I get lots of comments and emails from people saying that I might want to seek help from my mental health professional and possibly have her prescribe a bit of the joy in pill form. If you’ve been around awhile you’ll notice that I’m a little afraid of the doctor. This includes my mental health professional. She’s nice and all, but man… there’s way to much to go into since the last time I saw her. Just too big of a hassle. I’ll come up with any excuse in the book.
In lieu of seeking assistance from the major pharmaceutical companies I thought I would search the tubes of the internets for a natural alternative outside of get more exercise and spend more time outside. I try those things, but I still am in a funk.
Dr. Internet is the handiest little guy. Depression is essentially a seratonin deficiency in the body. So if you do a Google search for seratonin deficiency you will find this little article. It actually is on a Tinnitus website, but it brings up valuable information about seratonin.
The best way to treat seratonin deficiency is with tryptophan. You know, that stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy. It used to be available in a low cost over the counter supplement. That is until a bad batch was made in Japan and it made a bunch of people in New Mexico sick. FDA banned the supplement. Some research was done and it was discovered that it was human error and not the tryptophan itself. FDA allowed it to be manufactured again, but you have to get a script from…yep… your mental health professional. You could also eat a diet rich in natural tryptophan, but turkey isn’t my favorite.
Now in this whole convoluted story is the major pharmaceutical companies. Those makers of Pr0zac. Damn them. During the time that all of this tryptophan hoo-haa is going on they come up with the magic depression pill. Depressed people are happy. Drug makers are really happy because they can charge through the nose for it. Magical rainbows fill the sky and candy rains down. All is right with the world. Depressed people say what a miracle drug all of these SSRIs are. They recommend them to their friends. Half the world is on anti-depressants. Hell, I spent some time on them myself.
But… and here’s the big BUT.
Do you know how they work? If you didn’t read that article in the above mentioned link, I’ll give it to you again. HERE it is. What you need to glean from this is how Pr0zac works in the brain. Remember I said depression is a seratonin deficiency. The drug (any SSRI) collects the existing seratonin in your brain and puts it in the correct synapses. It does not help the brain produce any new seratonin. Basically it takes the middle man out. The part of your brain that produces the seratonin doesn’t need to produce it anymore because the Pr0zac has moved it on and makes it think that it has enough. Thus the part of your brain that produced the seratonin to begin with gets lazy. It doesn’t produce the seratonin anymore. Thus you get hooked on the stuff. If you take it for an extended period of time you have a more difficult time getting off the junk. All a big fat pharmaceutical plot to suck you dry of your hard earned money.
Granted this is the short version of all of this. But it might explain why I think Western medicine is a bunch of horse shit. Why I’m afraid of doctors and why taking random drugs for the sake of god only knows what scares the hell out of me. There isn’t much in my life that I’m a true activist on. I wouldn’t say that this is even one of them. What I am saying is that this is something I’m passionate about.
Do you truly know what you put into you body? Some days I do and some I don’t. But major drugs are not part of my plan.
