Posted by katia on September 3, 2003, at 18:17:55
In reply to Re: A glass of dopamine » katia, posted by BarbaraCat on September 3, 2003, at 15:30:05
God, what you've described as mixed sounds exactly like what I've been calling my clinical/suicidal depressions.
I think that I've been chronically clinically depressed and have been calling that wrongly "dysthymia". I know that what i've experienced for the majority of my life is more mod/severe depression.
I have been thinking of my mixed states as when I'm racing around a mile a minute, starting things (projects,classes,etc.) interspersed with underlying and any minute irritability, wired and tired, high energy. Maybe that's the hypo/manic side?
geez, it's hard to figure out especially when you've lived behind the veil of your mind for years on end denying it from yourself and feeling like everyone else felt this way too.
Ummmmmm. I feel ok today. I upped the Dp.to 625 mg. yesterday. Took 125mg in the day and felt exhausted; couldn't go to yoga;couldn't write my 12 pages that are due tomorrow. Took 500mg at night and I felt like I woke up. It took til after 2 to fall asleep. I'm so wierd!!!!
Today, I take 750 at night.I just got back from that metabolic testing. God I was hungry!! Finally at 3:30 I could eat since midnight the night before. I'm a "fast oxidizer" and have a diet regime and lots of prohibotic supplements to take. Appart. my digestive tract is all out of whack. I did a meridan/acupressure testing among other things - the whole thing took three hours. my lungs are good. My heart is great! it's just everything underneath.
The two supplements that gave me that cause a bit of concern are: fish oil and L-Carnitine. The rest just support digestion; but these could affect my mood and I"m wondering if I should be taking/putting other variables into the pot at this point? I'll ask my pdoc. I felt a little silly when I realized that I should've asked him first to see if it would screw things up finding the right med.
Wadda you think?
I've finally met someone more prolific than me Barbara! p.s. that metabolic doc told me only one glass of dopamine at a time (per day and no more than five per week)! that'll be an interesting challenge.
Katia> **Yeah, depression is a totally inept word to call those two very differing states. I get both but the worst by far is the despair/crying and that's my mixed states state.
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> > Also, the 5HTP helps with depression (or supposedly does) like an AD right? i shouldn't be on ADs anyway so I understand if it didn't help me at the time.
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> **Well, the whole SSRI serotonin uptake theory is up for debate right now. No doubt they help with some kinds of depression but the mechanism as to how and why isn't looking like it's the uptake at the synaptic cleft theory that's the cause. So, yes, 5-HTP increases serotonin but low serotonin may not be the problem. The disconnect may be occurring further downline in the second messenger system. Detractors of SSRI's helping depression (not the fanatics, just those who say they're not very effective long term) make alot of sense, but I sure couldn't quote them at the moment. I only know they made me very very suicidally depressed.
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> > I'm trying to figure out what sort of state I've been experiencing the past week - mixed or depressed? It's important to know. Altho' i have no sexual partner, my sex drive is definitely not low. is this an indicator?
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> **Dopamine definitely perks up the sex drive. Serotonin dampens it, SSRI's kill it. But beats me what that means about the spectrum. But using sex drive is an interesting idea to ponder. When I'm high on alcohol or pain killers which rev the dopamine, I want to screw like a bunny. If I'm mildly hypomanic, I also get rather randy. If I'm full blown manic, sex is the last thing on my mind because I'm in communion with God, the Universe and Everything and sex seems so ho-hum. If I'm apathetically anhedonic sex is also the last thing on my mind cause I feel ugly fat and soooo weary. I dunno. There do seem to be indicators. All this probably has nothing to do with any chemical as we currently know them anyway.
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> All in all, I can usually tell where I am on the spectrum by my sleep. Depression, I sleep alot, all day if I could. I have enough presence to be totally cynical and disgusted with the human race. Mixed, I wail and pace and am tortured and wrung out and burnt out. I'm super sensitized to pain and doom everywhere, and even though I still don't particularly like most humans, I despair for us all. Mainly I despair for the animals, trees, non-human things. When I can bear to pick up a newspaper, comics are all I can stand, and even they make me weep with their sheer crudeness. I weep in stores. I worry incessantly. Very little sleep, even with way too many sleeping pills. Of couse, this is a definitely recognizable mixed state for me. There are gradients. But again, the sleep thing is usually the tipoff. Also, depression is more turned in, like 'my life sucks, nothing is working, nobody likes me, why is it this way, it will never be any different'. It's mostly about me and my life being horrible, there's rarely enough energy to dredge up the anguish that's the hallmark of mixed states for me. Mixed states is more existentially awful, the horror of existence, the insane God, shattering. When I think of me and my life during mixed states it's in utter despair and hopelessness which is claustrophonic, panicked and livid with pain instead of the sinking murk of a good old depression.
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poster:katia
thread:9730
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030902/msgs/256708.html