Re: Brain atrophy (shrinkage). HELP.

I'm going to ask you to think outside the box for a moment.

I'm not suggesting that I know what factors are involved in your situation, but I'll share a few leads I've heard have been helpful to others.

Are you trying to self-medicate the anxiety and Depression with alcohol?

Besides the obvious use of medications for anxiety and depression, you could take vitamins, minerals, etc that the body needs to make its natural anti-anxiety and anti- Depression chemicals.

Magnesium is at the top of the list of things to try since it is involved in production of brain chemicals related to both symptoms.

Epsom Salt is magnesium sulfate. some like the more subtle effect of a foot bath rather than full bath. Sulfate is involved in the natural break down of a group of chemicals associated with focus and attention. In excess they are associated with anxiety/panic.

You could take things that the body uses to repair the brain.

The "stuff" in fish oil is used in brain repair. It has mild mood stabilizing properties.

The stuff in lecithin is used to make the brains primary memory chemical, acetylcholine. It also helps with brain repair.

Btw. You can see in the following video from the U. of Calgary one way mercury damages brain cells and probably contributes to what is known as Alzheimers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDnfeIwd0wI

The circles under the eyes might be due to stress on your liver, possibly sulfation pathway. The trace mineral molybdenum is involved in production of sulfate and I hear it is also involved in breakdown of acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a by-product of alcoholic beverages and candida/yeast. Molybdenum is in most multi vitamins.

Various B vitamins will likely be useful to you, but when mood problems are present, I think it is important if not critical to take supplements 3 or 4 times a day. This keeps blood levels fairly stable and so production and break down of various mood related chemicals remains fairly stable. You might purchase a B50 tablet and cut it in quarters. A quarter of it with each meal might be reasonable.

A. Cutler thinks it is helpful for people to take magnesium several times per day for similar reasons.

Be careful what you eat, especially in the evening when you need to settle down to sleep. You want to eat calming foods, not exciting ones. You don't want to be tempted to use alcohol to help with sleep. There is much more available on this if requested.

I like books by Dr Daniel Amen on using supplements and diet to help with mood. You could get a inexpensive used copy of "Change Your Brain, Change Your Body" on the net. If you have a Christian background you'll likely appreciate the angle Amen presents in "Healing the Hardware of the Soul".

Obviously people can be trying to self medicate "wounds of the heart" with alcohol. However it can be difficult for medical professionals to sort out the psychological influences from the physiological ones.

For example a close friend had a tough childhood due to alcoholic mother. She was a victim of a violent crime while a teen. She had anxiety, fatigue, depression, brain fog, etc!

It was understandable for her many counselors, psychiatrist, spiritual director, etc to assume that her problems were psychological. However, most of her symptoms remained after decades of talk therapy sessions and support groups.

She got some life-changing gains when she cleaned up her diet, got medication and supplements for thyroid and adrenal insufficiency, started taking supplements for mood (Mg, Li, Bs, etc), got rid of her silver-mercury fillings and started to detox (Cutler protocol).

Fortunately you are quite young. I'd be surprised if you don't improve with appropriate change. You know that your brain does not have an alcohol deficiency! : )

However, if you have a brain chemistry problem and you don't address it, I would not be surprised if you are dead by age 30.

The fact that you have not been drinking suggests to me you are ready to turn your life around. I wish you all the best with that!

Joe


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