Recommended St. John's Wort dosage?

[jeremydw]

Tomorrow I am going to pick up some SJW to try instead of taking SSRIs, but I first want to know how you are supposed to take SJW?

I heard it comes in 300mg capsules and should be taken morning, midday, and evening. Is this true, even at the beginning? I would love some information... thank you!

[Paxiled]

Well, you won't find much support from me for the efficacy of FDA approval.  It's meaningless.  You only have to jump through the required hoops.  All of us who have suffered the side effects of pharmaceuticals know this.  I very much support the use of herbs, but no, you won't magically wake up and have your depression go away.  But then, meds won't do that, either.  Natural medicine is complicated.  It uses combinations of herbs and amino acids, not single remedies, and will also use diet, exercise, meditation -- they treat the whole person, not just try and stifle the symptoms, which is what meds do.  But the success rate for treating chronic anxiety or depression is not very high either with natural medicine or allopathic medicine, as far as we know, though we could use a whole lot more research about it.  I'm just sayin', FDA approval is as much an economic thing as a health thing, and FDA does no independent research, it just looks at pharmaceutical company research and decides if the company did what it was supposed to do and beat placebo by a few points.  My view is, whatever works, and if you find something that works, whether it be meds or something else, more power to you.

[wellb]

Paxiled,
You're a wealth of information. TXS for all of us wondering about SJW and other "natural" herbs and such.

MOMMA, Txs for your input also, as you are always so sweet & informative..:-)

Anyhow, I hope the original poster (Jeremy) comes back and reads this thread.

Basically, what Paxiled said is the same info I'd heard for years, which is why I'd always been so scared to try any  herbal concoctions (& there are tons out there) especially since I was seeing a Board Certified Psychiatrist and on "regular" medications. My Doc was not keen on having me add any natural hebs to my mix, so I listened to hm,...and here I am.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against vitamins.  I've taken B-Complex for all my adult like and they help so much with PMS, etc. I take Vitamin C, folic acid....in other words, vitamins that have been proven as "good" for the general public.

But as far as natural hebs go, I've never dabbled into that.

My (frustrating) experience that I've had with people that suggest herbals is that they use them, but THEY ARE NOT EVEN DEPRESSED to begin with!  Most of my friends with the "blues" once a year, take herbs because they feel a bit "blue" once in a while.

Well, those of us on this board do NOT just get the "blues"...Heck no! ...what we get are life threatening Depressions that can cause suicide,self medications with street drugs, alcoholism, etc.

Most of us here on this Board suffer from well documented Depressions, not just "a little blue episode".
We need something stronger. That's why most of us here have been prescribed SSRI's by our Doctors.

Once again ,nothing against the naturalists.More power to ya if you can take an herb and wake up one morning all cured and not suicidal,etc.
WOW, wouldn't we all love to have that magic bullet!

Unfortunately, we have to go to our Board certified Docs to get our FDA approved medications.

A "naturalist" cannot prescribe FDA approved SSRIs to us.

[Paxiled]

St. John's Wort should never be taken if you're on an ssri.  If you're on an MAO inhibitor, well, you better check before you even have a glass of water with your physician or pharmacist if you're on one of those.  They interact with all kinds of things.  The truth is, nobody knows really how plants work.  They are too complicated, given the number of different chemicals playing around synergistically in a plant.  St. John's Wort was originally thought to be an MAO inhibitor, but it's not.  It might act to help produce serotonin, but nobody's sure about that, either.  There are natural remedies you can mix with some of these meds that will help, but if you don't know your herbs it's best to see a professional first, and that unfortunately won't be most doctors, so a naturopath is your best bet.  There are some physicians who practice integrated medicine, but they are more easily found some places than others.  The hostility between natural medicine and allopathic medicine is largely historic, because when allopathic medicine first started becoming popular the natural physicians dominated the marketplace.  A group of wealthy investors, who we now call the robber barons, got together and decided the money to be made was in allopathic medicine, and they the AMA formed and eventually got laws passed throughout the US banning most natural medicine, driving it underground.  That ended in the 1970s, and more and more physicians are learning a bit about the whole of medicine, not just allopathic, but since they don't teach it in med school there's still this economic hostility that has cost us much time in research not done.  You find more and more physicians now recommending and using natural medicine and incorporating it into their practices, but it will take time.  ST. John's Wort was well studied in Germany, and in Europe a physician is very likely to start a person with mild or moderate depression off on it than on a medication because natural remedies have far fewer side effects, and the ones they have are mild and go away by stopping their use.  Wish that were true with pharmaceuticals, which kill a couple hundred thousand people a year.  I believe the statistics for last year for deaths from natural remedies were -- un, zero.  But if you've already decided on medication, as I have for now, that does very much limit what you can take safely, so you have to check with someone with expertise.

[mammo]

Never mix any medications you are on with any so called "natural" or herbal" supplements, this can be very dangerous.  If you choose to switch from one to the other, talk to your doctor about the best way to wean yourself off your current medication.  Don't assume that "natural" or "herbs" don't come with their own side effects, because they do, even when you are not taking anything else.

[wellb]

Glad I found this thread because I've been wondering about this SJW myself for many years.

I heard (this was a long time ago)  that mixing some SSRI's and MAO inhibitors with SJW does something to the body---but I can't remember what the mix does ,since I heard this info long ago.

So if that's true, should we tell our psychiatrists that we want to switch to a more "natural" remedy before doing it by ourselves?  

I guess my question to add to this thread is this: if a person is not on any meds, then that's different since there's no "mixing", but I'm wondering about if a person is already on an SSRI, do they need to get off the SSRIs all together before switching to a natural remedy?  If yes, I would probably ask my Doc what they think about the switch,I think.

Thing is that not all psychiatrists believe in naturapathic medicine.So then who do we ask?

[Paxiled]

It depends on the dosage and whether the St. John's Wort is standardized or not and whether it's standardized for the right stuff.  It should be standardized for hyperflorins, not just hypericin.  The bottle will tell you how much to take depending on the dosage in the pill.  If it's not standardized, then most herbs are taken three times daily.  Don't necessarily expect St. John's Wort alone to work -- great if it does, but if it doesn't it doesn't mean natural remedies won't help.  Natural medicine usually works through a formula of remedies plus dietary changes, exercise changes, meditation, etc.  For a good book on the range of supplements out there try Natural Highs by Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist at UCLA.  It will help will dosing and combining.  And for best results, see a good naturopath.

[jeremydw]

i am headed to pick some up tomorrow.

if one a day is all you need well I am glad I posted. I don't wanna take three a day and get serotonin syndrome.

[dawsohs]

hi i'm getting some of those too i was under the impression that you took one capsule a day although i dont know what mg they come  in or anything. my partner ordered me some and they are on their way. When they come i will see what it says on the label and get back to you .....................