Hey. Question About Drug/Herb Combining...

[ChrisReznor]

Whatsup guys.

I was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder at a very early age & sought treatment via Paxil for a short while, which actually did help some (although coming off of it was hell). I've recently decided however, to steer clear from the synthetic, pharmacological SSRIs for a variety of reasons and try some natural herbs instead (in terms of ssris).

My question is, can I take St. John's Wort, L-theanine, and clonazepam? Is that a safe combination, for both my head & liver? I usually take a St. John's Wort capsule (500 mg pure; not standardized)  along wth 0.5mg of clonazepam in the morning... and I repeat this dosaging in the evening. I wanted to add the L-theanine into this regimine for maximum effect. Can I do this?

What do you guys think?

Thank you :)

Chris Reznor

[ChrisReznor]

ANyone?

Thanks :)

[kalmkidd]

sorry i kno nothing about herbs.

[JSGeare]

You are asking the wrong folks -no one here can advise on medicine except to report their own experience.

That said, I'm fascinated by your perception of psycho-active substances, be they growing in the dirt or whipped up in the lab. SSRI's are, to the best of my knowledge, completely manufactured by humans, Prozac being the first of them. Therefore, unless someone can disabuse me, there is no equivalent in nature.

As for L-theanine, there are numerous citations in the literature of alternative medicine as to its effectiveness as a mood elevator, and some initial test reports that indicate that it possibly, maybe is some support of the auto-immune system. Even the A/M community seems to be careful about making many dramatic claims for its effectiveness. The stuff comes from green tea and other herbal sources and is most widely used in Japan, where the Taiyo Kagaku company produces it in mass quantities and sells it as a doping agent for beverages and foods -a "feel good" additive whose presence in food or drink in the Orient is regarded as an enhancement, in much the same way, I suppose, as lacing our food and drink with caffine or electrolytes is thought to deliver some benefit here in the States. The FDA has said it is generally regarded as safe, but no one, to my knowledge, has yet submitted it for testing for effectiveness as a medicine.

St. John's Wort, once thought to be a sort of "Nature's Prozac," based on some European studies, is no longer so highly regarded and the FDA in major studies has pretty much demoted it, since 2002. The details are here:

http://www.fda.gov/Fdac/departs/2002/302_note.html

And that leaves good old clonazepam, which Roche markets as Klonopin - a staple of panic folks everywhere. As long as you're taking the recommended dose, you should be fine. Whether or not the other substances enhance the effect or will combine to make you really sick as hell, I can't say. But what I CAN say is that mixing ingredients whose benefits and pharmacology are based essentially on anecdotal evidence with virtually no support from controlled tests on statistically significant numbers of subjects, with those that have been so tested -sounds like risky business to me.

Proceed at your own risk.

[kalmkidd]

agreed with jsgear to the absolute fullest. ssri's is defiently the best as of now and they help me aswell.