I have been sniffing soil and I think it did me some good. And by soil I mean regular soil, it’s not some kind of code name for a street drug. I started sniffing soil and eating unwashed parsley this summer, after I came across an article about antidepressant effects of a bacteria mycobacterium vaccae, which lives in the soil. Since none of the standard antidepressants worked for me, I am very open to new research. Also soil from the backyard or pots seems pretty harmless. I am currently renting in a first floor of a house and my landlord is a very nice lady, she let me plant stuff at the back, where she also grows kale and tomatoes. I purchased stems of parsley and leek and usually I eat them right from the ground, unwashed. I have also placed a fork in my slot in the backyard and each morning I try to remember to stop by and inhale some soil that I pick up using the fork.
About m. vaccae “In 2004, Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, published a paper with unexpected results: She injected lung cancer patients with a common, harmless soil bacteria, Mycobacterium vaccae, to see if it could prolong their life. M. vaccae had some success in earlier trials where it was tested for its abilities to fight drug-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis and boost immune system response. O’Brien thought maybe the bacteria could help her patients’ immune systems beat back the cancer in their lungs. It failed.
Only, it succeeded elsewhere: the bacteria injection “significantly improved patient quality of life,” O’Brien wrote in the paper detailing the findings. Her patients were happier, expressed more vitality, and better cognitive functioning—in short, it reduced the emotional toll of advanced cancer.”
Dirt has a microbiome, and it may double as an antidepressant
I am a one person sample and I cannot construct a test and control group using just myself, but I can still provide some observation. Friday was a day three days before my period. I did not know it then because I am never aware of when my period will start. I do know from multiple observations that days -3, 1, 2, and 3 in regards to period start are when I have more severe mood swings. So it was day -3 and I started to get more depressed already after lunch. Like a crushing feeling coming on, everything becomes more bleak, it becomes painful to speak. It’s a real sense of dysphoria, as if from opiate withdrawal. I held it in, but started to cry on my way home. At the back of my mind I still had a thought of hope that there were still interventions I could try and hopefully not go into a very dark hole.
I had plans to meet with my friend at a noodle place near my house after work and I was starting to be concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do it. You could say – why not? Wouldn’t it be better in any case if you do see your friend? Yes, yes, it would, but a severe depressive episode is not just being sad, it can be such extreme emotional pain that you are just unable to speak. What’s also interesting, is that the closer you are to such a state, the less likely you are to try an intervention. You have to keep reminding yourself about the time you said to yourself that you will try. You could write it down in your phone, put an alarm clock. I had to say to my brain – I don’t care about your opinion at this moment, I don’t care that you say no treatment will work. So I stopped in the backyard and ate a lot of parsley from the garden bed. I lifted up soil crumbles to my nose and I inhaled.
An hour and a half later I made it to the noodle place and I was able to talk and laugh. Maybe it was m. vaccae, or placebo effect, it could have been also just the natural course of my symptoms that day. Therefore I have no concrete proof, but still wanted to share this observation, especially considering that there is research out there indicating antidepressant effects of soil bacteria. From Friday on, I continued sniffing soil each morning and I can definitely say this period was less emotionally eventful. No running out to the staircase during work to sob. Also it has been the first time in many months that I did not take any naproxen or ibuprofen. I believe this is an indication that there is a reduction in inflammation. As I have written previously, I am on a specific Mediterranean diet with extra exclusions such as gluten. I have also been consuming goat kefir and kombucha daily, and infected myself with therapeutic helminths six weeks ago. Which one of these treatments has reduced my PMS pain I am not sure, but I sure am glad that one of them or all of them are showing some positive results.
I suggest you consider getting dirty and maybe eat some herbs straight from the ground. Just make sure to read about parasites in your area, we don’t have any serious pathogenic parasites in Ontario soil, therefore I am not concerned about eating unwashed herbs/vegetables here. I hope some m. vaccae will provide you with a better day.
Notes of a Neuropsychiatry Amateur 