Posted by JohnL on August 18, 2000, at 5:39:41
In reply to adrafinil sulpiride / amisulpride » JohnL, posted by michael on August 17, 2000, at 19:06:41
Michael,
I am not familiar with Sulpiride. I have heard from others that it is similar to Amisulpride, but that it is distinctly different as well. They are different enough that one may work when the other doesn't.
I don't know about adding Bromocriptine either. I don't understand agonism/antagonism theories well enough to make sense of it. For example, on one hand Amisulpride is a dopamine antagonist. On the other hand, Bromo is a dopamine agonist. Would they cancel each other out? Would they instead act synergistically somehow? I don't know. I have some Bromocriptine but have never tried it. I think self-experimentation would be the only way to answer your questions. Very good questions at that.
Dr Jensen does not deal with non-FDA meds as far as I know. I pretty much took his methods and ran with it. Since it was so hard to find a local doctor that would go along with the novel-seeming approach (but it isn't really, just seems that way), I did it myself with meds I could get a hold of myself. If that were to fail, then I would have gone back to the doc's office and more conventional ways.
I modified Jensen's methods a little bit too. While he seeks 5-day responses, I lengethened it to 2 weeks. Sort of a compromise between different strategies. I agree the correct med for a person's chemistry will act fast, but to me 2 weeks seemed more of a fair trial than 5 days. And if at the end of 2 weeks things were looking pretty good, then the trial could be extended. If however at the end of 2 weeks things were unchanged or worse, forget it. Move on. Whatever that med was, it wasn't in the right ballpark. Sure a med like that could work in 6 to 8 weeks, but only through a trickle down chain reaction process. I didn't want that. I wanted to target whatever the underlying problem was directly, and leave other stuff in my brain unchanged.
The one area of Jensen's methods that is tricky is the clue gathering process. For example, I responded badly to Reboxetine. Also Moclobemide. And any kind of herb that enhances NE. This seemed like a pretty strong clue that my chemistry was not NE related. But then I ended up responding real well to Adrafinil. It works on NE, though in a different way. It doesn't increase NE like the others did, but rather makes existing NE work better. But still, the clues could be misread. Maybe my body just didn't like the Reboxetine or Moclobemide molecules, and it had nothing to with NE at all. This is surely an area where Dr Jensen's expertise would shine far bove my own understanding. He understands all these meds right down to the molecules and the intricate finnicky traits and everything. What was confusing to me would make perfect sense to him. He's a real expert, no doubt about it.
As it stands right now, my own results are in agreement with his views. The meds I take are probably targeting the problem directly, because: only miniscule doses are needed, side effects are very minimal, response was rather quick (days or weeks, not months), and response has been robust and complete. It was all just like he said. I tried in vain to find fault in his teachings. I failed. Glad I did. On the other hand, generally accepted principles of current day psychiatry are chock full of flaws. General teachings of psychiatry are good, but no doubt leave a lot to be desired. Otherwise this board wouldn't exist. :-)
To anyone having difficulty with their depression and meds, I still strongly urge reading his book. Read it again. And again. Just read several pages for a few days, over and over. Move on, do the same with more pages. Get the whole framework solidly implanted. At that point everything starts to make a lot more sense. Regardless of whether one uses conventional psychiatry or Jensen's approach, everything makes better sense. His teachings really aren't in opposition to conventional psychiatry, but are rather complimentary. They take conventional psychiatry one step further, and offer explanations and remedies for the various disappointments of conventional psychiatry. His teachings fill in the gaps. And I'm glad for that. It's those gaps that give us all so much trouble.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:42846
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000811/msgs/43224.html