Posted by Emme on July 11, 2004, at 11:10:06
In reply to Re: acetylcholine and depression, posted by SLS on July 11, 2004, at 8:27:30
Hi Scott,
> > My pdoc prescribed aricept, a chonlinergic drug, to help with cognitive function and, hopefully, depression. One of the listed potential side effects of aricept is depression. I have read that increasing acetylchoine reduces mania and can induce depression. But aricept doesn't seem to be making me more depressed and may even be helping.
>
> Wonderful!!!!We'll see if there's any sustained improvement. :) I think that whatever decent mood I have for a few hours is still pretty fragile - it took very little to break it the other night and send me spiraling back down for the rest of the evening.
>> > And from what I understand, SAM-e leads to an increase in acetylcholine So I'm confused about the role of acetylcholine in depression and also in mediating stress response.
>
> > I'm not getting too far trying to work it out.
>
> I am not surprised. Were you to, you would surely be published, and probably be eligible for a Nobel Prize.I always did crave internation recognition. :)
> P.S. There was some work in the late 1970s and early 1980s suggesting a cholinergic-dopaminergic balance theory for depression. Remember, it is not only *what* a drug does, but also *where* it does it.Interesting....I've suspected that I'm not going to find mood control in serotonin regulation and I get some help from things that affect dopamine (in either way, depending on my state).
I'm also taking 250 mg Lamictal, 50 mg or less of SAM-e, 12.5 mg atenolol as needed, xanax as needed, and I'm trying a dash of Keppra if I'm still edgy on top of xanax. Quite the brew, eh?
Here's Emme's current multiple hypotheses about what might be happening. Comments welcome if anything springs to mind for anyone:
1) The 1 mg or less of Aricept I'm taking isn't actually doing anything and what I'm really seeing is a delayed effect of SAM-e, which I started playing with about a month ago. OTOH, Larry Hoover thought that I might not get SAM-e benefit because I've broken the enteric coating by cutting it and it could be destroyed by stomach acid.
2) What the Aricept is doing is making me sleep better and that's providing the benefit. Traz sent me to the State of Unconsciousness, but I was hung over the next day.
3) The aricept might be helping with focus and I feel less unhappy just having a more functional brain and losing some of the really wacky depressive thinking.
4) Okay, now, my depression has made me sluggish and unmotivated, brain-dead, and lacking in any sense of pleasure. I have life circumstance to fuel this. But I've not been properly medicated either. I seem to genuinely need a good kick in the dopamine to get me functional. But it's difficult to perk me up without sending me into orbit.
Furthermore, along with this zombie state I've also been very anxious and panicked, had raw nerves, terrible insomnia (sleeping 4-5 hours a night), brain running in circles too fast to concentrate, a shifted body clock, anger up the wazoo - running into rage at times, and bad noise sensitivity. It's almost like I've had some of the aspects of a mixed state, but with way way more sluggishness. Or is this just a really really anxious depression? Or a new state - call it the Emme state? Anyway, it's hard to figure out how to medicate this. We simmered down some of the anger by increasing Lamictal. Maybe the aricept is calming down some of the symptoms in a way the xanax can't do, and without inducing brain fog. Of course that theory will become moot if I don't sustain an improvement. Updates to follow.
Emme
poster:Emme
thread:364961
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040710/msgs/364991.html