Posted by Cole_B on December 18, 2004, at 17:01:26
Hi All, I'm a newbie to this board but not, alas, to depression. I've had some "down" periods in life, brought on by external events, though nothing that required hospitalization or even medication. Still, I do think I'm vulnerable to depression. Anyway, I got Lyme disease some years back - it was treated farily aggressively once I was diagnosed, although the diagnosis was delayed, unfortunately - and since then my depressions have been very different in nature; specifically, they almost always seem endogenous, coming on without an outside trigger. They are more frequent, more intense and more baffling because I can rarely tie them into life events. I was hospitalized a few years ago and put on Effexor, which seemed quite effective for a couple of years but now has seemed to lose its potency for me. I can't tolerate a higher dose because I get akathisia, and the same thing happens with the SSRIs and TCAs that I've tried. (It's possible my nervous system has been damaged by the Lyme, limiting my tolerance.) Anyway, I'm going through a difficult period now and feeling a little freaked because there don't seem to be too many meds out there left for me to try. I'm even considering ECT, since my grandfather had it on a few occasions throughout his life and it basically raised him from the dead each time. (Remarkable to see, really). I would call my depresions unipolar, since I don't ever seem to have manic episodes, but I was wondering if any unipolar people here have had success with, say, Lamictal. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Thx.
poster:Cole_B
thread:431351
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/431351.html