Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've submitted this review for other bottles of 5-HTP, for two reasons:
1. I think aspects of my review are important and I hope to help as many people as possible; and
2. I actually took several different brands of 5-HTP, so my reviews reflect that. Mostly. :)
I have taken 5-HTP for insomnia and depression. Well, to combat those things. ;) At first it was quite helpful to me and I found that my moods stabilised reasonably well. However, I did find that after a while it had a propensity to making me feel a little bit manic or just . . . weird. I was sort of hyper-aware, for want of a better way to explain it. When I eased off I was able to resume taking it again after a couple of weeks and I found that a regimen of three weeks on and two weeks off seemed to work best without generating any of the milder side-effects.
My main caution came about through a very dangerous experience, which I have fortunately learnt from and not repeated. I was first taking this several years ago and I had the foolish notion of "if a little is good, a lot is better". Basically, I was taking everything under the sun for mood enhancement--St. John's Wort, 5-HTP, fish oil, you name it. If it even vaguely hinted at any pick-me-up capabilities I was downing those pills. And, typically, I was exceeding the recommended doses. I mean, hey, I'd taken supplements for most of my life and safely exceeded the recommended dosages, why should this be any different? Well, it was. In the end I tripped some invisible trigger and developed serotonin syndrome. The only reason I actually knew what was happening was because I had gone to university and studied psych and this is something I picked up in my extra-curricular research on neurochemistry. You won't hear of it from 99% of doctors, although it is a genuine disorder. They just don't know of it. It is also invariably fatal, unless you realise what it going on and stop the medication/supplementation in time. Thankfully, I was able to cease and recover, though I have had lingering effects ever since, even though the supplements are by now long gone from my system. Things have not gone quite back to normal.
Anyway, that is my caution. 5-HTP works, but it should not be combined with other medication or supplementation without some serious research first. Stay safe!
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