Posted by Jerrympls on August 24, 2002, at 0:53:10
In reply to Re: All hope is lost....VNS?, posted by Anna P. on August 23, 2002, at 23:30:33
> Jerry, so your VNS doesn't really works? You make me loose my hope too.
>
> Anna P.Anna,
Difficult question to answer - but basically sums up to this: In the past weeks/months we've been trying to find a comfortable dosage with Prozac and Dexedrine while fiddling with the VNS settings. I was on Prozac for only a couple weeks many years ago so we're giving it a try - to act as a safety net of sorts because I haven't been the best responder thus far. I believe now that the Prozac was causing my "all hope is lost..." mode which happened to occur a couple days after we doubled the dosage. Since then, I have returned to 20mg and am hanging in there.
As for my so-so response to VNS: I know you've heard this - but the jury is still out - even for me. There were some miraculous weeks after some minor tweaks, but they didn't stick. Then, after the acute results were in, they began increasing stimulation and trying to find a therapeutic setting (which they have found for many of the participants in my area at least) which also was comfortable for me. I have no side effects minus a small neck muscle spasm near the incision site. It is a safe/normal, yet frustrating side effect which decreases as your body gets used to the implant.
My doctors and I are extremely suspicious of "something else" causing - or at lease contributing a greal deat - my depression - meaning, I may have a possible endocrine dysfunction of some sort. I am waiting to have some tests performed.
Please do not lose hope - I know it may be hard to hear from me - but , although I do not know all of the exact results, many participants have ben improving quite well at these higher settings. I just may have something that keeps the VNS from it's effectiveness because this "mystery" contributor keeps throwing coals on the fire.
Of course, VNS will not work for everyone - I may be one of those people. It's hard to accept (although I haven't gotten to that stage yet) because you'd think electricity that was almost continuously feeding the brain's emotion centers would do SOMETHING. It did do something and I'm sure it will happen again and stick this time. I'm learning right along with the doctors and research team. I am confident that when the study is complete, the scores will be high and the VNS victorious. I personally am beginning to believe that the non-responders have something else feeding their depression that has no been "found out" - perhaps something hormonal like high cortisol levels, low thyriod, low testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, etc.
In the past 11 years of my depression - there have been 2 or 3 very distinct moments - some lasting for months - where I knew not the darkness that had saturated my thoughts/perceptions/realities. I tasted life for what it was, and not as the fake, blah, boring, sad, grey world my depression had hoped to convince me. Yes, right now I see a grey world - but I hold on to the moments when the dark veil of my depression had vanished and I tell myself that the day will come when I find my way out again.
Don't give up hope. If you're not strong enough to keep holding it up every day, let it float beside you or behind you or above you or below you - let it be and know it will be there if needed. I'm still attempting recovery and well al know that no medical device - no miracle drug - no Dr. Phil therapy - comes without some unseen pitfalls. You, along with others from this board give me hope - tremendous hope - just for the fact I can share my feelings and know someone is out there who understands. Hope is always there - because sometimes it's all we have - and even if, in our most darkest times - when we are alone with the couch, with the wall, the bed, the TV, with the computer - when we convince ourselves our friends wouldn't understand or that we're the only depression sufferer in the world - when we kneel in our living rooms or bedrooms attempting to scrape up some amount of faith we once knew or read about or thought we'd never use and instead find anger in its place and strong distrust in whichever representation of God we believe in (if any) - or want to for that matter. When we throw our heads up with tears and curses at this deity and scream - and yell - and demand - and beg - for the pain to stop......for it to subside - for even a minute or two....and we wait.....and listen......and blow our noses.....and finally collapse. Even then....how ever stupid and idiotic and "been there, thought that" it may be - as we gaze at our shelfs of various reference books on the psychobiology of depression and then we turn to mourn the stereo we once listened too - and sigh at our computers for their unconditional friendship - there, in the land of "all hope is lost...." rises a single neuron - a single atom - in our physical brain or invisible psyche - way back in places past the 11% mark of brain usage - chanting, screaming, roaring, singing is part of us that knows not to fall under the depression deception. It's in all of us. And it can be annoying because who wants to hear "the sky is blue!" when actually the sky is falling? Hold on. take a moment....listen.....think.......breathe.......cry....give up - but don't - fight - fight as hard as you can with that one molecule. Your God may have abandoned you. Your Prozac pooped-out. Your credit cards are to the limit. The last time you had sex was.....wait - what is sex again? Music is boring. You know too many medical terms. Your family doesn't believe you. Your friends - however wonderful - just wish you'd cheer up. Taxes. Insomnia. Irritability and irritable bowels - the worst! Life may be a bitch - or seem as such - just let whatever "hope" find you - let it do some of the work. Just never, ever, ever, ever, go quietly......that's what the illness wants. Today, tomorrow and next week may suck - but with or without the help of a God, books, psychiatrists, implants, medicines, Oprah re-runs - I will break free and find myself back in the game - because I've been there - and when I'm not really paying attention - out of the corner of my eye - for a split second - I see it - running along side of me. I will beat the depression - so help me Rosie.
After reading that it now seems as if it's a string of motivation Hallmark cards separated by commas. LOL. Well - what I wrote is not what I preach - it's what I practice.
One last quote to close this tome - something I use when everything has failed or is all is lost:
All human life has its season and cycles,
and no one's personal chaos can be permanent.
Winter, after all, gives way to Spring and Summer,
sometimes when branches stay dark
and earth cracks with ice,
one thinks they will never come
that spring and that summer,
but they do, and always.
Truman Capote.
I wil see and feel beauty again....and so will you. Hold on.
Jerry
poster:Jerrympls
thread:116475
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020821/msgs/117608.html