ST JOHN’S WORT AT WORK: MERCEDES’ STORY
Mercedes is a social worker in her early fifties who makes a distinction between the two different kinds of emotional suffering that she has experienced in the course of her life. The first type, ‘the remains of a difficult childhood’, took her some time to sort out. But even after being satisfied that she had taken care of the residue of her childhood, she found herself left with ‘a light film of dysthymia, which lasted for years and was probably inherited from my parents, both of whom suffered from depression’. Dysthymia is a condition of chronic, persistent low-grade depression.
As a result of her low mood, Mercedes would procrastinate, putting off unpleasant tasks such as housekeeping or paperwork in favour of activities she greatly preferred, such as knitting, crocheting or playing with her birds and her dogs. Naturally introverted, she would withdraw in social situations, where she always felt as though she was holding back.
Mercedes decided to try St John’s Wort because it was natural and she understood it to cause few side-effects, starting with 300 mg three times a day. It took at least five weeks to notice an effect, and even then it was subtle though palpable. She stopped procrastinating as much and was more outgoing in social situations. Her husband noted the change, remarking that her dark moodiness had lifted and that she now seemed ‘lighter’. She experienced no side-effects whatsoever, plans to continue to take the herbal anti-depressant and is interested in recommending it to several of her clients.
The stories of Matthew and Mercedes illustrate how versatile an anti-depressant St John’s Wort is, capable of bringing someone out of the dark depths of despair, as in Matthew’s case, or of alleviating the milder and more subtle dysthymia which affected Mercedes. The dosages needed by these two individuals were quite different, with Matthew responding to 300 mg per day while Mercedes used the more conventional 900 mg per day dosing schedule. Optimal dosages of other types of anti-depressant medications vary widely and there is no reason to suppose that this will prove to be different for St John’s Wort. The size of the patient is not always a good guide to the best dosage, as these two cases illustrate: Matthew is 6-foot tall and weighs 13 stone, yet required only one-third the dosage used by Mercedes, who is a small woman. Another difference between Matthew and Mercedes is the time scale of the effects of the herbal anti-depressant, from the almost immediate beneficial effects experienced by Matthew to the five-week lag before the treatment kicked in for Mercedes. Such observations indicate why it can be useful to experiment with different dosages for different people and why it is important to persevere for several weeks before declaring a trial of St John’s Wort to be a failure.
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