Alright, so I'm starting to feel pretty sure that I have bipolar disorder. Like I said before, I'm a hypochondriac, but I do kind of have a system. I think I have basically everything at some point or another, but the ones that I can keep coming back to and reevaluating every year or two and still feel the same way are the ones that generally turn out to be legitimate. But this belief is even more solid than that.... Most of the things I've thought I had center around the same areas of the brain, and all the ones I've become certain of over time have been linked to the same receptor polymorphism, while none of the ones I eventually decided I was wrong about have, and they all respond to the same type of treatment. It's the -1438G/A polymorphism of the 5-HT2A receptor gene, and it's been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, and predisposition to anorexia, and the three things in this area I've become sure that I have are OCD, tics, and body dysmorphic disorder. And, to the point, -1438G/A has also been linked to bipolar disorder, and it's known to be potentially comorbid with the rest of them. That alone wouldn't be enough to sway me, but the more I read descriptions of what having manic and/or depressive episodes is like the more I think to myself "Huh, this is something I've said verbatim to describe my personality before." Especially because smoking weed balances out my moods really well, and I've found reports of weed helping bipolar patients before. When I'm not smoking regularly I've been known to bounce back and forth between being really hypersexual and energetic and being so depressed that I just stay in one spot and stare at the wall all day, with some periods of relative normalcy in between. The really heavily euphoric times are also followed by really heavy dysphoria, which goes in line with the whole dopamine dysregulation syndrome theory.
I've also been looking a lot at natural supplements that act as NMDA antagonists, such as magnesium. Some of them have salts that get into the brain very easily and have a higher magnitude of central effects than normally used ones, like magnesium glycinate. This is significant because having enough strong NMDA antagonist activity causes upregulation of 5-HT1A and D2 receptors, and taking minerals is of course good for you anyway. But where this matters to me is in relation to my condition.... More 5-HT1A activity means that my low levels of serotonin will become more rewarding and social by means of increasing the amount of oxytocin and dopamine it releases. It will also just have an antidepressant effect over all. On the other hand, more D2 activity will balance out dopaminergic transmission, as D2 receptors normally have low binding in OCD. In relation to a manic-depressive scale, this would also attenuate the depression even further, though it could also enhance the mania. But would it really be so bad to only switch between normal/content and manic and be getting my minerals at the same time? I guess it just depends on how manic I would get. >.> If I'm not smoking weed consistently anymore either then it would be nice to have something to balance out the depression, even if it makes me go a little crazy from time to time.
I may have an ulterior motive, though.
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