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Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

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Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#171

Post by anonymous344 »

compounding_it wrote: post #136
isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

As someone who tried citalopram escitalopram and sertraline, along with venlaflaxine and fluvoximine, I would suggest doing a pharmacological test for psychiatric medications. I am an intermediate metabolized for the first three and the ones I was on most long. It did not suit me and made my orgasms go from ‘wtf’ to ‘that’s it?’ And they are still not normal 2 years after discontinuation. I am still depressed and anx…

look my other comment for niacin

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#172

Post by sixtyj »

mvcosta91 wrote: post #121
isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.” I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness. Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.

I have switched to lamotrigin, it helps to balance mood as I had bad mood in months with less sunshine. Lamotrigin is not an antidepressant, previously it was used for epilepsy stabilisation but now it is prescribed for mood swings. (This is not a medical advice.)

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#173

Post by haght »

b800h wrote: post #10

Can I just add: In addition to this, if you struggle with anxiety or have some sort of ADHD, then try cutting out caffeine entirely . Not just switching to "decaf" (which isn't), but cutting out tea and coffee, and switching to an alternative like Barleycup. Doing this has had a massive positive effect for me, and combined with decent nutrition and daily exercise, has been wonderful.

Very true! I recently found out that i am extremely sensitive to caffeine, and one cup at 6 pm makes me unable to fall asleep at night until 4 am. Trying to cut off the caffeine entirely now.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#174

Post by lazide »

hypeatei wrote: post #169
ghusto wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hate on antidepressants is not because they're not effective, but rather that they're abused by psychiatrists. Ideally, a professional will prescribe them as a necessary helper to becoming (more) mentally healthy whilst tackling the root cause. Most of the time however, it's more of a "here, take these indefinitely". It's like if we took sleeping pills every time we had trouble sleeping. Having said that, I just…

> like if we took sleeping pills every time we had trouble sleeping Yes, that's normal in the US. I have multiple family members who take Ambien (zolpidem) before bed every night.

Which knowing the side effects of Ambien is pretty bonkers.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#175

Post by bflesch »

mvcosta91 wrote: post #121
isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.” I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness. Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.

I have no experience about antidepressants myself so please excuse my stupid question.

When I hear people say "it killed my libido" I always think about the fact that hyper-sexuality can be a trauma response, and if your body is healing the hyper-sexuality is most likely also reduced.

It's like when you have a disease and then read the side effects of a medication and notice that a lot of the side effects are basically also something that can happen when your overall condition is improving but still some people report them as adverse effects and then these are added as side effects to the package label.

For example you take antibiotics but bacteria can have toxins in their body, and when the bacteria disintegrate you get more sick from the released toxins. It's called the Herxheimer effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_rea...

When I started methyl-B12 supplementation I also had inflammation in sinuses for weeks but it was just from my immune system starting up again and being able to attack long-standing inflammation. Someone else would've put "fever", "headache" and "stuffed nose" onto the side effects medication label of methyl-B12.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#176

Post by phoronixrly »

afpx wrote: post #112
nayroclade wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meta-analysis cited in the article is from 2024 and specifically mentions the Shaffer et al. 2014 review cited by Wikipedia as being low quality: > Some of the available reviews, owing to the limited number of trials and methodological biases, were of low quality (Anglin et al., 2013; Cheng et al., 2020; Li et al., 2014; Shaffer et al., 2014). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11650176/

Therefore what to do? I have seen these Hacker News vitamin D ads appear every few months for the past 15 years, or so. I always seem to have a vitamin D deficiency, so it reminds me to take supplements. I take them for a few months, hoping to see a change, but I don't feel any benefit. Then, I forget to take the supplements until the next time I see an ad. How to know if they're actually doing something useful?

Until you see an article like this which calls for '5000 mg' of supplementation, decide that you didn't take enough and overdose...

HN and dubious self-medication advice go hand-in-hand. Please consult a medical professional instead of a bunch of ad-tech devs.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#177

Post by perching_aix »

phoronixrly wrote: post #167
koakuma-chan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used an LLM to summarize and it told me 5000 IU.

Wow, so what value is there in LLM slop exctracted from already dubious self-medication advice?

They're saying that it successfully filtered out the bit where the author told people to overdose by 40000x. I guess that's the value.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#178

Post by bflesch »

rco8786 wrote: post #153
mvcosta91 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.” I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness. Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.

> except it killed my libido Similar experience. Apparently pretty much ubiquitous with SSRIs

hm

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#179

Post by leetrout »

Bender wrote: post #94
Xunjin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unbelievable crazy what the author suggests, even say "10,000 IU if you're feeling daring / have darker skin / live in less sunny climates.". Just a simple look at the side effects of high dosages: Safety and side effects Taken in typical doses, vitamin D is thought to be mainly safe. But taking too much vitamin D in the form of supplements can be harmful and even deadly. Taking more than 4,000 IU a day of vitam…

FWIW just anecdotally I took 160,000 IU per day for a few months along with 800mcg to 2mg of K2 MK-7 and about double the suggested amount of magnesium citrate . I slowly titrated up to that amount over a few months. I am not suggesting anyone else do that as I had a specific purpose slow action TPA when combined with many protease so to speak but just my own experience I did not have any of those issues. I don't kno…

I respond well to magnesium oxide and magnesium citrate in capsules but the chelated magnesium gives me heart palpitations or makes them more frequent if I am already having them. I hadn't noticed shortness of breath since the palpitations would have outweighed that.
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