I got my lab results back!

4784 Views 25 Replies 12 Participants Last post by palmer562, 2 h ago

DerealizedDutchie

Discussion Starter · Jan 15, 2019 (Edited by Moderator)

hi all,

I just got my lab results back and i wanted to show it to you, because discussing it might benefit more than one person in the end.

As you can see, my serotonin level is HIGHLY elevated and the catecholamines are all diminished. Serotonin is supposed to be in a range of 100-225 and mine is 502..

I have never taken any medication whatsoever to increase my serotonin.

My current symptoms are the following:

- Derealization (life outside my house looks like a joke, a dreamworld, as if i'm on marijuana. It's strangely intense and i dont feel connected to any environment whatsoever nor do i feel a connection to persons or objects)

- Tinnitus (24/7)

- Extreme fatigue

- Digestion problems/gut issues/leaky gut

- Depression/no motivation/no ambition/life has no meaning at the moment

It really shocked me that my serotonin is that high.. i thought it would be very low to be honest

I'm seeing my doctor on thursday, but i'm hoping someone here could shed a light on the serotonin part, or maybe others who did a similar test as well.

Cheers

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Broken

· #2 · Jan 15, 2019

Strange results considering you are not on medication. Are you a vegetarian by any chance? (just thinking of reasons other than DP). Wonder if low protein could lower dopamine etc although I don't know how much merit these types of results have as I know they aren't standard practice. The more obvious reason would be the depersonalization as dopaine is involved with the reward/emotion system.

I noticed benefit when I took the SNRI effexor and have recently started Imipramine which increases serotonin and norepinephrine which has given me some benefit so far (only 4 weeks in). Let us know what your doctor says

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Broken

· #13 · Jan 17, 2019 (Edited by Moderator)

Yeh blood levels don't reflect neurotransmitter levels (ie in the brain/nervous system). Although adrenaline is also called epinephrine, the difference is that when it is in the blood it acts differently (and is called adrenaline) and if levels are elevated it is clinically relevant. Epinephrine and Norepinephrine in the nervous system is thought to be involved in neurogenesis and involved with depression.

So at the moment it can't really be said that if blood levels are elevated for example, does that mean that so is the nervous system? Or is it being shunted out of the nervous system into the blood?

They don't really know what they mean and there really isn't any solid evidence how the blood levels link to neurotransmitter levels in the brain. The claim is they are the same, but the proof of that isn't great as we struggle to objectively measure neurotransmitters in the brain.

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Broken

· #22 · Jan 19, 2019 (Edited by Moderator)

I've started dreaming again since being on Imipramine. The good thing with remembering dreams is you know you slept well as it is the last stage of the sleep cycle I believe and deep sleep is before them. I am unsure what to make of dreams but they seem important to me. Something that is often thrown away as irrelevant but mine have been scary and vivid recently. My girlfriend had to wake me up from yelling lol (this has only happened before on mirtazapine). And when that happened before it came with a period of improved DP/DR symptoms. Only mildly improved but still

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Broken

· #23 · Jan 19, 2019

Yeh it was an amazing drug for me the first week as I slept amazing, but as the dose on mirtazapine went up I felt it did the opposite which made me hyperaware and then groggy as I couldn't sleep. Was weird, and also messed with my short term memory as is kind of expected with drugs that are antihistamines.

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