Has anyone ever taken the herb, Rauvolfia serpentina(sarpagandha)

[Reiald]

I already asked this in the anxiety forum. But I'm just wondering if anyone has taken this herb for anxiety. And has it worked? It's called "Rauvolfia serpentina"(sarpagandha)

Did it stop the anxiety symptoms such as an elevated heart rate?

Because I'm wondering if I should take it due to a situation that elevates the heart rate. I read that it decreases the heart rate. And prevents it from elevating by doing this:

"Role of reserpine compound present in Sarpgandha on central nervous system:
Reserpine works both in the central and the peripheral nervous systems to deplete stores of neurotransmitters: dopamine and norepinephrine at central and peripheral synapses, epinephrine in the adrenal glands, and serotonin (5-HT) in the CNS. "

I'm not sure what this all means. I was just curious if it works.

[Caliluv925]

I've been taking it everyday for approximately 6 months now. It's terrific and truly a great herb. The dosage that can be safely taken is 0.5-2mg. I take 1mg upon waking. I haven't noticed or experienced any adverse reactions. The first few times you take it you may feel drowsy but after a few days it should subside. The best way I can describe this herb is if you've ever taken a benzodiazepine like Xanax, Klonopin etc. it's more gentle and you don't feel an overwhelming sense of sedation and it last throughout the day. I've noticed my BPM drop about 5 beats and blood pressure has decreased as well. I honestly would recommend this to anyone who has been on SSRI's with no relief from their symptoms of depression/anxiety. No headaches, no weird side effects or sexual dysfunction like with typical pharmaceuticals that are similar to this herb. What do you have to lose, give it a try it's inexpensive and has worked great for me.

[GrayKnight]

I took it for high blood pressure and it dramatically lower my heart rate as well as my blood pressure. Also when I was going through a hard time in my life I think it helped to keep me calmer than I would have been otherwise. While at first it was very effective, I am now having trouble finding a reliable supplier, the last two batches I got were completely ineffective, I believe this is due to unscrupulous practices on the part of the suppliers. If anyone knows a reliable supplier for raulwofia serpertine I would appreciate a heads up.  

[jacek123]

Yes. I did take it. It`s wonderfull plant giving you deep calm. You feel like sadhu. Depression ?? I take in the morning Saint Johns Wort, in the evening I take sarpagandha. Am I seek??? Gandhi was used it every day. Was he schizophrenic?? Psychiatrists can`t admit that Saint Johns Wort and sarpagandha works because NOBODY would go to them. STOP psychiatric inquisition. Psychiatris!!! - "You can fool same people same time, but You can fool all the people all the time. Now we see the light, we gonna stand up for our right".
First I read about sarpagandha in book "Coexist" written by shaman Ovo.
Below there is a link for scientific research of using sarpagandha on 411 patients suffering from schizophrenia. The results is shoking. Almost all recuperated.
http://culturovo.pl/963582/artykuly,2786

[hava]

Do this pranayam for 20 minutes, twice daily and the heart will calm down. As you are measuring the heart rate, you will notice the benefit in weeks. The extra oxygen going into the blood will help to balance your systems.
Build up your timing gradually.If you feel tired or dizzy, stop and resume after one minute.
Anulom Vilom pranayam –
Close your right nostril with thumb and deep breath-in through left nostril  
then – close left nostril with two fingers and breath-out through right nostril  
then -keeping the left nostril closed  deep breath-in through right nostril
then - close your right nostril with thumb and breath-out through left nostril.
This is one cycle of anulom vilom.
Repeat this cycle for 15 to 30  minutes twice a day.
Children under 15 years – do 5 to 10 minutes twice a day.
You can do this before breakfast/lunch/dinner or before bedtime or in bed.Remember to take deep long breaths into the lungs.You can do this while sitting on floor or chair or lying in bed.
January 4, 2010

[Paxiled]

After five years of hell that may be what I end up doing.  It was what I should have done right away, but had a quack for a shrink who never told me what I was suffering and how to handle it.  By the time I found out, nobody wanted to give Paxil to me again because of the harsh results it had and they didn't think it had been as effective as they would have liked to have seen, and I'm obviously terrified of it.  But I may in fact have to go there because I may not have an alternative.  Wish you had told me this five years ago!  

By the way, I've read accounts of other uncommon herbs that some people claim helped them that are also problematic to use.  The thing is, if you know what you're doing, a lot of potential danger goes away, which is why it's good to do these types of herbs with the help of someone experienced with them.  Again, I hope this works for you.

[Reiald]

I'll probably take Holy Basil as you suggest then with it also, maybe.

Also, I'm not saying I want to slow my heart rate down to a very slow pulse. I just want the herb to minimize the effects of fight or flight so good, that it won't go so fast. So I can concentrate on lowering nervousness a lot better.  If anything I don't want to lower heart rate, but I want to prevent it from increasing.

And as for your problem. The answer maybe obvious. Just use the drug again and it may fix your problem. I mean you stop taking it, it screws you up. Which probably means you need to keep taking it.

[Paxiled]

I'm a huge anxiety sufferer, but it's never given me a rapid heartbeat.  The reason, apparently, is that I was athletic and meditated before I got agoraphobia.  Five years ago, stopping Paxil completely broke my wiring, so I'm so anxious now I can barely function, but I still don't have a rapid heartbeat, so no, I can't help you there.  I can help you with the reason for prescriptions vs. herbs, however.  As I explained above, many drugs -- probably most of them -- are stronger versions of substances found originally in plants.  So anyone who takes herbs, or eats for that matter, will have certain levels of the same substances that are found in many medications.  The difference is, the medications isolate the one ingredient -- in this case, the herb you're thinking of using has many active substances, but the drug just took the one.  That made it stronger, but also more dangerous.  It also made it available for patent, since you couldn't find the isolated reserpine in nature -- again, the herb you speak of has many substances, that being only one of them.  The problem is, you're focusing on lowering your heart rate, and your heart regulates your life.  What you really want to do is lower your anxiety or stress level, which in turn will keep your heart rate at a more normal rate.  That's why this particular herb isn't widely used by herbalists, and is only available on-line.  You can buy most anything on line, including illegal drugs.  In the US, a statute was passed several years ago when drug companies tried to require all natural remedies to meet the same testing and FDA approval standards as medication to prevent the FDA from doing this.  The reason was that nobody sells enough of an herb to make that much money, and since no herb can be patented, there's no 18 year monopoly as there is for a drug that receives FDA approval.  It effectively would have banned the use of all plant remedies.  It was a close call for the health food industry in this country.  The bad side effect of this was that the FDA stopped regulating herbs much at all, hoping there would be deaths and bad side effects that would push people to demand banning natural medicine.  That hasn't happened.  The FDA keeps insisting it has no authority to regulate herbs at all, but that isn't true -- it can ensure they aren't adulterated, if people die from them it can issue warnings, etc., pretty much all it can do with meds.  It just won't do it.  Your herb is one we don't know much about here because it just isn't used much here.  It's use is mostly in India in ayurvedic medicine, and even ayurvedic physicians are very careful with this herb.  There are ayurvedic physicians practicing in this country who might help you answer your question, since they tend to also be physicians who would know about beta blockers as well.  The most famous of these is Deepak Chopra, who has written many books and is a physician who practices a combination of western and ayurvedic medicine.  All I can say is, it's not your heartbeat that's the problem, it's what's causing the heart beat to speed up that's the problem.  With heart palps, beta blockers do help many, and as a side effect they found that with some people it helped with anxiety.  With many, it doesn't.  With both your herb and beta blockers, the only way to tell for sure is to try it, since all medicine is trial and error with any particular individual.  What works generally won't necessarily work for a particular person.  Now, controlling adrenaline can be done without going anywhere near the heart itself.  Adaptogens are used to tone the adrenals.  Examples of such herbs are ashwagandha, eleuthero, and holy basil.  They tend to reduce cortisol production, which is thought to be an effect or even a cause of the flight or fight mechanism, but again, this would be trial and error for you.  I'm going to say again, I think you need to see an expert who can both explain this to you and recommend a course of action, but you are certainly free to try this yourself.  Perhaps a website devoted to ayurvedic medicine, or solely to natural medicine, might prove to have more people who use this stuff than this site, which doesn't really have a lot of people participating -- this website is on the whole devoted to pharmaceutical medicine, not natural medicine, as you can tell by the ads.  Since I've never solved my problem, again, I can't help you more than telling what I've learned in many years working in the health food industry, but after my Paxil problem, nothing works, and I didn't know about the natural stuff when I started getting this problem and was already on meds when I started learning about it.  Too bad for me, for sure, but I just don't want you to jump off a ledge here.  Use caution.  Good luck, and tell us how it goes.  Peace.

[Reiald]

I can't do meditation. I tried a million things to calm my mind down. So let's not get into that subject. I will try to calm my mind down in the process though. But I still need remedy to fix the problem. I just want to prevent my heart rate from going above 100.


Anyways, I did some research on this herb. It contains reserpine. For every 50 mg of Rauvolfia Serpentina root, is about the same as 0.1mg of Reserpine. Which is an RX Drug. So another words I can legally buy Carditone on amazon. Which has Rauvolfia root in it.

So Reserpine requires a prescription. Even though, you can legally buy Carditone. If that is the case, then why does Reserpine require an RX? It makes no sense at all.

I rather buy the reserpine over the counter. And what doesn't make sense. Is that if I take Carditone, and take 5 pills. I will have reserpine in my system. And then if it was  found in my system. I would get in trouble. Even though I have broke no law? I never heard of a herb doing that before. Maybe this is a special herb. I guess what I'm confused about is, they sell Resperine in dietary supplement, but then make it a prescription drug. Even though you don't need a prescription to buy it as a dietary supplement.


Anyways, I read that "resperine, blocks noradrenaline and dopamine into synaptic vesicles by inhibiting the Vesicular Monoamine Transporters (VMAT). "

Also it

"Reserpine affects the serotonin binding sites by an unknown mechanism releasing serotonin but it also causes a depletion from the body stores of epinephrine and norepinephrine."

The stuff that makes your heart go nutz when you are in flight or fight. So If I take enough Rauvolfia serpentina root. I'm hoping that my heart rate wont go above 100 because it can't because the drug is inhibiting the release of adrenaline. And reducing the storage.


What I want to know. Is if this will work? And apparently nobody else on this forum has taken this to escape anxiety symptoms of a rapid heart beat.

Beta blockers have worked for people with anxiety symptoms. But what about this drug? How does this compare to a Beta blocker? A Beta Blocker blocks adrenaline from going to heart. This one inhibits adrenaline and reduces storage. I'm not sure what is better. I wonder if this one is better. Do you know?

[Paxiled]

Prescription medications are drugs that have been approved in order to get a patent.  It doesn't mean they work all that well or are safe, it means they've done a lot of animal testing and some human trials short term to indicate it does work and is safe, but if you read the newspapers, you've learned that over the long term this often turns out to be untrue.  Natural remedies don't need this gov't approval, since they can't be patented (you can't patent what exists in nature).  So the lack of gov't approval has nothing to do with whether herbs work or not.  Marijuana isn't gov't approved, but I think you'll agree it works.  Same with opium and peyote.  Herbs are just plants with many active substances; most pharmaceutical products took these natural substances and isolated them and worked on them to make them stronger and patentable, because patented products is where the big money is.  Aspirin is a stronger form of white willow bark, for example.  Now, I don't know that his herb lowers your heart rate -- treating hypertension isn't the same thing.  And no product, herbal or medical, is guaranteed to work.  Herbs are also generally used in combination for synergistic purposes and because they're not usually as strong as drugs.  But again, from reading about this particular herb, I wouldn't use it on my own, particularly since you indicate you're unfamiliar with herbs.  I would only use this in conjunction with an experience herbalist or naturopath, who might have better suggestions for you.  You can also lower your heart rate through meditation, assuming you get good enough at it, so don't ever get stuck on the thought there's only one thing out there that might help.  Lowering a heart rate is serious, so again, seek some expert help.  Good luck.  

[Reiald]

Yeah, I did some research. But I'm still confused. If it's a herb, then it doesn't need a prescription. Then my guess is that it doesn't work when it's a herb. Because then they would make it RX. Because it claims it can lower your heart rate. There is no way they would allow over the counter herbs or natural supplements to do that without a prescription. Right?

So in a herb form, it doesn't work as good as it should? As that what you are saying? What forms are they? I want to use the strongest form there is, so it works the best it can. Even if there is side effects.

I guess what I'm asking is. I'm wondering if it works as good as a beta blocker. I want it to calm the heart beat down. My nervous heart rate goes up to 120, and sometimes 140.

[Paxiled]

Never taken it.  Used to sell it as Indian snakeroot as a remedy for snakebite.  It's mostly used for high blood pressure, but has side effects if taken at too high a dose.  Because it works, they think, partly by lowering norepinephrine levels, it apparently can aggravate depression and cause other problems in overdose.  Google it, you'll find lots of interesting stuff.  On one ayurvedic website it said this should only be used in consultation with a trained herbalist or physician, due to the possibility of serious side effects if too much is used, but in proper amounts (and, as usual with herbs, in conjunction with other herbs), it's mostly used for hypertension, and the active ingredient was isolated in the 1950s and used for this purpose but proved to have too many side effects.  The whole herb, as is usually the case, is safer because it isn't as strong as isolating one ingredient.  It has also been used for insomnia and for calming, but not with depressed people.  Anyway, google it, or read about it in a good herb book. It's been around for a long time.