St John's Wort Question.?

Question

I'm starting college in a week and I decided to try and stop taking St John's Wort... but I feel better being off of it....

what's up with that?

Answer 1

I take it you have been taking St. John's Wort faithfully for many months/years. Most users suffer very few side effects from St. John's Wort as long as it is used according to directions. There are those that when they stop an anitdepressant abruptly, including St. John's Wort,  feel better than when they were taking it. However, many of those suffer rebound symptoms at some point because they discontinued the antidepressant too fast, and they never addressed the source of the depression/anxiety so those symptoms return. Even St. John's Wort should be tappered off slowly by cutting the dose over weeks to avoid potential more serious rebound depression/anxiety. The reason why the person sometimes feels better for a while is that the side effects of the antidepressant get less quickly with discontinued use. During that time the antidepressant has settled the neurochemistry for a little bit, but the processes that initially caused the depression/anxiety continue to effect the chemistry to degrade over time.

Answer 2

Are you taking it with any other medications like anti-depressants?  If you are, that's why you feel better off them because you are not suppose to take St. John's Wort with any of these, because this herb is used for depression, anxiety, mood swings, behavior disorders and liver cleansing.