So "Lewy's Life" pretty much equates to a running up date on my health now!:
Remember the diary free thing? Well i started a follow up of wheat free (just in case my negative blood test for Coeliac the other month wasn't up to scratch) which lasted til after breakfast when i nearly fell asleep (and I'd only had bacon, scrambled egg, mushroom and baked beans!).With exams coming up (now mid way, and not doing at all bad considering), and after a whole bank holiday weekend of sleeping midnight til 10am but being a zombie, incapable of doing anything (even procrastinating), I decided to drop my prescribed morning and night
pills just to shake things up!
I became aware of some supplements that really seemed to revitalise (at least for a time), "Happy Days: 5-HTP", so i thought I'd give them a try while I was off the tricyclic. It likely has SSRI action, which is apparently a no-no in conjunction with these.
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| [Image missing. Added screenshot from diary at the time in place.] |
They're a night time thing, right, cos the active ingredient is the pre-cursor for Serotonin, which is then converted to Melatonin by the pineal gland when low light levels on the retina trigger the SCN to initiate a neural chain of event (gotta love how this is also revision for my neuroscience module!).
So i get a little sleep off them, as one might hope, don't particularly notice much direct improvement in getting to sleep, or much else. But over the next few days things pick up in general, and come 2am, the morning of my second exam my brain's starts banging out so many interesting idea i have to grab a pen and pad (for the second night in a row). However, after my 4 hour exam (which would have gone even better if i'd only had an extra, extra 45 minutes), the inspiration just kept coming!; i spent most of the rest of the time, until 1am, filling 10 A4 sides with idea spider diagrams, designs and research! only just managing to drag myself away for my doctor's appointment, hockey, uncharacteristically enthusiastic and incessant conversation + a quick shower, but not dinner....
Anyhow, one upshot of my, near transendant, eye opening experience and the precipitated research and synergy of ideas is knowing that:
- I've had Dysthymia for at least 7 years (just a succinct way of saying what ppl who know me already know).
- My dyslexia is more specifically Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (which again fits so well given that I've been quite literally absentmindedly wondering about my ADHD, but not so much seeing the H).
- 5-HTP (and presumably the increase in distributed Serotonin levels that it brings) fixed me!...for a few days at least. In fact it appears to have brought on 24 hours of hypomania; in this case a slightly more vivid form of the inspiration that occasionally graces me once in a blue moon.
- This may suggest that i'm also classifiable in the range of (the milder) bipolar type II, with a rating of perhaps 30/100 on the scale used in Stephen Fry's docu first part.
- I've had a very helpful little booklet, for some years, that my Mother (i believe) photocopied out of a book for me. It highly recommends 5-HTP to get sleep and well being back on track, along with a shortlist of important vitamins and trace elements that might be supplemented. So i tracked some of those down too while at the chemist, ending up with Magnesium-OK, as they just happen to have most of the important things in there (and no female specific hormones that i can see!).
Either the revitalising effects of 5-HTP wore off very fast, or the other supplements gave a helping hand, because i had a classic, rubbish day, straight after breakfast, today! Bit of a coincidence being the morning after taking the Magnesium-OK for the first time. Hoping it's transitory. I think i did need to try something more new, because the 5-HTP alone haven exactly enable much sleeping, or dreaming that i know of. And i'd rather not totally loose my mind, even in a fit of inspiration!
^_^ nice
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