I will describe here a complete deficiency therapy for anxiety disorder and panic attacks. It should work in almost every case, the exceptions will be neuroses resulting from specific conditions, such as hormonal disorders, or those resulting only from severe stress.
I am often asked “are there studies that have proven it works?” For some of them, yes. There are links in the chapter on vitamin deficiencies for thiamine, and another for zinc or lysine. In many cases, however, there are no such studies because simply no one has ever done them. It is known that people with neuroses have very low levels of, say, zinc, and it would be interesting to see what happens when we give them supplement. It has even been possible to “cure” animals by giving them this element. But to test it on humans? What for? Who would butcher the hen that lays the golden eggs? My friend has already spent several thousand on treating her neurosis and she is still sick. She hasn’t been cured. She continues to payy. If it turned out that in her case it would be enough to take a set of vitamins that cost $15, the whole medical industry would lose these thousands.
It’s not that there is some “conspiracy”, that someone is “hiding” something. The truth is much more brutal. We have the simple, iron law of economics. If it doesn’t pay to do something, it doesn’t get done. It doesn’t pay anyone to research vitamins because… they can’t be patented and sold. If some pharmaceutical company in the U.S. decides to check if this unfortunate zinc works, spends a few million dollars (that’s how much it costs) and announces “sure, it works, buy it from us!” then I in Poland can buy a kilogram of zinc sulfate for $2 and make a drinking solution out of it sufficient to cure a few hundred people. They will spend their money to prove that something works, but I will earn on it. So why should they pay? This is why vitamins are not tested.
Supplements in this group are often not the result of clear and unquestionable research. If such studies existed, they would probably be prescribed by a doctor. Instead, we really have a lot of research on animals, or ones where they detect deficiency in patients but don’t check if supplements actually help. You don’t have to spend millions of dollars to see if anxiety disorder patients have deficiencies, it can be done by any college student as their dissertation. And they do. Similarly, you can easily, for very little money, test whether a particular supplement helps animals. Only these “definitive” human studies are so expensive. I have chosen those things that are recommended by “alternative” doctors, but selecting them, rejecting what is an obvious attempt to scam and bilk patients, checking the others to see if there is any rationale for them, such as low blood levels in patients, animal studies.
Neurosis is generally the result of many different, intertwined factors. For example, it could be chronic stress at work, increasing conflict with a wife or husband, subclinical hypothyroidism, low levels of vitamin B6. Each of these factors separately is too weak to break a person, even if three of them appear, they are not enough. But when there are four, the disease hits full force. Removing even one of them can lead to healing.
To illustrate the power of this “synergy” I will describe a certain study done on rats. They were divided into three groups. One of them was poisoned with lead, at a dose that kills one in a hundred animals. And in fact, about 1 percent died. The second group was poisoned with mercury, at a similar dose, which again killed 1 percent. The third group received 2 poisons at the same time. In theory, 2 percent of the animals should have died. However, the synergistic effect of the two poisons killed all of them.
What I am getting at: over the years, when various people on the forum came to me, asking for help in fixing their anxiety disorder, I could observe a certain regularity. Hitting even one single nutritional deficiency made people heal, even if they had other diseases, deficiencies or e.g. very strong stress in their lives. Curing just one “problem” makes the others lose their strength. Research has shown that almost everyone suffering from anxiety neurosis has several serious deficiencies. This means that the following therapy should, in theory, work for the vast majority of sufferers, and this is what I’ve seen over the years.
But before you buy any supplement, you NEED to do some basic research. Many neurotics actually have serious health problems. Sometimes even supplementation will help them, because, for example, they will make up some deficiency not related to their disease, they will feel better. But the disease will progress. Moreover, some deficiencies require a specific approach, e.g. B12 or iron.
List of tests (all from blood):
- TSH, FT3, FT4 (in case of money problems only TSH)
- CBC + peripheral smear
- ferritin
- iron, calcium, magnesium (you can skip it if you cannot afford it), sodium, potassium, chlorides
- liver tests, bilirubin
- uric acid, creatinine
- B12 concentration
- fasting glucose
- In addition, a general urine test
If everything is OK, nothing is out of the norm or near the limit, you can proceed to therapy.
I have divided it into several phases, taking into account the price and the frequency of a given nutritional deficiency. At the beginning are the cheapest ones with the highest chance of working, and at the end are the most expensive or those that are longer. Nothing, of course, prevents you from doing everything at once.
It is very important to remember that a particular supplement will only work if we have that particular deficiency. Even a whole ton of omega 3 will not help with zinc deficiency, even a bucket of magnesium will not give us anything if we lack lysine. When “hitting” the problem, improvement is usually very rapid.
Where do we start:
Probably by reading the chapter on latent tetany and trying that first. It requires a specific approach and taking several things in parallel for there to be an effect. If it doesn’t help, we move on to phase one:
- Benfogamma 50 mg or B1 100 mg
- B6 50 mg (attention – it is better not to exceed the sum of 100 mg, it is worth checking how much is in magnesium and b complex)
- Simplest B complex, around 1000% of RDA
- Selenium 200% of the RDA (if it was not taken during latent tetany treatment)
- Zinc 30 mg divided into 2 portions
- potassium, which I discuss in more detail on the blog:
https://healthytreatment.org/2022/02/14/potassium-in-anxiety-disorders/
(phase 1 can be combined with phase 2 due to the low cost)
If after a few weeks there is no improvement and no change at all in how you feel, completely discontinue all of the above supplements and move on:
- chromium (preferably NOT in the form of chromium picolinate) 200-400 mcg
- taurine 2×1000 mg
When after another couple of weeks there is no improvement, you have to prepare yourself for a longer adventure with omega 3. Admittedly omegas are very effective and very often their deficiencies are the cause of neurosis, but unfortunately supplementation takes a very long time and is quite expensive.
- omega 3 2x1000mg EPA (you need to calculate how many capsules it will be)
- together with omegas you can take lecithin 15 grams or even 2×15 grams, not longer than a few months
- together with omegas 250 mg of uridine monophosphate, preferably sublingual
- 10-15 milliliters of evening primrose oil
In addition to this parallel you can try for a month:
- lysine 2 grams
- tryptophan 500 mg in the morning, 500 mg in the evening, drop tryptophan immediately if you have worsening of your condition
The omega therapy should be continued for at least several months (full supplementation takes up to a year), lysine and tryptophan will either help in a few weeks or not at all.