I have found great success with vitamins and supplements, acheiving a control that 20+ years of drug therapy never provided. A great resource book for me was and continues to be [ame]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=projectmana0a-20&path=tg/detail/-/1583330771/ref=ase_projectmana0a-20?v=glance&s=books[/ame] (the second edition is better than the third but the third has helped me too).
The vitamins and supplements I use for control - B complex, magnesium, taurine, CoQ10 and flaxseed oil - were all gotten out of the second edition but I found 5-HTP which I have been taking for almost a month now for panic/anxiety in the third edition. I also believe, from what I have read and from the information that I got from my doctor about brain function and serotonin, that 5-HTP will help with seizure control.
My internist and I have had a yearly fight over why she believes that I need an antidepressant since 1998. I have constantly told her that I knew that I was depressed but, when there were obvious reasons why I was depressed, I didn't want to take a drug to cover up things that needed to be worked through.
During this year's antidepressant argument, she finally told me about serotonin. The brain needs a certain amount of serotonin to function properly and stress, anxiety and depression lower the body's ability to produce enough so the brain starts to function poorly. She said that that was the cause of my massive panic/anxiety attacks and only an antidepressant could "fix" it.
I told her that the serotonin thing made sense to me in regards to brain function since I know that stress is my greatest seizure trigger. So I look up depression/anxiety and serotonin in Prescription for Nutritional Healing. Also checked it out on WebMD. Both places wrote very highly about 5-HTP (from the seed of an African plant) as a precursor to serotonin and a help with depression/anxiety.
Within 24 hours of starting the supplement, I could tell a difference. I sleep like I haven't slept since I was a child. My dreams are very vivid and easily remembered (serotonin is taken up by the brain during REM sleep). I can't remember the last time I felt this energized, literally hopping out of bed in the morning instead of lying there thinking "oh my God, is it 5 already? (yes, I know I get up really early but I have a horse who is waiting for his breakfast at 5:30). My sex drive hasn't been this great since I had my tubes tied (the joys of sex without fear of pregnancy does wonders on it's own!).
The problems in my life haven't gone away but I am able to deal with them without getting the shakes and running for a valium. Anyway, what really bothers me is that my doctor didn't give me the information that I needed to find a supplement that would work until this year. Every year, she's just tried to force me to take a chemical which I doubt could have done me as much good as this alternative. But then, no doctor ever, no matter what specialty, ever talked about alternatives to drug therapy for my seizures.
It really makes me wonder how many of us are suffering needlessly because of unaddressed nutritional issues. I might not have looked for an alternative earlier than I did because I spent so many years under the mistaken impression that my seizures were caused by a childhood accident. It wasn't until I had another MRI done (when the neuro was pushing me to have the surgery) which provided definitively that there was no scar tissue and no physical reason for why I'm an epileptic that I started to wonder what was going on.
If my mother hadn't had her first grand mal in 60 years and hadn't called me during her postictal spell (when it was impossible for her to lie or hide any longer), I still wouldn't know that I had inherited this. Except for that one conversation with my mother, she has gone back into denial and still refers to me as brain damaged. At least, now I know better.
