Skip to main content

How This Ayurvedic Herb Helped Me Safely Withdraw from Antidepressants




As a patient with chronic pain, I have to try out different painkillers and antidepressants to manage my pain. Most of these medications, especially the antidepressants, have side effects that include increased dependence and, therefore, can cause withdrawal symptoms. Depending on the duration and the dosage of the medication, these symptoms can range from a mere inconvenience to brutal and long-lasting health problems.

I myself faced tremendous difficulty while trying to wean myself off an antidepressant called amitriptyline. Like many of its counterparts, amitryptiline also has drowsiness as one of its side effects. Consequently, insomnia as a result of withdrawal from amitriptyline was a major problem for me. From a high of 75 mg, I was able to reduce the dosage to 25 mg at the rate of 5- 10  mg every fortnight without much trouble. However, reducing dosage from 25 mg onwards was a nightmare - no pun intended. I started experiencing disturbing vivid dreams that made it impossible for me to get restful sleep.

When I encountered this problem the first time, I tried a variety of sleep-promoting, relaxing herbs including Valerian, Chamomile and Californian Poppy. Valerian did seem to help a little bit in that I could go to bed early. However, the recurrent nightmares were not reduced in any way. I then tried taking a combination of multiple herbs together and also added hypnosis and white noise to the mix. It still didn't make any difference. The struggle continued for several months and I bounced around from one doctor to another trying to find a solution. In desperation, I even attempted using sleep medications but there was still no respite from the disturbing dreams.



How Manasamrita Vatakam helped me?

Eventually, my search took me to an Ayurvedic doctor who suggested using Manasamrita Vatakam as a temporary substitute for amitriptyline during the withdrawal period. He started me with two tablets to be taken one hour before bedtime. He advised that I continue with amitriptyline 25 mg for the first two weeks and then reduce it by 5 mg every couple of weeks from thereon.

Manasamrita Vatakam started working from the first week itself. There were no nightmares. Sleep hours continue to be reduced but I did not feel as exhausted as earlier. I also noticed an improved level of focus at work. Encouraged by this success, I experimented with reducing amitriptyline 5 mg every week instead of every fortnight. Here also I didn't face any problem. Eventually, I was able to come off amitriptyline within a month. I then continued with one tablet of Manasamrita Vatakam for the next 15 days before stopping it altogether.



Since then, I have used it to successfully come off other other medications like Venlafaxine and Escitalopram also.

What Does Research Say About Manasamrita Vatakam?

The studies that I came across seem to confirm that it may have beneficial anti-stress and relaxation properties. For example, this study indicates that it is comparable to Klonopin, a medicine used for treating generalized anxiety disorder among other medical conditions. The difference between the two, of course, is that Manasamrita Vatakam is not supposed to be habit forming.

A study on rats' brains indicates that Manasamrita Vatakam may have neuroprotective effects. It also mentions that the medicine has long been used in India for psychosomatic diseases.
And finally, this research article claims that it may be used to even treat cerebral palsy.

When I looked around for more information on this medication, I found that one of its ingredients is of this medicine to be holy basil. This herb has numerous research studies that describe its benefits ranging from antimicrobial and immunomodulatory to antidepressant and  antioxidant action.  So perhaps the presence of holy basil contributes to therapeutic effects of Manasamrita Vatakam.



Where to Buy Manasamrita Vatakam? 

Although it is sold in the US as a supplement that can be easily purchased from Amazon, I would advise patients to consult an Ayurvedic practitioner before starting with it. I have found this directory to be useful in searching for doctors.  At the time of composing this blog post, I could find 845 doctors in the US listed in it. You can also reach out to Yoga Retreat Centres such as Mount Madonna in California to get recommendations on Ayurvedic doctors.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reduce finger, wrist and forearm pain due to computer mouse usage with Gentle Mouse

If you are reading this on a computer screen, chances are that you would have clicked your mouse at least a couple of times to navigate through this content. And in most cases, the finger used to click would be your index finger. Now imagine doing this repetitive movement every few minutes, day after day, year after year and you can easily infer that your fingers are at an increased risk of repetitive stress injury (or RSI) due to mouse overuse. The common name given to this painful condition is  Mouse Finger .  The 'Finger' in Mouse Finger usually leads a person to believe that the pain is restricted to the fingers alone.  However, from what I have surmised after reviewing anecdotal evidence and medical literature, it commonly presents as a cluster of symptoms in the finger, wrist and the forearm. Perhaps that explains why there are no easily available research studies pertaining to Mouse Finger alone. Most of the research studies consider these symptoms as a p...
4 comments
Read more

Avoid RSI Pain by Automating Repetitive Mouse Tasks with Voice Macros

In this Dragon NaturallySpeaking tutorial , I show how you can use scripting to automate your routine tasks and can significantly improve your productivity . For the purposes of the demo, I have used the task of adding a contact to your address book in Microsoft Outlook as an example. As in prior tutorials, I have used stop scrolling start scrolling down 2017 (a third party tool built on top of Dragon NaturallySpeaking) along with the Dragon naturally speaking premium version 13 on Windows 7 in the demo. The YouTube video is provided below. The main command that I use is KnowBrainer's " New Mouse Command ". This command records the position of the mouse for that particular application. So when I say " New Mouse Command Convert Sender to Contact ", KnowBrainer/Dragon Naturally Speaking will create a macro called " Convert Sender to Contact " where it will record the position of the mouse for the application Microsoft Outlook. When I...
Post a Comment
Read more

How US Tax Reform Affects Patients with Chronic Illness

It was messy, but it is finally done and over with! On December 22, 2017 the tax reform bill , or 'a giant tax cut ' as President Trump calls it, has finally been passed by both houses and has been signed into a law. It is not immediately obvious how the tax plan impacts patients with chronic illnesses. Views in the media are often tainted by the political prism through which the commentators tend to look at this issue. Plus there is limited discussion of the specific provisions that can affect patients with chronic illnesses. In this post, I am outlining some of the major provisions of the final bill that may affect chronically ill patients. Bear in mind that I am not a professional in accounting and taxation . However, I seem to have had more than my fair share of tax problems and as a result, I have become overfamiliar with the IRS website and publications. Article continues after the ad To make it easier to wrap our brains around this complex piece...
2 comments
Read more