Oxytocin Anyone?

[Chava]

I'm fascinated by this...and how the lack of seems to possibly connect to some of my stuff (particularly inability to connect with others or have good feelings through human connection, but also my pain stuff). So of course I just want a pill to fix it! :wacky:

It's hard for me to even enjoy contact with my pets (poor guys...helps that they are very good friends and make up for my lack, but I do snuggle and pet often, just only for seconds throughout the day). Humans....goodness....I feel very detached but it's hard to work on because it's like I don't even have the muscles for it. I loath eye contact and I feel a bubble around myself when around others. I don't know how far I can "improve" in this area and I'm not sure what helps (I can't tolerate massage...but am okay with light directive touch, such as in Pilates classes, so maybe that counts for something).

I have complex trauma, across life, but we seem to be at the level of very early trauma in therapy....frozen states and lots of detachment/attachment stuff. I don't know how much can be fixed. I was a sick fetus, sick baby, stayed in the hospital for a long time, and my mom was not very well (her own trauma history that she didn't want to deal with = stressed, cold, detached and I know later raging-terrorizing-abusive...I suspect dissociated in these times because of how her eyes were), and I was hospitalized again in later childhood...in a clinic far away from my family for special PICU services. And I never felt safe around my mom anyway, so anybody could have just adopted me at the hospital and it would have probably made little difference to me at the time...my warm fuzzy feelings never really developed. My best memories from childhood were moments when I was all by myself.

If I'm somehow deficient in oxytocin can I make up for it? Has anyone taken it as a medication and does it help...or does it only help short term? I read that it could help with connections with people you already know, but also increase defenses towards strangers. I also don't know if my GP could prescribe or if I'd need a psychiatrist (yucky experiences with them). All the basic meds have not worked well at all for me (SSRIs, SNRIs, NRIs, my doc won't give me benzos :meh:, some anti-psychotic I don't remember). I'm interested in less traditional meds, and even any experience with meds that help in connection to really early trauma, disconnection and addiction stuff. I'm also interested in naltrexone. Gabapentin is a little helpful for pain and also feeling more relaxed and a tiny bit able to connect.

Ideally, I'd like no meds...but if there is something in my brain that could benefit from the right nudge and help me connect better, I'd try it. I say that even though I hate meds. My level of detachment is just pretty deep and lifelong.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

The common Rx kind of Oxytocin (Pitocin among others) is an injectible/IV drug given in hospitals and such. I think if you want it in pill form, you have to go to a compounding pharmacy? And I'm not sure how you'd find a psychiatrist who was that progressive that would prescribe it? I sort of doubt that any GP would write such a script, since they tend to be more on the conservative side and don't as readily prescribe things that are outside their comfort zone of general health.

You can get so called Oxytocin sprays (nasal) but they are dubious at best, and ALL of the websites for them read of "made for TV" crap. That is, you're likely to not get much or any actual Oxytocin in those sprays because they are supplements that are not regulated by the FDA. I looked up one of the sprays and its full of all sorts of other junk. The truth about nasal sprays is that a bunch of that crap WILL cross the BBB and do you really want all that stuff in your brain?!? Even my anatomy professor said to forgo the nasal sprays (for vaccines and such) because you don't want that stuff in your brain. (She is a microbiologist.)

You say you've tried all of the Rx meds, but have you branched out and tried other supplements as well? I started supplementing with Amino Acids and am shocked at how much better I am doing in such a short amount of time. Apparently, from my research, your body gets small amounts of certain amino acids in your diet, but stress can deplete these levels, and its impossible to build them back up with diet alone. (A therapist suggested AA supplementation to me a few years ago, but I didn't listen at the time. Turns out she was right, about it and a few other key factors in my healing.) And I say this as someone who is supposedly "drug resistant" and has tried dozens of different meds that haven't helped in the least.

 

[Chava]

You say you've tried all of the Rx meds, but have you branched out and tried other supplements as well?

Thanks...I do take some supplements. One I suspected I run low on and might benefit from is tryptophan. I ordered some, but then read that it can cause liver damage (and my liver is quite stressed out).

The truth about nasal sprays is that a bunch of that crap WILL cross the BBB and do you really want all that stuff in your brain?!?

Honestly? Sort of yes.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

The carriers can be damaging to the brain..... Not sure why you want that stuff running amok up there?

 

[joeylittle]

I started supplementing with Amino Acids and am shocked at how much better I am doing in such a short amount of time.

Can you recommend some good reading material on this? I've really been wondering about it lately, but don't even know where to start. Since you've got a process that's working for you, I'm curious where you found it, etc.

If I'm somehow deficient in oxytocin can I make up for it? Has anyone taken it as a medication and does it help...or does it only help short term?

Boy, the studies on this one are all over the place at the moment. It seems that after a quick rush of 'oh, wait, this does something other than induce contractions' - there are now some more sobering observations on how it may be a dual-acting hormone, which means it can either enhance attraction or fear, which means they don't know what creates the context for which, including how it relates to the rest of the neurology.

I'll keep looking around, seeing what else is out there. I think you would need someone progressive to prescribe it. It can be gotten in pill form (pitocin) - but there are just no protocols (it seems) for how to dose it, except for in childbirth situations.

 

[Chava]

dual-acting hormone, which means it can either enhance attraction or fear, which means they don't know what creates the context for which, including how it relates to the rest of the neurology.

Chances are I'd be terrified of everyone. :meh:

I think you would need someone progressive to prescribe it.

Well, that won't happen in my clinic.

It is interesting. Supposedly I should join a choir. I will keep working on the eye contact stuff and just trying to get closer to good connections (though I've been saying that and really... :banghead:....)

 

[ihateusernames]

I don't really have any answers for you, but I have had some thoughts about this, too.

I'm not a touchy-feely person, never have been. Sexual activity often gives me a headache. (That didn't used to keep me from avoiding it, but now I avoid it like the plague, too :/) I became physically ill from the oxytocin release during breastfeeding and had to give it up. I have read that this may be similar to the mechanism involved in HG, which I had for 7 months, and which has also been linked to PTSD. I never gave it a first thought until after I had my child and discovered that let down made me barf, which happens to like, nobody else :( and I never considered I might have any form of PTSD until just months ago so I haven't researched it any further than that. It seems almost like I'm not just deficient, I'm allergic to it. LOL. That's nuts.

On the other hand, I also was given steadily increasing amounts of pitocin for about 35 hours. Most of that time is a haze of staring at the wall and counting, but I don't think I had any nausea outside of the norm during that time, or any unexpected side effects. Tons of water retention after, though. Who knows.

 

[Chava]

It seems almost like I'm not just deficient, I'm allergic to it. LOL. That's nuts.

Thanks for sharing all of this. Wouldn't surprise me if my body didn't know what to do with it either. Sorry I'm a bit naïve, but what is HG? And I assume the steady dosing of Pitocin was for inducing labor??? My mom was induced and it wasn't good because I wasn't ready but I was also struggling a lot before birth so was not having it good either way. It was a mess.

 

[ihateusernames]

Don't worry about it ;), it's my fault. There's probably no reason you should know what I was talking about. Hyperemesis in pregnancy. It's extreme "morning" sickness where you can't keep anything down at all. Another one of those things that happens to practically nobody else... well, except apparently Kate Middleton. So I guess she and I are freaks (it's not actually that rare, just not very common). And yes, the pitocin was for inducing labor. I went into labor naturally, just a few weeks early so they didn't try to stop it. But it never progressed on its own.

Then I kind of wonder- and this is my completely unscientific guess- if whatever it is might be passed down somehow. My mom is also withdrawn and stand-offish. She also had the same birth scenario with me as I had with my son; first child, water broke, non progressive labor, induction, baby stuck in pelvis, emergency c-section. And if your mom had to be induced and had her own trauma history, maybe something similar was going on there, too.

My brain is not working well enough to actually complete the connection, though. :p

 

[Chava]

Thanks for clarification (I know very little about pregnancy since I've never been pregnant myself).

Then I kind of wonder- and this is my completely unscientific guess- if whatever it is might be passed down somehow.

It's interesting. There are definitely some patterns in my family. They seem to end with me (I won't have kids). So I was swimming in fake hormones and forced to be born before I was fully developed, then left at the hospital. Sounds like oxytocin epic fail, nevermind all the later stuff.

I originally came across the hormone/drug in some stuff on attachment disorders that I saw. Then I saw a documentary where one doc said MDMA (crystal ecstasy) could be used for PTSD and will probably evolve into medication within coming years. Of course every med has its drawbacks. I'd just be so interested to try this, just to "feel" if this is the void or missing thing. And I'm not normally like this...hate meds. But I'm really getting closer to my nearly intractable defaults in therapy and very curious about what can still change or what I'm stuck with.

 

[ihateusernames]

Yeah, it's that way in my family. There's a part of me that wants to trace a lot of things back to my grandmother. She grew up with a raging, alcoholic, physically abusive, spouse battering father and they were also dirty poor and starving. So considerably adverse environment. I wouldn't doubt that some transferable thing in her was physically altered. Mainly because nothing my mother or aunts and uncles say would indicate that they had a bad upbringing or that anything traumatic happened to them, yet, my mother shows a lot of signs of-- something. She did marry my father, and stayed in an abusive, degrading relationship for 15 years, but I think she did that because of her pre-existing problems. Not the other way around. It probably happens a lot that way. Hell, there's probably literature on it and I just haven't read it.

But I'm really getting closer to my nearly intractable defaults in therapy and very curious about what can still change or what I'm stuck with.

But I'm nowhere near this point so for all I know every maladaptive thing I do and think is learned behavior and can be changed.

I'm pretty anti-meds, and completely anti-recreational drugs for myself, but I don't know what I would/wouldn't try in your situation.