For those of you who notice that the medications have taken a toll on your ability to hold things in short term memory, I'm putting my vitamin/supplement recommendations here. It could be my age, but the meds seemed to make memories a lot more hazy. Good for resolving flashbacks, bad for trying to learn anything new. And my entire livelihood rests on the ability to learn new stuff.
Sleep is first. You need it. Even if you have to take a sleeping aid to get it. All of us are terrified of sleeping. We don't sleep well when we sleep. I get that. I don't sleep well at night myself, but if I'm still awake at midnight, I'll take something to knock me out. Make your bedroom a safe zone. Lock the pets out because they rouse you and can allow your half-awake self to slip into nightmares. Get rid of clutter there. Stop drinking caffeine after about 4pm.
Vitamin D is a major pillar here. I get depressed when my Vitamin D is low. Suicidal, with weird body pains. It's a lot worse in the winter. Magnesium is added for the Vitamin D uptake.
Vitamin B12/B6/Folic acid is a heavy lifter to restore nerve/brain function. I found my ability to hold things in memory increased enough that I could tackle grad school again when I'd been supplementing for a while. You need the D3 with it for best absorption.
Fish oil repairs nerve sheathing.
I only supplement with Fish Oil, Vitamin D3, Vitamin B12/B6/Folic Acid, Magnesium, and the occasional Vitamin E or Vitamin K. The B12 supplement/Fish Oil/Vitamin D3 combination has been amazing and brought my head back into focus. I take 1000 IU of B12 (yes, that's a lot, 2000 IU altogether) once in the morning, once in the evening, sublingual. I take 3 fish oil capsules a day with each capsule at 360 mg DHA and 140 mg EPA (1,080 mg DHA & 420 mg EPA total). I take 5000-7000 IU D3 daily. I also take two 250 mg magnesium tablets with the Vitamin D3. For those of you saying, "that's a lot of Vitamin D!" my answer is 'not really.' I'm 50ish, overweight still (but working on that), sedentary enough (working on that too), and celiac. For each of those factors, you have to add in another serving of the Vitamin D, so that would be 8000 IU. I have absorption issues, so this is what I've found works for me. And it works well. So, your mileage may vary. I also have flirted with taking CoQ10 and Lion's Mane mycellium, which both help, but the heavy lifting is that triple combo outlined above (B12/D3/Fish oil). The magnesium is to make sure the Vitamin D gets taken up.
If I start craving cinnamon, I will add a Vitamin K for a couple of days until the cinnamon cravings die back, but that's not often enough to put into the daily routine. Lion's Mane mycellium does amazing things, but you have to take so much of it and keep steady on it a while to see the difference. I take 3-6 g per day, that's 6-12 capsules of Paul Stamets' Host Defense line because I know that Paul maintains his products. It's still an inexact science on these things. It's just a hassle and the other straight vitamins work for me well enough. I don't usually take Lion's Mane now, but I did for a while to boost some of the memory issues. I'd love to know what the active mechanism is in Lion's Mane mushroom. Fresh Lion's Mane mushrooms taste like hard chewy cauliflower, and I find I need to brown them a lot to make them tasty.
And, the newest addition, the probiotics DO work but you have to get your diet straight and it does take some time. I would highly recommend adding them to your diet. I'm using Garden of Life Mood+ 50 billion with multiple strains. Look for something with Lactobacillus rhamnosus and B. longum in it and refrigerated. If you take an antibiotic or use certain laxatives, you'll kill the intestinal flora and have to supplement again from scratch. Expect some stomach/bowel issues when you first start as your internals fight out the new invasion. When I first started them, I took them only in the afternoon so that I wouldn't have issues during the work day.
Eat foods with MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) too --coconut oil, red palm oil, olive oil --to help feed your brain. Increase green leafy things. Decrease cereal grains and drop as much sugar as you can. Look, you don't have to stop completely, but there's big links now to sugar/starch consumption and Alzheimer's/body inflammation issues. I don't know about you, but Alzheimer's scares the beejezus out of me. The idea of being in a state where memories from my past are more vivid than current reality is terrifying. I will do just about anything to forestall or decrease risk of that.
I also find that stopping to take time and walk in a quiet natural area works to help my stress levels. Either a walk in the local woods or down by the ocean, both seem to be calming. I'm trying to keep it in a daily routine. I'm trying to increase friendships and links with people, but, well, that's really hard. I am solitary yet weirdly in need of people around me. Don't mistake friendship for your therapist. Keep topics off of politics, religion, and your mental health issues. That's hard and it makes them curious why you sometimes are really distant. People understand that depression can cause distance. They do not understand PTSD and most are afraid of it. I usually stick with "depression" and don't ever mention PTSD. My spouse and family know. One older friend knows. The rest have no idea.
All of that sounds like hokum or "crunchy granola stuff" but the vitamins, enforced sleep, daily walks, cleaned-up-diet works well. I still have anxiety issues, but not many flashbacks these days. And it's manageable.
Sleep is first. You need it. Even if you have to take a sleeping aid to get it. All of us are terrified of sleeping. We don't sleep well when we sleep. I get that. I don't sleep well at night myself, but if I'm still awake at midnight, I'll take something to knock me out. Make your bedroom a safe zone. Lock the pets out because they rouse you and can allow your half-awake self to slip into nightmares. Get rid of clutter there. Stop drinking caffeine after about 4pm.
Vitamin D is a major pillar here. I get depressed when my Vitamin D is low. Suicidal, with weird body pains. It's a lot worse in the winter. Magnesium is added for the Vitamin D uptake.
Vitamin B12/B6/Folic acid is a heavy lifter to restore nerve/brain function. I found my ability to hold things in memory increased enough that I could tackle grad school again when I'd been supplementing for a while. You need the D3 with it for best absorption.
Fish oil repairs nerve sheathing.
I only supplement with Fish Oil, Vitamin D3, Vitamin B12/B6/Folic Acid, Magnesium, and the occasional Vitamin E or Vitamin K. The B12 supplement/Fish Oil/Vitamin D3 combination has been amazing and brought my head back into focus. I take 1000 IU of B12 (yes, that's a lot, 2000 IU altogether) once in the morning, once in the evening, sublingual. I take 3 fish oil capsules a day with each capsule at 360 mg DHA and 140 mg EPA (1,080 mg DHA & 420 mg EPA total). I take 5000-7000 IU D3 daily. I also take two 250 mg magnesium tablets with the Vitamin D3. For those of you saying, "that's a lot of Vitamin D!" my answer is 'not really.' I'm 50ish, overweight still (but working on that), sedentary enough (working on that too), and celiac. For each of those factors, you have to add in another serving of the Vitamin D, so that would be 8000 IU. I have absorption issues, so this is what I've found works for me. And it works well. So, your mileage may vary. I also have flirted with taking CoQ10 and Lion's Mane mycellium, which both help, but the heavy lifting is that triple combo outlined above (B12/D3/Fish oil). The magnesium is to make sure the Vitamin D gets taken up.
If I start craving cinnamon, I will add a Vitamin K for a couple of days until the cinnamon cravings die back, but that's not often enough to put into the daily routine. Lion's Mane mycellium does amazing things, but you have to take so much of it and keep steady on it a while to see the difference. I take 3-6 g per day, that's 6-12 capsules of Paul Stamets' Host Defense line because I know that Paul maintains his products. It's still an inexact science on these things. It's just a hassle and the other straight vitamins work for me well enough. I don't usually take Lion's Mane now, but I did for a while to boost some of the memory issues. I'd love to know what the active mechanism is in Lion's Mane mushroom. Fresh Lion's Mane mushrooms taste like hard chewy cauliflower, and I find I need to brown them a lot to make them tasty.
And, the newest addition, the probiotics DO work but you have to get your diet straight and it does take some time. I would highly recommend adding them to your diet. I'm using Garden of Life Mood+ 50 billion with multiple strains. Look for something with Lactobacillus rhamnosus and B. longum in it and refrigerated. If you take an antibiotic or use certain laxatives, you'll kill the intestinal flora and have to supplement again from scratch. Expect some stomach/bowel issues when you first start as your internals fight out the new invasion. When I first started them, I took them only in the afternoon so that I wouldn't have issues during the work day.
Eat foods with MCTs (medium chain triglycerides) too --coconut oil, red palm oil, olive oil --to help feed your brain. Increase green leafy things. Decrease cereal grains and drop as much sugar as you can. Look, you don't have to stop completely, but there's big links now to sugar/starch consumption and Alzheimer's/body inflammation issues. I don't know about you, but Alzheimer's scares the beejezus out of me. The idea of being in a state where memories from my past are more vivid than current reality is terrifying. I will do just about anything to forestall or decrease risk of that.
I also find that stopping to take time and walk in a quiet natural area works to help my stress levels. Either a walk in the local woods or down by the ocean, both seem to be calming. I'm trying to keep it in a daily routine. I'm trying to increase friendships and links with people, but, well, that's really hard. I am solitary yet weirdly in need of people around me. Don't mistake friendship for your therapist. Keep topics off of politics, religion, and your mental health issues. That's hard and it makes them curious why you sometimes are really distant. People understand that depression can cause distance. They do not understand PTSD and most are afraid of it. I usually stick with "depression" and don't ever mention PTSD. My spouse and family know. One older friend knows. The rest have no idea.
All of that sounds like hokum or "crunchy granola stuff" but the vitamins, enforced sleep, daily walks, cleaned-up-diet works well. I still have anxiety issues, but not many flashbacks these days. And it's manageable.
