I've been taking 5-htp for 2 months now. So, I am familiar with its effects. I took it for a mood lift, and to see if it would help me sleep. I took 50mg once every other day usually, but it varied. Here are some observations of more immediate effects:
Mood lift- yes, it seems to reverse depressed feelings, and lower anxiety
Sleep- seems to induce a light sleepiness that lasts about 2 hours (50mg), increased dreaming is recalled.
Anxiety- lowers anxiety short term
Decreased Appetite- this is what a lot of 5-htp is sold for. Yes, an undesired effect of low appetite and slight upset stomach were noticed up to 6 hours after taking it.
Drug interactions- weed: increases high significantly. 2C-I taken 8 hours after: increased euphoria. 100mg taken 4 hours after mdma helped make a smoother comedown. GBL, alcohol: not a good combo. Increased sedation, less euphoria.
After being on it for 3 weeks (50mg once a day), I noticed if I hadn't taken it for 2 days, I would feel depressed, anxious, and lousy, definately more so than normal. I still notice this, even if I just missed 1 day now. The body relies on the external source, and that doesn't sound good.
I will keep taking it, right now it is 75mg once a day. This morning I woke up feeling terrible and anxious. But, I took a 5-htp to experiment, and 2 hours later I felt fine.
Be careful taking it long term. I will probably quit soon, I feel almost dependent on it. It works 100x better than SSRI's like paxil and celexa in my opinion. Those drugs only caused me problems.
I was looking up info on 5-htp, and found a vitamin store selling it. Theyre recommended dosage was 100mg 3X a day. This pissed me off, how greedy and inconsiderate they are. Doing that for a while would definately mess with my brain. The recommended dosage on the bottle I have is 50mg once a day, or 75mg once a day. This even may be too much after a while.
