Occasionally, I discover somthing that, in retrospect, is so blazingly obvious that I really ought to be taken around back and lightly shot, to teach me a lesson.
I have been plagued for quite awhile now with what I call "sourceless anxiety." A tightness in the chest, coupled with a feeling of incipient dread. It also makes me grumpy and snappy and generally annoying to be around. It's the mood that makes me want to get drunk, to drown it in a nice bucket of depressant.
I have also been plagued with snot - braining allergies, for a similar length of time. Big runny nose, machine - gun sneezes, watery eyes, and a generally bashed - in - the - face feeling. Not at all pleasant.
My remedy for this mucoid state has often been what I call "the red pills:" pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. When I was a kid, it was available as a prescription called Actified, and now you can get it over the counter as Sudafed. It's available as a cheap generic, and is a major component of any one of a dozen multi - symptom cold, cough, and allergy remedies.
Now, when my allergies really get going, I can scarf six of those little red pills a day - - that's 360 milligrams of pseudoephedrine HCL - - and my allergies can stay "going" for weeks at a time. For awhile this spring, my allergies were refreshingly absent. Then, last week, after a sudden bout of nasal insanity and a couple of days' worth of pill - popping, I had a really bad day, mentally. Snappish, grim, anxious... just a lousy, miserable bugger I was, and Pea caught the brunt of it. Suddenly, it occurred to me to wonder: was my favored chemical allergy remedy to blame?
My allergies quieted down for a couple of days, then splattered back into action over the weekend. This morning on the train, I dry - swallowed a couple of red pills to head off a case of exploding face. And all day today: the anxiety, the creeping dread, just below the surface.
So, I decided to take a closer look at my little red friends.
It turns out that pseudoephedrine is part of a class of chemicals that includes noradrenaline, metaraminol, adrenaline, ephedrine, and dopamine, all of which act within the body's adrenergic system... the same system that regulates things like panic, anxiety, and the fight - or - flight response. It includes the organs and nerves in which catecholamines are the neurotransmitters, as well as all the nerve cells for which epinephrine and norepinephrine (and more broadly, other monoamines, dopamine, and serotonin) are the transmitter substances. Catecholamines are involved in a number of conditions, including hyperactivity and (strangely) albinism, and monoamines are implicated in just about every psychiatric condition they've got a pill for. Like my old nemesis methylphenidate, pseudoephedrine is a sympathomimetic amine that mimics the effects of adrenaline.
In simpler terms: in addition to unstuffing my hated nose, Sudafed works within the same neurotransmitter network that I am currently trying to control by scarfing 20 milligrams of escitalopram oxalate every day at 3:00 PM.
OK... maybe that wasn't so simple. How about this: I think I've been poisoning myself for years, and I feel like a fucking idiot.
Not just poisoning my body. I've been poisoning my mind.
This is all highly unscientific, of course, but there's enough smoke for me to suspect a neurochemical fire. When I look back on my pharmaceutical history, I see years spent under the influence of artificial chemicals that work within the same biochemical pathways that regulate my mood: Dexedrine as a toddler for hyperactivity, then Ritalin for same; Dimetapp for allergies, then Actifed for same... all of these chemicals, floating in my brainsoup, going about their mood - altering business. Even over - the - counter Benadryl has its uses as a psychiatric drug, and research into its serotonergic effects led directly to the development of Prozac and all of the other modern SSRIs.
I think I'm much more sensitive to these chemicals than I previously realized. I wonder, now, how many of the millions of mentally medicated are actually being adversely affected by the various chemicals that pass for healing remedies these days. What proportion of the anxious population is simply overmedicated, not by prescription, but by the pills and potions available at any drugstore for a few dollars, promising relief from the sniffles, allergies, and colds? And, beyond that: how much modern depression is the result of blood sugar levels skewed by gallons of soda, stacks of sweet snacks, and barrels of fried carbohydrates?
Fortunately, for me, there is a more natural solution to my allergy problem: the ancient Chinese 'shroom, Reishi. I've got a kilogram of the stuff, ready to be made into tea. I used to drink it regularly, but I've let it slide this season. It's more effort: water to boil, and a cup of earthy brown liquid to mix with orange juice once or twice a day.
Reishi isn't instant relief. But it's a 5,000 year old remedy, and I know that after a few days, it usually works.
Also: it doesn't make me insane, which is a plus.
