Today I’m sharing my At Home Neurotransmitter Testing Before and After so you can see what changed and how I changed it!
If you followed along my journey with chronic EBV, Hashimotos, Lyme, breast implant illness, and living in mold, you know I did just about everything under the sun to treat these conditions. From acupuncture to supplements to meditation to antibiotics, I tried it all. And when I was living in mold most recently (2018-2019), I was on upwards of 40 supplements to help bind and detox the mycotoxins. Unfortunately, I was rarely able to leave my bed or house for long.
As you can imagine between bone and nerve pain, other myalgias, fatigue, dizziness, nervous system dysfunction, migraines, attention disruption, and weakness – I began to experience anxiety and depression as well. It’s not uncommon of course to have shifts in mental wellness when a person is ill (and vice versa). But my primary symptoms had been physical, and so I continued to try to treat them specifically.
After months of detoxing, sweating, earthing, binding, and trying to purge mold toxins from my system (all backed up with mycotoxin urine testing), I knew I had to be making progress but did not feel better. As a last ditch effort, I started researching how elevating endorphins and neurotransmitters might help with physical pain and other symptoms. That’s when I dug more deeply into meditation and revisited my neuroplasticity work. I had done DNRS in the past and picked it back up along with the Gupta Program. You can read about my experiences with those HERE.
But I was very ill and I suspected I’d need additional assistance. I decided to run my neurotransmitters to get a baseline of what I was dealing with’ and after seeing the results (down below), you can see I was in bad shape.
Not great right?! I mean out of 9 readings, I had TWO come back in range. Woof. I had my work cut out for me. I decided I would indeed continue my meditation and Gupta work, but that I wanted to see if I could employ the help of an SSRI to help as well; at least temporarily.
I decided on Zoloft as it is a long-trusted SSRI that has been in circulation for many years. I did not enter into a relationship with Zoloft easily, in fact I had a lot of hesitation after having tried Paxil in the past (almost 2 decades ago). But I knew something had to give and my regular tricks were not working. So I started on the lowest dose of Zoloft in April 2019 just before we prepared to make another military move. You can read about my experience with Zoloft HERE. You can read more about my experience with mold HERE.
So here we are over 2 years later. We moved, we settled, we definitely did not have a low-stress 2020 or 2021 Summer (or Fall for that matter), but I am physically and emotionally in a much better place than I was when I first ran my neurotransmitters. I finally got around to running my labs again through Neurogistics and I was really interested to see the results. You can see down below the first round compared to my second round.
When I first saw all the red (again!) I thought, how could this be? I’m feeling so much better. I am higher functioning, I live a full and vibrant-ish life. What gives? So I looked closer. Six of the readings actually improved. That doesn’t mean they are all optimal or even in range, but they IMPROVED. GABA is closer to in-range, Histamine is in normal range, my Norepinephrine/Epinephrine ratio was brought into range, Norepinephrine is closer to in-range, and Serotonin is closer to in-range. Needless to say between the pandemic, moving, military retirement, the kids’ b’nai mitzvah, a close family loss to covid and now another gravely ill family member, stress has hardly disappeared. But I am in a place physically and emotionally that allows me to cope more effectively, even if life has not particularly gotten easier.
I have stayed on the lowest dose of Zoloft, 25mg, and have not needed to increase it. I’ve added in testosterone supplementation and increased my thyroid dosage as well. Piece by piece, I am working to optimize hormones as I fully *embrace* my mid-40s and all the gifts this age bracket brings. I will continue to work on this optimization but also am grateful that a combination of science (testing), science (lab-made medicine), and science (neuroplasticity) has gotten me to this place. The proof is tangible and I’m living it.
John Waddell says
Hi Jennifer:
Did you try the supplement’s that Neurogistics recommended to increase depressives and lower excitable’s?
Have to tested levels of ABV, Lyme and other viral antibodies before and after a 6 month period?
Funny thing about me running into your journey is there are a lot of parallel’s. Mold, EBV are two. Lyme is a nasty one. (thank you for posting results) Did you have any luck with plasticity programs? Note: Your should also get a neurotransmitter and hormone test from ZRT also. Its much more comprehensive. I suffer from ABV, Epstein Barr (in mid 300 range) HTP-5 brought my Serotonin back up to lower level of normal in about 90 days. Mold is being remediated by BIOCIDIN great product and Liposomal Glutathione. (knocked out the Ochratoxin in 30 days) and will now switch to Colostrum (bovine), Benonite Clay and Propalmannon for other nasties.
All of this needs to be done but the trauma of long term symptoms create fear and then ultimately we get stuck in a trauma loop. Limbic disorders are the main culprit and I feel this has to be dealt with or I will never feel right until I do. Getting stuck in fight or flight is in my opinion the greatest road block to normal.
predominantlypaleo says
Hi John, I did not use the supplements. After treating mold with 30+ supplements that go round, including some for mood, I decided to just go for the medication SSRI
John Waddell says
Sorry for typo’s Brain Fog. Lol
Laura says
Hi! You have a great blog. Congrats!!
I’m never tried antidepressants, even if sometimes I thought I really needed. So many people talking badly about them has made me be also against or afraid of them. After reading your blog and some other articles and studies about the brain amigdala, the Gupta method, postraumatic stress disorder and the lack of Delta dream I’m sure that’s what I have to fix besides taking Buhner protocol for Lyme and coinfeccions and colestiramin or green clay for mold to keep these under control.
Here in Spain psychiatrist say that serotonin and neurotransmitter in general are not reliable in blood test because in brain is another story.. I’m not sure if they are right about this, since I read your blog. Do psychiatrist in USA test for them in blood before giving prescription drugs?
Thanks so much for sharing.
predominantlypaleo says
They do not automatically test for them but you can ask integrative docs here to run them prior to starting meds if interested!
Watermeloen says
Hi Jen, I’m happy for your progress! Congrats for surviving all you have been through and never giving up on a better future.
Do you have any idea why the GABA reference range changed between the two tests? This makes it hard to say if GABA actually improved, or if the testing protocol just changed. This which would be interesting to me since I’m also combining brain retraining with Zoloft. And GABA is low for me (occasional benzodiazepines feel like a huge relief).