Newly diagnosed, but already on amphetamines

[ttirb120Participant November 24, 2013 at 4:51 pm Post count: 1]

#2891

I am 25 years old, female, and have struggled with depression (mostly in high school), ADD and extreme chronic fatigue. I haven’t had problems with depression in a few years so I don’t take anti-depressants anymore but for me to be able to function properly I am taking Vyvance (a kind of amphetamine prescribed to treat ADD). I have been taking it for about 2 years and it works very well for me however I don’t like the idea of being reliant on stimulants and am afraid it is permanently depleateing my dopamine levels. Because of this I am always looking for the real cause of my fatigue in order to treat the problem not the symptom, which is how I stumbled across the MTHFR genetic mutation.

My father is an integrative psychiatrist and mentioned Deplin to me, which he said seemed to help a lot of his patients. In researching Deplin I found that people who seemed to really respond to it have the MTHFR mutation. I started researching that mutation and a lot of things about it seemed to fit with my symptoms as well as family history (my mom has always struggled from depression, is diagnosed bipolar, has extreme ADHD, brain foggyness, extreme fatigue, fibromyalgia) and my brother and sister have problems too. I thought I was at least heterozygous. I got the test done and I came back homozygous for C677TT, which has had a huge impact on me. I have been tested for a few things, hoping to get answers – my thyroid (both mom and brother have hypothyroidism), my vitamin levels, my adrenals…everything always came back normal, but I knew there was something wrong with me. To be homozygous for this mutation gives me something to work on.

I had already tried Deplin at 15mg at the recommendation of my psychiatrist. None of us (him, my dad or I) knew how I would react because people mostly use Deplin in conjunction with an antidepressant, yet I was taking it with stimulant. I did not react well to it. I took it for less than a week because almost immediately I experienced confusion, bad short term memory, brain foggyness, headaches, a lack of motivation, muscle pain, and a severe lack of energy. I even missed a few days of school. Within 2 days of getting off the Deplin I felt back to “normal”.

Then a few days later I got my test results back, and immediately started putting together a protocol. My psychiatrist didn’t even know about this mutation before I asked him to write me the lab slip for it, so he doesn’t know anything. My primary care doctor has had only 1 patient with this mutation. My dad knows more, but he has never had a patient react the way I did to Deplin. Usually the patients he has genetically tested are so desperate and are barely functioning anyways, so when they start a protocol they can start from scratch.

For me, it’s a different story. I am in my senior year at a private school getting my bachelors in psychology, and I am functioning “well enough” on the Vyvance (and the supplements I was already taking – adrenal support, adrenal cortex, l-dopa from “designs for health”). Because I am dealing with school as well as graduate applications I cannot start at square 1 in healing this. If I stop taking the Vyvance I go into withdrawals, during which time I can barely function. Over the summer I tried to get off it. At first I went cold turkey, but after a couple weeks of that with no relief in sight my psychiatrist and I decided to wean myself off it instead. This reduced the withdrawels to a couple of days which was better, but with each reduction in dosage (I went from 40mg down to 5mg) I became decreasingly able to function. Then school was about to start and I got back on (at 30mg a dose) in order to function well enough for school.

I have added L-5-MTHF (1,000mcg in morning and 2,000mcg at night because it makes me sleepy) as well as methyl-b12 (2,000 mcg for now) to my supplementation. The methyl-b12 seems to add positive thoughts and energy, although it was most noticeable the first couple days I took it.

I am also looking into switching my birth control. Because of my specific mutation I am apparently at an increased risk of stroke and other things related to blood clotting, and birth control causes blockage of folic acid? I’m not entirely sure about that subject. Next week I am getting my homocysteine levels checked.

So I guess I have some questions…How is the Vyvance interacting with my condition? Has anyone ever tried to treat this (in themselves or others) when the person was already on stimulants, and if so what was the protocol? Am I treating this right so far?

I plan on increasing the dosage of methyl-b12 and l-5-mthf and as my energy and mind clarity increase I will decrease the vyvance a little bit at a time. Does this sound like a good plan? Should I add anything to my protocol? What about cleaning my gut? I don’t really understand that part yet.

Also, about my brother. He has been fighting lymes disease for many years. He always has very strong reactions to the treatment. He is 23 years old and has emotional problems, physical problems, and he has a lot of allergies to foods, metals, substances…he is going to get tested for this mutation as well, but if he is positive for it, could that be why he is having such a hard time fighting the lymes disease?

Thank you!
Brittany

[hardasnails1973Participant December 13, 2013 at 10:12 pm Post count: 33]

#3063

I would highly suggest getting a neuroadrenal basic profile from neuroscience (which I can order) to see where your neurotransmitters are in relationship to your current symptoms. There are many unknown variables which may be important to your case. A detailed history, symptoms as well as other supplements would be required to make the proper recommendation. I deal with many lyme cases, One needs to go back to the basic when dealing with these cases other wise they will not respond good to treatment. I see this one a weekly basis from the LLMD’s I work patients having adverse reactions. If you strip both of these cases down to their bare elements then you will have a better picture to what is going on. Providing medical advise is not allowed on the forum especially in regards to altering psych meds which needs to be done under medical supervision.

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