Recover from using Antidepressants...

So many folks come to me who are using antidepressants and want to stop that I have developed a protocol to do just that. First, know that the drug might not even be helping you that much, but I can assure you that it is hurting your brain.

SSRIs are Seratonin Selective Re-uptake Inhibitors. That means that normally, after your body secrets seratonin, it eventually is reabsorbed (uptake). But the drugs inhibit that re-uptake, bathing your brain cells in the existing seratonin - hence the 'feel good'. What the drugs do not do is help your body MAKE more seratonin. Yes, make more. You can do it. Rather, since your brain is experencing 'more', the feedback loop tells your body, 'hey, looks like there is enough seratonin around, so no need to make more'. Over time, your body, under the influence of these drugs, makes less and less and less seratonin. So that if you ever try to stop the drug, whomp!! you feel soooo bad - depressed, irritable, ugly. And in the meantime, the drug is damaging your brain. But hey, don't take my word for it, just watch an informative little piece on the biochemistry of love by Helen Fisher. She talks about the brain damage caused by these drugs and she is a brain researcher! I suspect that there is some kind of disconnect between what researchers like Helen Fisher know and what the conventional medical practitioners know.

So there you are, maybe you have the side effects of the drugs: loss of interest in sex, reduced ability to climax, weight gain, memory loss, and you wonder, what to do. Here are my tips:

1- Get comprehensive help for your whole health. Homeopathy can do that. So can other alternative approaches. Give them time to work. Work with them. When considering homeopathy, I recommend reading: Prozac Free by the Reichenberg-Ullmans.

2- Specific dietary changes could change your life and your brain. The American diet does not help brain function!!

3- We all know about exercise but did you know about sunlight? Hey, how about sunlight + exercise = stress release = happy face.

4- Heal the trauma to your brain once you have stopped the drugs.

Here is how:

Homeopathic Hypericum (homeopathic St. John's Wort) 30c potency 2 doses per day for 10 days, then stop; follow all the usual homeopathic guidelines and precautions.

Hypericum can help your body heal the nerve endings that have atrophied in your brain, due to the seratonin flooding of the drugs. You can feel again and you can remember again.

First published 17 June 2008