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Cutting out alcohol was probably the biggest one. The effects of alcohol on anxiety can last days for me. Low carbohydrate diets seem to really help as well f

Cutting out alcohol was probably the biggest one. The effects of alcohol on anxiety can last days for me. Low carbohydrate diets seem to really help as well for me. Minimizes highs and lows.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
Ethanol this will slow down NMDA receptor function by lowering NMDA receptor population density. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2158789/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2158789/ So the anxiety is your hangover and the NMDA receptor population density returns to normal.
- solarmist 4y ago
  This is interesting because I've only been able to get over my anxiety after being prescribed memantine for sensory/audio processing disorder (SPD/APD). Looking back I was constantly in a state of hyper-awareness that was so intense I couldn’t understand speech in real-time or move smoothly (keeping a beat took 100% concentration so I couldn’t learn an instrument) without total concentration. I also had hyper-sensitivity to touch. All this was from severe CPTSD growing up. Memantine is an NMDA uptake inhibitor (probably). But I don’t really know anything about what role NMDA plays.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    NMDA is a receptor, not a molecule. Memantine slows the amount of calcium that enters the NMDA receptor in a way similar to magneisum. Zicn also inhibits NMDA but by a different mechanism https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0028390807002298-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00283908070022... It is the calcium in the cell that triggers nerve excitement and oxidative stress that triggers the anxiety. I am over simplfying all of this. I have the opposite problem. I have slow NMDA receptor function but my Anxiety is caused by issues inside the neuron (NOS1). Magnesium gives me anxiety.It may be that my porr NMDA receptor function helps me a bit. Really the root cause is low Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate (cAMP) signaling in the neuron stemming from low Nitric Oxide or slow NMDA receptor function. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/2bc96085-ac06-4a3b-ad6a-f46bb5d9957a/jnc14903-fig-0009-m.png https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/2bc96085-ac06-4a3b... Klonopin and ethanol increase the flow of GABA into the cell and this
    - solarmist 4y ago
      Thank you for clarifying. I know a bit about the brain and brain chemistry, but I was unfamiliar with NMDA receptors. Unfortunately the rest of your explanation was too technical and I didn’t follow any of it. Can you explain what NMDA receptors are for and what the link to anxiety, in either direction, is? My anxiety wasn’t caused by this, but I was able to treat it because of the memantine. I just stopped memanitine a month ago after about 5 years and all the symptoms seem resolved now.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        You are saying that your anxiety was not casued my NMDA receptor changes, but it was. Traumatic events change the function and density of these receptors. https://www.nature.com/articles/1301605 https://www.nature.com/articles/1301605 NMDA receptors allow calcium into the neurons. The more calcium in a neuron the more excitable it is, like in hyper-arousal. By taking the memantine you allowed you possible grow more healthy neural pathways, away from the hypervigilance and towards calmness. I am assuning you have been in therapy?
        solarmist 4y ago
        Sure, on a technical level, but the cause of it, globally, was several layers up the abstraction stack. It feels like blaming the add and multiply instructions for poorly written firmware/software, especially since it resolved itself once I addressed the issues I listed below. Thank you for the paper. That's just the kind of thing I was hoping to find. The experience of going on memantine for the first time was like becoming in sync with my body for the first time that I could remember. My body, mind, and thoughts stopped being out of sync, like a video that wasn't streaming well. That allowed me to slow down (and not try to anticipate the ten different ways a conversation could go), stop rambling, and listen to what people were saying to me instead of what I expected them to say. I'm only seriously pursuing therapy now; hyper-independence is another symptom of my CPTSD. I learned all this by trial and error and reading ungodly amounts of self-help books (moving to psychology books lately), helping my wife through losing her parents at 21, and teaching my wife to work through her PTSD. What allowed me to be calm was learning to trust, at least to some extent, people again (which I didn't even realize was an issue) and learning to express my emotions (I had nearly total blocks on sadness and fear). Then slowly processing the traumatic events from my childhood. After I forced myself to cry about one event (the last time I cried as a child) and allowed myself to feel fear about things I couldn't control, my chronic anxiety faded, and now it is situational. I continue to work on the underlying causes of these distinct reactions. It is very difficult because fear of being like my dad or being poor drove me so hard for 20+ years to become a software engineer and make it into a top-tier company. Without that desperation, I have to relearn (learn?) how to live and do things.
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    I have a son diagnosed with autism, but I suspect that SPD/APD would be more accurate. How were you diagnosed and why was memantine prescribed?
    - solarmist 4y ago
      I was first diagnosed with ADHD in 2016 then a year later with ASD. Adderall helped a lot, but there were other symptoms that continued bothering me. Between me reading and learning more about my problems and working with my psychiatrist we tried many things. Having someone so reflective and motivated led him to be more experimental with treatments for me. Also, he was an ADHD specialist who started researching autism because he suspected his son was autistic too. That's how we tried memantine. It seems to help in a small percentage of APD/SPD cases, but no one knows how or why. This thread was how I found a hypothesis for why it worked for me. Six years after I first started memantine.
      - biomcgary 4y ago
        Having an engaged healthcare / mentalcare provider makes a huge difference! I'm going to run memantine past my son's doctor, who is also quite engaged.

Cutting out alcohol was probably the biggest one. The effects of alcohol on anxiety can last days for me. Low carbohydrate diets seem to really help as well for me. Minimizes highs and lows.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

Ethanol this will slow down NMDA receptor function by lowering NMDA receptor population density. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2158789/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2158789/ So the anxiety is your hangover and the NMDA receptor population density returns to normal.

solarmist 4y ago
This is interesting because I've only been able to get over my anxiety after being prescribed memantine for sensory/audio processing disorder (SPD/APD). Looking back I was constantly in a state of hyper-awareness that was so intense I couldn’t understand speech in real-time or move smoothly (keeping a beat took 100% concentration so I couldn’t learn an instrument) without total concentration. I also had hyper-sensitivity to touch. All this was from severe CPTSD growing up. Memantine is an NMDA uptake inhibitor (probably). But I don’t really know anything about what role NMDA plays.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  NMDA is a receptor, not a molecule. Memantine slows the amount of calcium that enters the NMDA receptor in a way similar to magneisum. Zicn also inhibits NMDA but by a different mechanism https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0028390807002298-gr1.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00283908070022... It is the calcium in the cell that triggers nerve excitement and oxidative stress that triggers the anxiety. I am over simplfying all of this. I have the opposite problem. I have slow NMDA receptor function but my Anxiety is caused by issues inside the neuron (NOS1). Magnesium gives me anxiety.It may be that my porr NMDA receptor function helps me a bit. Really the root cause is low Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate (cAMP) signaling in the neuron stemming from low Nitric Oxide or slow NMDA receptor function. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/2bc96085-ac06-4a3b-ad6a-f46bb5d9957a/jnc14903-fig-0009-m.png https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/2bc96085-ac06-4a3b... Klonopin and ethanol increase the flow of GABA into the cell and this
  - solarmist 4y ago
    Thank you for clarifying. I know a bit about the brain and brain chemistry, but I was unfamiliar with NMDA receptors. Unfortunately the rest of your explanation was too technical and I didn’t follow any of it. Can you explain what NMDA receptors are for and what the link to anxiety, in either direction, is? My anxiety wasn’t caused by this, but I was able to treat it because of the memantine. I just stopped memanitine a month ago after about 5 years and all the symptoms seem resolved now.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      You are saying that your anxiety was not casued my NMDA receptor changes, but it was. Traumatic events change the function and density of these receptors. https://www.nature.com/articles/1301605 https://www.nature.com/articles/1301605 NMDA receptors allow calcium into the neurons. The more calcium in a neuron the more excitable it is, like in hyper-arousal. By taking the memantine you allowed you possible grow more healthy neural pathways, away from the hypervigilance and towards calmness. I am assuning you have been in therapy?
      - solarmist 4y ago
        Sure, on a technical level, but the cause of it, globally, was several layers up the abstraction stack. It feels like blaming the add and multiply instructions for poorly written firmware/software, especially since it resolved itself once I addressed the issues I listed below. Thank you for the paper. That's just the kind of thing I was hoping to find. The experience of going on memantine for the first time was like becoming in sync with my body for the first time that I could remember. My body, mind, and thoughts stopped being out of sync, like a video that wasn't streaming well. That allowed me to slow down (and not try to anticipate the ten different ways a conversation could go), stop rambling, and listen to what people were saying to me instead of what I expected them to say. I'm only seriously pursuing therapy now; hyper-independence is another symptom of my CPTSD. I learned all this by trial and error and reading ungodly amounts of self-help books (moving to psychology books lately), helping my wife through losing her parents at 21, and teaching my wife to work through her PTSD. What allowed me to be calm was learning to trust, at least to some extent, people again (which I didn't even realize was an issue) and learning to express my emotions (I had nearly total blocks on sadness and fear). Then slowly processing the traumatic events from my childhood. After I forced myself to cry about one event (the last time I cried as a child) and allowed myself to feel fear about things I couldn't control, my chronic anxiety faded, and now it is situational. I continue to work on the underlying causes of these distinct reactions. It is very difficult because fear of being like my dad or being poor drove me so hard for 20+ years to become a software engineer and make it into a top-tier company. Without that desperation, I have to relearn (learn?) how to live and do things.
- biomcgary 4y ago
  I have a son diagnosed with autism, but I suspect that SPD/APD would be more accurate. How were you diagnosed and why was memantine prescribed?
  - solarmist 4y ago
    I was first diagnosed with ADHD in 2016 then a year later with ASD. Adderall helped a lot, but there were other symptoms that continued bothering me. Between me reading and learning more about my problems and working with my psychiatrist we tried many things. Having someone so reflective and motivated led him to be more experimental with treatments for me. Also, he was an ADHD specialist who started researching autism because he suspected his son was autistic too. That's how we tried memantine. It seems to help in a small percentage of APD/SPD cases, but no one knows how or why. This thread was how I found a hypothesis for why it worked for me. Six years after I first started memantine.
    - biomcgary 4y ago
      Having an engaged healthcare / mentalcare provider makes a huge difference! I'm going to run memantine past my son's doctor, who is also quite engaged.