Hey, it's Dr. Amit again. And I hope you enjoyed the journey of this five systems of health care in mind online course. And today what I want to do is talk about managing medications, I want to go through the different medications that are typically used in anxiety and depression. Some of the mechanisms of action, how they work, that means their side effects what happens when you come off them too quickly. And also to keep in mind that some of these drugs actually deplete nutrients from your body. And so that's the reason for some of the side effects as well.

And also what makes some of them unhealthy. But at the same time, when I say that I don't want us to get a phobia about antidepressants and angry lyrics because these medications also help people manage their life when they cannot heal fast enough holistically or through psychotherapy and Remember that when they begin to manage their life better things improve while they're on the drugs, then their stress levels decrease right. And as you know from the previous videos when their stress levels decrease, of course, the adrenal system resets itself it doesn't they don't feel they're not in the fight or flight state so much anymore so they don't burn out as much. I'm not saying that these drugs heal the root cause but let's not have a phobia about them all the time and use them with caution and see how to get off them holistically, which I'm going to show you in the upcoming video.

Awesome. Let's start. So over here, you have basically a lot of nerves, right? So it's kind of showing your brain what's going on inside your brain. And this little picture on your right you have the ending of a nerve cell in communication with another nerve area and the space in between It's called like a signups and this is where a lot of the antidepressants act because in the signups you have your brain chemicals like typically serotonin. And the longer that serotonin stays in this area, then the happier somebody feels.

And what happens is though, typically the the serotonin gets taken back up, so it's re uptake absorbed back in. And when it's absorbed back in, then there's less serotonin floating around so people feel less happy, right? So a lot of the drugs will work by inhibiting the uptake or reducing the re uptake of serotonin so that it just stays longer and you feel better for longer. So the common drugs used in anxiety and depression. I'm just going to go through this list for you and then we'll go into more details. Yeah.

The benzodiazepines. Those are the drugs that you hear ending with M diazepam, Lorazepam, diazepam, there's common names you'll have heard is like value out of an Xanax as well. These are used mainly for anxiety. And they typically work fast faster than antidepressants. Obviously, for different reasons, the working for anxiety, not depression so much. And they're used for panic attacks a lot because of the speed that they act in.

And the next type of drug that we use for depression is bupropion. And I'll go through more details later. You've typically heard the name Wellbutrin or sigh ban, also used for quitting smoking. Another antidepressant used is the selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. You'll typically hear the word snri and you names are like venlafaxine and duloxetine. Very complicated names to pronounce.

Before the SSRIs came out, we used to have SSRIs they're still used as your Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil. So also these drug names and typically i n e. A while ago they were using tri cyclic antidepressants but this phase though they are used in certain cases but not so common anymore with anxiety and depression. Okay, so let's talk about the benzodiazepines. Remember benzodiazepines are for anxiety and as we discussed in the previous videos, the neurotransmitter the brain chemical that helps reduce anxiety is Gabba. Right? So benzodiazepines actually enhance the effect of GABA in the brain.

And what it does is it just Mac is a mechanism in the brain on your nerve cells. Grab onto GABA to create a chemical reaction in this in the in the brain. And so what benzodiazepines do is make these chemical reactions happen faster. So GABA is working faster. And so the effects sorry, the drug makes these receptors work faster. And therefore, GABA is acted on much more rapidly at a faster rate.

So you feel the effects of GABA much more consistently. So the benzodiazepines are typically used for anxiety, insomnia, panic disorders, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and also for alcohol withdrawal. And before we go into the side effects, the details of side effects I want you to know that benzodiazepines have an effect on the heart rate. So slow down the heart rate, it'll drop your blood pressure, and also slow down your breathing rate. And so you'll see typical side effects include drowsiness Because of low blood pressure, right dizziness, sexual dysfunction because of lack of blood flow and decreased alertness, decreased concentration, and also possible dementia and memory loss. Yeah.

Now benzodiazepines are frowned upon because they can be very addictive and sudden withdrawal from benzodiazepines can cause panic attacks, anxiety and tremors as well. So when you're coming off benzodiazepines, you got to be really careful. And the other thing to know is that the nutrient depleted the nutrients depleted by benzodiazepines are biotin, folic acid, vitamin D, vitamin K, calcium and melatonin. So despite it causing drowsiness and stuff, I believe that benzodiazepines can cause sleep disturbances because of the melatonin depletion. And other drugs used for anxiety are beta blockers typically used for heart patients, but because beta blockers slowed down the heart rate and have an effect on the blood pressure. They are used to help the physical sense the physical feelings of anxiety in anxious people.

So that's you know, when you get a racing heart or sweaty palms, the physical sensation of anxiety can be reduced using beta blockers. So, it's not uncommon to see them prescribed during panic attacks and anxiety disorders, often for short term use only though bupropion often known as Wellbutrin and Zyban, used to help people quit smoking. bupropion helps increase levels of norepinephrine and serotonin dopamine in your brain by preventing the re uptake the absorption by other tissues. And bupropion commonly used for depression and seasonal affective disorder and of course for quitting smoking. Besides effects off. bupropion can include seizures, nausea, insomnia, tremors, excessive sweating, and tinnitus what we call ringing in your ears.

Like the nutrients that are depleted by appropriate include vitamin B, six, vitamin C, vitamin D. cokie 10, and sodium. And so of course, as you can see, if a B six is depleted, then we have issues with the adrenal system. And so people with depression and adrenal fatigue if they're under tropen, we're not really helping their adrenal fatigue anymore. And of course, we want to consider heart disease and blood pressure issues when there's a lot of CO q 10 being depleted. The next class of drugs I want to talk about is the selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors SNR eyes. Now these work by increasing levels of cells toning and norepinephrine in the brain by preventing their re uptake as well the reabsorption and they're commonly used for anxiety as well as depression, panic or panic disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Side effects of using SSRIs include insomnia, tremors, anxiety, abnormal dreams, fatigue, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunction and digestive trouble. And nutrient depletions include vitamin B, one B, two B, three B, six, b 12, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin D, coenzyme, q, 10, calcium, magnesium, manganese, melatonin, selenium, sodium, zinc, and even blue with iron. So, these drugs really deplete your body of vital nutrients. And long term use, of course will have other consequences, such as hormonal disturbances, sleep issues, as well as adrenal fatigue, worsening adrenal fatigue if the adrenal fatigue is not sorted out. And the next class of drugs that I want to talk about are the very commonly used ones is SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. And now these prevent the re uptake and the breakdown of serotonin and that which increases levels of serotonin in your brain.

The next class of drugs I want to talk about are SSRIs. They're very commonly used. These are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They prevent the re uptake and breakdown of serotonin in your body, and that's what increases the level of serotonin in your brain. They're used for depression, bulimia, anorexia, social phobia, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder. Side effects of SSRIs include Sexual Dysfunction, tremors, nervousness, nausea, and it's actually they're seeing an increased risk of suicide as well, especially in children and young adults.

Other side effects include drowsiness and sleeping issues, sleeping difficulties actually. The other thing I want you to be aware of is the nutrient depletion action off SSRIs. They're known to deplete vitamin B, one B two B three B six b 12. Similar to the SSRIs, as well as folic acid, vitamin C, D, coenzyme, q 10. Again, calcium, magnesium, manganese, melatonin, selenium, selenium, zinc and gluten. So again, like the SSRIs, a lot of nutrient depletion, and if somebody has adrenal fatigue, and they're not correcting it, continuous use of these medications doesn't really improve the root cause of their emotional health.

Issues, right? You're not correcting adrenal fatigue, you're not restoring balance and harmony to all the minerals in the body that the body needs. So how do we come off these medications? Well, we need to consider a number of factors first, before even attempting to reduce medication, pharmaceutical medication. The first thing is you need to be stable or your client needs to be stable, mentally stable. And if they're not psychotic, they're not suicidal.

They can converse properly with people with their friends and their family. They have a stable social structure. They're not too isolated. Yeah. And they're also able to communicate with you pretty pretty honestly and clearly. And when you feel that there's enough stability, then you can work with them more effectively, because they can monitor how they're feeling.

And then they can also tell you The withdrawal symptoms are too much or I need to slow down, or I'm doing really well and we can continue. That's the first thing to be really careful about. The next thing to consider is that this has to be done in the supervision of a doctor. Okay? Either naturopath or a psychiatrist, and ideally, combining the two people together. I always work with the psychiatrists, the prescribing psychiatrists to help my patients come off their medications.

The reason for this is because coming off medications can also have its own side effects. And they can be quite significant. So you need to prepare yourself or your client and that there might be a return of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or they might be withdrawal symptoms, such as tremors, sweating, insomnia, all these reactions can be quite strong because psychiatric drugs actually To the brain chemistry and the neural pathways and so it takes time for. So imagine these psychic psychiatric drugs of creating neural pathways, new neural pathways, and these neural pathways are used to being stimulated by these drugs. Now, suddenly you withdraw these drugs, these neural pathways cannot sustain themselves. And the body experiences a lot of shock, trauma tremors, so has to be done very slowly, very gradually and be prepared.

There's nothing wrong with some of these withdrawal symptoms, they can be expected and they need to be managed well though, because if the withdrawal symptoms are too extreme, you know people can get suicidal and can harm themselves as well and slip deeper into depression and it can be quite traumatizing and as you know, trauma can retrigger anxiety and depression and then you have to do therapy on that as well. Um, the issue Is that some doctors when they see withdrawal symptoms happening, they think the person is not ready to come off the drug. However, the withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and depression, are exactly that their withdrawal symptoms. They're expected, they're normal. And it doesn't mean that the person is not ready to reduce the dosage. It just has to be worked concurrently with naturopathic medicine and counseling to make it safer.

So some of the withdrawal symptoms you can expect, like I said, it's anxiety, depression, sleep issues, tremors, some people actually get fevers and sweating, headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, digestive issues. And the key thing to remember is that withdrawal symptoms are different for everyone. And yours might be very unique to you. So make sure you look out for any particular symptoms that happen while you're on withdrawal program, or one of your clients is on withdrawal program. just adjust the dosage, the amount you're reducing it by, don't withdraw, don't reduce the dose too much if the withdrawal symptoms are strong. Um what we're going to go through now in the next slides is basically stabilizing the physiology using naturopathic medicine, changing in nutrition, and also using Herbes and homeopathic remedies to reduce the amount of shock and tremors as well as heal old trauma that's contributing to anxiety, depression, and using herbs to stabilize the adrenal system and detoxify the liver.

And we've talked a lot about these supplements in the previous videos. So you already know what a lot of them do. So what I first do is look at the past trauma or client and look at You know, what experiences have you gone through in life that have contributed to stress, and maybe even contributing to your current state of anxiety and depression. Right. And also, what will happen is when you are coming off drugs, if these drugs were suppressing your symptoms of anxiety and depression and the symptoms and the emotions of the trauma, some of these emotions might resurface. However, it's not a bad thing, right?

It's time to deal with them. And with the right type of doctor, you can deal with them safely. And they start peeling away and your body actually becomes more stable. And so the key thing to look at is, you know, what's the triggering event this can be healed. This can be healed using psychotherapy using homeopathy as we've talked about in previous videos. The next thing to look at is have you been through a lot of stress, or has your patient been through a lot of stress?

The reason why I bring up a lot of stress chronic stress is because chronic stress burns out the adrenal system. And as we saw in the previous videos, when you have adrenal fatigue or burnt out adrenal glands, you're more susceptible to anxiety and depression. And by knowing that the reason for anxiety and depression, in this case, in your case, or in your clients case is a result of adrenal fatigue, then you can use supplements, herbs and supplements to stabilize the adrenal system. And I'll go through that with you. If if there are specific triggering events, either financial loss, abuse, sexual abuse, abandonment by parents or even senior parents fighting a lot, then I recommend energy psychology, psychotherapy, things like EMDR Emotional Freedom Technique, and I've gone through some of those techniques with you and I'll be sharing some more techniques in the other video. The other thing that I like using for past traumas is homeopathy.

As you saw in the homeopathy video, we use homeopathy to heal past traumas in a very effective way. Typical remedies that uses Oram or for feeling of you know worthlessness and failure, staffers argue for suppressed emotions, aconite for shock, and Ignatius wonderful betrayal for financial issues for breakups. In Carson Olson is also for betrayal and dominating parents are abusive parents. Also sexual abuse. There's many different remedies that we can use to manage the symptoms that come up during withdrawal, right, especially if these symptoms are related to a trauma in the past. Um, of course, if they A lot of like I mentioned before, if there's a lot of chronic stress, then that means the adrenal system is depleted.

Then I'll use adrenal herb such as rhodiola ashwagandha, stragglers, and I'll also use tissue salts. For adrenal fatigue, the main one I use is Kelly FOSS. The next step is to stabilize the physiology remove possible causes of anxiety and depression. Look at the lifestyle you know, is it because the person works in a war zone in a high conflict zone? Are they in a difficult relationship? Are we going through a lot of financial difficulties Is there a lot of stress in the family?

Now these have to be resolved because they could be contributing to the burnout of this person or the to the anxiety and even if you use naturopathic medicine, just the herbs and supplements and don't deal with their lifestyle, their habits, their environment, they might be just dependent on nutritional supplements their entire life. But that will make you know if you don't treat the root cause the the environment to causes or the relationship issues. They'll burn out over time, they'll burn out over time and they won't really get happier. The next thing to do is to heal the gut. Like we talked about in previous videos, that's having low inflammatory foods, removing food sensitivities like or foods that the person might be sensitive to. The typical ones are wheat, dairy, coffee, sugar, alcohol, sometimes soy sometimes eggs.

So look at the food allergies and then heal the gut using probiotics, glutamine, vitamin D, your essential fatty acids, and also reduced amounts of coffee because coffee number one stimulates your adrenal system without nourishing it. And coffee does affect leaky gut syndrome. And a lot of people with adrenal anxiety depression do have adrenal fatigue so you don't want to stimulate the adrenal glands too much. Especially when coming off medication, they'll be more sensitive to stimulus. And so make sure you're reducing the amount of stimulant stimulants as well as other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and any other psychotropic drugs that they might be using. Look at other contributing factors such as medications, I've had a lot of patients on the birth control pill.

Some have been helped by the birth control pill that helps him with and others Honestly, it was actually contributing to their anxiety and depression. Then also look at hormonal issues. The reason why you look at hormonal issues such as PMS, breast tenderness, gas and bloating is because it tells me is the liver involved because in Chinese medicine, the liver contributes a lot emotional well being. And so these physical symptoms, such as breast tenderness, PMS, gas and bloating will tell you, okay, he'll deliver as well. And when you heal the liver, and you stabilize the physiology, and that's a root cause for the anxiety and depression, then coming off medications will be much easier. And there'll be less relapses in depression actually.

Then, of course, we want to have stable sugar levels, blood glucose levels, and that's done by having more protein in your diet, right? And having less sugary snacks, less refined carbohydrates, less pastries, because, as you know, stable sugar levels, right, and stable nutrient levels in the blood will support your adrenal system. And if you have too many sugary foods, you get insulin spike and sugar spikes and sugar drops and that will disrupt your neurotransmitters and they'll even make it more difficult to come off psychiatric medication. Like I said, make sure you livers healthy because your liver affects your hormone levels, which will affect your serotonin levels and it will affect your digestion. And as we know a lot of serotonin most of serotonin is produced in your in your gut, and having a healthy liver means having a healthy, intimate time as well. The other thing that the person might need as well as you can begin bodywork such as acupuncture, or massage, because acupuncture, massage and all that number one, it has a detoxifying effect number two, you actually calm down the adrenal system, you help restore adrenal function and that will make it much easier for the person to come off psychiatric medication.

The other thing I use and I recommend patients do is Epsom salt baths because Epsom salt baths increase the levels of magnesium in the body and that will help reduce anxiety Especially anxiety associated with coming off medications.