Comment · Thu, November 29, 2012 · Ceretropic
Been taking 5-HTP for 3 months. How worried should I be about heart valve damage?
Original post in this thread
mintmuse · 16 points
I hope this is the right place to post this.
I've been taking 5-HTP for about 3 months now, because I had read about it's effects with helping with depression (heard about it through the book, The Mood Cure). I started off with 150-200mg a day, taken in the evening and night before bed. In the beginning of October I started taking a vitamin b-complex (this one) in the morning. About a month ago I started feeling a slight vertigo once or twice a day. I went off the 5-HTP for about 3 or 4 days and it went away, so then I started taking just 50mg at night before bed. I know now I really should of just stopped taking it, but I didn't. I haven't had problems with the vertigo since, but I did not know until now about the link between 5-HTP and heart valve damage and cardiac fibrosis (just found out today reading through this sub).
I've also been taking:
Gaba Calm in the morning for about 2 months.
500mg-1000mg DLPA in the morning, off and on for 3 months.
And 500mg-1,500mg of L-Tyrosine for about a month (didn't seem to help with anyt…
What they were answering
mintmuse · 1 points
Thank you! That was very informative. Good thing I was taking the B vitamin in the morning and the 5-HTP at night. I've been drinking green tea 1-2 times a day for the past 2 months also, though I don't know if that would have a significant amount of EGCG in it. I was also taking the L-tyrosine for a month, but that was in the morning.
I've stopped taking the 5-HTP for now, and probably won't be going back. I will be monitoring how I feel the next few weeks. And I'll definitely be doing further research.
Do you have any knowledge on taking L-tryptophan instead of 5-HTP?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
EGCG pills have a lot more epocatechin gallate than green tea itself. It would be best to take a pill right when you take your 5-HTP.
As far as L-tryptophan is concerned, that's just the prior step to 5-HTP. L-tryptophan is hydroxylated to 5-HTP by tryptophan hydroxylase. It would not raise your serotonin levels by much, unless your diet was really low in tryptophan already.
If you don't mind my asking, what sort of depression symptoms are you having?