Teens and St Johns Wort

[forfeksake]

Hi

My son is 17 in a couple of weeks and has recently told me he is depressed. He has had anxiety most of his life, so I have booked him in with a private counsellor for talking therapy as I know a referral to CAMHS will take months. He has a GP appt Monday to discuss the best way forward.

I have been reading about the use of St Johns Wort in teens with low to moderate depression, but wondered if anyone has any experience of their teen taking it?

Thanks for reading

Sue

Hi, I am in a similar boat, except my son has already seen the GP four times. They are not able to offer anything except links to self-help websites and tell us to wait to get to the top of the waiting list for CAMHS (was referred end of Nov).

Today I have bought him some St John's Wort (lowest strength) in the hope that it will help (even if only as a placebo). I have taken it myself in the past and found it useful. He is 16 and 6'2" so the size of an adult, but I do appreciate that his brain and organs are not fully matured.

I just felt that I had to do something to help him. He has started to miss school - GCSE year - and is struggling to sleep. I'm also trying to make him do the usual self care e.g. exercise, eat properly etc. I just feel helpless and hate seeing him so down. I'm also going to look into private counselling, though he's not keen on "talking to a stranger "

Good luck, I hope your son gets the help he needs.

Also, the only study I could find was www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15910213/ which gives me some hope

Have no experience of using this for teens but we found “young minds” a brilliant source of advice, their website has info for teens and parents, plus their text support service is a brilliant way for young people to access help. Hope GP is helpful- it will get better but there’s no quick fix.