[trollo]

Well, TM researchers generally speak about prolactin studies as a proof than TM promotes calmness, self control, sleep quality. For me it has been the total opposite. I used to be lifeless, but with TM i began to feel more self confident, mentally alert and sharp, full of energy and desires, libido, a lot of stamina, but couldn’t control my reactions and i used to be aggressive without even being aware of that. And i had serious insomnia… my opinion is that the effect of TM could have been largely altered by the presence of the drug i was assuming… unliky the effects of such a hazardous interaction seem to be long-lasting… I m trying desperately to contact dr Mariano but he never responded to me

[trollo]

i would be extremely interested on it too… have you read my post about my experience with TM????

[trollo]

WHAT HAPPENED TO DR MARIANO???? I tried also to contact him privately, but no signs of life from him.

[trollo]

Well, in fact i feel that i had a mild muscles weakness for years… now, looking for a possible cause to my persistent and unexplained fever, i discovered my Vit D levels are 11,6 ng/ml. The strange thing is that, as i took the first dose the Dr prescribed, that was 25000 UI, i felt better for a few days. I Felt quiter, clearer mind and more awake, even my fever was diminishing, but after those few days the effects disappeared and even if i took another 25000 UI dose after 5 days, my condition returned bad and my fever rose up… so i wonder about what they said in that article, about immune suppressant effect of vit D… but i know they speak about years, not days…

[trollo]

i recently found out i’m vit D deficient: 11,6 ng/mL….

P.S. how can a person from outside the USA contact you if you don’t use e-mails????

[trollo]

Sigh, nobody interested on responding me???

Meanwhile i found this (from http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/vitamin-b6-000992.htm)

“Levodopa (L-dopa)– Vitamin B6 reduces the effectiveness of levodopa, a medication used to treat Parkinson’s disease. However, your doctor may be able to determine a dose of B6 that can help reduce side effects of levodopa without interfering with the drug’s action. Taking vitamin B6 along with levodopa should be done only under the strict guidance of a physician.”

[trollo]

Hello Dr Mariano, i’d like to have your opinion on my supplements plan and to know if in your opinion it could be related to a fever than began 10 days after i began to assume them (about 19 sept) and still persists now…
First i must say that i did a few blood tests by suggestion of my Dr and that i had a few ‘positives’:

B6 (egot activation) was borderline 1.79 in the range ‘borderline’ considered by the lab (<1.75 normal, 1.75-2 borderline, > 2 deficient)

zinc was 13.9 umol/L and copper 15.3 umol/L that are not deficient but my doc said i need more zinc..

ALA o3 was at 0.4 umol/L in a 2.2 – 15 normal range

and EPA o3 at 16 umol/L in a 40 – 215 normal range

and i was as well b12 deficient

so i m under 200 mg x day of B6 + 25mg x day of P5P + 2.5 mg of folic acid x day + 2000mcrg of methylcobalamin x day + 800mg magnesium x day + 50mg zinc x day + 600mg Flax seed oil daily + 5ml fish oil for about 1000mg of EPA daily….

P.S. Are iron blood test values different between men and women??? My blood tests sheet about ‘iron’ figured out like ‘female’ that i suppose was a lab mistake…

[trollo]

@DrMariano 6708 wrote:

I think 2400 mg of Omega-3 fatty acids (the part of fish oil that is EPA and DHA) is a good starting point from a nutritional point of view. For medicinal purposes, such as to stabilize mood in bipolar disorder, more may be necessary.

I don’t specify brands since availability, quality, and cost varies so much even within brands.

Fish oil that isn’t fresh becomes spoiled, rancid and gives you a fishy smell such as when you burp on it. it is more likely to make you feel nauseated. Fresh fish oil tastes like virgin olive oil and doesn’t smell fishy. I prefer places where the turnover of fish oil stock is very rapid to help insure it is fresh.

Dr Mariano i m right now learning from you that i took for 2 monthes (oct and nov) a whole bottle of rancid fish oil… it arrived by post to me and it was leaking oil inside the box so the shop sent to me another bottle, but i used the oil left into the first bottle… after i opened the new one i discovered that the new oil was different, that didn’t smell or taste fishy and that it looked a lot clearer … i thought that the new one wasn’t good but now i learn that it s the opposite!! So what could have involved taking spoiled fish oil for 2 monthes??? I m taking it because my Dr found i m deficient in EPA (& ALA) and because of mental issues like depression

[trollo]

I read this from Wikypedia some time ago…( i know it’s not a good source but it is the only source i can find easily..) “Dopamine plays a major role in the brain system that is responsible for reward-driven learning. Every type of reward that has been studied increases the level of dopamine transmission in the brain, and a variety of highly addictive drugs, including stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, act directly on the dopamine system.[2] There is evidence that people with extraverted (reward-seeking) personality types tend to show higher levels of dopamine activity than people with introverted personalities.”

I read this time ago, along with other things in the web.. that’s why i focused on the idea of dopamine concerning my meditation problems. Another think that made me focus on all that stuff about dopamine, was the dystonia that in some cases is related to dopamine deficiency … i know that generally doparesponsive dystonia is considered different from writer’s cramp, but i know a musician with embochure’s dystonia who cure it with L-dopa….

That’s just to explain to you why i was fixed on the dopamine thing…

[trollo]

Also, i think, urinary disturbs and infections are among the duloxetine side effects… am i right?

[trollo]

I found time ago this on the web :

“The antidepressant properties of duloxetine are due to blocking the reuptake of serotonin and possibly also noradrenalin within the central nervous system; It is also considered a less potent inhibitor of dopamine reuptake.”

[trollo]

” This may then result in a negative effect from either the interaction with medication and these untreated factors or a negative effect from medication uncovering these untreated factors.”

So maybe are you saying that Meditation and medications could have in some way interacted??? If so it should have been with duloxetine, because it happened during and immediately after duloxetine interruption that all those troubles began (most important than anyother, DYSTONIA)…
could it be possible in your opinion?

[trollo]

Yes, very clear, thanks for your response Doctor.
I must say that what you said is the most effective explanation of what i experienced i ve ever heard… more, i never heard a single little try to explain my experience, neither the people who taught to me meditation (an ex-TM teachers association) tried to explain it but they rather denied my disturbs and discharged the responsibility on me saying that i was doing it in a wrong way….
I arrived to the same conclusion than you (so it seems to me…) suspecting that in reality meditation just made emerge some underlying issues (i mean physical issues, not imaginary or psychological ones) because maybe it kind of forced the body to function well but the body couldn’t do it actually.
I asked to you if meditation could have in some way boosted my dopamine ( i understand this is a reductive way of imagining it) because i read often that dopamine excess (like the side effects of drugs who act on dopamine (i think duloxetine lightly acts on dopamine receptors…)) could lead to behaviours like excessive energy, agitation, insomnia or loss of the need for sleep, impulsiveness, hypersexuality, excessive goal-directed activity that can lead to harm (e.g. excessive spending or gambling), etc. and in my case even improved physical skills and stamina and caused a reduction, if not disappearance, of previously present coordination deficits, ike my ‘subclinical’ dystonia, who became really evident just after the 2009 onset (after which it have been clearly diagnosed by more than one neurologist)
Anyway, i d really like to continue with Meditation in the future, when i will have addressed the issues that could have caused all those problems, because it has been SO EFFECTIVE that it would be a terrible shame if i couldn’t anymore practice it…

[trollo]

About what i mean for depersonalization… never undrstood clearly what depersonalization should be but I mean this:

lack of emotion and emotional reactions to things and events, lack of enthusiasm and interest in anything that was fundamental before (NOT following a concurrent worsening of sadness or anxiety or despair), feeling like if ALL my feelings were ‘muted’ and i mean good but bad ones as well, like if somebody had put a ‘cap’ blocking my personality; consequently i felt like i didn’t know anymore WHO i were, not in the meaning of not recognising myself into the mirror or into my body but in the sense that i didn’t know anymore what was my personality….. i used to feel like detached from the world, like an alien, like if i wasn’t ruled from the same psichological rules that rule the rest of the living world.
After i finished the psychotherapy in 1998 i began slowly to reduce this disturbs (that began in 1996-97) tring to mentally work to deconditioning my mind from a lot of things that the psychotherapist forced me to believe… after 2-3 years of this kind of work i improved a bit; experiences of life helped me to find a bit myself. But just with Meditation i clearly had the feeling of really had taken away that hatred ‘cap in the head’ the i used to feel… untill i did meditation…

[trollo]

Thanks Doctor for your big effort to make order into my post, i will repost yours with my corrections:

---

SYMPTOMS PRIOR TO ILLNESS:

• NO lack of libido… i was just an introverted kid with social problems, i had a lot of passion that i used to express in my hobbies like Martial arts, drawing and comics. I used to have a very powerful imagination but tended to be out of the world, in my own world, being ingenuous, very shy, scared to get adult. I had a very active brain, maybe too much, but wasn’t very good at school because i couldn t take attentiion to anything who wasn’t for my own amusement or interest, although i was a discreet student but had to do more efforts than others…

---

1993:

First episode of illness when 16 years old

NEW SYMPTOMS:

• obsessive-compulsive disorder; mainly obsessed by cleanliness, whashing hands, keeping my things in perfect shape and far from others hands, totally scared about feces and urine, feared of being killed during the night when sleeping (used to closed with key my room s door in the night) and generally paranoid
• depression
• apathy

  ---

  1994:

  DIET: change to Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian

  ---

  1993 :
  TREATMENT: psychotherapy: no response

  1997-98:

  just OCD improved over time a bit, but depression got worse, i began to suffer of emotional flattening like a mild depersonalization (i think this has been in some degree a psychoterapy side effect)

  ---

  2002:

  Second episode of illness or exacerbation of initial illness caused by sentimental issues

  TREATMENT: psychotherapy: NO RESPONSE
  TREATMENT: antidepressants: no response. Which antidepressants? I can try to tell the ones i remember: in order of time Seropram, Efexor, Venlafaxina (never had side effects until that) and in 2006 Fluoxetine that i assumed for 4 monthes

  ---

  2003 to 2004:

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • muscular weakness and less stamina during gym – particularly in upper arms

  ---

  2006:

  This wasn’t a real new breakdown… i had a bad period but not so bad… in fact as i always complained with my psychiatrist-psychoterapist the total lack of effect of antidepresants he then suggested to try with Fluoxetine

  TREATMENT: Fluoxetine: intolerable due to side effects – swollen and painful nipples, strong esophagitis attacks, then, after these disturbs when away, i began to suffer of hypersomnia (12-14 hours of sleep a day)

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • hypersomnia (12-14 hours of sleep a day)

  I left my old Doctor and staied without any drug for about 3 monthes, than i went to another psychiatrist

  TREATMENT: antidepressant + anticonvulsant + Abilify
  RESPONSE: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder improved “a lot” but i noticed a light coordination issue to my left index finger when playng guitar ( february 2007)

  ---

  2007:

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • very light muscular incoordination – particularly of left index finger

  ---

  2008:

  STOPPED MEDICATION TREATMENT by myself with bad side effects like severe insomnia.

  Fourth episode of illness or exacerbation of initial illness (used to have strong persistent anxiety quite panic continuously night and day for several monthes)

  TREATMENT: medications restarted: Which medications? (Paroxetine and Tolep from a new Psychiatrist)

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • chronic flu symptoms – lasting to the present (flue used to last longer than before, like weeks not days), which flu symptoms? (light inner shivers, sluggisness, temp. about 37.3/4 farheneit)

  ---

  2009:

  TREATMENT: Duloxetine (stopped Paroxetine, but continued Tolep)
  TREATMENT: Transcendental Meditation

  RESPONSE: “after a month” of treatment, had a “gorgeous improvement” I began TM in April (under Paroxetine) and had real good improvements for about a week, then as i discontinued practice they stopped they started again in may when i was already under duloxetine
  
  SYMPTOMS that STOPPED:

  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • lack of libido
  • muscular weakness
  • muscular incoordination

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • excessive energy – “hyperexcited” and can’t stay still
  • severe insomnia
  • very high libido
  • urinary infections and continuous need of urinate[/B][/B]

  TREATMENT: STOPPED MEDICATION TREATMENT (stopped just duloxetine at the minimum dose, but not Tolep)
  TREATMENT: CONTINUED Transcendental Meditation

  Immediately with drugs interruption i felt ill for 1 month, then when i recovered i had a sudden dystonia onset just one morning playing guitar

  Fifth episode of illlness or exacerbation of initial illness

  SYMPTOMS STOPPED:

  • excessive energy – “hyperexcited”
  • severe insomnia
  • very high libido

  SYMPTOMS RETURNED:

  • lack of libido
  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • hypersomnia
  • muscular weakness
  • muscular incoordination

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • focal dystonia – affecting left index finger, left hand, right hand (just in 2011 i noticed that i had dystonia in my right hand waching a video on musician’s dystonia in the plectrum holding hand)
  • muscle tics – affecting left eye, lips
  • chest pain – mild, worsened by breathing (NO, when i contract chest muscles expiring air i feel the pain more clearly, that’s the reason if i think it s an intercolstal muscles pain…)
  • arrhythmia – a sensation of “weight on my throat” and extrasystoles – Is this verified by ECG (yes a cardiologist verified arrhytmia without any heart abnormality so considered them as harmless)? Anxiety can cause illusion of arrhythmia NO ILLUSIONS .
  • neck glandular pain: what glands? what hurts? (the 2 bean shaped glands under the chin sides)
  • strong pain attack – while meditating (BUT THIS HAPPENED IN SUMMER 2010)– Where did the pain occur in the body? Did it occur again since then? (the pain occurred in the urinary tract, along with a flue sansation, felt very bad. I slept for 1 hour and then everything disappeared… after a month i went to hospital because pain returned and they cured it with antibiotics)

  STOPPED MEDITATION IN JANUARY 2010

  2010 winter
  TREATMENT: RESTARTED Medication treatment (AS DULOXETINE DOUBLED DOSE and Tolep) but i restarted TM a few monthes after drugs, just when i restarted TM i had the return of the many effects you describe, i restarted TM in summer 2010
  TREATMENT: CONTINUED Transcendental Meditation

  RESPONSE:
  SYMPTOMS STOPPED (just when i restarted Meditation):

  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • hypersomnia
  • lack of libido

  SYMPTOMS RETURNED (just when i restarted Meditation):

  • excessive energy – “hyperexcited”
  • severe insomnia
  • veeeeeery high libido (used to think about sex during sleep and had to wake up to masturbating)
  • focal dystonia – affecting left index finger, left hand, right hand (FOCAL DYSTONIA NEVER STOPPED SINCE THE FIRST ONSET ON 2009)
  • muscle tics – affecting left eye, lips
  • chest pain – mild, worsened by breathing
  • arrhythmia – a sensation of “weight on my throat and extrasystoles”
  • neck glandular pain: what glands? what hurts?
  • urinary frequency
  • recurrent urinary tract infection (“cystitis”)

    These are unrelated to Meditation and are always present exept for summer 2009:

  • muscular weakness
  • muscular incoordination

  2011

  TREATMENT: STOPPED ANY DRUGS
  TREATMENT: STOPPED Transcendental Meditation on late monthes (after mononucleosis)

  RESPONSE:
  SYMPTOMS STOPPED (just after i stopped meditation… obviously during mononucleosis i had highs and downs):

  • excessive energy – “hyperexcited”
  • severe insomnia
  • very high libido
  • muscle tics – affecting left eye, lips
  • arrhythmia – a sensation of “weight on my throat and extrasystoles”
  • neck glandular pain
  • urinary frequency
  • recurrent urinary tract infection (“cystitis”)

  SYMPTOMS RETURNED mildly

  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • muscular weakness
  • muscular incoordination
  • lack of libido

  TREATMENT: RESTARTED medication treatment (paroxetine and tolep)
  TREATMENT: RESTARTED Transcendental Meditation just for a few monthes in late 2011 then STOPPED UNTIL NOW

  RESPONSE:
  SYMPTOMS STOPPED just for a few weeks during late 2011 when i was doing meditation but side effects of meditation got worsemildly:

  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • hypersomnia
  • lack of libido

  SYMPTOMS RETURNED mildly:

  • excessive energy – “hyperexcited”
  • insomnia
  • very high libido
  • muscle tics – affecting left eye, lips
  • chest pain – mild, worsened by breathing (this didn t go away anymore)
  • arrhythmia – a sensation of “weight on my throat and extrasystoles” – Is this verified by ECG? Anxiety can cause illusion of arrhythmia.
  • neck glandular pain: what glands? what hurts?

  TREATMENT:STOPPED Transcendental Meditation (IN EARLY 2012)(but before i did several trials with similar meditation kinds… and had strange results…)

  RESPONSE:
  SYMPTOMS CONTINUED:

  • moderatedly energy – “hyperexcited”
  • light insomnia
  • low high libido

  What happened to the other symptoms such as depression, lack of energy, apathy, etc.? returned but in a mild form
  

  2012

  TREATMENT: RESTARTED Medication treatment (paroxetine and lyrica)
  TREATMENT: NEVER RESTARTED Transcendental Meditation

  RESPONSE:
  SYMPTOMS RETURNED IN A MILD FORM IF COMPARED TO 2006:

  • depression
  • apathy
  • lack of energy
  • hypersomnia
  • muscular weakness
  • muscular incoordination
  • lack of libido

  SYMPTOMS CONTINUED:

  • LIGHT insomnia
  • focal dystonia – affecting left index finger, left hand, right hand THIS NEVER WENT AWAY
  • chest pain – mild, worsened by breathing
  • neck glandular pain: what glands? what hurts?

  ---

  DETAILS

  2011:

  MONONUCLEOSUS: lasted 4-5 months.

  • Was this verified by lab test? YES, OF COUSE, VERIFIED BY LABTESTS AND AN INTERNIST

  LAB TEST:

  • What are the actual full test results? Blood or urine or saliva?BLOOD (HBV tests)
  • Vitamin B12 deficiency
  • Vitamin B6 deficiency
  • Omega-3 EPA deficiency
  • Alpha Lipoic Acid deficiency

  NEW SYMPTOMS:

  • difficulty tolerating external stress (which causes fear, anger, agitation) – this causes trembling, weakness ALWAYS HAD THIS DISTURBS SINCE A KID, BUT RECENTLY IT GOTS A LOT WORSE
  • anxiety / fear MILD
  • anger outbursts
  • agitation
  • headache

[Author]

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