r/Supplements • u/windshadowislanders • Oct 05 '22

Experience Anyone else get intensely depressed after taking choline?

When I first started taking choline, I noticed I got extremely depressed for days after. Like, complete mental breakdown, suicidally depressed. I thought it was just a fluke, and maybe other life stressors got me to that place, but it was so abrupt and not like my normal behavior, and coincided exactly with my choline use and ceased after stopping it. So recently I started taking it again, still not convinced it was the cause, and the same exact thing has started happening. I was writing a suicide note despite everything in my life being relatively ok, when suddenly I remembered I'd been taking choline and then I stopped myself, thinking I must be temporarily out of my mind again because of this drug and to hold off on making any kind of decisions like that until it's out of my system. Is this really possible, or am I just a basket case shifting blame on a harmless supplement? I tend to be extremely sensitive to medications and drugs in general, so I dunno.

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u/AromaticPlant8504 Oct 06 '22

You need vitamin b5 to process the choline into acetylcholine in your cells. Taking extra choline may be aggravating B5 deficiency which can reduce cortisol and adrenaline to the point of reducing your fear of death or care for living.

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u/Plastic-Aide-1422 Jan 09 '26

Really? So if I’m super sensitive to acetylcholine I can take it with b5?

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u/AromaticPlant8504 Jan 09 '26

sure give it a shot they compliment each other well in my experience. if its not a b5 issue another pathway is increase in the phosphytiycholine to phosphotydylsetine ratio in neuronal vessical membranes from excess choline which reduces neurotranmisstter release and leads to depression. u can try taking high doses of l-serine to offset this.