This Stuff is a Lifesaver!
I wanted to write this review to possibly help anyone else who was on the fence about buying this product. I know that a lot of women who are buying this product are doing so because apparently it helps with PCOS. This is not something I have and it's not something that I bought this product for. What I have been dealing with for about 7 months now has been severe OCD, severe anxiety, routine panic attacks, feelings of derealization and dissociation as well as depression. This review might be a little lengthy for some people who just want to know quickly if it works or not, so I apologize in advance but I'm hoping that this review might help someone who is in the same situation that I was in. So, to try to explain why I even started looking into this product, you guys kind of need to know what I've been dealing with and why I wanted to take this product to begin with. I've had issues with violent intrusive thoughts in the past which is a form of OCD. In fact, about 10 years ago when I was a teenager I dealt with about five months of pure hell, which is what I like to call it. One day, something in my brain just kind of switched on and for 24 hours a day I was dealing with nothing but violent intrusive thoughts, feelings of massive anxiety, dread and panic attacks which were also coupled with feelings of derealization and dissociation which could have been its own form of OCD or it was a result of my anxiety at the time. Those 5 months of hell ended when I moved and started keeping myself extra busy and for some reason it just kind of went away on its own. I thought that part of my life was over and done with because I never dealt with it again. To be honest with you at the time, I didn't even know what I was dealing with was a form of OCD. I just thought I was going crazy or there was something mentally wrong with me that could not be cured and that no one else had except me. Back in March of this year (2016), I was dealing with a lot of stress and was spending a lot of time by myself due to not having a car and living rurally . I didn't think much about my lifestyle and the fact that I was being a bit of a stressed shut-in until one day the same exact thing happened to me that did when I was a teen and it was almost like a light switch scenario and I started going into the same hell that I did back when I was a teenager. To explain my symptoms, I basically was dealing with severe OCD which meant violent intrusive thoughts almost every second of every waking hour. I was also dealing with severe anxiety as a result of the intrusive thoughts that I had. Along with my anxiety and OCD, I was also dealing with daily dissociation and derealization that had me questioning if everything around me was even real or if I was in a constant dream. I don't know if the dissociation and derealization is its own form of OCD or if it was a result of my anxiety. Because of all of these issues I was dealing with, it's pretty obvious that I was also dealing with depression from everything. Every single day was a complete struggle for me these past 7 months. I would spend a lot of the day crying and feeling constant dread. It's almost like I couldn't control my emotions because I was anxious almost every single minute of my waking hours. I was finding it difficult to find joy out of things because of the fact that I was so anxious and depressed all the time due to my intrusive thoughts and derealization. As a result of all of the mental and emotional issues that I have been dealing with, I also started binge eating as a way of coping with my emotions. In the 7 months that I dealt with this form of hell, as I like to call it, I put on about 45 pounds because I was eating so much to cope with my depression and anxiety. It was a complete struggle for me to get through a day without feeling like I was going to break down or go crazy and food has been my outlet. A month after all of this stuff started, I made an appointment with my doctor because I didn't want to live the same way I lived 10 years ago in a complete hell for 5 months straight. She prescribed me Prozac at a pretty basic dosage. I was on Prozac for about 2 or 3 months before I basically quit cold turkey because it was doing absolutely nothing for me except making me exhausted and actually exacerbating my feelings of dissociation. It did absolutely nothing for my OCD or my anxiety and it did absolutely nothing to alleviate my depression. I'm sure Prozac is great for some people, but it did absolutely nothing for me but give me side effects that just made my life even worse than it already was. After coming off of Prozac, I became desperate to try to alleviate my issues. I didn't understand how I could go from being a relatively happy individual to being this anxious and depressed in a split second. Life was becoming more and more difficult to get through each and every day because of the problems I was having. There would be some days when my OCD would be at its worst and other days I would feel more dissociated and de-real than dealing with OCD. I started taking St. John's Wort and thought that this might help to alleviate my anxiety and depression. I will admit that the St. John's Wort helped slightly and it actually helped a lot better than the Prozac did, but it still did not get rid of my OCD and it was not great when it came to making me feel any better than I did. After I stop taking St. John's Wort because I felt it was more a waste of my money than anything else, I started doing a lot of research on different products and natural supplements that could possibly help me. I was starting to hit a wall and didn't know if anything would ever help me. I don't necessarily have the option to just go out and keep myself super busy all the time like I did when I was a teenager to try to get my mind off of these issues. I work at home and my husband takes our car to go to work every day so I'm pretty much stuck in the house all day with only my OCD and anxiety to focus on. This is when I stumbled upon a website that talked about natural things you can take for OCD and inositol was one of them. Honestly, I didn't really want to put all of my eggs in one basket thinking that this would help me anymore than the Prozac or the St. John's Wort did. I ordered this exact product from Amazon and had it delivered probably about 6 weeks ago or a little bit less than that. I started taking it immediately, taking a heaping teaspoon of inositol twice daily, which basically means that I don't level off the scoop. Probably if I were to measure it out, I'm taking about 2 teaspoons of inositol powder both morning and night. I remember reading a review from someone else that says that it started working on their OCD within a day or two. You can imagine my disappointment when it did not help with my OCD or anxiety at all until the three or four week mark. However, I will say that this product has truly changed my life for the better. I never thought that inositol powder would work the way that it does..I mean, who's even heard of this stuff? I don't know if people with OCD have a deficiency in this B vitamin or if it helps in some other way, but I finally feel somewhat normal. Will I say that I am 100% cured of my anxiety, derealization, depression and OCD? Absolutely not. But I am about 60 to 70% better than I was when all of this first happened back in March of this year. I don't walk around all day long feeling like I'm in a dream or dealing with massive anxiety whenever I go out. Inositol hasn't completely shut those intrusive thoughts up, but it's helped me to feel a whole lot less fearful of them. There were many points several months ago when I would go to the store and feel like I would pass out when standing in line because I felt I was having a panic attack. I can now go shopping without feeling like I'm going to have a complete panic attack and it's allowing me to enjoy life a lot more. I also found myself actually getting excited for the very first time in months this past weekend because I was going out with my family. I can now prepare dinner for my family, cut vegetables and use the stove without my OCD getting the best of me. If you've never had violent intrusive thought OCD before, you cannot imagine the agony of doing even the simplest of things. Inositol has completely changed my life and I've actually purchased my second tub of this stuff because I don't want to be without it. I don't ever want to go back to the person I used to be when I was dealing with my severe OCD and anxiety. I feel like this year has been a complete waste because of my mental issues. Feeling that sense of happiness again and not going through my whole day feeling like an anxious ball of worry is an amazing feeling. There are still times that I deal with the violent intrusive thoughts or anxiety or senses of depression and derealization, but it is not every single minute of my waking day like it used to be. As I've said before, I feel like I am about 60 to 70% better than I was before taking inositol powder. I can actually get through my day without feeling like I'm either going to go crazy or that I'm going to have a heart attack or breakdown because the anxiety is too much for me to handle. I'm able to enjoy being around my family more and I'm also able to go out and enjoy myself without feeling like I'm going to have a panic attack every two minutes. As far as any side effects from taking inositol powder, the only side effect I had was diarrhea. I still get it off and on to this day despite the fact that I've been taking this stuff for almost six weeks now. Honestly, I would deal with diarrhea any day over what I used to deal with as far as emotional and mental issues. I also feel like now that I have my anxiety and OCD finally under control, I can hopefully start managing my binge eating issue and start finally losing this weight. If anyone reading this is dealing with the same things that I used to deal with as far as OCD, anxiety, derealization and even depression, I would recommend inositol powder to you before anything else. If prescription medications are working for you, that's great. If St. John's Wort is working for you, that's fantastic too. But if you've tried these things or simply want to take a more natural approach to your problems, please give inositol powder a try. It has been the only thing that has worked for my severe OCD and anxiety and it's something that I never want to be without now that I know it works. I have heard someone on a forum say that inositol powder can stop working as effectively over time. I don't really know if this is true or not and wonder the validity of this simply because inositol is a vitamin as opposed to an herbal supplement. Don't vitamins continue to give you the same benefits whether you take them for a month or 10 years? I will hopefully remember to give an update to you guys maybe 6 months from now so that I can let you guys know how I'm still doing on the inositol powder. The only downfall with this stuff is the price. I'm finding that with the dosage I take every single day, which is a heaping teaspoon both morning and night, I went through about one tub of this in a month. That basically means that if this stuff really works for you and you feel great when you're on it, expect to pay $30 a month for your sanity. Is it worth it? Absolutely it is. However, if you're on a tight budget like I am, the $30 a month for a simple vitamin supplement along with everything else you probably take is something that you do want to take into consideration and keep in mind before buying this. Definitely recommend and thank you to anyone who is reading my story and can relate in some way or another! EDIT/ It is now June 2017. Which means I've been using this stuff for roughly 9 months. I am so upset to report that it's no longer working for me. I'm not sure if they changed the formula to this specific brand or if my body just stopped reacting to it in the way it used to. I'm back to feeling anxious all the time, depressed, OCD, racing thoughts, Dizziness and dissociation. I really thought I had cracked the "anxiety code" with this stuff back when I first started taking it...but alas, the positive effects have worn off. I would still recommend this supplement to anyone who is suffering the way I am. These past 9 months have been blissful to be able to get through the day without worrying so much and dreading anything and being depressed, I'm just sad that it didn't last. Again, I'm not sure why the effects randomly stopped. I would say that it happened about a month or month and a half ago...my old feelings of anxiety, racing thoughts, dread, dissociation, etc just came back to me. Randomly. I'm docking the product one star from my original five star review because the effects didn't last long-term for me, but I still give it four stars because it did help when it did.... Better luck to you all on this awful struggle against our own minds ....
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