Posted by Sean on October 11, 1999, at 12:10:30
In reply to Phenytoin aka Dilantin??, posted by dj on October 11, 1999, at 8:32:35
> Scanning some shelves in the local mega-bookstore I came across the title: A Remarkable Medicine Has Been Overlooked : Including an Autobiography and the Clinical Section of the Broad Range of Use of Phenytoin by Jack Dreyfus. The title indicated that the authour, a prominent U.S. financier, had developed depression and used the above drug, commonly used for epilepsy to treat his depression.
>
> Anyone know anything about this drug and/or case?. A scan of the book's contents indicated that the author has since been on a fruitless quest to have the drug issued as an AD, which included meeting with R. Raygun, who was president at the time. From the bits I read the book was not especially well written. However the bit that caught my eye was his reasoning about his depression being like an electrical storm in his body, which led to him testing out Dilantin. There's a line in it where he notes that after taking the medication he noted that he no longer had the flat taste in his mouth, the same one I've been experiencing by the sounds of it...something which NO-ONE on this board or off has been able to shed any light on. Go figure...I do know about this from reading Smart Drugs and
Nutrients, a classic in brain supplementation.Phenytoin is an anticonvulsant and as such, has
similar pharmacoactivity to other anticonvulsants
used to treat epilepsy. Some forms of depression,
most notably bipolar disorder and recurrent unipolar
depression, seem to have a quasi-ictal origin.The idea for using anticonvulsants for mood
disorders comes from a rather famous paper by Post
who discussed the idea of "kindling" in relation
to recurrent emotional disorders. It has been
known for years that untreated epilepsy seems to
get worse and siezures increase in frequency. This
worsening effect was also observed in animal
models of epilepsy. So, if recurrent depressions
have a similar etiology, maybe the same drugs
might work?In fact they do for some people. Whether kindling
is a reality in emotional disorders is a
subject of ongoing debate. Meanwhile, lots of
people are being helped by these drugs.I don't know about the taste in your mouth, but
people with depression experience all manner
of odd somatic disturbances. I have smell
hallucinations for example. Disturbances in our
olfactory/taste perceptions during depression are
understandable in terms of a general disturbance
to the limbic system where circuits of smell,
taste, and mood are innervated in close proximity.But enough with theory! I think you should try
dilantin and post you response here. We's all like
to know your experience...Good luck,
Sean.
poster:Sean
thread:12985
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991001/msgs/12989.html