Posted by JohnL on November 1, 2000, at 3:44:11
In reply to Re:your progression to your present drug combo » JohnL, posted by shellie on October 31, 2000, at 20:53:57
> > John, did you end up on adrafinil and amisulpride as a direct result of drug trials you did with Dr. Jenson, or did you just use the methodology of Dr. Jenson to continue trying new drugs. Just curious. Thanks. Shelley
Shellie,
At one time Dr Jensen did help me out. Here is a progression of how it went.He always starts with a full physical exam and blood tests. I had to do this, and then have my GP fax him the results before anything else could be done.
Next was the phone consultation. For an hour he asked me lots of questions. When finished, he faxed my GP an outline of treatments I could try, with his reasonings of why he thought they should be tried. Mostly it was technical drug related chemistry stuff.
Next I had to see my GP to review the consultation and the faxed recommendations. Jensen gave me a lot of leeway. He encourages the patient to be involved in the decision making process if they so desire. He believes it is therapeutic for the patient to have ownership in their own treatment, if they want to. I was given three choices. 1)Do short trials of three SSRIs I had not tried. He gave me room here to do 5 days each, 2 weeks each, or whatever. The choice was up to me. For him 5 days was sufficient, but it was up to me. 2)Try 3 different antipsychotics. 3)Try Ritalin and Adderall.
After all this had been done, I was to set up another phone consultation. But it didn't work out that way, and here's why. My GP insisted that I see him after each drug trial. Jensen made it clear I was to try one drug, wash it out for a couple days, try another, and so on, until I had exhausted each drug in that class. I was to keep notes of mood changes, side effects, etc. But my GP screwed it all up. He wanted me to see him after each drug trial AND consult with Jensen after each drug trial. So, I was looking at trying about 7 drugs and having to pay two doctors for visits between each drug? Yikes! That is not how it was intended to work. But that's how my GP wanted it.
So I had to think real hard about it. It seemed to me that basically what Jensen wanted to do with me was explore classes of drugs I hadn't tried. In a nutshell that explains the whole point of his method...explore all options, don't rule out any. So then I thought, ya know, I can get almost all of these drugs myself from overseas mailorder pharmacies. The only ones I can't get are the stimulants. So I opted to do those with my GP under his rules. During that process, Ritalin was the tip-off I had been looking for. It gave me all the clues I needed to know that whatever was wrong in my brain, it had little to do with the serotonin pathways, but a lot to do with something in the NE/dopamine pathways. Ritalin was too addicting for me, but at least I now knew where to look...NE/dopamine drugs.
So then I just started making a list of such drugs I could get on my own, and completely bypass the enormous expense of having to pay two doctors simultaneously and frequently. One of them happened to be Adrafinil. Another happened to be Amisulpride. Since I was given the choice, I figured I would go with 2 weeks or so instead of 5 days. But with both drugs, I knew the first day I was on to something good. There were no side effects to speak of, and I felt a little bit better almost right away. This was exactly what Jensen would have been looking for, had I still been under his treatment. Later I experimented by combining the two and was real happy with that.
At that point my search was over. So basically, his direct guidance provided me the roadmap to get where I wanted to go. One of the drugs on his trial-list for me was Ritalin...it provided good strong clues. Another was Zyprexa...it also provided good strong clues, though too sedating for me. Adrafinil and Amisulpride are just fine-tuned variations of those two drugs that worked well for me but had their problems of side effects or addiction. My only regret is that Jensen wasn't present to see the good results his roadmap led to. But I'm sure he sees it all the time. Nothing new.
It's really just as simple as trying drugs from various classes, even if there is little or no clinical justification for trying them. Very often excellent results are discovered that way. At first Jensen noticed these things by accident. Now he looks for them on purpose. To think that somehow antidepressants alone can cover the entire spectrum of depression brain chemistries seems unreasonable to me.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:47596
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001022/msgs/47896.html