A theory, perhaps a warning

[bassofspades]

the short version:

Excessive intake of dopamine enhancing supplements may knock serotonin out of balance resulting in a severe episode of depression.

The longer version:

Here's what happened to me and my guess as to why/how - I was anticipating a need for a little extra help with my Parkinsons symptoms because I had plans to meet with some friends I havent seen since before covid hit. We were planning on playing some music together. Then I had a Christmas party to attend with my former coworkers. I wanted to be all tanked up and steady for these occasions, so in addition to my regular dose of medications, thiamine and lithium oratate, I added some dopamine enhancing supplements. One was Icariin and the other is called Dopify, which contains a bunch of stuff. You can look it up for details. I took them for a couple of days leading up to the events and everything was fine. A few days after the events, I was still taking them as I felt no worse until suddenly one morning, like a switch went off, I spiraled into a bad depression that continued to worsen throughout the day and well into the night. In my mind, I was blaming my wife, I was blaming the world. I was feeling like I had been cursed with bad luck, maybe it was karma, what did I do to deserve this disease? I'll never be great at anything and have nothing to look forward to but disease progression, thoughts like that. In the middle of the night, it was so bad that I was in tears, thinking about how to word my suicide note and cursing the good Lord and the devil as well. I hadnt had a case like this since I was trialing Selegeline some years ago. Then I had an epiphany, that this could be a neurotransmitter imbalance and not just bad luck causing the depression. This turned out to be correct, because the next day, I felt the process reverse itself and by the evening I was all better. Whew! Thank God! I apologized to the good Lord and thanked him for helping me to figure it out and get through it.

So my theory is that the dopamine enhancers shifted the resources of what should have been Serotonin production to Dopamine production. It is known that when Serotonin is low, depression is a symptom. High levels of Dopamine are also known to be associated with depression, although I wouldnt think I could produce enough Dopamine in my parky brain to call it excessive. Just a guess, since I am not a qualified expert on neurology, although as much as I study it, you would think I would be! So my message to you, my good friends, is be careful with supplements!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

[Hidden]

Merry Christmas

[Tryguy]

Hey bass, thank you for sharing such a difficult experience… I think you were right about the supplementation. To me they are “consumer” supplements for folks who are not dealing with it real thing (pd). When we mix the two, anything can (and did) happen.

By the way, do you use selegiline?

[bassofspades in reply to Tryguy]

youre right, that stuff really only makes a difference in "normal" people! And I am not on Selegeline and I will never ever touch that stuff again! I get severe headaches and suicidal depression from it. Plus it doesnt really help my symptoms anyway. I tried it a couple of years ago for a month or two.

[LAJ12345]

Interesting, thanks

[Trinitys-GP]

You are absolutely correct in figuring out what happened. There is competitive inhibition between the production of Dopamine and Serotonin from the same substrates. So when you drive the production toward dopamine production, it reduces the substrate supply for serotonin production, with the resulting decrease in serotonin, and hence the depression. This is why self-treatment has problems. You can certainly use “natural” levodopa sources like Mucuna, but you need to balance with enough 5HTP to keep the serotonin production in balance. So hopefully this helps you understand what happened, and why. Neurotransmitter manipulation is what you are doing, which has significant, powerful effects on brain function. Proceed either with expert guidance, or with extreme caution.

[bassofspades in reply to Trinitys-GP]

Thank you my friend! I agree with the mucuna 5htp combo, but in my case, I take carbidopa Levodopa, which, when combined with 5htp has been found to cause scleroderma, a horrible deadly disease. No more messing around for me! Hinz protocol, though!?

[PDGal4 in reply to bassofspades]

I had an instant, terrible reaction to 5htp with C/L--horrible stomach ache which lasted 24 hours. Later read 5htp should never be taken with PD meds. Wouldn't mucuna have same effect?

[bassofspades in reply to PDGal4]

Im not sure. The difference is that mucuna does not contain carbidopa, only levadopa. Now, I do know that levadopa without carbidopa can induce nausea because of the greater amount you would need to have the same effect in the brain. Carbidopa is added to levadopa to prevent peripheral metabolism of levadopa into dopamine. Thusly, more levadopa will be converted in the brain, across the blood brain barrier. I have read that carbidopa is added to levadopa to allow smaller doses of levadopa to be utilized to get the same effect as a larger amount of plain levadopa in the brain without the nausea that the larger amount would have caused.According to Drs Marty Hinz and Albert Stein, Mucuna and 5htp could be combined, along with other cofactors, to treat all sorts of neurotransmitter imbalance related conditions, including Parkinsons. There has been much controversy around this subject, but people have succesfully used the Hinz protocol, including myself for some time. The papers are widely available on the web if you search Marty Hinz amino acid protocol.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/226...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

my guess is that 5htp processes in a similar way and the carbidopa caused too much of the 5htp to process in the brain rather than peripherally and perhaps that caused your stomach problem. Just a guess. 5htp is a precursor to serotonin. The point of my thread, to begin with, and the moral of the story is to not F(ool) around with these things without expertise!

[PDGal4 in reply to bassofspades]

Thanks for your response. I read some at ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/a... of which I understood about 1/4, but seems beneficial.

I also read Sloan Kettering's site mskcc.org/cancer-care/integ... and the site warned against taking 5htp with MAOIs (I take Azilect) and carbidopa, so you are right there. They also warn again taking with St. John's Wart and SAM-e supplements. It's a more understandable site, for me. PD was not listed, but then again rarely is.

[Hidden]

I have days I feel like that and I don’t take any dopamine enhancing supplements.