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Hi my name is lyle murphy the founder of the alternative to med center and today we’re going to be talking about tracidone first question is what is tracidone used for so tracidone is a tetracyclic antidepressant it is used to treat depression however especially recently it has been given quite copiously as a sleep aid next question does trazadon help with
Anxiety it does moderately i mean it’s not like a heavy sledgehammer like a klonopin or an ativan or a xanax it’s not that kind of anti-anxiety medication and it is certainly less addictive than the benzodiazepine class so it might be a better choice for anxiety than some of those more addictive medications next question what are some of the natural trazadone
Alternatives well i’m very glad you asked because this is what we do here so and this is actually on the website alternative to meds if you go to the page called trazadone alternatives so on that list we have things that have been researched out that have citations and credibility behind them first one would be individual cognitive behavioral therapy dialectical
Behavioral therapy exercise as far as supplementation tryptophan is one of the direct precursors to serotonin tryptophan also helps with sleep because serotonin forms melatonin on the north side of the brain barrier sam e sami you would not want to take this if anxiety was your predominant feature or if you do take it you’d want to take it in much smaller
Doses then like maybe 50 milligrams as opposed to 100 or 200 milligrams because cme could kick off more anxiety uh omega fatty acids vitamin d testing for and clearing out neurotoxins lodged in the body this is kind of a broad scope of what we do here at alternative to med center there are well the brain is a biochemical organ and it works off of chemistry
While there’s also other chemicals such as pesticides mercury and other things that can impair the way that that chemistry works for instance the way an organophosphate which is a pesticide kills a grasshopper is it knocks out its nervous system and it knocks out its nervous system in a very specific way it poisons a enzyme called the acetylcholine esterase
Enzyme so that when the stimulatory neurochemical acetylcholine is released into the synapse opens up the sodium channels and you get depolarization of that nerve the enzyme that normally pulls that acetylcholine back off is not there the nerve channel stays stuck wide open and the insect goes into tetany and dies strangely enough we use acetylcholine anesthetic
Cholinesterase and the same sodium ions that make the synapses work in us we have livers and detoxification mechanisms that allow us to endure more of that than let’s say a grasshopper but yet we still are prone to this type of toxicity and this type of alteration in our neurochemistry the way it works and these poisons can cause us to have anxiety as well next
Thing um acupuncture controlled breathing techniques biofeedback dietary changes especially ones that get you on more organic food things that have the right components of vitamins and minerals certain herbal supplements such as st john’s wort just getting out in the fresh air and sunshine yoga reflexology massage therapy sound and music therapy and things
That support a healthy microbiome with probiotics and a corrected diet and if sleep is your main issue you might want to look into what’s called sleep hygiene blue blocking classes turning off your electronic and your um emf in your house at night and various things next question what are trazadone side effects so side effects that are reasonably common yet
Are concerning enough to where you should run to your doctor and get some answers on what’s happening would be blurred vision confusion dizziness faintness or any type of lightheadedness especially when getting up uh or moving about from a sitting position or a lying position to a standing position and you get demonstrably dizzy sweating or unusually tired or
Weak those are more concerning and common that might alleviate has you take the medication more or things that i don’t know i guess people just maybe get accustomed to is dry mouth muscle or bone pain trouble sleeping trouble remembering or unpleasant taste in their mouth next question how long do you sleep on tracidone well trazadone okay so even though it’s
Prescribed sometimes as an antidepressant if you want to stay not depressed because of medication for the duration of a whole day tracidone is not necessarily the best medication for that because the half-life is only five to nine hours however as a sleep aid five to nine hours is the amount of time that you would want a medication to work to help you with sleep
And of course not much longer than that otherwise you’d have a hangover the next day so um tracidone would help you sleep you know five to nine hours if it was well tolerated for you next question how long does trazadone stay in your system typically you’re looking at the half-life of the medication so half of it’s cleared your system in five to nine hours and
Overall it should be gone in about three or four days to the point where a standard urine drug test would not be able to detect it next question what class of drugs is tracidone well how they named this drug really is on the structure the chemical structure of the drug then there’s four cyclical carbon rings and in four the way to a nomenclature that in latin
Is tetra so it is a tetracyclic antidepressant well interestingly enough it actually has a bit of a smattering of different reactions there’s at least four of them that are believed mechanisms of how the drug works so it is a sort of a agonist means that it helps a certain thing an antagonist means it blocks a certain thing so tracidone is a bit of a mixed
Antagonist and agonist of certain serotonin receptors it is a blocker or an antagonist of andronergic which means basically stimulatory type of neural chemicals it’s a weak blocker of the h1 histamine receptor and it is also a weak serotonin reuptake inhibitor so it’s not even though it has some serotonin reuptake inhibiting activity to it it’s not really
Functioning like most of the ssri medications next question tracidone side effects in the elderly older adults are a lot more prone to the tiredness sleepiness dizziness drowsiness and also on an ekg they may have a prolonged space in what’s called the qt wave next question is trazidone addictive another definition in terms addictive by and large means when
You take it you want more of it and then you want more of it and then you want more of it and even if there’s a lot of consequences you still probably want more of it of course chazodon is not that type of medication however you can develop a dependence to it on the scale of how bad people’s dependents can get on a medication like this it’s on the lower scale
But we have seen people that have some pretty wacky things happen especially when they’re trying to get off of it because of that tendency to become dependent on it next question uh trazadone withdrawal symptoms honestly we would be here for a long time if we go into all of the different type of withdrawal symptoms that a medication like this has but generally
You’re going to see the things come back in sort of a rebound fashion that you started taking the medication for in the first place if you were taking it for sleep then as you stop the medication you might see problems with your sleep hopefully it’s a short duration but that’s probably where it’s going to go for you if you’re anxious you might see a resurgence
In your anxiety if you’re depressed you might see a resurgence in your depression but don’t be surprised if you have some mood swings anger aggression sort of the kind of um reactions maybe crying spells but you know a lot more agitation if you’re getting brain zaps or the sensations of electrical shocks or jolt in your system that unfortunately is not truly
Uncommon however that is a clear indication that you’re probably going too fast coming off the medication and or you might need to do some direct amino acid supplementation that helps build up your serotonin pathway and other pathways so that you can endure this medication withdrawal some people might find that they have suicidality hypomania hallucinations
Dizziness nausea vomiting and other gastrointestinal sort of symptomatology diarrhea headaches muscle aches and or weakness and that pretty much covers what we’re going to talk about today as far as trazadone i really thank you for spending time with us and please if you are going to change your medication please talk to your prescriber you’re more than welcome
To bring some of this information to your prescriber as a bit of talking points but don’t change your medication based upon what you’ve heard here without some sort of person that is a prescriber monitoring that thank you very much for spending time with us today and be sure to like or subscribe wherever that is on the page and call the number if you need any
More support for your particular situation thank you very much and have a good day or night thank you for watching don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for information about alternative to med center give us a call at 888-984-9667
Transcribed from video
What Is Trazodone? Uses and Side Effects Explained! By Alternative to Meds Center
