jellyz

hi chemar, i've been on inositol for about 6 weeks now. i've been taking 1.5g a day (3 500mg tablets 3 times a day). i just received the capsules instead of the tablets (more potent i think). i may drop down to 1g a day with this. any recommendation on how i should be taking it? i don't want the effects to dissipate if i can help it. on that note, i think inositol is working for me absolutely. at first i had to decide if it was helping or if i am just having a placebo, but i think it is helping now that it has been 6 weeks. it's hard to describe but it seems that when i feel an obsession coming into my head, i get that initial wave of anxiety that raises my heartbeat and i think, "i really hope i don't start thinking about this," and then it seems like i just forget about it very quickly thereafter instead of...well, for lack of a better term, obsessing about it. heh i don't try to push myself into those situations, like a lot of behavioral therapies suggest you do (since i'm not on such a therapy), but instead if i feel the obsessions come around, i feel like i forget about them much easier than before. so far i really think it's helping me. i want to keep it up. do you suggest i should try the 500mg capsules twice a day instead of 3 tablets daily? i know you aren't a doctor, but you seem to have good insight on this at least. i have always heard capsules are stronger than tablets. thanks.

i've done some reading and they say inositol can give you stomach cramps/gas/diarrhea as side effects. i'm really just experiencing the pretty serious cramps after 2 weeks of use. is this normal/does it subside? it is almost so bad that i'm considering stopping taking inositol, though i must admit i do feel like the inositol is helping the OCD (even though i know they say it takes 6 weeks to really see if it helps).

thanks for the tip. i really only want to try inositol now, with potentially mixing it in with diet as well. how much would you say he gets daily from food on top of the 1g he takes? additionally, did you guys see just a GP, or did he go to a pscyhologist of some sort? finding the right doctor is hard to do with things like OCD. every doctor seems to have a different opinion.

remember this is an old thread and research grows daily in some areas! we were told to treat Inositol like any other supp in that one should always start low and go slow, lowest dose first for a few days and gradually work up to where you are heading. Again, we were advised to have my son on 500 mg- 1 gm as daily intake and then to go up when in flare. He found working up to 12 gm a day stopped the flare, but maintaining high inositol long term is not a good idea as it can start having a reverse effect. Made my son feel jittered. It is a good idea to also go down slowly rather than abruptly ie titrate back down. thanks for the information. how old is your son and have you/he seen improvements? how long has he been taking it?

thanks. do you mean a family physician or like someone on this board that is a physician? just trying to find some reading material if at all possible. i still believe you either way, i just enjoy a good OCD-inositol reading if i can find one. i would say i have more than tendencies, however. but i guess that comes with the nature of the disorder as sometimes my tendencies are lower than others, and sometimes it feels like a full-blown problem. hopefully the maintenance will reduce the number of occurrences and severity of those flares. i suppose the article from page 1 on this thread is incorrect, as the doctor there said less than 12g of inositol daily the brain will not recognize.

thank you. out of curiosity, where did you get the information about 500mg-1g being "maintenance?" also, i am not on an SSRI, so no harm there. the only other medication i take is veramyst for allergies.

my apologies for bringing up an old thread. i am a male in my late 20s and have had OCD most of my life. nearly everyone in my extended family has OCD (mother's side) and takes some type of SSRI for it. i am bit more stubborn and/or don't want to swallow my pride or an SSRI, so i have been researching the alternative natural way to reduce the OCD. this is one of many useful threads i have come across in regards to inositol. i have read a few cases where people were taking as little as 1.5-2g a day in the pill form and seeing results. i don't know if these people were experiencing a placebo effect, but i recently started taking the 1.5-2g daily to see the results. it has only been one week, so i do not have any results. one thing i thought was interesting was that the previous page had a doctor's questionnaire and he indicated the brain didn't recognize inositol until 12g was taken in. does anyone know if this is true, or if smaller amounts of the inositol can help OCD? really i'd just like to get more information on how much inositol really works. it seems like there is very little evidence supporting what dosage works and doesn't work. 18g just seems like a whole lot to take on a daily basis and the idea, even coming from a doctor, that OCD patients need to take precisely 18g a day and no more/less seems like a shortcoming to me. i feel like there has to be a greater variance of dosage depending on the extremity of the disorder in a particular case, just like there would be a variance on a dosage of an SSRI for the same reason. thanks for any input.