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Lyrica/Gaba questions- help, please?

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(To anyone who has already read this post on the Fibromyalgia-CFS

forum, apologies. I´m hoping to reach as many people as possible.)

 

I recently read about Lyrica being good for Fibro pain.

I´m currently taking D-ribose, which has helped the fatigue and pain

quite a bit. I would like to add the Lyrica, but we live in Spain,

and it would require finding a doctor who would prescribe it for me.

I have a couple of bottles of powdered GABA I bought awhile ago.

Does anyone know if that might work instead, and if so, how much

should I take? I also take Flexeril at night, to help me get stage 4

sleep.

My other question is about my 11 year-old daughter. For a long time

she hasn´t slept well, and has what appears to be restless leg

syndrome. She takes 1 5htp and 1 melatonin at night to get somewhat

better sleep, but even that doesn´t really do it. We have talked

about substituting stevia for refined sugar (she loves chocolate and

sweets in general) for awhile, to see if that might help. The

question is, could GABA help her sleep? She says that many nights

she can´t get to sleep because of racing thoughts in her head.

I don´t like having her take 5 htp or melatonin or anything else,

but I haven´t been able to come up with any better solutions...and

taking her to a pediatritian here wouldn´t be any different than

back in the States- she´d just be put on a bunch of drugs.

Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Elizabeth

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Drugs and nutrients are not interchangeable. It sounds like you are

kind of mixing and matching drugs and nutrients like they were the

same things. When taking pharmacueticals you are putting s chemical

substance into the body to suppress the symptom and when one takes

nutrients it is to correct an imbalance/deficiency so as to heal. The

chemicals would work at cross purposes to that aim. I suggest that you

read the message posted today on the same subject of restless legs. I

also suggest that you learn about using alternatives health

substances, like nutrients, hormones, etc. before giving them to your

child or yourself.

 

 

 

 

, " Elizabeth "

<chazepping> wrote:

>

> (To anyone who has already read this post on the Fibromyalgia-CFS

> forum, apologies. I´m hoping to reach as many people as possible.)

>

> I recently read about Lyrica being good for Fibro pain.

> I´m currently taking D-ribose, which has helped the fatigue and pain

> quite a bit. I would like to add the Lyrica, but we live in Spain,

> and it would require finding a doctor who would prescribe it for me.

> I have a couple of bottles of powdered GABA I bought awhile ago.

> Does anyone know if that might work instead, and if so, how much

> should I take? I also take Flexeril at night, to help me get stage 4

> sleep.

> My other question is about my 11 year-old daughter. For a long time

> she hasn´t slept well, and has what appears to be restless leg

> syndrome. She takes 1 5htp and 1 melatonin at night to get somewhat

> better sleep, but even that doesn´t really do it. We have talked

> about substituting stevia for refined sugar (she loves chocolate and

> sweets in general) for awhile, to see if that might help. The

> question is, could GABA help her sleep? She says that many nights

> she can´t get to sleep because of racing thoughts in her head.

> I don´t like having her take 5 htp or melatonin or anything else,

> but I haven´t been able to come up with any better solutions...and

> taking her to a pediatritian here wouldn´t be any different than

> back in the States- she´d just be put on a bunch of drugs.

> Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!

> Thanks in advance,

> Elizabeth

>

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To califpacific

 

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me.

I probaby should have given some more background in my post.

I worked as a cardio-pulmonary therapist in acute care settings for

over 7 years, and also worked as an EMT-Intermediate for a number of

years, before coming down with a full-blown case of what mainstream

medicine refers to as fibromyalgia.

While I was still working, I pored over medical texts and research

papers, wondering why we couldn´t find real solutions for our

patients instead of the often useless, sometimes dangerous drugs we

treated them with daily.

When I finally had to quit work and started seeing the

´specialists´, my heart sank. As with many other fibromyalgia

patients, I

was given a shopping list of pain killers, muscle relaxants,

antidepressants and sedatives.

To make a long story short, I spent the next 5 years learning

everything I could about this syndrome- possible etiologies,

alternative therapies, other people´s stories.

In the meantime, our daughter started having sleeping problems and

fatigue. The pediatricians, to their credit, realized there was a

problem but were unable to do anything to actually treat the cause.

Ashley´s father and I have always been careful about what we give

her; ironically, a lot more so than her own doctors. Our hope is to

find a naturopathic physician in our area, although so far, we

haven´t had any luck.

The decision to give her melatonin, 5htp, or passionflower/chamomile

tea was only after we did exhaustive research online, and concluded

that this was a better option than the drugs the pediatritians had

to offer.

I´m not sure I understand what you mean by drugs and nutrients not

being interchangeable. Often, pharmaceutical companies have their

labs analyze natural substances and come up with similar synthetic

compounds (e.g., white willow bark and aspirin). Lyrica appears to

be an anologue of GABA.

Regards,

Elizabeth

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Dear Elizabeth,

 

 

you wrote:

 

> " I´m not sure I understand what you mean by drugs and nutrients not

> being interchangeable. Often, pharmaceutical companies have their

> labs analyze natural substances and come up with similar synthetic

> compounds (e.g., white willow bark and aspirin). Lyrica appears to

> be an anologue of GABA. "

 

 

 

Drugs and natural substances are absolutely not interchangable. It

would take way to much effort and space here to try and " prove that "

to you here and would not be of any benefit to me or most of this

group and you are certainly welcome to believe what you wish, but this

group is based on the premise that they are not interchangable.

 

I will briefly say that the example that you use is not a valid

example. Aspirin is not the usual drug from Big Pharma. It is a

nonpatented substance that was made many, many years ago in the lab to be as

close to the active substance in white willow bark as possible. It was not

patented as far as I know. Almost all of the other drugs put out by the

pharmacuetical companies are initially patented and to be patented they must be

" unique " or a brand new compound and by definition that would mean other than

found in nature. A non natural substance. There is a big difference to our

bodies if their is even a very, very slight difference. It may look similar

chemically but our bodies see it as a completly different unnatural compound.

That usually spells toxicity to the human body. But how else are they going to

charge a couple of dollars a pill if they are not patented (unnatural).

 

A lot of times what they do is study the natural substance and then

change it slightly make it unique, so they can then patent it. One

such example is Saw Palmetto Berries that are very useful in the

treatment of Prostate enlargement and has no bad side effects.. The

drug company copy version which is similar to saw palmetto is the drug

Prosar which is no where near effective and has bad side effects.

 

A lot of other times they study he natural substance and realizing

that it could not be patented go completly in another direction to

suppress the symptom. An example would be that when someone is

deficient in magnesium (too much calcium) they will get high blood

pressure. Since magnesium is not patentable and to change it slighty

it will not work, they then came up with the drug " calcium channel

blocker " to artifically hold down or " block " too much calcium. Did it correct

the problem, no but it suppressed the symptom of high blood pressure. It did

cause further problems though like heart damage, early death, etc. There are

literally thousands of other examples.

 

 

From my readings and life experience I have come to the conclusion

(along with many other. ie experts, etc.) that they aren't even close

in effectiveness, safety, etc although they may be similar in chemical

stucture (close but not the same due to the patentability issue). What

I have found is that the drugs operate at cross purposes to nutrients

within the body.

 

If you really think that they are interchangable why not just take the

drugs and not bother looking for something natural?

 

 

 

As for your daughter, I suggest that you make sure that she has the

sufficient basic nutritional building blocks in her diet to make her

own 5htp and melatonin.

 

I suggest that you read an learn from our links list of sites and our archives

as well as our other message boards.

 

Frank

 

 

 

 

 

, " Elizabeth "

<chazepping> wrote:

>

> To califpacific

>

> Thanks for taking the time to get back to me.

> I probaby should have given some more background in my post.

> I worked as a cardio-pulmonary therapist in acute care settings for

> over 7 years, and also worked as an EMT-Intermediate for a number of

> years, before coming down with a full-blown case of what mainstream

> medicine refers to as fibromyalgia.

> While I was still working, I pored over medical texts and research

> papers, wondering why we couldn´t find real solutions for our

> patients instead of the often useless, sometimes dangerous drugs we

> treated them with daily.

> When I finally had to quit work and started seeing the

> ´specialists´, my heart sank. As with many other fibromyalgia

> patients, I

> was given a shopping list of pain killers, muscle relaxants,

> antidepressants and sedatives.

> To make a long story short, I spent the next 5 years learning

> everything I could about this syndrome- possible etiologies,

> alternative therapies, other people´s stories.

> In the meantime, our daughter started having sleeping problems and

> fatigue. The pediatricians, to their credit, realized there was a

> problem but were unable to do anything to actually treat the cause.

> Ashley´s father and I have always been careful about what we give

> her; ironically, a lot more so than her own doctors. Our hope is to

> find a naturopathic physician in our area, although so far, we

> haven´t had any luck.

> The decision to give her melatonin, 5htp, or passionflower/chamomile

> tea was only after we did exhaustive research online, and concluded

> that this was a better option than the drugs the pediatritians had

> to offer.

> I´m not sure I understand what you mean by drugs and nutrients not

> being interchangeable. Often, pharmaceutical companies have their

> labs analyze natural substances and come up with similar synthetic

> compounds (e.g., white willow bark and aspirin). Lyrica appears to

> be an anologue of GABA.

> Regards,

> Elizabeth

 

 

 

califpacific wrote:

 

Drugs and nutrients are not interchangeable. It sounds like you are

kind of mixing and matching drugs and nutrients like they were the

same things. When taking pharmacueticals you are putting s chemical

substance into the body to suppress the symptom and when one takes

nutrients it is to correct an imbalance/deficiency so as to heal. The

chemicals would work at cross purposes to that aim. I suggest that you

read the message posted today on the same subject of restless legs. I

also suggest that you learn about using alternatives health

substances, like nutrients, hormones, etc. before giving them to your

child or yourself.

 

 

 

 

, " Elizabeth "

<chazepping> wrote:

>

> (To anyone who has already read this post on the Fibromyalgia-CFS

> forum, apologies. I´m hoping to reach as many people as possible.)

>

> I recently read about Lyrica being good for Fibro pain.

> I´m currently taking D-ribose, which has helped the fatigue and pain

> quite a bit. I would like to add the Lyrica, but we live in Spain,

> and it would require finding a doctor who would prescribe it for me.

> I have a couple of bottles of powdered GABA I bought awhile ago.

> Does anyone know if that might work instead, and if so, how much

> should I take? I also take Flexeril at night, to help me get stage 4

> sleep.

> My other question is about my 11 year-old daughter. For a long time

> she hasn´t slept well, and has what appears to be restless leg

> syndrome. She takes 1 5htp and 1 melatonin at night to get somewhat

> better sleep, but even that doesn´t really do it. We have talked

> about substituting stevia for refined sugar (she loves chocolate and

> sweets in general) for awhile, to see if that might help. The

> question is, could GABA help her sleep? She says that many nights

> she can´t get to sleep because of racing thoughts in her head.

> I don´t like having her take 5 htp or melatonin or anything else,

> but I haven´t been able to come up with any better solutions...and

> taking her to a pediatritian here wouldn´t be any different than

> back in the States- she´d just be put on a bunch of drugs.

> Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!

> Thanks in advance,

> Elizabeth

>

 

 

>

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  • 4 weeks later...

, " Elizabeth "

<chazepping> wrote:

>

 

> My other question is about my 11 year-old daughter. For a long time

> she hasn´t slept well, and has what appears to be restless leg

> syndrome. She takes 1 5htp and 1 melatonin at night to get somewhat

> better sleep, but even that doesn´t really do it. We have talked

> about substituting stevia for refined sugar (she loves chocolate and

> sweets in general) for awhile, to see if that might help. The

> question is, could GABA help her sleep? She says that many nights

> she can´t get to sleep because of racing thoughts in her head.

> I don´t like having her take 5 htp or melatonin or anything else,

> but I haven´t been able to come up with any better solutions...and

> taking her to a pediatritian here wouldn´t be any different than

> back in the States- she´d just be put on a bunch of drugs.

> Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!

> Thanks in advance,

> Elizabeth

>

 

 

Dear Elizabeth,

 

Sorry, I meant to deal with this further for quite a while but

couldn't find your posting in the archives. leaves

something to be desired when searching there.

 

If the 5htp and melatonin help it may be an indication that she is in

need of niacin (and probably many other nutrients).

 

We get the amino acid tryptophan in our diet. It is converted to 5htp

as an interemediate step which can be converted further to serotonin

and the serotonin can be converted to melatonin. But when the body is

low on niacin, the tryptophan is used to make and is converted to

niacin first as that is the more pressing need biologically and so

there can be a resultant deficit of serotonin and melatonin. 5htp and

melatonin come from the same basic building blocks

 

 

Also if you supplement with melatonin for a long time, the body will

down regulate itself and stop producing sufficient melatonin on it's

own because it feels that it has a sufficient amount without the need

to make much more. When stopping the melatonin it may be necessary to

wean and taper the amount over time to allow the body to upregulate to

meet the need of producing melatonin on it's own once again.

 

Also in each step above of tryptophan to melatonin there are cofactors

needed in each step for the conversion so the person's diet need be a

healthy and varied one.

 

I would supplement with multiple small doses of niacin many times a

day, a very good multiple and a very good mineral supplement along

with a good intake of enzymes and amino acids.

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