Posted by Larry Hoover on August 19, 2003, at 20:20:24
In reply to Re: For Katia and Larry » Larry Hoover, posted by katia on August 19, 2003, at 14:37:24
> Hi larry,
> You mentioned aborption in vitamin intake. How do you deal with this? Have you changed your diet?Some of the supplements I take are "targetted" directly at nourishing a stressed digestive tract. B-12, for example, and TMG, and bromelain. I also avoid milk (but not all dairy, so far). I'm about to undertake an exclusion diet, that will limit all gluten, gliaden (another possible irritant found in some grains), and dairy. I think I may have a milder form of celiac sprue.
Long before I came to focus on these latter intestinal irritants, I hypothesized that I had a "subclinical malabsorption disorder", but being subclinical, it was all the more difficult to determine the triggering foods, or whatever was really going on. I'm still working out the details, seven years on.
> What has your dx been?
First, recurrent, treatment-resistant major depression. Then, dysthymia with recurrent major depression. I also have chronic and acute PTSD, IBS, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
> I noticed the only mood stabilizer you tried was lithium. Is that correct?
Yes. It made me totally apathetic. I had no emotions whatsoever, and I could not finish a sentence I started, my memory was so poor. I'd simply forget what I was talking about. I couldn't spell, had trouble writing.....It was horrid, and I became very suicidal.
> Did you not try others - why?
I'm not bipolar? I dunno.
> When you went manic - I assume it was a reaction to ADs?
Without question, it was a response to SSRI meds.
> When you went psychotic too?
Yes, also due to SSRI meds.
> Katia
My family is full of bipolars, but I have not had the experience of mania myself, save that induced by medication. I used to think that I was bipolar II, but upon close observation/consultation with a couple of pdocs, I now see that what I might have mistaken for hypomania was really nothing more than euthymia. From my "normal" dysthymic perspective, losing the dysthymia temporarily seemed like hypomania.
Here's how I describe it. If mood could be rated on a scale of -5 (totally depressed) to +5 (totally manic), my set point is not 0 (euthymia). It's really around -1. Superimposed on that, I get major depressive episodes (all the way to -5), and occasional excursions up to maybe 0 or even + 0.5. Some doctors call what I have "double depression", major depression over top of dysthymia.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:250389
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030818/msgs/252311.html