Posted by mike21 on March 16, 2002, at 19:01:16
In reply to treatment resistant depression -Suggestions?, posted by btrout on March 16, 2002, at 13:36:15
Maybe st. johns wort would be worth a try. It usually has few if any side effects. (One occasional side effect is upset stomach which can be remedied by taking it with food). There is also evidence to suggest it affects the immune system by lowering levels of interleukin-6. It could be that your allergies are causing your immune system to induce some of your depression by raising levels of cytokines. This is the article I read about sjw and the immune system:
http://www.hypericum.com/hyp40.htm
This is another interesting article about depression and the immune system:
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/immunesystem/
Good luck and keep us posted,
Mike
> Hi everyone,
> I've been a frequent lurker and an infrequent poster. I've been through med after med over the last several months and I'd really like some comments or suggestions. I was originally diagnosed with CFS, and I have overt immune dysfunction with lots of food allergies that make me depressed. My depression is very anhedonic and apathetic, but not very anxious. Feeling sick and being depressed go hand in hand for me, always. I am on 10 mg Celexa currently, plus 2 mg reboxetine. More Reboxetine gives me insomnia and makes me feel like I have ADD. More Celexa makes me feel really sick with extreme insomnia if I take it at night and makes me very fatigued and sick-feeling if i take it durig the day. This dose of reboxetine gives me more energy but no depression relief and this dose of Celexa does nothing for me. The only times I have really felt well since I started the medication odyssey were when I was reducing my celexa dose from 40 mg in 10 mg increments. When I reduced the dose, I would feel sick for several days and then awesome,almost euphoric for several days. Then back to depression, but not as sick as I felt on the higher dose of Celexa. I also would have brief periods of feeling better as my next dose of celexa became slightly overdue.
> I have tried the following and they have made me feel sick:
>
> effexor - never got above 37.5 mg
> 30mg remeron
> 1.25mg Zyprexa
> 2.5 mg Mirapex- not nauseated just depressed and sick
> amantadine
> Naltrexone 25 mg.- better for two days, then more depressed
>
> After I stopped the Zyprexa,I felt really good and energetic and happy for 3 days, and also could not sleep a wink. I feel good on occasional doses of caffeine. I'm thinking about trying amisulpride because I am still suspicious that what I need is more dopamine, judging from my response to SSRI's, but I'm afraid of having a bad response to it like I had with Zyprexa. I suspect part of the problem, though, with both zyprexa and remeron are these drugs' binding to adrenergic receptors. I do not think I handle adrenegic antagonist drugs well because of the CFS. I would really appreciate some suggestions, I'm feeling really rotten.
>
> Thanks,
> btrout
> 21 yo female
poster:mike21
thread:98310
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020313/msgs/98336.html