help with possible herb and drug interaction

Hi all, I haven't posted very much on curezone yet, just a few messages on the liver cleanse forum. This is my first message here. I have been on trazodone since 1989 for depression. I've been on lexapro for a few years also for depression. The trazodone helps me sleep at night. I am not sure whether my memory problems is due to the lexapro. I also take levoxyl for my hypothyroid.

But those are not the problem itself. I've been doing internet searches for alternatives to those meds and have been weaning myself off the lexapro so I can take an herbal supplement instead. I thought it was safe to go ahead and take echinacea, however you spell it, and ginkgo biloba. Usuallly I talk to my pharmacist before trying anything new like that to make sure there is no bad drug interaction. So 10 days after starting those, I started getting bad migraines and extreme dizziness, complete with room spinnings, nausea, and vomiting. I've only been dizzy like that one time in my life before and that was with dehydration.

So anyways, after being dizzy all day Monday, I called my pharmacist and he said the echinacea was okay, but that the ginkgo might have a bad interaction with my prescriptions. Some things I found searching the internet is that taking ginkgo with trazodone can cause coma in alzheimer's patients. Good thing I don't have alzheimers. One page said that taking vitamin b6 can counteract ginkgo toxicity so I keep telling everyone that if I hadn't been taking extra b6, I'd probably be in a coma right now.

But anyways, I am still dizzy today. Some things I have tried are benadryl per my doctor, treating it like an allergic reaction. I asked my pharmacist (learned my lesson to always ask him first) what over the counter remedy I could take for the dizziness. He suggested meclizine and so I started on a non-drowsy kind. I haven't been able to drive for three days now and cannot walk across a room without falling down. My concerned and loving boyfriend (who does not drive due to blindness) called a friend to take us to the ER. There they prescribed meclizine and gave me a shot of ativan after researching my blood and doing a cat scan which were all normal. I still feel dopey and dizzy and have been looking for something to counteract this possible ginkgo-trazodone bad interaction and thought that maybe someone here could direct me.

After reading the part about that combination causing comas, I feel pretty lucky to be sitting here and typing.

Thanks!

Lisa Tweet