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Starting this week, these updates will be coming out every week on Thursdays, instead of every other week on Tuesdays. I hope that they will continue to bring you hope, inspiration, and greater insights into holistic psychiatry.
Today, I will be exploring an aspect of medication withdrawal that few have ever considered or understood: how past medication withdrawals impact our current withdrawal process.
The bottom line is that medication exposure and withdrawal from many years ago can have an important impact on a withdrawal process happening in the present. I'll explain this in greater clarity below.
How Can Past Withdrawals Impact
Your Current Withdrawal Process?
How your medical history affects
your chance of recovery
By the time Matt came to see me for help with medication withdrawal, he was taking Olanzapine, an antipsychotic medication that caused him to feel dull, depressed, and fatigued. His mental health had deteriorated to the point that he had to quit his job as CEO of a company.
He had been on and off antidepressants (SSRIs) and had to be hospitalized (likely due to withdrawal symptoms) after he stopped taking his last SSRI.
He wrote in his testimonial entitled Medication Withdrawal: A CEO's Personal Journey of Recovery:
My life was literally falling apart. I found it very difficult to continue my daily routine. Work became increasingly difficult, and I had to quit my job. I didn’t enjoy time with my family, nor did my family enjoy spending time with me.
Again, I was hospitalized and yet another medication was prescribed. I was so miserable that I did not want to continue living. When I attempted to gradually lower the antipsychotic on my own, I became very stiff, to the point that I could hardly move. I literally had no quality of life, and I saw no way out.
Click here to read this testimonial, as well as others on healing anxiety.
As I worked to help him come off Olanzapine, we ran into a strange withdrawal symptom I had never encountered before: stiffness. Luckily, we found a way to ameliorate this withdrawal symptom by using 5-HTP. With the addition of 5-HTP, he was able to recover completely. The last I heard from him, he was working as a CFO of an even more successful company.
"Why 5-HTP?" I wondered at the time.
5-HTP is the building block of serotonin. The storage level of serotonin is depleted by SSRIs. Could Matt have been suffering from SSRI withdrawal even though he had stopped taking any SSRIs over two years ago?
In this week's podcast, Alex talks about her healing journey from episodic dysphoria, apathy, and fatigue that interfered with her music career. These symptoms worsened around her menses, but they didn't completely resolve with hormonal support.
It wasn't until Alex began using D-phenylalanine to help her build endorphins and support her catecholamine system that she noticed significant improvements from her symptoms.
"Why D-phenylalanine?" I wondered.
Alex had used Adderall 40-60 mg per day from 2013-2017 for a diagnosis of ADD. She stopped taking it because she was "super exhausted when it wore off, super anxious and hyper-alert when I was on it."
When I help patients withdraw from Adderall, I almost always use D-phenylalanine to support the withdrawal process.
Although Alex had not taken any Adderall for four years, she clearly benefitted from an amino acid that helped with stimulant withdrawal.
Perhaps the initial underlying cause for both of these patients for their mental deterioration was due to a depletion of specific amino acids that built very specific neurotransmitters, but I doubt it.
Based on my experiences, It's the neurotransmitter-specific medications that lead eventually to a need for specific amino acid remedies.
The underlying causes of mental illness, on the other hand, are often due to a variety of factors that raise inflammation and oxidative stress.
These patients, as well as many others, have taught me that the effects of medications and their withdrawals have very long-lasting repercussions. I've also generalized this principle to other substances that affect the mind and mood such as alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, and painkillers.
Hope these insights help.
The Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast (Ep. 54):
Alex: Blazing Passion & Living Fully!
Click here to listen to the full episode of this podcast.
For her initial intake form, Alex wrote that her goal was "to be balanced mentally, physically, spiritually so that I can pursue my music with a blazing passion and give it all I've got!" Alex is a vivacious, creative professional musician who struggled with ADD and bulimia in college.
Although she wasn’t on any medications when we began working together, her life was often punctuated by bouts of low mood, fatigue, poor motivation, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder. These mental and physical difficulties interfered with her ability to remain motivated and consistent in her music career.
Over the past six months, with the use of both functional and energy medicine, Alex has been manifesting her goals, and she's excited to share her positive healing journey! Listen to learn more about how she did it!
Alex Purdy is an artist and music producer stretching beyond her current capabilities. She makes music that invites the listener home to their WILD SIDE! You can find her on Instagram at:
http://instagram.com/alexpurdymusic
For a preview of her upcoming album:
Text: MUSICNFT to 330-222-8685
Click here for the full episode of this podcast.
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