Curcumin and SSRI?
 

I was hoping to start taking curcumin to help reduce inflammation, but remembered to check about any possible interaction with the SSRI I am taking.

I am on 10 mg/day of Escitalopram (Lexapro). I would like to start taking the NOW brand at 400 mg/day of Longvida Optimized curcumin.

I found some information that said curcumin can interact with SSRI and cause serotonin syndrome because of its MAOI effects.

Any thoughts / experiences with this?

Thanks for your help.

Hello

This will be my first post (been lurking here for almost 7 months now), will have to introduce myself in detail at some point soon.

I just had to reply to this because I recently started taking an SSRI - sertraline after taking 900mg a day of Curcumin for a long period (Meriva which I believe is more potent then standard Curcumin). Noticed some definite tremor though it's hard to tell whether that's a side effect of the SSRI or low level seratonin syndrome. Didn't get the hyperthermia, body chills or other serious stuff so I don't think I've done any real damage thankfully.

Having taken the SSRI for 3 days I decided to stop taking it and give the MAOI a chance to leave my system - 2 weeks apparently for the enzymes to die.

This led me to researching other vitamins and herbs I was taking and I noticed that rhodiola rosea is also a MAOI, and mixing this with curcumin or SSRI's is also a bad idea.

SSRI's give you a lot to worry about I see - will restart mine again in a weeks time.

I'd say don't do it, the doses people take on here have strong effects. Don't worry about some tumeric in your food though.

Thanks for this reply. That is helpful. I think I will wait until I am off the SSRI, which will hopefully be soon.