Posted by pfinstegg on October 3, 2002, at 18:46:36
In reply to Substance P drugs and CRF antagonists?, posted by Denise528 on October 3, 2002, at 12:26:12
Hi
I am very interested in Substance P and CRH antagonists, too, as I have abnormally high 24-hour cortisol levels and do not suppress with the Dexamethasone suppression test, as you're supposed to. From what I have found out so far, these drugs are only in phase 2, and some have been discontinued due to serious side effects, so it's going to be a number of years before they are available and safe.
However, there are some other safe things that we can do, or will be able to do fairly soon, if we
have high cortisol levels underlying the depressive symptoms, which half of us do. As for drugs, tianeptine, while not sold in the USA, has been used throughout Europe for 5 years. The studies done in France show it to be safe and on a par with Paxil and Prozac for effectiveness- about 70%. I have taken it for 6 weeks, and can say that it is the most effective AD I have taken. I now have many days when I feel happy and normal- the depression gone, and the anxiety and social phobia either gone, or at manageable levels. And the less-good days seem like normal "down days"- not a huge crash like before. There are NO side effects! It acts by putting a barrier between the high cortisol levels and your brain- the hippocampus particularly. I'm also taking fish oils 4 gm., alpha-lipoic acid 100 mg.,and phosphadatylserine 200 mg.,which are all suppose to lower cortisol a little bit, plus all the regular vitamins. Because of having such high cortisol levels, I am also seeing an endocrinologist - we are following the cortisol, thyroid and estrogen levels, trying to get everything as close to normal as it can be without taking anything with potentially dangerous side effects such as ketonozodole or bromocriptine.There is something interesting for the not too distant future: mefipristone, or RU-486- the "morning-after" pill. It has been used on 8 unipolar depressed patients with psychotic features at Stanford. Five of these patients, who were extremely sick, went into complete remission with 7 days of treatment. Since mefipristone is very close to progesterone chemically, they still have to figure out how to use it. But the FDA thought it was so promising for severe depression that they "fast-tracked" it in August. It reduced the extremely high cortisol levels those 5 patients had to near-normal.
After having been severely depressed for 8 years, I am just now beginning to understand that cortisol may play a basic role- especially in those of us who have had childhood neglect and abuse; I guess these painful events put us into a chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome, which sooner or later dysregulates our HPA axis.
All the very best to you in finding what will work for you- there are so many differing answers!
Pfinstegg
poster:pfinstegg
thread:122132
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020930/msgs/122197.html