Depression

[Mountain Goatess]

Great post Mark.

QUOTE=Careful Now;366114]Stagger...
I'm surprised there's been little mention of nutrition in all of this .
I'm sure that I owe my life to the internet and some research about nutrition for depression .
A lot of well-meaning people are advising that exercise is a way of getting over this, but certainly there was no way in late 2007 I could have used exercise as a way out of this because any attempt to do any exercise resulted in (worse) insomnia , plus I was absolutely exhausted .

I would recommend anyone suffering regular bouts of depression to research AT LEAST the following :

Magnesium
Zinc
Vitamin B6

Anti-depressants will help the brain chemistry, but they can only be successful in the long run if the raw materials are supplied .
Serotonin requires Tryptophan ( from protein , esp. milk and chicken ),
Magnesium,
B6,
Zinc.

Oh, did I mention that hard exercise depletes Magnesium ?
High carbohydrate diets with a lot of cereal reduce Iron and Zinc .
Caffeine and alcohol can make you short of various B-vitamins .

There are loads of good websites out there . Some I recently discovered, for instance :
http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/
http://george-eby-research.com/html/...n-anxiety.html

Mark[/QUOTE]

[monkeynut]

Hi all
Has anyone got any expierence with training while taking SSRI type antidpressants, Like any side effects and effects on performace /energy levels
Any advice would be helpfull

[mr brightside]

If you're worried about side effects have you tried Hypericum (St John's Wort)? The rate of side effects is approximately half that of SSRIs and i can say from experience that it will very effectively take the edge off symptoms. It is effective for the treatment of all stages of depression but the further on you are the less effective it can become.

[Jimmy]

Hi all
Has anyone got any expierence with training while taking SSRI type antidpressants, Like any side effects and effects on performace /energy levels
Any advice would be helpfull

Hi Monkeynut,

I've been taking Trazodone for the last year (it's a tetracyclic, but has some similarities to SSRI's apparently). It's been beneficial to me in terms of mood enhancement and relieving insomnia, but I'm suspecting it may be having a detrimental effect on my running performance. I just have no oomph on any uphills and feel like I'm on a down escalator. I've googled and found one technical abstract relating to "elite endurance athletes and false overtraining syndrome with Trazodone", but it's way too technical for me to understand (and I'm not an elite athlete anyway!).

It's very frustrating - there seems to be little research on the subject. I'd be very interested if anyone else knows which antidepressant serious endurance athletes are taking. Alberto Salazar had a lot of positive publicity a few years back when he made what seemed at the time a "miraculous" recovery of form after starting on Prozac, but in reality it was merely a few decent performances in some ultra events, and nowhere near a return to his previous world-class Marathon level.

Any feedback gratefully received, Jim.

[petestack]

Has anyone got any expierence with training while taking SSRI type antidpressants, Like any side effects and effects on performace /energy levels

Yes (Fluoxetine)... got runners' trots just about every time I went out and never want to touch the stuff again!

[monkeynut]

So far I have no problems(with citalopram) but I have been mostly working hard on the hills with the bike rather than running.
Improved motivation

[Careful Now]

Trazodone at 100mg or 150mg has a bad effect on energy and strength , but if you can't take any of the SSRI's ( I couldn't - like taking caffeine for me ! ) then it's a necessary evil, as it does make you calm and help you sleep . I worked my way down off it ( from 150mg, using some of the nutritional approaches listed above ) and am now on less than 1 tablet, 35 to 40mg a day, acheived by using the liquid form . I don't think there's much of an effect on energy at 50mg or less . I'd love to get off it entirely , but that last 40mg is tough to crack . I'll be OK if I can get my magnesium levels up ( I'm still deficient - I had it tested - RBC magnesium ) .

[Mcdermot]

Well in my opinion depression is nothing. It is just the creation of our own mind. We should avoid it because depression is not good for health specially for brain. It causes lot of problems. Depression occur with thinking lot about a problem or sometime it happens due to workload.

[dwellshere]

It's good to have such a well-informed comment on such a delicate subject.Bravo Mcdermot

[Flopsy]

Well in my opinion depression is nothing. It is just the creation of our own mind. We should avoid it because depression is not good for health specially for brain. It causes lot of problems. Depression occur with thinking lot about a problem or sometime it happens due to workload.

Ignorant ****