Posted by sweetmarie on July 30, 2001, at 9:19:38
In reply to Re: TREATMENT RESISTANT DEPRESSION - INFO NEEDED, posted by susan C on July 29, 2001, at 22:01:12
> Hi, I have kept an eye for your posts, not too long ago, you sounded so sad. I am glad to hear the change and challenge in your 'voice'. Here are my contributions:
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> I am in the US
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> I have had been dx as 'chronic clinical depression' then bipolarII. I think it sounds like in UK they may say more quickly you are resistant on the GP level. Here I got referred to pdoc by Gynocologist when I was searching for answers to PMS in the late 80's and she discovered I was clinically depressed and referred me to pdoc who was the only one in town who dealt with the 'biochemical causes of depression' I never went to my gp for treatment. When I got exasperated with pdoc as not investigating enough after 12 years and him thinking my manic times were when I was 'doing good' (I live in small town) I changed pdocs. Now I travel 1 1/2 hours to see new doc.
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> After listening very carefully, and identifying genetic and possible seizure like disorder, my new pdoc started trials on AED. I have tried 4. The last was Depakote. Which has kind of worked. As a result, he has said, you have something, maybe not bipolar, but something isn't right with your brain. He doesn't think it is thyroid, it has a 5% chance of being MS. My pdoc suggested VNS as my symptoms indicate a possible seizure like disorder and that the VNR has been used successfully on 10,000 people with refractory Epilepsy. When I think about that, that is pretty impressive, considering how debilitating Epilepsy is. Depakote has kind of worked and I just posted a thread on starting Keppra, a new AED, levetiracetam. Earlier on this board I posted a query about left/right brain communication and studies that have been done on that and in general understanding how the brain works. http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010725/msgs/71977.html
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> We still have a black box here. There has not been enough study to say..if you have these symptoms and you do this then your brain changes this way. I think some day that may happpen. Question: have they done PET/MRI/SPECT studies on VNR patients? He said, based on my depression score (?) I would qualify for a trail of VNS at the University of Washington (State, in Seattle, WA) being directed by Dr. David Dunner. I have not investigated it, as I do not want to go through an operation. I want to try medications first. And like your pdoc, my pdoc says, there are always new ones to try.
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> In the other posts, descriptions of the illness and what treatment resistant means, may be different in UK that US. There are many sites (depressioncentral) that have the official DM something something.
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> I hope this has been of help. I am a little confused at the moment. Good luck with your article. Post it here, please?Hi Susan
Thank you for replying and sharing your experiences - and thanks for looking out for my posts too. I think that I`m feeling quite angry at the moment, which is often a good motivator (I find).
All the info you`ve given me is useful. I`ll certainly post the article (IF I manage to get it finished in time for the deadline, which is 5th August - 6 days` time).
Keep up the fight.
Love,
Anna.
poster:sweetmarie
thread:72327
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010725/msgs/72484.html