Teenage distress is growing due to the impact of the pandemic. And “integrative therapies are a great resource because – excluding very specific situations that need traditional treatments – phytotherapics, nutraceuticals, supplements, homeopathy, they give excellent results in reactive disorders. That is anxiety or depression in reaction to an event, in this case the pandemic or the Dad “. This was explained by Adelia Lucattini, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (Spi) during the online meeting “The Covid impact on adolescents psychological implications and clinical experience”, promoted by Boiron and during which the expert recalled that “there are many natural products that we can use to deal with the various problems”.
Starting with insomnia and anxiety, “the first symptoms to be treated, ever – he explained – because they are not bearable”. In these cases, the expert specified, “magnesium-based products are very useful, as long as they are at a therapeutic dose, not less than 300 mg and possibly with the addition of selenium and vitamins. Some of them, such as B12, are important for the mood “. An anxious teenager who does not sleep, added Lucattini, “will certainly also have an unbalanced diet, both in excess and in deficiency. So being able to use a good supplement product is also very effective in controlling anxiety”.
As far as insomnia is concerned, “products based on lemon balm, grape seeds and, once again, magnesium, which promotes cellular metabolism” are useful. While for depressive disorders “there are many physiotherapies that have direct action, also used in conventional medicine”. It is also important that “alongside products that have an anxiolytic and antidepressant action, probiotics are used. This is because serotonin is produced in the intestine and it is important to always associate high-dose probiotics, capable of promoting its production”, added the expert, underlining the usefulness of encapsulated products that have the advantage of “freeing from intake schedules and can also be used in the case of treatment with antibiotics, as well as having a certain bioavailability”.
The certainty of bioavailability “is very important when there is ongoing antidepressant or anxiolytic therapy”. In these cases, in fact, according to the expert, the integration with natural drugs is equally useful, because “they favor symptomatic improvement and allow us to modulate the classical therapy in order to reach the minimum effective dose”. In this way, by using the traditional drug to the minimum possible, “the side effects are also reduced”.
In case of migraine, “as an accompanying symptom to depression – concludes Lucattini – it may be useful to use composites with belladonna, chelidonium, calendula, used with the right therapeutic doses. Homeopathic therapies can be of great help: we have many remedies available. that allow very personalized therapies “.