5-HTP discussed

I said I would discuss my experience with 5-HTP.  

Dosage

I take it twice a day, when I get up and before bed.  I take 50mg tablets.

I felt positive effects quite quickly after taking this tablet but didn't outwardly show any signs for about 5-6 days.

The changes I noticed is that my mood is more stable.  I don't sink like I used to, especially before mealtimes.

All suicidal thoughts have been banished and I can get to sleep much more quickly.

I smile a lot more and am ready to laugh - a lot of the time - which is very unusual to how I've been since 35.  People have remarked that I seem a lot more cheerful and positive.  

I still lose my temper, momentarily, but its worth noting that these outbursts are much shorter and don't affect my overriding mood.

Because I've responded positively to 5-HTP, I can only assume that I must be a person that has never really made enough Serotonin and needs help in that department.

I've decided to take 5-HTP for the longterm, and probably the rest of my life, as life feels better with it.

But, there is a but, as usual.  5-HTP will make you feel happier in yourself but if you're exhausted, it wont give you any added energy.  Which is a weird thing to experience for me, because I usually associate an improvement in mood with an improvement in energy levels.    

Changes since stopping HRT

Since stopping HRT I've noticed that my sleep pattern is a bit weird again.  I wake up around 3 or 4am, visit the bathroom and then either lie awake for hours, or sleep in short bursts, till its time to get up.

I feel much better without HRT, and more like my old self.  I'm leading up to a supposed menses now.  I can feel that my cervix is quite sensitive and painful.  Its like the period pain I used to get as a teenager.  Funny how the whole time I took HRT, I didn't have period pain ever, but horrendous migraines instead.

I would prefer the pain to come from my cervix any day!  

Progress with supplements
I'm really pleased at the condition of my hair and skin as a result of taking Zinc and my trim figure as a result of taking Potassium and shedding all that water retention.  

I now also take Vitamin E, Vitamin B12, Folic Acid and Vitamin D3. 

I'm not sure if one of these is causing my sleeplessness, or whether its just life post-HRT?  If the sleeplessness continues, I might discontinue Vit E and Vit D3 and take them sporadically.   

Of all the supplements that I'm taking, the top 5 for noticeable results are:

Zinc

Potassium

Magnesium

5-HTP
Rhodiola Rosea

Thank Goodness the first three on the list are comparatively cheap to buy!

Here's a list of all the supplements I currently take (I've not mentioned DMAE because I haven't yet noticed any change, apart from the feeling that it freshens me up in the morning, especially after a double vodka the night before - lol!)

Fish Oil (High Strength)

Multivitamin (with Lutein)

Vit B3

Potassium

Magnesium

Liquid Iron (occasionally)

Zinc

Folic Acid

Vit E

Selenium

Vit B complex (pathetic RDA doses)

Vit D3 (new addition - will discuss at a later date)

Vit C (1000mg)

Vit B12 (new addition, need it for Thyroid etc - yet to be discussed)

Rhodiola Rosea

5-HTP

I take supplements in complementary groups, with food.  Rarely do they state you should take them before food. 

My life is pretty hectic again and I'm having to drive long distances.  Skipped meals and vodka when I get home are not the way to live but we all handle stress in different ways.  

I'm quite surprised at how exhausted I am and I think now that my migraines may be calming down, the true state of my health is emerging.  

I intend to take LIQUORICE ROOT EXTRACT quite soon, because I've read it helps with adrenal function.  

When I'm lying in bed with this damn insomnia, I can't help but wonder what lasting harm I've inflicted on my brain tissue and nerves in my head from taking HRT.

I just want to say that although it seems stupid of me not to have realised what was happening sooner, I need to remind myself that I had really bad migraines for 3 years while I was badly anaemic too.  This turned out to be a misdiagnosis and eventually I learned that my real problem was Hypothyroidism.  

Now all these years and nightmarish migraines later, I have come to think that my real problem is renal fatigue.  If my renal fatigue wasn't so awful, I think I would still be able to take HRT.

Anyway, who cares about all that, I'm just glad I'm off it!

Adrenals and Cycles

I'm thinking aloud here and evaluating recent experiences....

You know, my recent experience with an inflamed Thyroid gland due to a tight rollneck really wasn't a normal occurrence.  

If I think about the whole episode now, I realise that significantly, it happened in the lead-up to a migraine, and that was the day after I noticed some very strange things happening to my abdomen.

The very first symptom I noticed of a 'disturbance' in my body, was the day before the rollneck and thyroid emergency.  

I'd spent the whole day virtually standing up and remember feeling that I needed to get a lot done.  I wasn't rushing around exactly, but I was under pressure. 

Then I noticed by about 3pm, I had a lot of gas.  I've had this symptom before, but I didn't link up until now, that my stomach had registered a drop in oestrogen.  Or rather, a drop in oestrogen had signalled a drop in serotonin.  A drop in serotonin had consequently slowed down peristalsis, which meant the contents of my guts were by then fermenting, hence the gas.

I remembered reading in 'Psychological Thoughts on Tension and Migraine headaches' that Tom Hersh said something along the lines of 'migraine begins with a disturbance of the abdomen'.

The disturbance I had this time was completely natural and stress had not set the whole thing off, as the stress was under control.  

I can see now that I'm pretty well, powerless, as to what my guts are doing in response to a drop in serotonin.

For this reason, I decided to start taking 5-HTP, so that hopefully I can make more serotonin and not have these steep declines?  Obviously, I started taking it after the event, so I will only be able to tell next month if it has any bearing as a preventative measure?

Even though I'm excited about  the help 5-HTP might offer, something tells me even that isn't going to work and my real problem is that HRT does not contain Estradiol.  Or if it does, its more suited to a horse, than a human. If it is part of the HRT bag of tricks, I'm pretty certain its not as powerful as human estradiol.  

Estradiol was in all likelihood responsible for my losing my temper all those years, each time I used to get the curse.  Whereas now, HRT, sets off a lot of the essential mechanisms to end my cycle, but it certainly doesn't give me that tremendous surge of sex hormone that used to turn me into a mad person.

Instead I get just enough surge to warrant a migraine, but my energy levels stay about the same, coupled with a fair amount of mild depression.  I never used to get 'depressed' before my menses before, but I used to get quite tearful.  

I wish I didn't have to take HRT but I'm determined to keep taking it, for the sake of my bones.

The hard dieting generation has yet to hit menopause and it will be very interesting to see what happens to their bones, if they resist HRT?

Both my ex-sisters in law (5 years younger than me) used to diet for 20 years or more.  

I dieted only for 3 years, but that was more like starvation in the end, because I was so determined to lose the weight I'd gained from being Hypothyroid (which I didn't know at the time).  

I've done some substances too.

They weren't really bad, but while I was doing them, I wasn't eating very well.  

I'm also a person that wont eat while coping with stress.  And I've had quite a bit of that.

So, even though I haven't dieted as much as others, I haven't eaten as well as I might have.

Clearly before I was hypothyroid, I was hyperthyroid.  And I had a very bad appetite then.  

I've lived on adrenalin, I've been an adrenalin junkie.  I now realise that that was to compensate for the abysmal energy levels you have with a Hypothyroid condition.   

Here's a link to a really great article.  Its incredibly informative but for my part, utterly depressing:

Hypothyroid Symptoms
   
When I read it, I could see my personality all the way through.  This sounds bad, but I'm going to say it anyway, I've virtually wasted my life in feeling like crap without a diagnosis and without help!

Anyway, enough about that.

It would appear that now, after popping so many pills, my overall health and particularly that of my nerves, is in much better condition, so much so that I'm able to isolate specific cues to a migraine, such as abdominal disturbance.

My guess is that the inflamed Thyroid is another indicator of a lead-up to end-of-cycle migraine.  

It doesn't take a kilo of brains to realise that my Thyroid gets the signal to increase my metabolism in the lead-up to my menses.  Trouble is that my Thyroid is sluggish, so without yet reading about this, I think my adrenals have had to compensate.  This swapping of one hormone for another could well be the real cause of my migraines??    

So, it possibly follows that in the lead up to my period, I probably need MORE levothyroxine, rather than less.

Next month I'm going to experiment and take more Levo as soon as I start taking the little progesterone pills.  As that's when all the fun really starts round here! 

(I don't think when it comes to managing homeostasis, that the same level of endocrine output is manufactured everyday, so why should I think that one tiny levothyroxine tablet will meet all my needs?)

I think I may have positively located the physiological cause behind the mounting intensity of my migraines

This is a really quick post by someone who is still sort of under the influence of a pretty bad migraine.

Things have been happening too quickly for me to really absorb it all yet, but for now I just want to get something important down here.

I last reported about my rollneck giving me inflamed Thyroid glands a few days ago, (during the progesterone phase of my pack of HRT).  Well, it turns out that I bought 5 of those rollnecks in a sale last year...(hold that thought).

Yesterday I woke up with a pretty bad migraine, no surprise, as my packet of HRT is now about to run out.  

I took soluble 500mg Paracetamol and kept lots of windows open, as again, I woke up feeling very hot. 

From that point on, I had to visit the bathroom every hour for the 7 hours that the migraine lasted.  I had some nausea as well, but that passed quite quickly.  

This menacing headache finally subsided after lunch, so I got the chance to reflect on its intensity and duration.  

Needless to say it was much less severe than recent headaches and most importantly, it was not preceded by a bout of (boring) mild depression.  

This is a significant improvement, and I put that down to recent use of Potassium supplements.

The day was not completely lost and I managed to make up for lost time in the last part of the afternoon and felt OK about the whole ordeal by the evening.

Then this morning, I wake up and I can feel that there is a stubborn, tiny, remnant of yesterday's headache, trying to make a comeback.

I managed to ignore it for quite a long time but then the builders who are working next door, arrived with a piling machine lorry 'thing'?  It was huge and it pumped out the most disgusting diesel fumes all day long.  The smell was horrendous!  The trouble with fumes likes that, is that they usually make me really ill, headache-wise, and so I keep out of their way.  Today, there was no hiding.  

The headache then came back with a vengeance.  Sharp stabbing, pick-axe-type sensations over and over again, screaming at me in the end.  The more I wanted to get on with my life, the closer the piler came to the house and the vibrations were making my head feel worse.  I could not concentrate of a single blasted thing and felt like a zombie.   

So I decided I couldn't take anymore - and as I didn't have diarrhoea today - I would get out and interview someone who'd been expecting to hear from me.  I couldn't get changed quickly enough, and inadvertently grabbed the next rollneck in the (sale) pile, knowing full well that it would no doubt play havoc with my glands but by then I was in a devil-may-care mood. 

I got in the car and after about 5 minutes, I noticed the throbbing in my head started to subside?  I was leaning slightly forward in the car at the time, as my spine prefers that position.  I could feel the rollneck constrict the carotid artery because the main section of elastic fibres, ended slightly higher up the neck than the one I wore the other day.  

Then, instead of my eyes becoming really dry and my glands turning a dark colour and swelling up, I realised the rollneck was actually reducing the blood flow through my carotid and my headache began to ebb away.  

I felt a lot better after only about 15 minutes.  I was so relieved I thought I was imagining things.  So I leaned back  in the car seat to test my theory and wadyano, the head throbbed again.  I leant forward and it stopped, or at least lessened to the point that the pain ceased.  This is an incredible discovery for me!

It now seems pretty obvious to me, that my carotid must be somewhat 'distended', after 6 (long) years of agonising migraines.  

Furthermore, what starts out (maybe) as a simple headache, resulting from a predictable hormone imbalance, escalates out of all control due, to the especially widened shape of a main artery leading to my head.  In other words, they're getting worse not because of inflammation, but because of a physiological fault?  

Basically the blood is flowing too fast and too powerfully up my neck, as a result of this distension.  Perhaps, my case could even pose a possibility for surgery?  

Remember people, I do not have high blood pressure!     

The misshapen carotid, in my case, may not be the cause of headache, but it simply HAS to be the real reason behind its demonic  exacerbation?  

This must be why I noticed it always helps if I apply ice to that side of my neck, as well as my head.  

When the headache finally went away - after the builders left and my work was done - I noticed the carotid was aching in isolation.  Is it any wonder?

My cycle is supposed to end tonight, btw.  

Comments and emails most welcome!