A Multitude of Recoveries Through Alternative Mental Health Treatments:
Three years ago at age 54, I began to experience intense anxiety and frequent anxiety attacks. Within two months I was completely disabled, couldn¹t go out of the house, could hardly get out of bed to take a shower. I was losing weight rapidly, had no appetite, couldn't sleep at all. My doctor gave me Klonopin and Trazedone, which let me sleep for about 6 hours a night. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, but the odd thing was that I didn't feel depressed until this went on for about four months and I got no relief. (I had no history of depression previously.) It took a year to find an antidepressant that took me out of this state. Each day was a torture, time passed extremely slowly, I couldn't think, read a book, go on the Internet, or have a conversation. Only my wonderful husband, who took care of me so patiently and lovingly, kept me out of the hospital. I felt so guilty that I couldn't do anything, couldn't work, couldn't do much housework, couldn't cook. I felt like something was missing in my brain, my brain just wasn¹t working right. All I could do was lie around and listen to baseball games on TV. I had to eat four meals a day (although I had no appetite) in order not to lose more weight. Finally the antidepressant Effexor worked. About three weeks after starting it, I had a glimmer of hope. It took about three months to come out of my "depression". I got on the Internet and found George Eby¹s account of "Rapid Recovery from Depression Using Magnesium" at www.coldcure.com , and started taking magnesium taurate. I found AlternativeMentalHealth.com and I began reading about amino acids as precursors of neurotransmitters. I sent for three books about amino acids from Amazon.com. I read that one's amino acid levels can be tested. I found a psychiatrist, Dr. James Greenblatt in Waltham, MA, who tests amino acid levels and many other nutritional values, including hair analysis for mineral levels. All of my amino acids and all of my mineral levels were low. I worked with Dr. James Greenblatt for over a year. He recommended Omega 3 fish oil, magnesium taurate, 5 HTP, and hydrochloric acid (HCl) with pepsin with each meal, because he said I didn't have enough stomach acid (that's HCl) to absorb the nutrients in my food. That's why my amino acid and mineral levels were so low. No wonder my brain felt like it was missing something! I was able to come off of the antidepressant in a few months, and after about a year I felt physically and emotionally better than I had felt in 20 years!