of Tryptophan. You would be doing this because you have determined that you need additional Serotonin in your system. Your shortage MAY well be caused by insufficient amounts of Tryptophan (an amino acid— protein) in your diet. Your shortage may be caused by liver dysfunction. Or you may have high levels of stress causing the your increased levels of cortico steroids from that stress to inhibit the hydroxylation reaction.

Taking more and more 5 HTP will progressively raise the rates of conversion into Serotonin UNTIL you have exhausted your available supply of the enzyme that decarboxylates 5 HTP. Certainly at this point, you would be overdosing. As to the result, anorgasima (the inability to have a climax) is most likely. As to other reactions that can happen to you at this point, I do not know. All of my personal experience has been done with people that take only an appropriate dosage.

Regarding what others have posted about their experiences, a poster on another board reported taking 600 mg, 4 times a day for a week. He became anorgasmic in two or three days, stopped taking the 5 HTP, and returned to normal, soon afterward. That is the most extreme example that I have read.

To take your question to the extreme, should you take an entire bottle at one time, you would continue to make Serotonin until you ran out of the decarboxylation enzyme. The rest of the 5 HTP would circulate in your blood until it was either excreted or converted.

Regarding the quantization of upregulation/downregulation, that is a brain function and cannot be measured or quantified. So if you are asking about how to quantify a particular dosage with a brain response, that can’t be done.

If you are asking for a normal dosage amount, and what would happen if that dosage were exceeded, then again, let me refer you back to my disclaimer above. With that being said. Starting dosages for depression are in the range of 50 to 100 mg a day. For bowel conditions, the dosage is 150 to 200.

Regarding what would happen if you doubled the amount that you took in one day, from say 100 to 200 mg a day. Many have done that and they feel nothing. Many have tried 300 mg a day, and felt nothing. That being said, I feel confident in saying that dosages in that range seem to fit easily into the upregulation/downregulation area of fine tuning.

I hope that is what you were seeking.

Best regards,

Stage

Hi Littlehobo,

I am sorry for missing your question.

My experience with 5 HTP has been with people that had a shortage of Serotonin in one form or another. With the dosages that I am familiar with, there has been no effects on ejaculation that people have told me about. In my own experience with 5 HTP, it does nothing to help or hinder ejaculation.

Certainly taking 5 HTP to excess can trigger anorgasmia, but I have no experience in “edging” to see how close a person could come to anorgasmia without actually suffering from that. Personally, although I have no experience with Serotonin edging, I would not suggest that you do that. Certainly you would downregulate your Serotonin response, and if you did it for a long time, you may well get more than you bargained for.

I am sorry that I cannot be more helpful.

Stage

I apologize, I misread one of your posts. Sorry.

Stagestop,

Thanks for the reply.

My serotonin levels are actually going to be lowered intentionally through some dietary changes I’m having to make.

I was once a 300lb fatbastard (yeah, you become a fatbastard when you get above 30% body fat…it’s a rule). I fixed a variety of health problems by coming up with a diet that was very similar to Atkins - but greatly improved with even more fat, and more green veggies, lost a great deal of body fat ending up at 170 at about 7%.

My efforts to get bigger and stronger led me to a diet that included 533g of carbs every day and viola - a year later I’m about 10% at 205lbs which is fine but the health problems have returned. Lots of lab tests later, some time spent discussing my body’s nutritional needs with my doc, and another tweak to my old plan, double the calories in it and suddenly I’m on DiPasquale’s “Anabolic” diet. Without the carbs, I’ll probably have lower serotonin and may end up using the 5-HTP for sleep anyway.

By the way. If I misread anyone’s posts or post anything that seems to be extremely retarded in the next week, I’m 5 days in and sometime in the next week I’ll get 3-4 days of “brain fog” if I do like last time when I first designed my diet. Sadly, now my book will never be published. It was almost done, then I read DP’s book a few days ago…almost word for word the same as mine except deals with muscle building instead of fat loss. Dammit, if I’d have seen in 10 years earlier I’d have had all my answers instead of having to learn as I went.

I wonder what connection could there be between anxiety issues and gall (bladder) problems.

On an (ultrasound) ecography the doc found that I have a twisted gall (or something like that, I think gall bladder or gall is the correct term in english) that causes me to feel sick, and strangely, the anxiety issues appeared during the same time my sickness appeared.

I want to ask about something. Last year I was taking Seroxat(Paxil) as a cure for my premature ejaculation. It was only 5mg per day but it worked. From level of ‘2 min sex’ I went up to ‘15-20 min’. I stopped taking it as I felt not happy with ‘taking drugs’(no real reason, no depression).

However I started taking 5-HP two months ago to have ‘better mood’. I take 50mg a day-it works on my mood and sleep…but NO EFFECT on my ejaculation/delayed orgasm(after getting rid off Seroxat I ‘learned’ to have 5-10 min sex’ by myself)

What levels of 5-HTP need to be taken to delay orgasm? Also-is it possible to take 5-HTP on ‘sex days’ or increase it’s dosage just before sex in order to delay orgasm?(or does it have to be taken each day to delay orgasm?)

I also wonder if Paxil can be take JUST BEFORE sex(not on other days) in order to delay sex and together with Viagra(so erections are harder).

Disi, I started a thread about that here

stagestop,

I find this very interesting. If what you say above is true. I think that I have low serotonin levels. This all makes sense to me now.

I’ve always had a slow working colon. Sometimes I can go 3-4 days w/out going but when I do I’m not usually constipated. I asked my fam doc about this and he just said everyone is different (duh).

I use to be on Zoloft a few years back (depression) and while I was on it (taking 50mg then 100mg) I would still only last about 5 min sexually and some guys here say they last 20min or more on SSRI’s.

When I had sex the first time I didn’t even get it in before I came and although it did get better, still nothing to write home about. I have even cum when I was doing something new sexually that just excited me too much even though I was flaccid at the time. ie: Fingering a girls ass for the first time. I’ve never lasted over 5 min that I can recall (not something I’d forget). Since I’ve been doing Kegals it’s even worse. Now I last less than a minute. This is horrible. I have felt so inadequate all of my life because of this problem along with wanting a bigger dick of course.

Is there a test I can take at Doc’s office to check my serotonin levels? What more can I do to get rid of this problem that has plagued me all of my life? This was real embarrassing to tell all of you this but luckily there is some anonymousness here.

Another thing a lot of the penis size poles women say if your not big it’s not a problem as long as you know how to use it. Wow double whammy on me.