What's Going On

This last week has been a difficult one for me. I think looking back on it now from the present I just saw too many of my friends going through some really awful stuff and it just got to the point where I just couldn't shake it off. Because I'm an intuitive I was trying to figure out what was wrong. Was it my health? Was it a family member in danger?
What was it? I asked God and kept getting sort of strange answers the I couldn't make a lot of sense out of because I was shaken from talking to my various friends enduring fairly serious life situations. Finally, a good friend that used to climb mountains with me since I was about 21 called up as he was driving home from a concert he was playing. I said I'd had a terrible week and he said, "I think it's just hormones, Fred." I knew what he was talking about because of the thyroid medicine I take. I had had some Mountain Dew last Sunday to stay awake driving back up from Southern California and had felt ill for a couple of days from the caffeine and excess sugar in the pop. So I turned to my medicine counter when we got off the phone and checked the expiration dates on my 5-HTP by NOW from my local Whole Foods store which is a natural source of 5-hydroxytryptohan which I believe is a main component of serotonin.
Let me quote from Wikipedia under 5-htp or 5 hydroxytroptophan begin quote:

---5-htp is a naturally occurring amino acid, a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin and an intermediate in tryptophan metabolism. It is marketed in the United States and other countries as a dietary supplement or use as an antidepressant, appetite suppressant and sleep aid.---" end quote

I'm totally opposed to mood altering antidepressants because as a counselor of emotionally disturbed teenagers in the early 1990s I saw teens taking prosac and other drugs in this mood altering family and thought taking a drug that permanently rewires a human brain wasn't desirable and saw only negative effects on the teens I took care of then. However, you are welcome to your own opinion. This is just mine as a thinking adult.

So when my ex-wife and I broke up in a horrible divorce and child custody battle I refused to use any prosac like drug. However, I found that super mega-B complex with things like Valerian root added calmed me down. 10 years later I found that I could take one 100mg tablet or cap of 5-htp one a day for 2 days and thereby eliminate my slipping into a clinical depression. Since clinical depression is sort of a vicious cycle one can sometimes break this cycle by a couple of days of one cap or one tablet of 5-htp.

Now, remember I'm not a doctor but I grew up with a father that only used herbal health food store remedies for these kinds of things and my ex-wife is a herbalist as well. So I have a whole life's experience with this sort of thing.

Also, I prefer not to put any medicine that is synthetic into my body. Pharmaceutical companies can only patent synthetic medicines but the problem with synthetic medicines is that they almost always have multiple negative side effects because they are not organic compounds. So if you can get the same thing from an herbalist often you can get the good herbal medicine that will treat your problem without multiple side effects that literally might kill you.

Doctors and nurses are taught in medical and nursing school that all medicines are basically poison and that they should remember that they should give the medicine that causes the least damage to the patient and keeps them alive without killing them. This is something to seriously think about yourself as an enlightened person trying to stay alive.

So, I always try to take the least harmful medicines I can and still stay alive. I don't even believe in pain killers unless I can't sleep. Because if one can't sleep then their immune system cannot properly fight off diseases of all kinds after a while.

So after having a fairly hell week I thought I would share what finally worked for me.
I figure if I take one more 5-htp tomorrow I'll be fine and stop taking them until next month or year if I have another problem.

By not taking them all the time they stay effective for me. Just like I don't drink coffee so that I can have an ice starbucks coffee if I have to drive late 4 to 8 hours some time when I'm already tired. This way the 5-htp and the coffee with caffeine are there for me when I need them. However, you are an adult and will find what works best for you.