Supplements will not offer alleviation for acute symptoms, like what I call "meds" can offer. This is old, so I hope your doctor visit went well, and he or she directed you to low cost options available for the uninsured. We did that for two years. :-P
If you are on meds, be sure the prescribing doctor, and your therapist, and your psychiatrist all know exactly what supplements you are taking, and the game plan you have fir their use.
Supplements work over the long term. I give a supplement two months before I definitively say this or that is the maximum improvement I am going to get.
Before you start chucking random hormones and herbals down your throat, start with the basics. Many, many people are short on the B vitamins, and D3, plus magnesium. I started a course of B50 (a complex formula with 50 mg of each vitamin), D3, and a balance Cal/Mag/Zinc with my doctor's approval, on the advice of the therapist.
I also started pilates, yoga, and using a neti pot to clean out my sinuses. All these have to do with breathing. Oxygen is a wonderful thing. :D
Pilates does not have to be strenuous. I have only been doing five floor exercises and a couple of standing. I only do two yoga poses, both to help drain my sinuses after using the neti.
Fish oil is awesome if you can get it in. I know all the pills start piling up. Check the label because for mood therapy you need 900 EPA. Costco is the least expensive way to reach this goal. My therapist was really, really big on this.
After this, it is a bit of a potluck. I can tell you what to avoid.
Resist the temptation to use any kind of herb advertised to boost mood.Most of these will be like bulldozing the drive, asphalt and all, in front of the snowblower.
SAM-E is one of my favorite meds. I take it for inflammation and other things. It's a terrific mood med, too, if you have an issue with your -get-up-and-go. But for me, when I was combining it with high doses of Welbutrin, yikes. It was like someone turned on all the anxiety taps at once. Bipolar people are supposed to avoid it too.
Try to avoid "natural" sleep herbals, too. A lot of them have valerian and other sedative herbs. I have an herbal combination that is okay by my doctor that is a couple of muscle relaxants, melatonin, a low dose of valerian (I just take a half instead of a whole valium) and some synergistic vitamins and minerals. Melatonin has been okayed by my doctor for me.
Weight loss herbals are almost always diuretics. These increase your metabolism and cause anxiety.
I focus on keeping the rest of my body in tune. I'm on a mostly,ish :D vegetarian diet, so i have to watch protein intake. A whole bunch of your health starts in the digestive system. So I do a bit to promote happiness there. I have psoriasis so I address that. It seems like when my body is happy, my brain tends to work in more constructive directions.
