Serotonin Series: Do You Have Low Serotonin Levels?

Yes, low serotonin which fluctuates for no apparent reason so far. 40mg of citalopram a day and still some days like today I feel immobilsed by pain and depression. I can check almost all the syptoms list above. I do sometimes wonder if the drug IS adding to it… not sure. I certainly feel today, back to where I was before going on them.

Wow, got almost a 100%, citalopram has helped. The memory torture thing was an eye opener used to be so bad it was almost constant. Now when it starts I say “STOP IT” and I get control of my thoughts. Couldn’t do before the citalopram.

My doc tested my serotonin level and it was quite low. I am now on Cymbalta, trazodone for sleep (an old antidepressant) and I take a bioidentical serotonin nutritional supplement. My doc said reuptake inhibitors only work when you have enough serotonin circulating, so the supplement is necessary in addition to reuptake inhibitors. My dreadful, embarrassing head sweats are almost entirely gone despite summer being here and temps hovering around 100.

Vicodin is a pain reliever used for relieving any kind of arthritis pain. It is made up of two different kinds of drugs. One of them is acetaminophen which is also known by the trade name of Tylenol and the other one is hydrocodone. Although arthritis does not requires drugs to cure its symptoms people have started to use this drug on a large scale. This has also led to the abuse of these drugs.

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FindRxOnline

I’m so glad you’re doing these posts about serotonin!

About nine months ago my doctor had me take a neurotransmitter test to find out my actual level of serotonin. My test came back showing that my serotonin level was extremely low. The thing that is interesting about those results is that at the time I was taking Cymbalta, which is an SNRI, as well as tramadol, which also has some SSRI properties. I was already taking two things that should have increased my serotonin level.

I wasn’t surprised at all to learn that my serotonin was low because I was showing many of the symptoms of low serotonin, including IBS-C. (Many folks don’t realize that 80-90% of your serotonin receptors are in your gut and that serotonin is responsible for the speed at which food moves through your digestive system.)

This is exactly what Kellie was talking about above. My husband had the best analogy: If SSRIs are like stoplights, and serotonin is like cars, you still can’t create a traffic jam if there aren’t enough cars on the road! My body simply wasn’t producing enough “cars.” So no matter how much we blocked the re-uptake, it was still a ghost town. Not to mention the fact that the serotonin re-uptake meds just help with re-uptake in the brain, not in the digestive tract where the majority of the receptors are, and where my IBS-C symptoms are.

So we added a 5-HTP spray to my regime, even though it is counter-intuitive at face value. Normally, you wouldn’t give someone too many things to increase serotonin at the risk of serotonin syndrome, which is deadly. That’s where the testing was so valuable!

I don’t know if anyone besides NeuroScience does testing for neurotransmitters, but the cost was fairly low and getting definitive results meant that I got the help I needed. Since then, I’ve been able to completely come off the tramadol – without experiencing the typical side effect of depression most folks have.

It’s strange. I have nearly every symptom listed. Yet every time I’ve been put on SSRI’s, I feel better for a day or two, then feel agitated, and a little crazy. Like I’m not entirely home in my head — asleep at the wheel, or on auto-cruise. And I start to grind my teeth, clinch my jaw — and depending on the medication, if it’s really bad, I get so agitated, I start pacing, unable to sit still, and will even start to pull my hair. No doctor has ever explained it — just taken me off the med, and tried another — with the same results. And we’ve tried several different. The only psychotropic I’ve ever been able to tolerate is Depakote. I had some success on it.

But I can’t take it any longer because at this point, ANY drug in pill form causes me to have what they believe might be a gall-bladder attack. Maybe. I get nauseous, and it’s like my stomach backs up with bile, and I throw up non-stop for a few days unless I get my butt to the ER. My pain and heart rate go up. And lately, I get the ‘fist pain’. But they can’t tell me for sure that it’s my gallbladder.

I’m going to talk to my doctor tho about the neurotransmitter test.

Maybe someone could explain to me though: if FMS is a neurotransmitter issue, and we often are low not just in serotonin, but a host of others neurotransmitters, why the doctors NEVER seem to give us anything for those other neurotransmitters? They seem to hyper focus on the serotonin, and ignore the rest.

Hey Timber,i was just thinking that (hopefully not) it could be your pancreas not gall bladder.I only say this because my best friend has pancreatitis and her daughter and son,your symptoms go with it although there are more,maybe you could research it a bit unless you already have and usually with gallbladder your throw-up is kinda green.If you have to go to ER again have them check your levels(well crap my brain just stopped now i cant think of what levels are called)sorry:( anyway just say maybe its my pancreas.)Hope this may help,good luck.

My daughter suffered from the stress/anxiety problems of low serotonin. She had and exhibited the symptoms listed. I did not know what to do for her but a neighbor recommended a nurse practitioner that might help. She tested her for levels of brain hormones and found that even with taking Zoloft she was 50% of where she should be with serotonin. She began a regime of prescription strength amino acids and so far she has been able to go from 100 mm of Zoloft to 75 mm and is much better with the symptoms. She has a way to go before she is where she wants to be but we are very encouraged with the progress. So thankful that we found some help.