Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Inositol is sweet. Inositol is vitamin B8. It is produced by the probiotic organisms in your gut. If your gut is normal, you don't need inositol. But inositol is one of the precursors to serotonin. No serotonin? Then you got panic attacks, anxiety and depression. What about insomnia? No serotonin? Then you can't make melatonin because serotonin is the precursor. No sleep cycle for you. The two organs that make the most serotonin are 1) the gut and 2) the brain. The gut makes more serotonin by far. You also need tryptophan to make serotonin. Now all meats and some veggies have lots of tryph. BUT, it is very hard to get the tryph into the brain. There is a special transport which I dub the train to the brain. Tryph is the slowest passenger. If you eat meat, all the other amino acids crowd on board faster. So to supplement tryph for the brain, eat a vegan meal (chickpeas are naturally high in tryph) plus some carbs. It turns out insulin release aids in the absorption of tryph by the brain. Why am I buying inositol by the kilo? Because my gut ain't normal; only a few short months ago, I had constant diarrhea, gas, bloating, cramping , GERD. The therapeutic dose for inositol is anywhere from 1 tsp to 2 tbsp. Don't exceed 3 tbsps daily. 1 tbsp was the working dose for me. Is your serotonin shortage in the gut? Mine was. I had panic attacks about 3-5 times weekly. Sometimes the attacks would last for about 5-6 hours and I could only lie there wheezing. I was desperate so I calculated my odds 1) nothing happens (waste about $25) 2) it helps me but it *might* make me manic, 3) it just helps me with no side effects. I thought about it. If it makes me manic, I CAN STOP taking this stuff. Duh. The first time I tried it during a panic attack, it stopped the panic attack in 15-20 minutes. That is the same speed & effectiveness as Ativan an addicting prescription med for anxiety. I kept using it for about 3-4 weeks. Same story. I told my doctors, my therapists, anyone on the street who would listen... The inositol was reliably stopping my panic attacks in 15-20 minutes over a 2-3 month period. After this period, me and my health care team concluded, the inositol wasn't making me manic. This means I'm histadelic or I under-methylate. Note, inositol will make bipolars who over-methylate manic. Since, inositol was safe, it was time to withdraw me from Ativan. I was taking one Ativan every morning as a prophylactic but using the inositol as needed to stop panic attacks. I switched to taking 1 tbsp of inositol every morning and just went cold turkey off the Ativan. During the first month of withdrawal, I started two panic attacks but just took an additional tbsp of inositol as needed. It was the most uneventful withdrawal anyone had heard of. My therapist just shrieked " YOU WENT COLD TURKEY!" By now you are asking - 15 minutes? That's not how the body works (except maybe for prescriptions). Where's the tryph? You're right, it would take about 5 hours for the inositol to make it the brain. But it takes minutes for it to hit the GUT. The gut can absorb the tryph, it don't need no train to the brain. The gut can absorb the inositol. And since the biochemistry is primed to make serotonin, it roars into action. Go read about the second brain. Now, unknown to me initially, certain gutsy doctors had made changes. She was targeting select patients and putting them on inositol. Even more dramatic, my therapists are students. The sessions are taped. I'm sure I'm now a case study in their new class on nutritional psychology. I caught some students betting which supplement I'd be trying this week. It mattered because whoever had been assigned to cover it, got a live guinea pig. Score! Don't we all love a good experiment? We're now four-five months into the Great Inositol Experiment and I'm off Ativan. For about 2 months of this time, I've been take 1 tbsp of inositol daily. Could I kick the inositol? No one wanted to try. The stuff is much safer than the Ativan. But now I notice something else. My anxiety and depression seemed greatly lessened. I'd been near-suicidally depressed but it was nowhere near as bad. At this, all my healthcare providers swung round and said - keep taking the inositol forever! What now! It's the serotonin production in the brain. Due to the constraints getting stuff into the brain, changes won't be dramatic. But for any given molecule, it takes the body 9-11 months to replace it completely. So 4-5 months is roughly halfway and I was noticing the serotonin levels normalizing. The next part of the story where I try to restore natural inositol production is The GREAT GUT RESTORATION project documented in reviews elsewhere : ) Suffice to say, the more the gut recovers the less inositol I need. Fast forward to about a year later: Due to safety concerns, my doctor took me off some of my prescription meds. During this time my panic attacks returned. I tried straight inositol again but after 1-2 tries, it almost seemed to intensify the problem. A reaction like that indicates something else is rate-limiting. So I started supplementing with tryptophan and inositol, plus some carbs. That did the trick. I got some hummus and crackers and/or some tryptophan & crackers and they both worked as tryph sources. About insomnia Recently, life threw some serious stress my way: I acquired a stalker. My doctor had cranked up some of my sedative meds until I was sleeping 10-11 hours per night but I still kept waking up every 2-3 hours. In a dither, I threw every supplement that might have an effect on sleep at the problem. About 2 hours before bed: 10 mg of melatonin - didn't keep me asleep but I was very sleepy until about 3PM the next day. Cut that down to 5 mg. 250 mg of magnesium glycinate - worked reasonably well but after about two weeks I became quite giggly. This is a known problem for some bipolars who undermethylate. It means I have all the magnesium I need. 1 tbsp of inositol - when I added the last there was a big change. I switched from waking up and staying up for hours to going right back to bed I wouldn't call the cocktail above a sleep med. It seems to be more soothing than sedative, making it easier to fall asleep. But given my stress levels, I'd say it was pretty powerful. Other helpful insomnia aids. Weighted blankets – I read in a clinical trial that weighted blankets can a useful sleep aid. The blankets work like swaddling a baby. The weight induces a sense of comfort. The trial conditions included – blankets that must weigh at least 10% of your body weight. Small errors of a pound or three are OK but err on the heavy side. The authors concluded that the blankets induced more restful sleep but did not lengthen sleep. Participants fell asleep faster, woke up fewer times during the night, they were able to go back to sleep more easily. A survey of the participants showed most felt more rested. My experience with these blankets is...identical with the clinical trial. update Nov. 3, 2018 Can you overdose on inositol? KInda. Recall that I worked hard to restore the gut and it now produces inositol. Enough that I don't need it for depression but not enough to prevent insomnia. Not knowing my new correct dose, I went with my old standby 1 tbsp. This worked great for weeks until I realized I was having mini-panic attacks. I was frequently short of breath for hours at a time, even if I didn't exercise and my mood was fine. Basically, I'd overdone the inositol and was producing serotonin and melatonin until... I ran out of tryptophan. I tried doubling the tryph - effective but hard to keep up. Then my doctor mentioned Banana Peel Tea. Banana peels have enormous amounts of serotonin. Enough that if you eat the peel, you'd give yourself a bad case of the runs because high doses of serotonin will cause your gut to become very very motile. Recipe - 1 banana with the peel cinnamon (optional) 4 cups of boiling water (or to cover) chop off both ends of the banana. Soak the banana with the peel in the hot water for 10-15 minutes. Add cinnamon if desired. The flavor of the tea is very mild on banana and there isn't any sweetness. Since I was starting eyeball the mound of naked bananas nervously, I tried for a heavier serotonin extraction. Soak the peels in hot water, put the peels in a blender and grind to a paste. Add the hot water back and continue to soak. Be careful with this method. I haven't figured out the correct amount of water to dilute this to safe levels, but it's definitely a stronger extraction. (update - I get about 2x more serotonin if I use a blender on the peels, longer extraction times - an hour extra, etc... It's not really worth all the extra effort unless you've got a dire shortage). Effect - the tea (original recipe) contains enough serotonin that is controls the faint panic attacks. I have to pace myself with the tea about one cup every 3-4 hours. Drinking it all at once is definitely too much. Also, more than 4 cups a day was rough on the gut. But.... lemon balm tea is an herbal nervine that is very effective for controlling anxiety. It is one of the safest herbs out there and it's really tasty too. The therapeutic dose is 3 cups a day to control anxiety. For the first time in a year, I had a decent case of anxiety for testing. And.... Lemon balm tea PLUS the banana peel tea is enough to control the baby panic attacks. Using only the lemon balm seemed ineffective. Using only the banana peel tea, seemed to be a constant battle between controlling the attacks vs giving myself the runs. But alternating drinks, really took the pressure off getting enough banana tea before the panic came back. My mood was pretty up for this time of year, enough so that my friends found it remarkable. Camomile is also very good for controlling anxiety but lemon balm is considered stronger by the herbal community. Summary - Using the original recipe - plus 3 cups lemon balm tea - I need a banana peel a day to keep panic attacks away.