Posted by Lorraine on September 23, 2001, at 16:19:50
In reply to Re: hanging in there » Lorraine, posted by shelliR on September 22, 2001, at 21:49:47
> Hi Lorraine
> > >
> [re: why i live folder] That's a nice idea, especially since you've been organized enough to save stuff like that.Shelli, i have a million folders. I organized this one within the last 2 months. I just happened to get a wonderful email from my father in law and then a note from my mom and I thought i need to save these--at the time they both felt like they were saving me.
> > >And here I am picking nardil as my AD when I really have no reason to believe that it will work for me
It's such a bumber when what worked b/4 poops out
> > > I've retried it before since it lost it's effectiveness with no results.
For how long did you retry it? No results or partial response?
> > > The wellbutrin helps with activation; I sort of see it as a booster similar to adding say, ritalin or any other stimulent.
Me too.
But I get no antidepressant effects from it. So I go up (hopefully this week) on the nardil, then what's next?
Have you tried the other MAOs? You had a positive response to one. My pdoc says until you have tried all of the MAOs you haven't tried MAOs--meaning that they are all different.
> > >There is something going on with the oxy and I know it's rebound depression in the morning, because never in my entire life have a woken up every single day this depressed. I think I might add a pill tonight at about 11pm and see if that stops the rebound effect. I'm curious to see if that has any effect on lowering the magnitude of the morning depression. It may be too activating, however, to sleep at night. Tonight I am feeling the depression more than I have for the past few days. It is scary to me.
I've been feeling depressed as well, but not as low as you are. What about a sleeping aid at night if the oxy is too activating?
> > > Mood stablizers are very often used to boost ADs; so yes, in that sense, the whole idea is for them to have anti-depressant effects. That was the case for me with lamictal, and I assume the reason you take neurotin, since neither of us are bi-polar.I'm not confident that I am not bipolar II. But the reason I take Neurontin is because my EEG and QEEG show activity much like temporal lobe epilepsy--lots of spiking. I did find that Neurontin was mood supportive at a certain dose (900 mg), but that hasn't really held.
> Still, for me, I've been trying to come to grips with the fact that this is first and foremost an illness and that it is a chronic illness without a known cure. I feel like I have to accept that level of reality to move forward in my life.
>
> I was thinking when I got your post this morning that I don't really understand how your depression feels. Like for me it is a huge weight in my chest, a very physical pain. And a tightness when I try to talk, or really even breathe. You said you have atypical depression so I know what the list is. You once mentioned sadness welling up behind your eyes. Is sadness a large part of it? Well maybe you could just describe it for me.OK. Weepy, lethargic, complete and profound lack of energy and motivation, like walking through mud. Everything is too much effort; everything is too hopeless. Want to sleep all the time. Complete withdrawal from people. Do not leave the house. These days we can add to it anxiety. Hyperventilate; cannot bear to "wait"; read about certain things; bear the risk of certain things (especially with my kids).
>
> > >Shelli, you know the best way for you to get support. I'm not trying to push you one way or the other.
>
> Well, I do feel pushed, sort of like you can't help it, despite your best intentions. < g >Yeah, I know, it's hard for me not to want to fix things when someone is in pain and it is hard for me not to want to fix them my way--meaning what would work for me even tho I fully know that my way doesn't necessarily fit. I'm intellectually aware of this stuff. I don't think I've had anyone call me on it quite like you do, although from my perspective it's good timing b/c it is time to change this particular pattern. I have been focused on it even b/4 you brought it up. I do wish the best for you and, yes, i can see that i cannot make it happen for you anymore than you can make it happen for me.
> > > See this is where I get mixed up about your depression. Aside from dipping in the afternoon, are you without depression in the morning and evening? When you describe your depression you use very mild terms (like dipping) and then on the other hand you say you are trying to come to terms with having an illness without a known cure, which implies severe impairment. So I get confused. Do you think my confusion is semantics? Like in the morning to you want to get out of bed? And then later in the afternoon (during your dip) do you feel like getting into bed and pulling your covers over your head. That's what I'm trying to understand.If i stay still with myself right now (which I try not to do b/c it is too painful), I am depressed most of the time. I can get out of bed in the morning (that's probably Nardil)--I don't want to pull the covers over my head b/c then i would have to sit with the pain of my depression and that is just way, way, way too difficult for me. I am functioning to the extent that I am able to do and be with my family. I am not capable of much else. I could not, for instance, work. The depression is with me constantly--it does not descend upon me and then leave, it is not episodic, it is ever present and sometimes i respond to the meds, but i do not remit, i do not approach normal. I fluctuate between hope and despair and i try not to think about despair. I try to just keep walking. I get up in the morning b/c one does; i drive my son to school b/c i can; i try to "move" through my days. Today is not a good day and i feel like the Nardil is not doing anything.
The Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs describes atypical depression as follows:
"Patients with atypical depression maintain a reactive mood throughout their depression..this has nothing to do with how deeply depressed they feel. From time to time something good will happen that temporarily cheers the paient up to the point where she actually experiences pleasure."
Shelli--that happens with me and it confuses me b/c i think i'm coming out of my depression, but i am not.
"Many of the vegtative signs observed in major depression and dysthymia are reversed in atypical depression. Patients with atypical depression tend to overeat and oversleep. Patients with atyp8ical depression have no trouble falling asleep or staying aleep; in fact (they oversleep). The patient may explain the sleeping as his only escape."
That is me unmedicated. Most of my meds get me out of bed, at least. And, i don't return to bed b/c it makes me feel worse.
"In his groundbreaking work on classifying depression, Donald F. Klein, M.D. has likened the life of a pateint with atypical depression to being on a roller coaster."
This is why I started keeping a mood chart. I distrusted what i would say when i saw my pdoc--it depended on how i was feeling right then (the past days or weeks forgotten and the future assured). Shelli, this is probably why you can't figure out my depression also b/c of this little roller coaster thing going on. One day I sound one way and another day, another way. Today, I'm really down. Was my good mood the other day an illusion?
"unlike the discrete episodic nature of major depression, atypical depression seems to last for years"
> > > I just get confused because my gyn (who I think is very smart), but yes, is also an ob, thinks that hormone tests are not very significant because they constantly fluctuate from day to day. Adjustment done on reaction is what she is big on, I think.Well, mine is big on this as well, but also takes tests. The test she is talking about is new to determine level for breast cancer risk is new--i think it is urine based. She does believe in the tests although they clearly just measure a point in time. She says when you are first becoming perimenopausal, most doctors look at the estrogen level and this is a mistake b/c the first indication of perimenopausal activity is a decrease in progesterone.
> > > Anyway, I have been good about doing the treadmill 45minutes almost everyday, so hopefully between that and the lost of appetite on the wellbutrin, I'll at least become a thinner depressive.
That is a lot of will power to get yourself going 45 minutes a day. I have become a thin depressive. I hope you do too. It doesn't cure depression, but it is one less thing to feel bad about:-)
Lorraine
poster:Lorraine
thread:67742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010917/msgs/79396.html