No More Intestines= No More Seratonin!

As far back as I can remember, I have never laid all day in bed. Even after surgeries, the anesthetists are always like "holy shit" when I sit up in bed and start talking, grab my IV pole and walk on outta there to start making the rounds. Even when I've had the flu, I've generally lugged myself about enough to make it to the water closet, to the kitchen, to the couch, and back to bed.

I've never been one of those people that's been bored, either. I never used to wake up with nothing to do: I always wanted to write that day, no matter what day it was, even birthdays. I never woke without a purpose.

This year has been a pile of feces slowly dissolving into a pile of corpse exudate. Just when I think it cant get any worse; oh it does, and then some, and then some more. And the rock bottom always sinks ever lower and lower.

Some of this is due to moving four times within the year and losing some of my most important and much beloved items. Some of it has to do with Gastroparisis, and losing so much potassium I blacked out for an entire day, apparently screaming lying on the kitchen floor while hazing seizure after seizure.

But even being borderline depressed my entire life,  I have never before experienced such a lack of energy and apathy that I cannot even move out of bed, don't even look at the Internet, read, or write. I just lie there. Just. Lie. There. Like a dead thing--and likely smelling and looking like one too.

This is related to iliostomies how?
Serotonin.

Where is fancy bred; in the heart or in the head? Serotonin is created in the gut and in the head, and if you are missing a large portion of your intestines, such as for an ileostomy, you are not already making enough serotonin to 'block' in the synapse. As the US Library of Medicine & National Institutes of Heath says: "the predominant site of serotonin synthesis, storage, and release is the enterochromaffin cells of the intestinal mucosa. Within the intestinal mucosa, serotonin released from EC cells activates neural reflexes associated with intestinal secretion, motility, and sensation."

As my apathy and depression, insomnia, and suicidal panic grew worse, no one thought to tell me that without my large intestine creating seratonin, this shit happens. I was put on an SSRI, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, Mirtazapine, a med to help both peeps with Gastroparisis and to help with my moods. It made me worse than before, and every day I felt like I had a hangover and couldn't even look at the sun or roll out of bed. My husband was carrying me to the water closet at this point, and again, the lackluster care of a shrugging physchologist left me floundering. With much research both on my husband and mothers side (both of them in the medical field, anyway), we discovered  5HTP.

5HTP has been used for 40 plus years in Europe and is safe as a fucking fluffy bunny that gives you no alergies, wont bite, and just wants to cuddle with gentle fluffy rainbow kisses. Actually, it's much safer than SSRIs, which can lead to 'seratonin syndrome' (a nasty bit of business, there) and for which everyone and their Dr admits takes mutiple trial and errors for years before the 'right' combination of drugs are found. It will not fuck your system up and make you fat, you wont feel tired from it, you wont have any type of reaction or side-effect.
 Don't take it if you're already on a antidepressant, because you gotta wean off that shit completely before you start another thing, dig?

 I love how on WebMd, some little asshole writing for big Pharma bashes it and makes baseless, false claims of how it's unsafe, just because Big Fucking Pharma can't regulate and sell it. Haha, assholes!

Now, I haven't been taking it long enough to know if it will help me, but it will, though it takes months to really get it in the ol' bloodstream.

In any case, this is just soemthing else to watch out for if you're an ileostomate. If you start feeling increasingly lethargic, depressed, have no appetite, can't concentrate, and generally feel like a pile of shit, this was be your problem.