The Sam E Conundrum

It has taken me a while but I've managed to get all of the pieces of Yasko's short cut protocol in place.  While reading her book Feel Good Nutrigenomics there was a chapter on Sam E in which she recommends adding it to the short cut protocol.  All fine and dandy.  I happen to have some in the fridge from some other protocol I tried or something I read somewhere.  (great memory can you tell??)

Anywho, I started the Sam E.  All sorts of nasty things happened.  Lots of mood alterations, heart palpitations, heartburn, trouble sleeping despite my sleep meds.  So off to drugs.com to see about side effects of Sam E.  Much to my dismay I can't take it with the drug I'm using for sleep since it is really an antidepressant and Sam E can interact with them and cause what is called a seratonin storm.  Take it from me it is pretty unpleasant and if I hadn't caught it early it can be fatal.  Ugh.  Now I remember why it is in the fridge.  I went through the exact same thing when I first got the Sam E; it interacted with the prozac and trazadone and I needed those meds more than the Sam E at the time.  Sometimes I swear my brain is trying to kill me off.

So after much debate with myself, I decided to continue with the Sam E and quit my sleep med for a few weeks to see how things settle out.  Apparently, Sam E can also lead to pretty severe detox so I cut back to taking it every other day.  I was still having nausea and heartburn but it toned down after about a week and I've been doing better in that regard.  Thing is my sleep still rots.  It is BAD.  I'm waking up often.  I'm very restless.  Can't get back to sleep after I wake.  I'm waking up tired which just gets worse each day as the sleep deprivation accumulates.  So two weeks into this and I'm doing horrible again.  First the brain fog came back so I couldn't read anymore and finally today my body crapped out on me and I'm having trouble walking.  I can't even see properly; everything is fuzzy and out of focus.  Sigh..

I had a nice chat with some people on Yasko's forum about this and they said to cut WAY back on the Sam E for now.  Like crush the pills and eat a small part of the dust way back.  So I decided today that my sleep is more important to me right now than the Sam E experiment so I'm switching back to my sleep med and dropping Sam E.  They also told me that I really need to get the GABA/Glutamate in balance first along with getting my lithium levels up.  They gave me a long list of supplements I could use but I'm too brain fogged to figure out which ones I should take.  It would suck if it was the entire list.  It will cost me a small fortune in new supplements.  

So my current game plan is to wait two days until the Sam E is out of my system then go back on my trazadone so I can get some good sleep.  Once that happens I should be back to functioning well again.  Crap I was taking short walks once or twice a week.  I don't want to be stuck on the couch again.  

I also found out that I can't take my zinc and lithium at the same time so I've separated those two.  Zinc in the morning and lithium at night.  They also told me to stop the taurine until I have a urine test done to see if I even need it.  So it looks like more testing will be in my future.  I'll need a hair metal analysis to find out how my lithium levels are doing and it will also tell me if I have any metal toxicity (I wouldn't be surprised if they find mercury and aluminum in my system since I've been exposed to both).  I'll also be having another pee test.  Such joy.  

This is going to be a very long two days.  Blech...  ALL I WANT IS A GOOD NIGHTS SLEEP!!!