Posted by grapebubblegum on March 24, 2001, at 11:47:07
(good hook, huh?) Would you please help me to understand a few things I don't get? I am very curious about chemistry but understand less than I want to.
First, I have never paid attention to my moods enough to describe them as depressed, manic, etc., probably because I don't like examining myself that closely for fear of obsessing about my feelings and making any negative moods worse by dwelling on the moods themselves. My dad was a definite card-carrying bipolar person and my son who is only 5 has just been diagnosed with the same. My mom has some sort of personality disorder involving controlling people and she has also had alcoholism problems. Enough background: I have been diagnosed with depression although I've never felt "depressed," but a big handful of unrelated doctors have come up with that diagnosis over a span of 15 years so I'm starting to believe they must know what they are talking about. I know for sure that I have had sporadic panic attacks, sometimes not for years at a time and sometimes in clusters, and they can be life-changing and debilitating to me.
My first question is: both biochemically and emotionally, how are panic attacks related to depression? I suppose I am less aware of my moods than I could be because I rarely notice any anxiety or anything creeping up before a panic attack flattens me like a ten-ton truck, sometimes sending me to an E.R. overnight where I am just curled up in a ball hardly responsive to the staff because it is so unpleasant that I don't wish I were dead but in a way wish I had already been dead before the onset of the attack so as to avoid experiencing the attack. Maybe someone who has been there will know what I mean. Panic and depression are obviously chemically related because the meds that treat depression (various SSRIs that I have been on) do a pretty good job of preventing panic attacks or at least changing the threshhold of whatever causes them so as to reduce their frequency and possibly their severity (hard to say - to me a panic attack is a panic attack and they all feel pretty bad, sort of like any way you get your big toe broken would hurt nearly as much as the next way.)
I try to understand neurotransmittors but I am pretty lost at the ground floor when I hear you guys saying "dopaminergic" or "noradrenergic" or "agonist." Is there a good place I can go to learn the basics? I understand the basic synapse concept and that there are various discovered and undiscovered receptors but that's as far as I have gotten and all literature seems to be for the totally ignorant or the people who have gotten past lesson one. Any refernces would be appreciated as well as any insight into my question above about depression, and panic.
poster:grapebubblegum
thread:57385
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010319/msgs/57385.html